🗳 This Week in Governance - October 19: Fees, Benefits, and Goods

A weekly resource covering crypto governance, politics, and power.

Oct 19, 2023

Uniswap Labs introduces swap fees on UI
dYdX Trading becomes a Public Benefit Corporation
Optimism’ Token House is voting on an Anticapture Commission
Arbitrum considers an extension of Short-Term Incentive Program
Gitcoin discusses credible neutrality in public goods funding

Voting Activity (L7)
🗳️ 139,560 ballots
👥 30,752 voters
📜 266 proposals
🌐 63 active DAOs
Query more data using the Governance API

Let’s get into it 🔥

👀 Boardroom in Action

Synthetix: Comprehensive Profiles for Council Members

Explore how Synthetix and Boardroom Governance API are redefining governance transparency in DeFi with their Synthetix profiles utilized in their governance councils.

👉 Check out our Synthetix Case Study

📰 News

Uniswap introduces swap fees

On October 16th, Hayden Adams announced a 0.15% swap fee on certain tokens in the Uniswap web app and wallet, marking the first time the platform has introduced such fees. The fee applies to tokens that account for significant trading volume, including ETH, USDC, WETH, USDT, and DAI. This move aims to ensure Uniswap Labs's sustainability and support ongoing development in DeFi. This Dune dashboard tracks fees earned to date. Importantly, this fee is separate from the Uniswap Protocol fee, which is subject to UNI token governance voting.

dYdX Trading becomes a Public Benefit Corporation

dYdX Trading has updated its charter to become a Public Benefit Corporation, which allows the company to balance interests beyond those of shareholders. The announcement cites the revised charter:

“The specific public benefit to be promoted by this corporation is building and supporting protocols that, and industry members who, promote and facilitate economic or technological advancement of the global community, including but not limited to the democratization of access to financial opportunity through open source and decentralized crypto asset exchanges and other technologies.”

The announcement states that dYdX is the first major DeFi corporation to transition to becoming a Public Benefit Corporation. “We aim to be innovative not only in our technology but in our organizational structure too,” a tweet says.

🎙️ Rather Listen?

The Boardroom Roundup brings you the latest DAO news headlines and governance proposals every week:

Subscribe to the Boardroom Podcast → Apple | Spotify | Google

📜 Proposals

Recently Closed

Aave: Governance V3 Activation

This proposal aims to migrate Aave Governance v2 to v3, transferring all permissions and executing necessary smart contract upgrades for decentralized control of the Aave ecosystem. Two governance proposals are required to facilitate this migration, one for Level 1 Executor and another for Level 2 Executor, with a temporary Mediator contract to ensure atomic execution. Additionally, the proposal includes funding for the Aave Delivery Network (a.DI), Aave Robot and the Aave Gelato gas tank to support the optimal functioning of Governance v3. The proposal was published onchain and then cancelled on October 17th because “a problem was found with the implementation of one of the voting assets,” according to BGD Labs.

Ending Soon

Friends With Benefits: Community Council

This vote aims to elect the Community Council of qualified FWB (Friends With Benefits) members to work alongside FWB's Mayor and Core Team. The council consists of four members elected by the DAO community through a ranked-choice Snapshot vote and one member chosen by the Core Team based on an approved rubric. Candidate information is available for community consideration. Voting closes on October 19th.

Upcoming

Optimism: Anticapture Commission

This proposal introduces an Anticapture Commission for Season 5 of Optimism governance. The Commission is intended to prevent the capture of the Token House by any one group. The Commission's structure includes high-impact delegates and Council Leads from existing Councils. Members must meet specific criteria, attend regular office hours, provide delegate approvals and take on various responsibilities. The Anticapture Commission will have the power to represent community interests and prevent imbalances in power among stakeholders. Voting ends on October 25th.

📚 Reads

Social Security for Web3 Work, by Laura Lotti, Nick Houde, and Tara Merk
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto, by Marc Andreessen
Manufacturing Consensus, by Dryden Brown
Digital Identity — Assessing Web3’s Identity Building Blocks, from Onyx (J.P.Morgan)
The Real Fork, by Gwart
The centralization debate surrounding Lido has reached a boiling point, by Grace Deng

🎧 Listens

The Growth & Maturity of Aave DAO w/ Marc Zeller (ACI), on StablePod
Unpacking Arbitrum STIPs Winners and Uniswap KYC Uproar, on 0xResearch

💬 Forums

1inch: 1inch Governance Participation & Delegation Incentive Program

This post introduces an incentivization plan for 1INCH token-holders and stakers to engage in 1inch governance by either voting on proposals or delegating their voting power to a delegate. The program aims to reward active participants in governance and delegation, with the calculation of incentives based on a formula. The proposed budget for the initial three-month trial period is $75,000, with a commitment to review and potentially renew the program based on community feedback and performance.

Aave: Introducing tfBILL – A New Standard for On-Chain U.S. Treasury Bill Exposure

Adapt3r Digital introduces the Adapt3r Short-Term U.S. Treasury Bill Fund, allowing stablecoin holders to directly access US Treasury Bill yields. The tfBILL tokens represent Limited Partner interest in a BVI-registered professional fund. They offer a transparent and secure onchain treasury instrument, focusing on compliance and simplicity while differentiating itself from existing options. The fund complies with applicable regulations, directly backs treasury bills, enhances transparency, provides on-demand liquidity, and employs battle-tested smart contracts from TrueFi, aiming to offer a low-risk asset in DeFi.

Arbitrum: Extension of Arbitrum’s Short-Term Incentive Program

Ouroboros Research has been closely monitoring the voting progress for the Arbitrum Short-Term Incentive Program (STIP). With 10 hours left to vote, they noted an oversubscription issue, as 29 projects fit into the 50 million ARB budget, and an additional 26 projects collectively requested 24.4 million ARB in grants. The initial budget of 50 million ARB has been exceeded, leading to the suggestion of extending the grant program to accommodate more projects and ensure fairness and grant diversity, with potential extensions of 10 million, 20 million, or 30 million ARB, subject to DAO consensus.

dYdX v4: With Great Decentralization Comes Great Responsibility

dYdX is transitioning to dYdX v4, a fully decentralized exchange running on its own Cosmos blockchain. The dYdX Chain offers improvements in decentralization, scalability, and customization. The community is actively involved in discussions and initiatives, such as launching dYdX Ops Trust v2, a slashing review committee to address MEV activity and an innovative launch incentives program. A report by Xenophon Labs details the challenges and steps taken in migrating from Ethereum to Cosmos and outlines responsibilities for governance in managing various aspects of dYdX v4.

Gitcoin: Credible Neutrality in the Gitcoin Ecosystem

This post discusses the concept of credible neutrality in public goods funding, emphasizing the challenges in a diverse and polarized world where different communities have varying values and preferences for funding. The author, Kevin Owocki, highlights the importance of allowing communities to determine their own values and coordinate through credibly neutral protocols, avoiding discrimination or rent-seeking. It also mentions Gitcoin's transition into a DAO and its role in promoting credible neutrality, enabling various communities to use the protocol while respecting their individual values.

Boardroom