🗳 This Week in Governance - Sept 7
A weekly resource covering crypto governance, politics, and power.
📣 Key Points
Maker to move to Solana?
Hats Protocol is live with v2
GovMonth begins at Arbitrum
SuperRare’s Rare Protocol launches
Optimism details partnership with Base
Voting Activity (L7)
🗳️ 180,563 ballots
👥 69,690 voters
📜 249 proposals
🌐 67 active DAOsQuery more data using the Governance API
Let’s get into it 🔥
📰 News
Maker to move to Solana?
In a post on the Maker DAO forums on September 1st, founder Rune Christensen writes that the final phase of the "Endgame" project involves the complete reimplementation of the Maker Protocol on a new blockchain, referred to as "NewChain." This development aims to provide a means to recover from severe governance or technical issues and address accumulated technical debt. NewChain will host the backend of the Maker Protocol, leaving user interfaces on existing platforms, and connect through advanced bridges. After evaluating various foundations for NewChain, Christensen deems the Solana codebase most promising due to its technical quality, proven resilience, and adaptability for appchains. While Cosmos was considered as another option, Solana's focus on efficiency and the presence of a central foundation organization made it more appealing for this initiative.
Hats Protocol is Live with v2
Hats Protocol announced on August 30th that it went live with v2 of its app. Hats, the “on-chain roles protocol,” is designed to facilitate coordination in decentralized organizations by providing clear and revocable roles and authorities. The protocol offers tools to connect specific roles to both on-chain and off-chain permissions and authorities, allowing organizations to create structured yet decentralized systems without entrenched power dynamics, emphasizing its utility for DAOs and other decentralized groups.
SuperRare’s Rare Protocol Launches
On August 29th, SuperRare’s Rare Protocol was launched on Ethereum mainnet. The new protocol aims to address challenges in the NFT ecosystem related to curation, discovery, and authenticity. The protocol introduces "Curation Staking," a system where individuals can stake the protocol's native token, RARE, to vouch for the authenticity and appeal of creators or collectors, thereby creating an onchain data layer for curation and reputation that benefits artists, collectors, and curators.
Optimism Details Partnership with Base
On August 24th, the Optimism Foundation published a blog post that detailed its partnership with Base. As they note, Ethereum this month experienced a significant development as a publicly listed U.S. company — Coinbase — launched Base, which was built on the OP Stack. Base embodies a commitment to Optimism and the Superchain, a new economic model for the collective, and demonstrates that open-source values can coexist with sustainable economic models. The collaboration between Optimism and Base focuses on shared protocol management principles, with financial arrangements involving a fee-split directed towards the Collective and a long-term token grant provided to give Base “a meaningful voice in the system of Optimism Governance.” The partnership provides a concrete instance of how the recently introduced Law of Chains can function: the Law of Chains is “a proposed framework for how Optimism Governance can evolve to supervising multiple OP Chains, produced from the OP Stack (including Base).”
🎙️ Rather Listen?
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📜 Proposals
Recently Closed
Aave: TokenLogic Proposal
In this temp-check, TokenLogic proposes to serve as a service provider for the Aave Community, focusing on Aave DAO finances and promoting GHO adoption. With a history of contributions to the Aave Protocol since mid-2020, their expanded team aims to enhance treasury management, support GHO liquidity/incentives management, improve financial reporting, aid GHO adoption, and implement safety module improvements, all while soliciting a budget of 350,000 USD for an initial six-month period. The proposal passed on September 7th with 86.57% voting “yae.”
Ending Soon
Frax: Flywheel Website Subsidy
Flywheel DeFi, a key content platform for the Frax ecosystem, is seeking a grant of $12.5k from the Frax DAO to subsidize the costs of their recent website upgrade, which totaled $25k. The revamped website emphasizes Frax education and updates, with data highlighting the popularity of the Frax 101 section. Voting ends on September 10th.
Upcoming
Nouns: Bring a Million Shredders Onchain
In the first “candidate” to be promoted to full proposal since the recent Nouns upgrade, Gnars proposes a transition from the Ethereum mainnet to Zora Network with the aim of integrating one million action sports participants, or "shredders," into the blockchain. To achieve this, they are requesting 200 ETH to fund park enhancements, administrative tasks, and facilitate the migration to the Zora Network, all while addressing challenges faced by subcultures like skateboarding, such as commercial exploitation and loss of authenticity. Voting opens on September 12th.
📚 Reads
Blockchain Privacy and Regulatory Compliance: Towards a Practical Equilibrium, by Buterin, Illum, Nadler, Schär, and Soleimani
The Essential Web3 Glossary, from William Janiec
The Endgame or the Beginning of Infinity? from BanklessDAO
Governance all the way down, from David Phelps
An analysis of the Ethereum roadmap, from Stacy Muur
Understanding Aave Governance V2: The Decision System Behind DeFi’s Largest Lending Platform, by Callen (Wintermute)
Turning the Wrench on Gearbox Protocol: an Analysis of the DAO’s Governance Dynamics, from Manwë Research
Secret Societies, Network States, Burning Man, Zuzalu, and More: Thoughts on New Political Communities, by Matt Prewitt
On bricked protocols and governance, from Lajarre
🎧 Listens
Nouns Builder No Code DAO Creator Tool, on OP Radio
Optimism Collective: Scaling DAO and Social Contracts, from Bankless DAO
Maximize Ownership, Minimize Governance w/ Jess Walden, on On the Other Side
Decentralizing the Founder/CEO with Kain Warwick, on Green Pill
Journey of a Transaction w/ Jill Gunter, on On The Other Side
The Superchain Explained with Jesse Pollock & Ben Jones, on Bankless
Onchain Release Clubs w/ Yancey Strickler, on Rehash
Keep Your Friends Close & Your DAOs Closer, on DAO Talk
💬 Forums
Arbitrum: GovMonth Week 1: Your Voice Matters!
The Arbitrum DAO has initiated GovMonth, an event allowing $ARB token holders to engage in governance while having the opportunity to earn a share of 100,000 $ARB. The primary objectives of GovMonth include aligning the DAO's strategic framework, gathering significant responses for the DAO's design process, and tracking active users in governance. Activities for the week include various challenges to shape the DAO's strategic priorities, and rewards are distributed via JokeRace. The initiative also features a partnership with ThriveCoin to incentivize participation and collect data for future grants.
CityDAO: The Center for Virtual Organizations and Communities and the DAO Journal
The Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies (RTM) has proposed a three-year sponsorship amounting to $9,990 to establish a Research Hub for Virtual Organizations and Communities, along with the world's first peer-reviewed, open access DAO-related journal. Sponsoring this endeavor could benefit CityDAO by gaining exposure to top scholars, research institutions, and governmental think tanks globally, positioning CityDAO as a major supporter of DAO-focused scholarship. The funds would cover journal fees, operating costs, and honorariums, with the project taking approximately one year from approval to the release of the first official academic journal edition.
Cosmos: Oversight Committee Spec for Optimistic Governance
This forum post discusses a proposal to improve governance and oversight structures on the Cosmos Hub, emphasizing the community's ultimate authority in decision-making. The suggested oversight committee would assist in making sense of a performer's work for the community, ensuring continued funding unless action is taken to halt it. This committee would oversee and advise on the specified work, facilitate feedback loops, and could dissolve the workstream if necessary, always upholding the principle that the network retains the ultimate veto power.
dYdX: V4 Launch Incentives Proposal
Chaos Labs has proposed a six-month Launch Incentives Program for dYdX V4, aiming to facilitate the transition of users and liquidity from V3 to V4. The proposal outlines phases including preliminary research, the creation of an analytics and risk portal, a rewards leaderboard, and oversight of rewards distribution. They suggest allocating $20 million USD worth of $DYDX Tokens for early adopters over approximately six months, with ongoing evaluation and modifications as needed. The goal is to incentivize migration to V4 and achieve early aggressive growth.
Frax: sFRAX Governance Proposal
The Frax Core Team has proposed the introduction of Staked FRAX (sFRAX) to the Frax ecosystem, which would allow users to deposit FRAX stablecoins in a smart contract and earn interest in FRAX. This system, reminiscent of the Dai Savings Rate, aims to address FRAX's near-zero duration yield curve, offering users a passive income avenue and aiding in the growth of the FRAX supply. Users depositing FRAX will receive sFRAX tokens that can be traded, with yields deposited into the sFRAX Vault weekly. The initiative also seeks to align with the Federal Reserve Interest on Reserve Deposit Rate while ensuring FRAX remains fully collateralized.
Gitcoin: I Intend to Return To Gitcoin
Kevin Owocki, co-founder of Gitcoin, recently announced his departure from Supermodular (now renamed Buildbox), and expressed his intention to re-engage with Gitcoin, albeit in a different capacity. He plans to converse with various stakeholders of the Gitcoin DAO, including contributors, users, and developers, to determine how he can best contribute and address diverse opinions about the platform's direction.
Rocket Pool: Rocket Pool Powers and Authorities
This forum post provides an overview of the powers and authorities within the Rocket Pool ecosystem, breaking down the roles and responsibilities of various principals and agents impacting the Rocket Pool protocol. It defines key terms such as principal, agent, power, and authority. The document outlines the powers and authorities of different entities within Rocket Pool, including the OracleDAO (oDAO), Guardian, ProtocolDAO (pDAO), Registered Nodes, Rocket Pool Pty Ltd, RPIP Editors, Grants Management Committee (GMC), GMC Administrator, Incentives Management Committee (IMC), and pDAO Treasurer. It concludes with potential next steps for utilizing this information within the Rocket Pool community.
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