EDIT Thanks everyone for initial thoughts. To avoid this topic spiraling into a 100 post monster that takes 90 min to read, I'm going to break out suggestions into individual topics. I'll add to this list as we go:
Also, just as a point of order, my opinion is that all current treasury allocations should be subject to this next round, meaning that current delegates with votes from the treasury would be subject to have their votes reallocated subject to the parameters of the new program we design.
Original post below:
@Doo_StableLab 's proposal to delegate UNI from the treasury to active delegates has increased governance participation generally and empowered a new group of delegates. With two months to go, I though it'd be a good idea to get a thread together so we can aggregate ideas about how to further optimize this program going forward.
Some general things i'm thinking about:
What else should we be thinking about?
EDIT Thanks everyone for initial thoughts. To avoid this topic spiraling into a 100 post monster that takes 90 min to read, I'm going to break out suggestions into individual topics. I'll add to this list as we go:
Also, just as a point of order, my opinion is that all current treasury allocations should be subject to this next round, meaning that current delegates with votes from the treasury would be subject to have their votes reallocated subject to the parameters of the new program we design.
Original post below:
@Doo_StableLab 's proposal to delegate UNI from the treasury to active delegates has increased governance participation generally and empowered a new group of delegates. With two months to go, I though it'd be a good idea to get a thread together so we can aggregate ideas about how to further optimize this program going forward.
Some general things i'm thinking about:
What else should we be thinking about?
Great initiative @eek637!
Few things I agree with:
Great initiative @eek637!
Few things I agree with:
posting activity / holdings would encourage more feedbackI think gamifying forum activity is complex and, in reality, only a part of delegate governance. Length of post is, as you recognise, a poor metric as time and attention is precious and we want to encourage clear and concise discussion. Not sure about the posting activity / holdings thing either, to me it doesn't seem reasonable
I don't see why we would delegate to an official regulator just for the sake of it. What would it aim to achieve? a goodwill bribe for looking the other way or providing legal advice? Imo better to invite established crypto legal teams then that are already contributing to related ecosystems and working towards the betterment of this industry, like Axis Advisory (no affiliation) for example.
Tracking the performance of delegates and scorecard for delegations may be an automated process if suitable metrics are sought. Frankly, some of the proposals can be rather technical or complex so having some clue as to policy positions act as short-cut to digesting the details.
Could you build on something like https://www.karmahq.xyz/gov#for-daos to achieve this?
Competency is measurable … And upskilling courses exist such as MBAs modules on asset allocation or duties of independent director/trustee. It may be that part of the understudy component is subsidised training for the role of full participation. It may be that unsuccessful seats go into a random draw for observer status so you build up a pool of institutional knowledge despite the lack of social trust or commitment.
At least theoretically, I find this quite interesting. Can you bother to elaborate? also, wen Uniswap apprenticeships?
Great initiative @eek637!
Few things I agree with:
Great initiative @eek637!
Few things I agree with:
posting activity / holdings would encourage more feedbackI think gamifying forum activity is complex and, in reality, only a part of delegate governance. Length of post is, as you recognise, a poor metric as time and attention is precious and we want to encourage clear and concise discussion. Not sure about the posting activity / holdings thing either, to me it doesn't seem reasonable
I don't see why we would delegate to an official regulator just for the sake of it. What would it aim to achieve? a goodwill bribe for looking the other way or providing legal advice? Imo better to invite established crypto legal teams then that are already contributing to related ecosystems and working towards the betterment of this industry, like Axis Advisory (no affiliation) for example.
Tracking the performance of delegates and scorecard for delegations may be an automated process if suitable metrics are sought. Frankly, some of the proposals can be rather technical or complex so having some clue as to policy positions act as short-cut to digesting the details.
Could you build on something like https://www.karmahq.xyz/gov#for-daos to achieve this?
Competency is measurable … And upskilling courses exist such as MBAs modules on asset allocation or duties of independent director/trustee. It may be that part of the understudy component is subsidised training for the role of full participation. It may be that unsuccessful seats go into a random draw for observer status so you build up a pool of institutional knowledge despite the lack of social trust or commitment.
At least theoretically, I find this quite interesting. Can you bother to elaborate? also, wen Uniswap apprenticeships?
I don't have time to map out properly but the principle component of your argument can be partitioned into 3
You desire thresholds for commitment beyond just monetary value of holding UNI ... What are the signals?
uneasy prioritizing new delegates who recently got involved in governance
I don't have time to map out properly but the principle component of your argument can be partitioned into 3
You desire thresholds for commitment beyond just monetary value of holding UNI ... What are the signals?
uneasy prioritizing new delegates who recently got involved in governance
contribution - this is a trust issue which can be addressed via understudies, promotion of individual delegates to their own distinct platform, or allow prior experience in other AMMs to count. This is observable but takes time ....
Competency is measurable ... And upskilling courses exist such as MBAs modules on asset allocation or duties of independent director/trustee. It may be that part of the understudy component is subsidised training for the role of full participation. It may be that unsuccessful seats go into a random draw for observer status so you build up a pool of institutional knowledge despite the lack of social trust or commitment.
Delegates would have certain philosophies or belong to different schools of economic thought from degens to crypto-anarchists. Whilst you don't want to head towards political infighting, you do want ideas to bubble up ... Perhaps some language to point out that non-traditional approaches are not a barrier so long as rational and willingness to engage in evidence-based reasoning
Tracking the performance of delegates and scorecard for delegations may be an automated process if suitable metrics are sought. Frankly, some of the proposals can be rather technical or complex so having some clue as to policy positions act as short-cut to digesting the details.
Development - focused platforms ... So since the temp check is that certain groups (eg Devs) are underrepresented perhaps revisit the original presumption that UNI awarded to employees of Uniswap Labs be excluded be reconsidered? For example 5 year cliff, means UNI vested 5 years ago become delegate able or ex-employee, waivers granted. Technical directions or desired projects akin to existing "positions". This starts bringing in the 20% which so far have been ineligible to vote but are savvy and may want to switch from a technical to business track.
Points raised re how selected/elected, criteria for retention, mechanism for removal. These are all details to be debated to get the desired balance between stable continuity and fresh blood. Obviously the treasury working group have examined other DAOs so there should be some clue as to good practices elsewhere.
What else should we be thinking about?
If we consider the voting blocs to be akin to a functional electoral college, there is one class that is conspicuously missing ... regulators.
What else should we be thinking about?
If we consider the voting blocs to be akin to a functional electoral college, there is one class that is conspicuously missing ... regulators.
The adversarial legal mode is not appropriate for DeFi as it pits a centralised top-down control&coerce against scattered individuals. An alternative inquisitorial mode, akin to international aircraft crash investigation which aims to determine root-cause of failure and not fault-finding allows for course correction whilst preserving jurisdictional neutrality (if diverse regulators agree to be delegates). There are some darknet state-actors which are outside commercial sphere so rather than relying on self-help which can lead to ... extreme outcomes ... better to build bridges rather than barriers. If investors want safeguards, then they would vote in favor with the regulator delegates for any reasonable proposition.
#insert humor (Directive #267)
)
My recollection is that the UNI tokens issued to Uniswap Labs as part of startup compensation was that 21.5% were intended to be non-voting (obvious conflict of interest when % community was relatively low).
My general Socratic response is what is the behaviour you wish to incentivise?
My recollection is that the UNI tokens issued to Uniswap Labs as part of startup compensation was that 21.5% were intended to be non-voting (obvious conflict of interest when % community was relatively low).
My general Socratic response is what is the behaviour you wish to incentivise?
posting activity / holdings would encourage more feedbackAnother way to look at it is like functional electoral college, and you are reallocating growth into seats which are more representative but this needs careful thought given perception that investors can swing the votes if they really wanted.
Great analytics @Tane ... There's ~60+ topics under the Delegation category so after deducting pinned messages, there may be 40+ platforms. Elsewhere @jengajojo identified the most active quintile "deserving" of reward.
Stepping back, the decision about treasury delegation is a variant of a triage. There is a pool of UNI which is "lent" (OK it appears to be a absolute grant but shouldn't be treated as irrevocable) so from a triage perspective,
Great analytics @Tane ... There's ~60+ topics under the Delegation category so after deducting pinned messages, there may be 40+ platforms. Elsewhere @jengajojo identified the most active quintile "deserving" of reward.
Stepping back, the decision about treasury delegation is a variant of a triage. There is a pool of UNI which is "lent" (OK it appears to be a absolute grant but shouldn't be treated as irrevocable) so from a triage perspective,
So triage is to allocate the limited resources where it may mobilise more delegators to choose those delegation platforms. What data would help make a more informed choice?
What other known unknowns are there to help make a decision?
I don't have time to map out properly but the principle component of your argument can be partitioned into 3
You desire thresholds for commitment beyond just monetary value of holding UNI ... What are the signals?
uneasy prioritizing new delegates who recently got involved in governance
I don't have time to map out properly but the principle component of your argument can be partitioned into 3
You desire thresholds for commitment beyond just monetary value of holding UNI ... What are the signals?
uneasy prioritizing new delegates who recently got involved in governance
contribution - this is a trust issue which can be addressed via understudies, promotion of individual delegates to their own distinct platform, or allow prior experience in other AMMs to count. This is observable but takes time ....
Competency is measurable ... And upskilling courses exist such as MBAs modules on asset allocation or duties of independent director/trustee. It may be that part of the understudy component is subsidised training for the role of full participation. It may be that unsuccessful seats go into a random draw for observer status so you build up a pool of institutional knowledge despite the lack of social trust or commitment.
Delegates would have certain philosophies or belong to different schools of economic thought from degens to crypto-anarchists. Whilst you don't want to head towards political infighting, you do want ideas to bubble up ... Perhaps some language to point out that non-traditional approaches are not a barrier so long as rational and willingness to engage in evidence-based reasoning
Tracking the performance of delegates and scorecard for delegations may be an automated process if suitable metrics are sought. Frankly, some of the proposals can be rather technical or complex so having some clue as to policy positions act as short-cut to digesting the details.
Development - focused platforms ... So since the temp check is that certain groups (eg Devs) are underrepresented perhaps revisit the original presumption that UNI awarded to employees of Uniswap Labs be excluded be reconsidered? For example 5 year cliff, means UNI vested 5 years ago become delegate able or ex-employee, waivers granted. Technical directions or desired projects akin to existing "positions". This starts bringing in the 20% which so far have been ineligible to vote but are savvy and may want to switch from a technical to business track.
Points raised re how selected/elected, criteria for retention, mechanism for removal. These are all details to be debated to get the desired balance between stable continuity and fresh blood. Obviously the treasury working group have examined other DAOs so there should be some clue as to good practices elsewhere.
What else should we be thinking about?
If we consider the voting blocs to be akin to a functional electoral college, there is one class that is conspicuously missing ... regulators.
What else should we be thinking about?
If we consider the voting blocs to be akin to a functional electoral college, there is one class that is conspicuously missing ... regulators.
The adversarial legal mode is not appropriate for DeFi as it pits a centralised top-down control&coerce against scattered individuals. An alternative inquisitorial mode, akin to international aircraft crash investigation which aims to determine root-cause of failure and not fault-finding allows for course correction whilst preserving jurisdictional neutrality (if diverse regulators agree to be delegates). There are some darknet state-actors which are outside commercial sphere so rather than relying on self-help which can lead to ... extreme outcomes ... better to build bridges rather than barriers. If investors want safeguards, then they would vote in favor with the regulator delegates for any reasonable proposition.
#insert humor (Directive #267)
)
My recollection is that the UNI tokens issued to Uniswap Labs as part of startup compensation was that 21.5% were intended to be non-voting (obvious conflict of interest when % community was relatively low).
My general Socratic response is what is the behaviour you wish to incentivise?
My recollection is that the UNI tokens issued to Uniswap Labs as part of startup compensation was that 21.5% were intended to be non-voting (obvious conflict of interest when % community was relatively low).
My general Socratic response is what is the behaviour you wish to incentivise?
posting activity / holdings would encourage more feedbackAnother way to look at it is like functional electoral college, and you are reallocating growth into seats which are more representative but this needs careful thought given perception that investors can swing the votes if they really wanted.
Great analytics @Tane ... There's ~60+ topics under the Delegation category so after deducting pinned messages, there may be 40+ platforms. Elsewhere @jengajojo identified the most active quintile "deserving" of reward.
Stepping back, the decision about treasury delegation is a variant of a triage. There is a pool of UNI which is "lent" (OK it appears to be a absolute grant but shouldn't be treated as irrevocable) so from a triage perspective,
Great analytics @Tane ... There's ~60+ topics under the Delegation category so after deducting pinned messages, there may be 40+ platforms. Elsewhere @jengajojo identified the most active quintile "deserving" of reward.
Stepping back, the decision about treasury delegation is a variant of a triage. There is a pool of UNI which is "lent" (OK it appears to be a absolute grant but shouldn't be treated as irrevocable) so from a triage perspective,
So triage is to allocate the limited resources where it may mobilise more delegators to choose those delegation platforms. What data would help make a more informed choice?
What other known unknowns are there to help make a decision?
Hey @eek637- Thanks for bringing this up ahead of the end of the program!
TL;DR
Hey @eek637- Thanks for bringing this up ahead of the end of the program!
TL;DR
Thoughts on the ongoing discussion:
1) Allocations: a)
While we saw an improvement of the voting activities, the DAO is still at risk of missing important proposals to be passed (or rejected).
We acknowledge this risk and therefore suggest increasing the allocation to 20M lent UNI. This increase would not only widen the margin of error for proposals to be passed but also allow delegates the flexibility to abstain and not vote merely because they feel obligated to do so.
However,
current delegates with votes from the treasury would be subject to have their votes reallocated subject to the parameters of the new program we design.
If this is the case, we have a concern about this overshadowing new delegates. We believe it would be fair to prioritize new unrepresented delegates, both tech and non-tech.
b) Regarding first Round criteria: "Must have voted on 80% (or more) of proposals (minus the proposals that were canceled) over the last 3 months" - We recommend sticking with the 80% because it worked well in the first cycle and aligns with the percentage used for the delegate reward incentive.
c) Regarding first round application criteria: "Voting Power is less than 2.5 million UNI" - According to Jengajojo's list, there are currently five delegates participating in the rewards cycle with less than 250,000 Voting Power (VP), which represents than 10% of the 2.5 million VP threshold if the same criteria were to be used. We suggest lowering the bar to a more realistic level of VP, which would better align with the current distribution of voting power.
d) How do we feel about being 2.5M currently the 6,27% of the quorum?
Another option instead of pushing 4 of the 7 delegates to 2.5m, you could also raise all to 1m and delegate the rest to those stakeholder groups we feel are underrepresented, be it developers or whoever?
Technical Representation:
Since the pool of long-term, active delegates with lackluster voting power is relatively small at the moment, I think a larger portion of the total pool should actually go to devs, researchers, grantees, etc. Maybe a 60-40 split of the 10M is warranted.
2 Expiring Delegation : We believe setting expiration dates benefits the program. We think renewing the program for 12 months could still align with the original idea, as it has shown positive results in the first round. The concept of allowing renewal if delegates meet certain criteria also seems feasible and aligns with Kfk's comment: 'Longer periods would reduce campaigning overhead for re-election and other operational burdens for the DAO.' Setting aside ideas that require developer resources, implementing a quarterly reporting requirement to maintain the participation rate could contribute to the program's success.
Partially agree. I'm not sure if removing votes from the better performing delegates is the right thing to do. We have to be careful to ensure that the quorum is easily reachable for non-contentious votes.
Partially agree. I'm not sure if removing votes from the better performing delegates is the right thing to do. We have to be careful to ensure that the quorum is easily reachable for non-contentious votes.
On the other hand, not having enough votes to post a proposal can be a source of friction. Since the threshold is now 1M, optimizing for that makes sense.
Last time we had a forum poll about the distribution options. The results were a close call:
Specifically I voted for the second option (who ended up winning) because of the 2.5M threshold, so that at least a few of the competing delegates would get proposal posting rights.
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this topic. We have conducted an analysis of how the program of UNI delegations to under-represented delegates worked and would like to present it here.
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this topic. We have conducted an analysis of how the program of UNI delegations to under-represented delegates worked and would like to present it here.
We believe that the delegation of UNI to developers, the delegation expiration, and the cap on delegation allocation proposed by Erin are important considerations that should be discussed and implemented. However, we also believe that an expansion of the program itself is crucial.
Due to the low voter participation rate for the large delegates in 2023, a proposal was passed to Delegate 10M UNI from the Foundation to active but under-represented delegates. This period is set for one year and will expire this December. After reviewing this program, we found that it is working well, but think that the current governance is not stable yet, thus we think it's worth considering and evaluating an expansion of the program.
Check the voting percentages of the selected delegates before and after this program.
Before selection
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/404dao-governance.eth
Onchain: 7/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/wintermutegovernance.eth
Onchain:10/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0x3fb19771947072629c8eee7995a2ef23b72d4c8a
Onchain:10/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xecc2a9240268bc7a26386ecb49e1befca2706ac9 (Updated from https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/stablelab.eth)
Onchain: 10/10 (NOTE: voting done from stablelab.eth address)
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xkeyrock.eth
Onchain: 9/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0x8787fc2de4de95c53e5e3a4e5459247d9773ea52
Onchain: 7/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xaac35d953ef23ae2e61a866ab93dea6ec0050bcd
Onchain: 10/10
After selection
All delegates participate in on-chain voting.
There were a few selected delegates that had been active in the onchain proposals before the delegations but some had not participate in all the proposals. Since the delegation, all delegates participated in all votes, which made the DAO healthier.
Since all delegates cast all onchain votes, we can say that the program contributes 10M UNI for every vote.
In 2023, before this measure was implemented, there were three votes that were QUORUM NOT REACHED, but since its implementation, all proposals have been EXECUTED (except for the latest one)
However, regarding this year's proposals, there were many proposals in the 40M-50M range and some were near the quorum. The average number of onchain votes since the program went into effect was about 47.46M UNI.
Out of the 11 proposals since the program went into effect, 6 proposals that would not have reached the quorum IF one delegate had not missed voting. In addition, we saw the latest proposal just missed the quorum as well. While we saw an improvement of the voting activities, the DAO is still at risk of missing important proposals to be passed (or rejected).
Detailed analysis of which proposal would be missed if a delegate had not voted
The following is a list of delegates who have created a Delegate Profile and are now Underrepresented.
The list of delegates with their delegate profile and VP as of writing
23 delegates had created a Delegate Profile.
The following 7 delegates are considered under-represented with a VP of 250k or less, similar to the previous application requirements:
Curia, Tané, SEEDGov, Bobbay, Arana, DAOplomats, and Argonaut.
This program is working well, but the governance is not stable yet since some of the past proposals are close to missing its quorum, therefore we believe this program should be expanded further. As @GFXlabs suggested, we would also consider an additional 10M UNI suffices to achieve a stable and healthy governance state.
If the process is similar to the previous one, we believe that we should do the following steps: delegate's candidacy, determination of the distribution method, Snapshot for the delegates (or additional parties like developers) to get delegations, and Snapshot for its approval.
100% agree on getting more developer representation. especially with uni v4 coming out, and with more hook developers entering the ecosystem, ensuring their interests are sufficiently represented will be an important input to their long term commitment to building on uniswap
@Doo_StableLab above has a great point. will note though that I believe the issue here is more on the side of passive delegators who have delegated and are not tracking the activities of their delegates. a trickier problem to solve particularly in the case of anonymous delegators
100% agree on getting more developer representation. especially with uni v4 coming out, and with more hook developers entering the ecosystem, ensuring their interests are sufficiently represented will be an important input to their long term commitment to building on uniswap
@Doo_StableLab above has a great point. will note though that I believe the issue here is more on the side of passive delegators who have delegated and are not tracking the activities of their delegates. a trickier problem to solve particularly in the case of anonymous delegators
re other comments in the thread - I generally believe that, if the long term personal interests of the delegate are in line with the interests of the protocol, for instance, if a hook developer is building a project on top of uni v4, and they benefit as uni v4 grows in market share / activity, I we can care less about measuring "thoughtfulness" of feedback or length of post -- their feedback matters simply because their interests/opinion matter, as contributors to long term protocol success
(this comment represents my personal opinion and not that of the UF!)
Allocating too much UNI to this program is not so much the bottleneck—it's more so the number of qualified candidates. Even if we have a 10M UNI pool spread out across 10 new delegates, I struggle to list 10 new parties that should qualify for more delegation just in the governance camp. Yes, more delegates have begun participating in governance since you can monetize gov participation. But I feel uneasy prioritizing new delegates who recently got involved in governance over alternative contributors. Since the pool of long-term, active delegates with lackluster voting power is relatively small at the moment, I think a larger portion of the total pool should actually go to devs, researchers, grantees, etc. Maybe a 60-40 split of the 10M is warranted.
Expiration makes things tricky. Too much VP from the treasury could just lead to collusion and permanence of existing delegates, so perpetual delegation is a valid concern. But this may make more sense to explore when the amount of voting power is a certain degree above the quorum, that way, even if we lose some delegates due to simultaneous expiration, proposals are still able to pass (ideally expiration is staggered...but this adds subjectivity as to how long delegation terms last for different delegates). That's why it's important for the community to elect parties that have a strong reputation in the community from the get-go, and as mentioned above, there are not enough of those simply on the governance side.
Agree that developers should have more votes. Give how it seems we’re still struggling to get to quorum, we think another round of Dao led delegation should be in the works. This time, maybe have the race be up to 1m (proposal threshold) and still have 10m delegation today, with x% being reserved for developers.
Agree on accountability but would note that neither of those delegates are developers. I think whatever process we used to allocate votes should sort for developers who want to be involved... and it should be viewed as an experiment!
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this topic. We are happy to hear that the initiative has shown good success. And if you explore the delegate list, there are actually quite many developers or contributors with significant voting power that haven't been voting for an extended time. For example, nkennethk with 5 million UNI who's last onchain vote was in end of 2022 https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xa2bf1b0a7e079767b4701b5a1d9d5700eb42d1d1 Or Other Internet who hasn't voted since August of 2023. https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xe093f6f2fc8e9a64285f4ed795b75e6fd28649f8
Therefore, it would be crucial to also ensure that even if such developers or contributors receive voting power, there should be accountability measures to ensure activeness (the same for current allocated ones)
This is self interested, so should be taken with a grain of salt, but I want to voice strong agreement with your assessment that developers are currently an underrepresented stakeholder group in Uniswap Governance.
Hey @eek637- Thanks for bringing this up ahead of the end of the program!
TL;DR
Hey @eek637- Thanks for bringing this up ahead of the end of the program!
TL;DR
Thoughts on the ongoing discussion:
1) Allocations: a)
While we saw an improvement of the voting activities, the DAO is still at risk of missing important proposals to be passed (or rejected).
We acknowledge this risk and therefore suggest increasing the allocation to 20M lent UNI. This increase would not only widen the margin of error for proposals to be passed but also allow delegates the flexibility to abstain and not vote merely because they feel obligated to do so.
However,
current delegates with votes from the treasury would be subject to have their votes reallocated subject to the parameters of the new program we design.
If this is the case, we have a concern about this overshadowing new delegates. We believe it would be fair to prioritize new unrepresented delegates, both tech and non-tech.
b) Regarding first Round criteria: "Must have voted on 80% (or more) of proposals (minus the proposals that were canceled) over the last 3 months" - We recommend sticking with the 80% because it worked well in the first cycle and aligns with the percentage used for the delegate reward incentive.
c) Regarding first round application criteria: "Voting Power is less than 2.5 million UNI" - According to Jengajojo's list, there are currently five delegates participating in the rewards cycle with less than 250,000 Voting Power (VP), which represents than 10% of the 2.5 million VP threshold if the same criteria were to be used. We suggest lowering the bar to a more realistic level of VP, which would better align with the current distribution of voting power.
d) How do we feel about being 2.5M currently the 6,27% of the quorum?
Another option instead of pushing 4 of the 7 delegates to 2.5m, you could also raise all to 1m and delegate the rest to those stakeholder groups we feel are underrepresented, be it developers or whoever?
Technical Representation:
Since the pool of long-term, active delegates with lackluster voting power is relatively small at the moment, I think a larger portion of the total pool should actually go to devs, researchers, grantees, etc. Maybe a 60-40 split of the 10M is warranted.
2 Expiring Delegation : We believe setting expiration dates benefits the program. We think renewing the program for 12 months could still align with the original idea, as it has shown positive results in the first round. The concept of allowing renewal if delegates meet certain criteria also seems feasible and aligns with Kfk's comment: 'Longer periods would reduce campaigning overhead for re-election and other operational burdens for the DAO.' Setting aside ideas that require developer resources, implementing a quarterly reporting requirement to maintain the participation rate could contribute to the program's success.
Partially agree. I'm not sure if removing votes from the better performing delegates is the right thing to do. We have to be careful to ensure that the quorum is easily reachable for non-contentious votes.
Partially agree. I'm not sure if removing votes from the better performing delegates is the right thing to do. We have to be careful to ensure that the quorum is easily reachable for non-contentious votes.
On the other hand, not having enough votes to post a proposal can be a source of friction. Since the threshold is now 1M, optimizing for that makes sense.
Last time we had a forum poll about the distribution options. The results were a close call:
Specifically I voted for the second option (who ended up winning) because of the 2.5M threshold, so that at least a few of the competing delegates would get proposal posting rights.
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this topic. We have conducted an analysis of how the program of UNI delegations to under-represented delegates worked and would like to present it here.
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this topic. We have conducted an analysis of how the program of UNI delegations to under-represented delegates worked and would like to present it here.
We believe that the delegation of UNI to developers, the delegation expiration, and the cap on delegation allocation proposed by Erin are important considerations that should be discussed and implemented. However, we also believe that an expansion of the program itself is crucial.
Due to the low voter participation rate for the large delegates in 2023, a proposal was passed to Delegate 10M UNI from the Foundation to active but under-represented delegates. This period is set for one year and will expire this December. After reviewing this program, we found that it is working well, but think that the current governance is not stable yet, thus we think it's worth considering and evaluating an expansion of the program.
Check the voting percentages of the selected delegates before and after this program.
Before selection
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/404dao-governance.eth
Onchain: 7/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/wintermutegovernance.eth
Onchain:10/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0x3fb19771947072629c8eee7995a2ef23b72d4c8a
Onchain:10/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xecc2a9240268bc7a26386ecb49e1befca2706ac9 (Updated from https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/stablelab.eth)
Onchain: 10/10 (NOTE: voting done from stablelab.eth address)
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xkeyrock.eth
Onchain: 9/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0x8787fc2de4de95c53e5e3a4e5459247d9773ea52
Onchain: 7/10
Tally: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xaac35d953ef23ae2e61a866ab93dea6ec0050bcd
Onchain: 10/10
After selection
All delegates participate in on-chain voting.
There were a few selected delegates that had been active in the onchain proposals before the delegations but some had not participate in all the proposals. Since the delegation, all delegates participated in all votes, which made the DAO healthier.
Since all delegates cast all onchain votes, we can say that the program contributes 10M UNI for every vote.
In 2023, before this measure was implemented, there were three votes that were QUORUM NOT REACHED, but since its implementation, all proposals have been EXECUTED (except for the latest one)
However, regarding this year's proposals, there were many proposals in the 40M-50M range and some were near the quorum. The average number of onchain votes since the program went into effect was about 47.46M UNI.
Out of the 11 proposals since the program went into effect, 6 proposals that would not have reached the quorum IF one delegate had not missed voting. In addition, we saw the latest proposal just missed the quorum as well. While we saw an improvement of the voting activities, the DAO is still at risk of missing important proposals to be passed (or rejected).
Detailed analysis of which proposal would be missed if a delegate had not voted
The following is a list of delegates who have created a Delegate Profile and are now Underrepresented.
The list of delegates with their delegate profile and VP as of writing
23 delegates had created a Delegate Profile.
The following 7 delegates are considered under-represented with a VP of 250k or less, similar to the previous application requirements:
Curia, Tané, SEEDGov, Bobbay, Arana, DAOplomats, and Argonaut.
This program is working well, but the governance is not stable yet since some of the past proposals are close to missing its quorum, therefore we believe this program should be expanded further. As @GFXlabs suggested, we would also consider an additional 10M UNI suffices to achieve a stable and healthy governance state.
If the process is similar to the previous one, we believe that we should do the following steps: delegate's candidacy, determination of the distribution method, Snapshot for the delegates (or additional parties like developers) to get delegations, and Snapshot for its approval.
100% agree on getting more developer representation. especially with uni v4 coming out, and with more hook developers entering the ecosystem, ensuring their interests are sufficiently represented will be an important input to their long term commitment to building on uniswap
@Doo_StableLab above has a great point. will note though that I believe the issue here is more on the side of passive delegators who have delegated and are not tracking the activities of their delegates. a trickier problem to solve particularly in the case of anonymous delegators
100% agree on getting more developer representation. especially with uni v4 coming out, and with more hook developers entering the ecosystem, ensuring their interests are sufficiently represented will be an important input to their long term commitment to building on uniswap
@Doo_StableLab above has a great point. will note though that I believe the issue here is more on the side of passive delegators who have delegated and are not tracking the activities of their delegates. a trickier problem to solve particularly in the case of anonymous delegators
re other comments in the thread - I generally believe that, if the long term personal interests of the delegate are in line with the interests of the protocol, for instance, if a hook developer is building a project on top of uni v4, and they benefit as uni v4 grows in market share / activity, I we can care less about measuring "thoughtfulness" of feedback or length of post -- their feedback matters simply because their interests/opinion matter, as contributors to long term protocol success
(this comment represents my personal opinion and not that of the UF!)
Allocating too much UNI to this program is not so much the bottleneck—it's more so the number of qualified candidates. Even if we have a 10M UNI pool spread out across 10 new delegates, I struggle to list 10 new parties that should qualify for more delegation just in the governance camp. Yes, more delegates have begun participating in governance since you can monetize gov participation. But I feel uneasy prioritizing new delegates who recently got involved in governance over alternative contributors. Since the pool of long-term, active delegates with lackluster voting power is relatively small at the moment, I think a larger portion of the total pool should actually go to devs, researchers, grantees, etc. Maybe a 60-40 split of the 10M is warranted.
Expiration makes things tricky. Too much VP from the treasury could just lead to collusion and permanence of existing delegates, so perpetual delegation is a valid concern. But this may make more sense to explore when the amount of voting power is a certain degree above the quorum, that way, even if we lose some delegates due to simultaneous expiration, proposals are still able to pass (ideally expiration is staggered...but this adds subjectivity as to how long delegation terms last for different delegates). That's why it's important for the community to elect parties that have a strong reputation in the community from the get-go, and as mentioned above, there are not enough of those simply on the governance side.
Agree that developers should have more votes. Give how it seems we’re still struggling to get to quorum, we think another round of Dao led delegation should be in the works. This time, maybe have the race be up to 1m (proposal threshold) and still have 10m delegation today, with x% being reserved for developers.
Agree on accountability but would note that neither of those delegates are developers. I think whatever process we used to allocate votes should sort for developers who want to be involved... and it should be viewed as an experiment!
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this topic. We are happy to hear that the initiative has shown good success. And if you explore the delegate list, there are actually quite many developers or contributors with significant voting power that haven't been voting for an extended time. For example, nkennethk with 5 million UNI who's last onchain vote was in end of 2022 https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xa2bf1b0a7e079767b4701b5a1d9d5700eb42d1d1 Or Other Internet who hasn't voted since August of 2023. https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xe093f6f2fc8e9a64285f4ed795b75e6fd28649f8
Therefore, it would be crucial to also ensure that even if such developers or contributors receive voting power, there should be accountability measures to ensure activeness (the same for current allocated ones)
This is self interested, so should be taken with a grain of salt, but I want to voice strong agreement with your assessment that developers are currently an underrepresented stakeholder group in Uniswap Governance.
Allocating too much UNI to this program is not so much the bottleneck—it's more so the number of qualified candidates. Even if we have a 10M UNI pool spread out across 10 new delegates, I struggle to list 10 new parties that should qualify for more delegation just in the governance camp. Yes, more delegates have begun participating in governance since you can monetize gov participation. But I feel uneasy prioritizing new delegates who recently got involved in governance over alternative contributors. Since the pool of long-term, active delegates with lackluster voting power is relatively small at the moment, I think a larger portion of the total pool should actually go to devs, researchers, grantees, etc. Maybe a 60-40 split of the 10M is warranted.
Expiration makes things tricky. Too much VP from the treasury could just lead to collusion and permanence of existing delegates, so perpetual delegation is a valid concern. But this may make more sense to explore when the amount of voting power is a certain degree above the quorum, that way, even if we lose some delegates due to simultaneous expiration, proposals are still able to pass (ideally expiration is staggered...but this adds subjectivity as to how long delegation terms last for different delegates). That's why it's important for the community to elect parties that have a strong reputation in the community from the get-go, and as mentioned above, there are not enough of those simply on the governance side.
All of the candidates from the previous delegate race also have high voting participation rate and do a good job of communicating their rationales. So determining who loses delegation, or if it's a ubiquitous removal of voting power, will be key. It may be easier to frame treasury delegation as a "seat" that you are voted into for x duration of time, rather than something you hold in perpetuity unless you become an adversarial actor. And after the delegate's tenure is up, they are up for re-election against a pool of other candidates.
^I'd much rather allocate resources to delegates and other contributors that have clearly partook in the growth and development of the protocol as opposed to regulators. This is a gray area that I don't think we are in a position to address today. Plus, there's no explicit indication of interest on this front, partly due to liabilities that regulators may incur from partaking in governance. Note—I do not have expertise in this area...so this is just my hunch.
True, but that's why the DAO spent $10M on the DEF this year. So, it's not like the DAO has not considered its impact in the political space. If a an individual who happens to be privy to the political sphere wants to partake in the DAO, I think we'd welcome them. And once they demonstrate good participation, they can perhaps get voting power.
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this topic. We are happy to hear that the initiative has shown good success. And if you explore the delegate list, there are actually quite many developers or contributors with significant voting power that haven't been voting for an extended time. For example, nkennethk with 5 million UNI who's last onchain vote was in end of 2022 https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xa2bf1b0a7e079767b4701b5a1d9d5700eb42d1d1 Or Other Internet who hasn't voted since August of 2023. https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xe093f6f2fc8e9a64285f4ed795b75e6fd28649f8
Therefore, it would be crucial to also ensure that even if such developers or contributors receive voting power, there should be accountability measures to ensure activeness (the same for current allocated ones)
I think it would be also important to think about how much voting power should be allocated for as well. Especially if we have to account that some previous delegates that used to participate might end up less active (which unfortunately has been the case)
The only thing we'd like to add is that we would be in favor of increasing the delegation pool from 10M to 20M to support bringing in existing Uniswap ecosystem partners and providing votes to new meaningful voices.
Allocating too much UNI to this program is not so much the bottleneck—it's more so the number of qualified candidates. Even if we have a 10M UNI pool spread out across 10 new delegates, I struggle to list 10 new parties that should qualify for more delegation just in the governance camp. Yes, more delegates have begun participating in governance since you can monetize gov participation. But I feel uneasy prioritizing new delegates who recently got involved in governance over alternative contributors. Since the pool of long-term, active delegates with lackluster voting power is relatively small at the moment, I think a larger portion of the total pool should actually go to devs, researchers, grantees, etc. Maybe a 60-40 split of the 10M is warranted.
Expiration makes things tricky. Too much VP from the treasury could just lead to collusion and permanence of existing delegates, so perpetual delegation is a valid concern. But this may make more sense to explore when the amount of voting power is a certain degree above the quorum, that way, even if we lose some delegates due to simultaneous expiration, proposals are still able to pass (ideally expiration is staggered...but this adds subjectivity as to how long delegation terms last for different delegates). That's why it's important for the community to elect parties that have a strong reputation in the community from the get-go, and as mentioned above, there are not enough of those simply on the governance side.
All of the candidates from the previous delegate race also have high voting participation rate and do a good job of communicating their rationales. So determining who loses delegation, or if it's a ubiquitous removal of voting power, will be key. It may be easier to frame treasury delegation as a "seat" that you are voted into for x duration of time, rather than something you hold in perpetuity unless you become an adversarial actor. And after the delegate's tenure is up, they are up for re-election against a pool of other candidates.
^I'd much rather allocate resources to delegates and other contributors that have clearly partook in the growth and development of the protocol as opposed to regulators. This is a gray area that I don't think we are in a position to address today. Plus, there's no explicit indication of interest on this front, partly due to liabilities that regulators may incur from partaking in governance. Note—I do not have expertise in this area...so this is just my hunch.
True, but that's why the DAO spent $10M on the DEF this year. So, it's not like the DAO has not considered its impact in the political space. If a an individual who happens to be privy to the political sphere wants to partake in the DAO, I think we'd welcome them. And once they demonstrate good participation, they can perhaps get voting power.
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this topic. We are happy to hear that the initiative has shown good success. And if you explore the delegate list, there are actually quite many developers or contributors with significant voting power that haven't been voting for an extended time. For example, nkennethk with 5 million UNI who's last onchain vote was in end of 2022 https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xa2bf1b0a7e079767b4701b5a1d9d5700eb42d1d1 Or Other Internet who hasn't voted since August of 2023. https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/delegate/0xe093f6f2fc8e9a64285f4ed795b75e6fd28649f8
Therefore, it would be crucial to also ensure that even if such developers or contributors receive voting power, there should be accountability measures to ensure activeness (the same for current allocated ones)
I think it would be also important to think about how much voting power should be allocated for as well. Especially if we have to account that some previous delegates that used to participate might end up less active (which unfortunately has been the case)
The only thing we'd like to add is that we would be in favor of increasing the delegation pool from 10M to 20M to support bringing in existing Uniswap ecosystem partners and providing votes to new meaningful voices.