Update 1/22/21

I think a similar project like this could have success. A more clear roadmap, and team with a solid track record can make this work. But after learning more, sounds like this one was a clear failure, doesn’t look good on the school.

Original Post 1/21/21

New to this platform and DeFi in general. Curious about the current state of this proposal as well. But here are my thoughts after reading this:

Transparency & education is definitely needed in this “new wave”. There’s several fraud cases, scams, misunderstandings etc. in this space which can be discouraging to those venturing into DeFi. Those elements don’t reflect the practical application, and true potential decentralization has in the world of finance.

I think this proposal will help create solutions towards that problem; giving people more control over their wallets & funds. It’s also geared towards benefiting UniSwap, the consumers, and governance long-term. I believe similar policies will branch out to influence other DeFi company’s moves in finance & tech.

Update 1/22/21

I think a similar project like this could have success. A more clear roadmap, and team with a solid track record can make this work. But after learning more, sounds like this one was a clear failure, doesn’t look good on the school.

Original Post 1/21/21

New to this platform and DeFi in general. Curious about the current state of this proposal as well. But here are my thoughts after reading this:

Transparency & education is definitely needed in this “new wave”. There’s several fraud cases, scams, misunderstandings etc. in this space which can be discouraging to those venturing into DeFi. Those elements don’t reflect the practical application, and true potential decentralization has in the world of finance.

I think this proposal will help create solutions towards that problem; giving people more control over their wallets & funds. It’s also geared towards benefiting UniSwap, the consumers, and governance long-term. I believe similar policies will branch out to influence other DeFi company’s moves in finance & tech.

Almost everyone agrees with the argument of funding a political defense organization / education fund, and in particular the Gauntlet arguments on that topic are also sensible. However it seems that you do not address the question of the amount requested.

What is the opinion of Gauntlet on the fact that a pilot project is about to be funded with millions without any clear milestone, or any detailed budget? You said the following in a previous thread:

While the sum requested is large, the sum needed is even larger.

This may very well be true eventually, but this needs to be justified a bit more for the first project of its kind. What expenses can we anticipate? How many full time employees will there be? What will be their exact roles? What is expected to be the first deliverable of that project?

I reiterate that it seems much more sensible to fund a pilot project with a lower amount, perhaps enough for 1 year of runway (with justifications for that amount), and reassess further funding of the same group after some milestones. In fact, I find it deeply concerning as far as the maturity of the space is concerned that governance seems so willing to unlock funds without any detailed budget.

I'm in total agreement with everything said above by @chrisblec

We need a real thorough discussion about this before we go further. Purely message-board chatter will not suffice. This proposal is very significant to Uniswap and the DeFi space in general, so it is better to move slower than faster here.

Also, the activity surrounding this proposal, the lack of community engagement, and the handling of the votes have increased suspicion on these University student groups. As it stands, I find myself even more against any effort to lobby or define regulations than I was previously.

In the spirit of DeFi and the cypherpunk ethos, Uniswap, in my opinion, should absolutely be focusing on making the protocol unbreakable and untouchable. Those should be our guiding principles, not to bend to the laws of any single country, external governing bodies, or international associations.

Our defense is our focus on building an exchange that's secured from all threats, whether they come from individuals, competing organizations, or governmental authorities.

Hence, any proposal suggesting we use treasury funds to lobby at all will immediately be met with my opposition.

Here's to hoping we can move on from this proposal soon! 🙏

DeFi Education Fund was passed.

Half of the UNI that was awarded was sold into a multi sig wallet for operating expenses in USDC (sell price around $17-20 according to transaction date):

https://etherscan.io/address/0x1c95930dfc1139381265ce45b5f480f1efae09a1/advanced

Which was a good decision to do at the time considering the market down turn.

It looks like around $1.5 million has been cashed out to centralized exchanges in the last 136 days, I assume for operating expense, and awarding grants out to policy efforts.

The twitter for the Defi Education Fund is here (which also has the website for grants, similar to the UGP):

https://twitter.com/fund_defi

The idea behind this proposal is great, but the amount suggested for such a new project is exaggerated. I have no doubt that this kind of law initiative can get extremely expensive, but this should first be a pilot project, and as such moderately funded. As someone mentioned previously, the discussion is also extremely US centric. The Uniswap community shouldn't throw 1M UNI directly in a multisig wallet controlled by a US entity in bulk.

It would be much more sensible if this was a pilot project, with clearly defined milestones, regularly reporting back to the community of holders. Depending on whether the community likes what they're seeing, more funds could be unlocked in the future, either for that same entitiy, or new entities falling under other jurisdictions.

Due to the dynamic and somewhat unpredictable state of global policy proposals, we believe the grant-making committee should have considerable discretion to allow for flexibility and speed, subject to the necessary disclosure of its activities on a regular basis.

The 501(c)(4) will issue a detailed budget within 90 days of the proposal passing. Budgets, projections, and 5-year plans often must be revised and amended.

This is quite concerning. A group of people are asking for a significant sum, without having a budget to justify the amount asked first? Furthermore, once the funds are in the multisig, how can the Uniswap community enforce accountability?

Everyone understands the urgency of educating regulators about DeFi, but clearly rushing this kind of lackluster proposal is not the way forward.

Almost everyone agrees with the argument of funding a political defense organization / education fund, and in particular the Gauntlet arguments on that topic are also sensible. However it seems that you do not address the question of the amount requested.

What is the opinion of Gauntlet on the fact that a pilot project is about to be funded with millions without any clear milestone, or any detailed budget? You said the following in a previous thread:

While the sum requested is large, the sum needed is even larger.

This may very well be true eventually, but this needs to be justified a bit more for the first project of its kind. What expenses can we anticipate? How many full time employees will there be? What will be their exact roles? What is expected to be the first deliverable of that project?

I reiterate that it seems much more sensible to fund a pilot project with a lower amount, perhaps enough for 1 year of runway (with justifications for that amount), and reassess further funding of the same group after some milestones. In fact, I find it deeply concerning as far as the maturity of the space is concerned that governance seems so willing to unlock funds without any detailed budget.

I'm in total agreement with everything said above by @chrisblec

We need a real thorough discussion about this before we go further. Purely message-board chatter will not suffice. This proposal is very significant to Uniswap and the DeFi space in general, so it is better to move slower than faster here.

Also, the activity surrounding this proposal, the lack of community engagement, and the handling of the votes have increased suspicion on these University student groups. As it stands, I find myself even more against any effort to lobby or define regulations than I was previously.

In the spirit of DeFi and the cypherpunk ethos, Uniswap, in my opinion, should absolutely be focusing on making the protocol unbreakable and untouchable. Those should be our guiding principles, not to bend to the laws of any single country, external governing bodies, or international associations.

Our defense is our focus on building an exchange that's secured from all threats, whether they come from individuals, competing organizations, or governmental authorities.

Hence, any proposal suggesting we use treasury funds to lobby at all will immediately be met with my opposition.

Here's to hoping we can move on from this proposal soon! 🙏

DeFi Education Fund was passed.

Half of the UNI that was awarded was sold into a multi sig wallet for operating expenses in USDC (sell price around $17-20 according to transaction date):

https://etherscan.io/address/0x1c95930dfc1139381265ce45b5f480f1efae09a1/advanced

Which was a good decision to do at the time considering the market down turn.

It looks like around $1.5 million has been cashed out to centralized exchanges in the last 136 days, I assume for operating expense, and awarding grants out to policy efforts.

The twitter for the Defi Education Fund is here (which also has the website for grants, similar to the UGP):

https://twitter.com/fund_defi

The idea behind this proposal is great, but the amount suggested for such a new project is exaggerated. I have no doubt that this kind of law initiative can get extremely expensive, but this should first be a pilot project, and as such moderately funded. As someone mentioned previously, the discussion is also extremely US centric. The Uniswap community shouldn't throw 1M UNI directly in a multisig wallet controlled by a US entity in bulk.

It would be much more sensible if this was a pilot project, with clearly defined milestones, regularly reporting back to the community of holders. Depending on whether the community likes what they're seeing, more funds could be unlocked in the future, either for that same entitiy, or new entities falling under other jurisdictions.

Due to the dynamic and somewhat unpredictable state of global policy proposals, we believe the grant-making committee should have considerable discretion to allow for flexibility and speed, subject to the necessary disclosure of its activities on a regular basis.

The 501(c)(4) will issue a detailed budget within 90 days of the proposal passing. Budgets, projections, and 5-year plans often must be revised and amended.

This is quite concerning. A group of people are asking for a significant sum, without having a budget to justify the amount asked first? Furthermore, once the funds are in the multisig, how can the Uniswap community enforce accountability?

Everyone understands the urgency of educating regulators about DeFi, but clearly rushing this kind of lackluster proposal is not the way forward.

@sukernik

It's been called to our attention that you previously worked at Digital Currency Group and Genesis Trading is owned by Digital Currency Group. Given the lack of transparency, several folks believe it would be helpful to understand the following:

1. How did the DeFi education fund select Genesis?

2. What was the pricing of the trade?

3. If you solicited other quotes in a competitive bid, what the quotes were (vs that of Genesis)? If you did not solicit other quotes, why you did not

@lex-node

Actually, I'm back!

Why?

Because I want to highlight how the changes proposed by HLSBFI address none of the accountability or governance issues raised in the other group and still fail to explain why this group is needed (versus a normal budgeting process used by a normal bank or crypto business).

Let's walk thru this one step at a time:

• The name will focus on education rather than defense–the DeFi Education Fund.

There are two key points to see here:

1. This does nothing to change the fact that 1m Uni will immediately be drained from the treasury

2. This does not change that the organization has no concrete goals or objectives and that the board has an unfettered ability to use the money to do anything they like.

In fact, changing the purpose just shows how the proposers and board will change the mission to suit their goals - or justify their existence.

In case anyone has forgotten, Matt Corva said that public bank disclosures indicate regulatory spends of about $3m/year. Coin Center's old budget was about $1m/year.

So a 1m Uni budget seems far too high. Solution? Expand the mission.

• The scope is broadened to include the funding of organizations and work promoting best regulatory practices among those in the DeFi ecosystem.

This one is even more startling.

Put simply, what does funding organizations and work promoting best regulatory practices" have to do with advancing the goals of Uniswap?

Read very plainly, it sounds like the new goal is to fund the very organizations that the board members/multisig holders are already part of outside of Uniswap and to hire them or their law firms.

For all we know, the board could use this new goal to fund the creation of a "report" which responds to the recent WEF report (that several of the board members helped to draft or review) which:

• Is written by organizations the board members are part of for a hefty fee
• Promotes the board members personal profiles and connections (including through the payment of fees from this new organization)
• Restricts Uniswap's ability to operate
• Leads to Marvin asking for more internal budget and headcount to address concerns raised in the report
• Leads Uniswap to again hire board members and their firms or lobbying organizations to conduct more work

But what do I know? I am just a simple country lawyer.

• Beyond the considerable disclosure required for a 501(c)(4), the entity will publicly post monthly community updates on progress, grant allocation, tactics, etc… These updates will not only ensure trust but will also keep the community informed on when and how they can lend their voice to the policy process. When there are surprises, as there so often have been in the policy space, we will report why and how funds will be reallocated to address them.

This gives Uniswap's token holders, board and management no control rights. So, once the proposal is passed, the Uni are gone.

• The 501(c)(4) will promptly hire at least one full-time staffer to manage the day-to-day operations of the organization with oversight from the board of directors and who will serve as the primary point of contact for the governance community.

This person will be paid by the new organization and report to its board. Why would we expect him or her to be anything but their mouthpiece?

• The 501(c)(4) will issue a detailed budget within 90 days of the proposal passing. Budgets, projections, and 5-year plans often must be revised and amended.

This sounds nice, but once the Uni area gone, the Uni are gone.

Which brings us to the fundamental question: Why not just hire a few headcount internally, submit a budget to Hayden each quarter, and keep the group accountable the way almost every other business holds groups accountable?

Why spend a lot more money to seed an entirely new organization (DAO) with a separate mission that is not aligned with that of Uniswap?

@sukernik

It's been called to our attention that you previously worked at Digital Currency Group and Genesis Trading is owned by Digital Currency Group. Given the lack of transparency, several folks believe it would be helpful to understand the following:

1. How did the DeFi education fund select Genesis?

2. What was the pricing of the trade?

3. If you solicited other quotes in a competitive bid, what the quotes were (vs that of Genesis)? If you did not solicit other quotes, why you did not

@lex-node

Actually, I'm back!

Why?

Because I want to highlight how the changes proposed by HLSBFI address none of the accountability or governance issues raised in the other group and still fail to explain why this group is needed (versus a normal budgeting process used by a normal bank or crypto business).

Let's walk thru this one step at a time:

• The name will focus on education rather than defense–the DeFi Education Fund.

There are two key points to see here:

1. This does nothing to change the fact that 1m Uni will immediately be drained from the treasury

2. This does not change that the organization has no concrete goals or objectives and that the board has an unfettered ability to use the money to do anything they like.

In fact, changing the purpose just shows how the proposers and board will change the mission to suit their goals - or justify their existence.

In case anyone has forgotten, Matt Corva said that public bank disclosures indicate regulatory spends of about $3m/year. Coin Center's old budget was about $1m/year.

So a 1m Uni budget seems far too high. Solution? Expand the mission.

• The scope is broadened to include the funding of organizations and work promoting best regulatory practices among those in the DeFi ecosystem.

This one is even more startling.

Put simply, what does funding organizations and work promoting best regulatory practices" have to do with advancing the goals of Uniswap?

Read very plainly, it sounds like the new goal is to fund the very organizations that the board members/multisig holders are already part of outside of Uniswap and to hire them or their law firms.

For all we know, the board could use this new goal to fund the creation of a "report" which responds to the recent WEF report (that several of the board members helped to draft or review) which:

• Is written by organizations the board members are part of for a hefty fee
• Promotes the board members personal profiles and connections (including through the payment of fees from this new organization)
• Restricts Uniswap's ability to operate
• Leads to Marvin asking for more internal budget and headcount to address concerns raised in the report
• Leads Uniswap to again hire board members and their firms or lobbying organizations to conduct more work

But what do I know? I am just a simple country lawyer.

• Beyond the considerable disclosure required for a 501(c)(4), the entity will publicly post monthly community updates on progress, grant allocation, tactics, etc… These updates will not only ensure trust but will also keep the community informed on when and how they can lend their voice to the policy process. When there are surprises, as there so often have been in the policy space, we will report why and how funds will be reallocated to address them.

This gives Uniswap's token holders, board and management no control rights. So, once the proposal is passed, the Uni are gone.

• The 501(c)(4) will promptly hire at least one full-time staffer to manage the day-to-day operations of the organization with oversight from the board of directors and who will serve as the primary point of contact for the governance community.

This person will be paid by the new organization and report to its board. Why would we expect him or her to be anything but their mouthpiece?

• The 501(c)(4) will issue a detailed budget within 90 days of the proposal passing. Budgets, projections, and 5-year plans often must be revised and amended.

This sounds nice, but once the Uni area gone, the Uni are gone.

Which brings us to the fundamental question: Why not just hire a few headcount internally, submit a budget to Hayden each quarter, and keep the group accountable the way almost every other business holds groups accountable?

Why spend a lot more money to seed an entirely new organization (DAO) with a separate mission that is not aligned with that of Uniswap?

Looked like it passed 37m to 17m. The key differentiators were the votes from:

1. The proposer, HLSBFI - 10m votes
2. Kenneth Ng, Ethereum support - 10m votes
3. Penn Blockchain - 8m votes
4. UCLA Blockchain - 5m votes

This is interesting because

1. Half the margin of victory came from the proposer itself

2. Almost the total margin of victory came from the proposer itself and Penn Blockchain, which is sponsored by A16Z and helped write the WEF report with several of the board members who will now hand out the UNI that left the treasury

3. Ignoring the large student groups, the vote was rejected 4:1

Score:

Lawyers/insiders who can hire themselves, former firms, sponsors and increase the value of their other investments: 1m Uni Uniswap tokenholders: -1m Uni

https://snapshot.org/#/uniswap/proposal/QmVXXEXJJKjFJtwXyy4Xx3gBckhz6TvorZoLgX3yiB7Hki

Looked like it passed 37m to 17m. The key differentiators were the votes from:

1. The proposer, HLSBFI - 10m votes
2. Kenneth Ng, Ethereum support - 10m votes
3. Penn Blockchain - 8m votes
4. UCLA Blockchain - 5m votes

This is interesting because

1. Half the margin of victory came from the proposer itself

2. Almost the total margin of victory came from the proposer itself and Penn Blockchain, which is sponsored by A16Z and helped write the WEF report with several of the board members who will now hand out the UNI that left the treasury

3. Ignoring the large student groups, the vote was rejected 4:1

Score:

Lawyers/insiders who can hire themselves, former firms, sponsors and increase the value of their other investments: 1m Uni Uniswap tokenholders: -1m Uni

https://snapshot.org/#/uniswap/proposal/QmVXXEXJJKjFJtwXyy4Xx3gBckhz6TvorZoLgX3yiB7Hki

I just sent the following letter to Harvard Law BFI containing outstanding questions about this proposal. I have also shared it publicly on Twitter and with DeFi Watch mailing list. The full letter is available at https://defiwatch.net/inquiry-into-uniswaps-defi-defense-fund-proposal/. I'll also paste it below for your convenience.

Thomas Hopkins / Mandy Mengyu Li Co-Presidents Harvard Law Blockchain & Fintech Initiative

Dear Mr. Hopkins and Ms. Mengyu Li:

There remain several unanswered questions surrounding your recent proposal to the Uniswap decentralized governance community known as “DeFi Defense Fund” or “DeFi Education Fund”. These questions, combined with the fact that most of your voting power seems to come from a few people and entities with extremely vested interests in the outcome, have given much of the community pause with consideration to your proposal.

Most of us understand at this point that you can get most of the votes that you need to win this vote from less than 10 parties. However, it is our hope that you will still choose to provide clear and transparent responses to these questions before the on-chain vote begins:

1. We have already established that 99% of your voting power comes from just 4 Ethereum accounts. Do any of these 4 accounts belong to Uniswap investor Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), other notable investors or any Uniswap core team members?

2. Who, outside of your organization did you discuss this proposal with before bringing it to the public? Were there discussions with or encouragement from past or current Uniswap core team members, investors, proposed committee members, or other influential backers such as Consensys?

3. Was this proposal drafted in response to any ongoing, suggested or expected government investigation of the Uniswap corporate entity (Universal Navigation, Inc.) or any of its employees or investors that you were made aware of?

4. To what extent will these funds be used to defend the Uniswap corporate entity (Universal Navigation, Inc.) or educate about regulation that will benefit the corporation directly? How can UNI tokenholders be assured that any conflicts of interest will be settled in their favor and not in the corporate entity’s favor?

5. What assurances do UNI tokenholders have that these funds will always be used to educate about or pursue regulation, legislation, etc. that puts UNI interests first, even if it means putting those interests ahead of the interests of the greater DeFi community?

6. Large portions of the World Economic Forum’s stated mission could come into direct conflict with the financial interests of UNI tokenholders. For instance, WEF’s founder has stated: “We need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.” DeFi is built upon the premise of capitalism and free markets. What conversations led to a member of the World Economic Forum being proposed as a committee member, and why should UNI tokenholders feel that a member of the WEF will have their best interests at heart?

7. The budget for this proposal is currently valued at approximately $16m. It was nearly $40m when first proposed. By comparison, the annual budget for CoinCenter is only $1m. What led you to propose a budget that is so much larger than that of CoinCenter?

8. The proposal states that “the scope has been broadened to include the funding or organizations and work promoting best regulatory practices…”. Who determines what are “best practices” and what kind of say will the UNI community have in those decisions? How can UNI tokenholders be assured that the committee will not use its free reign to start new spin-off organizations that are no longer beholden to UNI interests?

9. What assurances do UNI tokenholders have that members of the proposed committee will not pay funds to themselves or to other organizations that they have a vested interest in?

10. You proposed that the 1m UNI (currently $16m, but could easily rise again) should initially be held in a 4-of-7 multisig wallet. If 4 of the committee members acted maliciously or carelessly, or if they were threatened personally, the security of the funds could fall into jeopardy. This creates a massive trust issue. How can UNI tokenholders be assured that these Ethereum signing wallets were created in a secure environment and that the keys themselves are being secured properly against theft and other forms of compromise? If the funds are compromised, will the committee members take full legal responsibility?

Thank you in advance for agreeing to answer these questions before the on-chain vote begins. Contact me at [email protected] to arrange for a public voice chat via Twitter Spaces, or send a written response which I will gladly publish on my website defiwatch.net. Alternately, I suggest publishing a blog post which offers the greater UNI community a transparent response to these very legitimate concerns.

With sincere hope for a productive conversation,

Chris Blec Founder, DeFi Watch

hello there 🦄,

just I quick follow up question regarding this proposal and its execution

1. Was there any publicly available information (cannot find in any threads) about how the DEFI fund would release UNI tokens to the market. imho this should be a standard for anyone received funding from uniswap, to include an outline of future allocation of funds

2. what was the reasoning behind using genesis trading to swap 500 000 UNI for USDC, not using the uniswap exchange, from what I see there is $60mil locked in 0.3% USDC/UNI pair, I understand fee slippage is around 4.5% for such big trade, but it could easily be mitigated by swapping smaller amounts over longer period of time, thus avoiding further sell pressure, yeah I also understand and respect that you are not obligated to answer this, since funding has already been issued and it should be non of my concern on how you allocated your funds, but would really appreciate if you could clarify

thank you

delegate to wijuwiju.eth

I have made attempts to have a public chat with backers of this proposal. All thus far have failed.

We need to have a Twitter Space chat before this vote goes live. There are very important questions that are still not answered, including but not limited to:

• Have there been talks with regulators re: this proposal?
• What assurance do UNI holders have that this consortium will put their interests first?
• Are Uniswap VCs/investors at legal risk if this proposal fails?
• Why is having a member of the WEF on this committee a non-negotiable point?

The backers of this proposal may feel like they don't need to answer these questions, since they already have enough votes from just a couple of parties (a16z, etc) to pass this proposal.

However, that attitude is as anti-DeFi as it gets. We do need to have this discussion, as uncomfortable as it may be for them.

The future of DeFi is happening right before our eyes. If we allow it to happen in darkness and without meaningful conversation, then all is lost and we are just wasting our time here.

I want to set this chat up in Twitter Spaces in the next 1-3 days. I'm asking the proposer of this bill, a proposed member of the committee, or a rep from a16z to volunteer to chat with me in this public forum and take questions from other UNI holders. I will watch for your replies.

I just sent the following letter to Harvard Law BFI containing outstanding questions about this proposal. I have also shared it publicly on Twitter and with DeFi Watch mailing list. The full letter is available at https://defiwatch.net/inquiry-into-uniswaps-defi-defense-fund-proposal/. I'll also paste it below for your convenience.

Thomas Hopkins / Mandy Mengyu Li Co-Presidents Harvard Law Blockchain & Fintech Initiative

Dear Mr. Hopkins and Ms. Mengyu Li:

There remain several unanswered questions surrounding your recent proposal to the Uniswap decentralized governance community known as “DeFi Defense Fund” or “DeFi Education Fund”. These questions, combined with the fact that most of your voting power seems to come from a few people and entities with extremely vested interests in the outcome, have given much of the community pause with consideration to your proposal.

Most of us understand at this point that you can get most of the votes that you need to win this vote from less than 10 parties. However, it is our hope that you will still choose to provide clear and transparent responses to these questions before the on-chain vote begins:

1. We have already established that 99% of your voting power comes from just 4 Ethereum accounts. Do any of these 4 accounts belong to Uniswap investor Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), other notable investors or any Uniswap core team members?

2. Who, outside of your organization did you discuss this proposal with before bringing it to the public? Were there discussions with or encouragement from past or current Uniswap core team members, investors, proposed committee members, or other influential backers such as Consensys?

3. Was this proposal drafted in response to any ongoing, suggested or expected government investigation of the Uniswap corporate entity (Universal Navigation, Inc.) or any of its employees or investors that you were made aware of?

4. To what extent will these funds be used to defend the Uniswap corporate entity (Universal Navigation, Inc.) or educate about regulation that will benefit the corporation directly? How can UNI tokenholders be assured that any conflicts of interest will be settled in their favor and not in the corporate entity’s favor?

5. What assurances do UNI tokenholders have that these funds will always be used to educate about or pursue regulation, legislation, etc. that puts UNI interests first, even if it means putting those interests ahead of the interests of the greater DeFi community?

6. Large portions of the World Economic Forum’s stated mission could come into direct conflict with the financial interests of UNI tokenholders. For instance, WEF’s founder has stated: “We need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.” DeFi is built upon the premise of capitalism and free markets. What conversations led to a member of the World Economic Forum being proposed as a committee member, and why should UNI tokenholders feel that a member of the WEF will have their best interests at heart?

7. The budget for this proposal is currently valued at approximately $16m. It was nearly $40m when first proposed. By comparison, the annual budget for CoinCenter is only $1m. What led you to propose a budget that is so much larger than that of CoinCenter?

8. The proposal states that “the scope has been broadened to include the funding or organizations and work promoting best regulatory practices…”. Who determines what are “best practices” and what kind of say will the UNI community have in those decisions? How can UNI tokenholders be assured that the committee will not use its free reign to start new spin-off organizations that are no longer beholden to UNI interests?

9. What assurances do UNI tokenholders have that members of the proposed committee will not pay funds to themselves or to other organizations that they have a vested interest in?

10. You proposed that the 1m UNI (currently $16m, but could easily rise again) should initially be held in a 4-of-7 multisig wallet. If 4 of the committee members acted maliciously or carelessly, or if they were threatened personally, the security of the funds could fall into jeopardy. This creates a massive trust issue. How can UNI tokenholders be assured that these Ethereum signing wallets were created in a secure environment and that the keys themselves are being secured properly against theft and other forms of compromise? If the funds are compromised, will the committee members take full legal responsibility?

Thank you in advance for agreeing to answer these questions before the on-chain vote begins. Contact me at [email protected] to arrange for a public voice chat via Twitter Spaces, or send a written response which I will gladly publish on my website defiwatch.net. Alternately, I suggest publishing a blog post which offers the greater UNI community a transparent response to these very legitimate concerns.

With sincere hope for a productive conversation,

Chris Blec Founder, DeFi Watch

hello there 🦄,

just I quick follow up question regarding this proposal and its execution

1. Was there any publicly available information (cannot find in any threads) about how the DEFI fund would release UNI tokens to the market. imho this should be a standard for anyone received funding from uniswap, to include an outline of future allocation of funds

2. what was the reasoning behind using genesis trading to swap 500 000 UNI for USDC, not using the uniswap exchange, from what I see there is $60mil locked in 0.3% USDC/UNI pair, I understand fee slippage is around 4.5% for such big trade, but it could easily be mitigated by swapping smaller amounts over longer period of time, thus avoiding further sell pressure, yeah I also understand and respect that you are not obligated to answer this, since funding has already been issued and it should be non of my concern on how you allocated your funds, but would really appreciate if you could clarify

thank you

delegate to wijuwiju.eth

I have made attempts to have a public chat with backers of this proposal. All thus far have failed.

We need to have a Twitter Space chat before this vote goes live. There are very important questions that are still not answered, including but not limited to:

• Have there been talks with regulators re: this proposal?
• What assurance do UNI holders have that this consortium will put their interests first?
• Are Uniswap VCs/investors at legal risk if this proposal fails?
• Why is having a member of the WEF on this committee a non-negotiable point?

The backers of this proposal may feel like they don't need to answer these questions, since they already have enough votes from just a couple of parties (a16z, etc) to pass this proposal.

However, that attitude is as anti-DeFi as it gets. We do need to have this discussion, as uncomfortable as it may be for them.

The future of DeFi is happening right before our eyes. If we allow it to happen in darkness and without meaningful conversation, then all is lost and we are just wasting our time here.

I want to set this chat up in Twitter Spaces in the next 1-3 days. I'm asking the proposer of this bill, a proposed member of the committee, or a rep from a16z to volunteer to chat with me in this public forum and take questions from other UNI holders. I will watch for your replies.