🗳 This Week in Governance - October 6
A weekly resource covering DAO news and governance
📣 Key Points
Aave considers v3 deployment, SafeDAO puts forward an experimental legal agreement, Gemini proposes to MakerDAO, SushiSwap elects a new leader, Venture Firm Bessemer launches Steel DAO, Hop Protocol has its first on-chain vote, and so much more.
Activity:
9,933 🗳️ ballots (-92%)
4,921 👥 voters (-72%)
148 📜 proposals (-21%)
99 🌐 active DAOs (+60%)
Let’s get into it
📡 Coverage
SafeDAO Puts Forward an Experimental Agreement as its First Proposal
📖 READ our latest brief on SafeDAO, their participation agreement, and why their recent experiment just might work.
🗞️ News in Brief
Aave DAO Weighs in on Protocol Upgrade
The Aave community is currently voting on how Aave v3 should be deployed on Ethereum Mainnet. Aave v3 is the latest version of the DeFi lending protocol. BGD Labs, a developer team of contributors, launched a proposal to consider the technical implementation for the proposed upgrade. The first option would have the existing deployed protocol version simply be upgraded to v3 while the second option would deploy a new “clean” version. The two options have their own pros and cons to consider. BGD Labs describes a clean release as being quicker to implement but would potentially fragment liquidity across the two versions. Aave v3 currently exists on other chains such as Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, and more, but is yet to be deployed to Mainnet. BGD Labs has recommended the fresh deployment option to the community. The snapshot proposal is live now through October 11th, before moving to an on-chain vote if successful. Should the proposal pass, BGD Labs would be authorized to deploy the winning option.
Gemini Proposes to MakerDAO
On September 29th, Co-founder of Gemini Tyler Winklevoss posted to the MakerDAO forums a proposal offering a fixed rate in exchange that GUSD be held in the Maker PSM. The proposal would have Maker hold a minimum of $100M GUSD in their Peg Stability Module to be paid a fixed rate of 1.25% from Gemini. This initial offer from Gemini will last for three months before being reconsidered. The New York-based exchange looks to further drive its GUSD stablecoin adoption by leveraging the DeFi giants’ PSM. Maker’s Peg Stability Module has seen an increase in attention recently as large centralized providers seek mutual partnerships. Gemini would not touch or take custody of any of Maker’s GUSD. Maker’s PSM holdings of GUSD currently sit at only $35K. Maker’s revenue stream options continue to grow.
SushiSwap Has a New Head Chef
The controversial search for a new SushiSwap leader has, at last, come to an end. Jared Grey has officially been appointed as the new Head Chef at SushiSwap. Grey, a former DeFi CEO, won the final snapshot vote on Monday with 83% approval and 11M votes cast in his favor. Of the 13M total votes cast, 11M notably came from VC firms GoldenTree and Cumberland. The Head Chef search picked up steam in late July when Jonathan Howard was formally introduced to the community as a viable candidate. Pushback ensued as the community found the compensation package to be unreasonable. This disagreement led to multiple proposals and a month-long candidate search. Howard bowed out of the race shortly after with a set of new candidates popping up. Following weeks of lobbying and marketing, the final 5 candidates were introduced and voted on with Grey ultimately coming out on top.
Bessemer Launches Steel DAO
Famed venture investor Bessemer has rebranded its existing DAO community with additional plans to decentralize. In March, BessemerDAO was launched as a community of investors and builders in web3. On Wednesday, the venture firm announced its community had rebranded to Steel DAO. The firm also announced the launch of two new initiatives at Steel DAO, ‘Links’ and ‘Bridge’. ‘Links’ will serve as a community scout program with the purpose of sourcing and investing in new and interesting web3 projects. $500K of capital will be utilized to bootstrap the initiative. Interested parties can now apply to join as a scout. A 10-member Governance Committee has also been formed to vote on investment deals. These potential deals will take the shape of on-chain proposals, voted on by the GC members. SyndicateDAO’s platform will power much of its infrastructure. ‘Bridge’ will serve as a curated talent pool and job board facilitating the matching of high-quality web3 talent. Steel DAO plans to progressively decentralize.
🦊 Breakdown: ShapeShift
🎧 LISTEN back to our conversation with the ShapeShift team where we discussed operating at the governance frontier, how to scale governance, their governance history, and more.
📚 Good Reads
“Student Organizations Pull Their Weight in DeFi Protocol Governance” by Sage Young
“The Maker PSM Wars: Billions, Bus, and Brand New Yield” from Flipside Governance
“MakerDAO Endgame and its Repercussions on Curve Finance” by Crypto Risk Assessments
“Ooki Amicus Brief” by DeFi Education Fund
“Community Ownership is a Self-fulfilling Prophecy” by Joey DeBruin
“Leadership is a Constant Struggle” by Steph Alinsung
“Moving beyond Token Gating with Reputation Gating for Web 3 Communities” from Orange Protocol
Introducing the RARI Foundation and Fully On-Chain Governance for Rari DAO
🧵 Threads
“Programmable Incentives” by 0xJustice
“Proposal to form a MetaDAO” by hexonaut.eth
🎧 Listens
“History, Realities, and Lessons of DAOs - a conversation w/ Derek Hsue” on web2.5 Podcast
“Diving into DAO2DAO model of governance w/ Puncar” on The Clique Podcast
Ethereum’s Founder on What Crypto Can — and Can’t — Do on The Ezra Klein Show
📜 Proposals Briefs
Forefront Legal Entity Formation Budget
This proposal requests community approval for a $100K legal budget to engage with legal counsel and related advisors. This legal budget would help kick off the process of forming a separate legal entity. The legal entity would be capable of entering into contracts, helping diversify the treasury, paying taxes, and limiting liabilities. Any unused funds from the requested budget will be returned to the DAO treasury.
✅ 100% voting ‘Yes — Agree to budget’
⚡ Type: Snapshot Vote
✍ Author: Jihad Esmail
Chaos Labs <> Aave
This proposal outlines a 12-month work agreement between Chaos Labs and Aave DAO. Chaos Labs is a risk management platform that specializes in protocol risk management and parameter recommendations. According to the proposal, Chaos Labs’ focus on Aave would be risk parameter recommendations, tools for the community, asset listing risk analytics & tooling, open-sourced agent access, extending the AAVE v3 Risk Analytics App, and Community Risk Calls. The payment structure in the agreement is a $500K base fee plus a $0-$350K incentive bonus based on deliverables. Aave DAO has the ability to cancel the contract at the 6-month mark. This proposal has been updated to reduce the scope and further break down the payment structure further based on community feedback.
✅ 71% voting ‘Yes’
💬 Read the discussion
⚡ Type: Snapshot Vote
✍ Author: Chaos Labs
HIPs 0-7
This proposal is a bundle of 8 proposals previously passed on Snapshot that are looking to be ratified on-chain. Bundled votes are a rare occurrence in DAO governance as they are more prone to operational error. This is the inaugural on-chain vote at Hop Protocol. Proposals in the bundle include:
✅ 72% voting ‘For’
💬 Read the discussion
⛓ Type: On-chain Vote
✍ Author: GFX Labs
🔥 Hot Takes
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credit: peacenode.eth
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