I am considering the long-term implications of the structure of this program. This program does not address double dipping in committee compensation, conflict of interests, lacks critical analysis requirements of the proposals being voted on, and shows little effort toward a merit-based solution. I am okay with the costs of this program increasing if its goal is to combat cartels, enhance competition, and attract value-aligned delegates. A governance mechanism needs to be designed, similar to how incentives are provided to LPs. However, the premise of how this program is run is the antithesis of decentralization.

Who is the "we" making the decisions? Is there a vote? You propose a 30% reduction in compensation; are you determining how much is paid in the program as the proposal leader, and compensated delegate?

Please feel free to DM me, I feel I have stated all I can on the risks of this program.

I agree that increasing the slots to 50 would be a valuable addition @Argonaut . However, @stablelab's reluctance to increase the number of delegates, combined with the current delegates not being incentivized to vote for this expansion, suggests that it may be too late for this program. It has already been cartelized. Why would the delegates vote to decrease their pay and increase competition? Only increasing their compensation would make sense for the delegation.

A few points to consider:

1. The current criteria structure incentivizes two main components: creating proposals and voting. Creating proposals distinguishes many delegates from others, so I would argue that this is the most important criterion for remaining in the cohort as a tiebreaker. UNI DAO is currently incentivizing proposal creation and the passing/voting of proposals.

2. How many people are setting the point criteria for this program? Is it just @Doo_StableLab? Is it a group of 2 or 3 other groups deciding? Is it the all the delegates deciding?

3. Aside from the Layer 2 deployments/incentives and the base fee tier lowering proposal, most proposals seem self-serving, aimed at creating paid committees with little oversight or promoting/charging for a delegate's software business (e.g., charging for analytic analysis using proprietary software on previously passed proposals, such as @stablelab's Forse Analytics).

4. If the current delegate structure remains unchanged over the next 12 months and a fee switch is enabled that ties into delegation, there will be very few options for new delegators to choose from. This would 100% entrench the current small number of VC-backed delegates into a governance takeover, as they would not only have the VC delegates but also a significant wave of uninformed delegators. Once this occurs, the delegation could vote to allocate themselves as much as they want from the UNI treasury for UNI incentives. UNI incentives for this program will grow as self-importance increases.

5. Keep in mind we are also paying a committee to research Uniswap Treasury management. @Doo_StableLab and @AbdullahUmar proposed this committee, and it has @kpk @pennblockchain. Who are also paid as part of the delegate reward initiative!

Cartelization can occur purely through the incentive of wanting to be paid more! Monopolies and cartels emerge naturally through economics, not by delegates communicating behind the scenes.

The biggest risk to the UNI treasury is the cartelization of delegates! I have personally witnessed this through EOS. A cartel "strategy" undermines a project's long-term viability, as value leaks to third parties without accounting for value alignment or empowering core users. Legal uncertainty, and legal avoidance has molded the DAO onto a path of failure.

UNI DAO would benefit from value-aligned proposals from delegates who share its values. Currently, we are incentivizing proposal-making and voting from a majority* of non-aligned delegates (e.g., NOT: liquidity providers, Uniswap application developers, or frequent Uniswap Protocol traders/users).

Objective:

Avoid cartelization at all costs; increase the number of delegates to choose from, with a high priority on value-aligned delegates—especially if a delegate fee switch is eventually enabled!

Just as a16z played a role in not stopping the Compound governance attack. I believe they may also be unintentionally complicit in a Uniswap delegate cartelization attack over the next year, purely due to economic alignment. This program in its current form is a canary in the coal mine.

Agree that this is an interesting proposition but also echoing @_JoJo's concerns.

I think the easiest and most non-biased way is to have a set of metrics you evaluate against in a more straightforward and objective way. Delegates voting on each other seems ripe for non-meritocratic back scratching imo. If you nonetheless wanted to experiment with delegate voting in the compensation scheme, anonymous voting could potentially lead to more honest assessments by removing fear of backlash. I think the voting pool could probably also be expanded to include the wider community as I don’t see any downside to this (in reality why shouldn’t they have a right to express their opinion on this?), if anything to dilute any potential impact from the risks of biases/collusion.

Compensation caps seems reasonable to maintain fairness, as does having a base compensation plus tiered bonuses based on performance metrics for extra incentives to those that go above and beyond. Another idea if you insist on having delegates voting is also to tie in the performance to weighted voting to give more say to delegates who consistently perform well.

As with any effort seeking to provide structure to a given process, I think agreeing on the goals/type of behaviour we want to see from delegates first is a good starting point. I know there's some work being done to outline a set of guiding principles etc for Uni delegates, perhaps that could be relevant here.

I am considering the long-term implications of the structure of this program. This program does not address double dipping in committee compensation, conflict of interests, lacks critical analysis requirements of the proposals being voted on, and shows little effort toward a merit-based solution. I am okay with the costs of this program increasing if its goal is to combat cartels, enhance competition, and attract value-aligned delegates. A governance mechanism needs to be designed, similar to how incentives are provided to LPs. However, the premise of how this program is run is the antithesis of decentralization.

Who is the "we" making the decisions? Is there a vote? You propose a 30% reduction in compensation; are you determining how much is paid in the program as the proposal leader, and compensated delegate?

Please feel free to DM me, I feel I have stated all I can on the risks of this program.

I agree that increasing the slots to 50 would be a valuable addition @Argonaut . However, @stablelab's reluctance to increase the number of delegates, combined with the current delegates not being incentivized to vote for this expansion, suggests that it may be too late for this program. It has already been cartelized. Why would the delegates vote to decrease their pay and increase competition? Only increasing their compensation would make sense for the delegation.

A few points to consider:

1. The current criteria structure incentivizes two main components: creating proposals and voting. Creating proposals distinguishes many delegates from others, so I would argue that this is the most important criterion for remaining in the cohort as a tiebreaker. UNI DAO is currently incentivizing proposal creation and the passing/voting of proposals.

2. How many people are setting the point criteria for this program? Is it just @Doo_StableLab? Is it a group of 2 or 3 other groups deciding? Is it the all the delegates deciding?

3. Aside from the Layer 2 deployments/incentives and the base fee tier lowering proposal, most proposals seem self-serving, aimed at creating paid committees with little oversight or promoting/charging for a delegate's software business (e.g., charging for analytic analysis using proprietary software on previously passed proposals, such as @stablelab's Forse Analytics).

4. If the current delegate structure remains unchanged over the next 12 months and a fee switch is enabled that ties into delegation, there will be very few options for new delegators to choose from. This would 100% entrench the current small number of VC-backed delegates into a governance takeover, as they would not only have the VC delegates but also a significant wave of uninformed delegators. Once this occurs, the delegation could vote to allocate themselves as much as they want from the UNI treasury for UNI incentives. UNI incentives for this program will grow as self-importance increases.

5. Keep in mind we are also paying a committee to research Uniswap Treasury management. @Doo_StableLab and @AbdullahUmar proposed this committee, and it has @kpk @pennblockchain. Who are also paid as part of the delegate reward initiative!

Cartelization can occur purely through the incentive of wanting to be paid more! Monopolies and cartels emerge naturally through economics, not by delegates communicating behind the scenes.

The biggest risk to the UNI treasury is the cartelization of delegates! I have personally witnessed this through EOS. A cartel "strategy" undermines a project's long-term viability, as value leaks to third parties without accounting for value alignment or empowering core users. Legal uncertainty, and legal avoidance has molded the DAO onto a path of failure.

UNI DAO would benefit from value-aligned proposals from delegates who share its values. Currently, we are incentivizing proposal-making and voting from a majority* of non-aligned delegates (e.g., NOT: liquidity providers, Uniswap application developers, or frequent Uniswap Protocol traders/users).

Objective:

Avoid cartelization at all costs; increase the number of delegates to choose from, with a high priority on value-aligned delegates—especially if a delegate fee switch is eventually enabled!

Just as a16z played a role in not stopping the Compound governance attack. I believe they may also be unintentionally complicit in a Uniswap delegate cartelization attack over the next year, purely due to economic alignment. This program in its current form is a canary in the coal mine.

Agree that this is an interesting proposition but also echoing @_JoJo's concerns.

I think the easiest and most non-biased way is to have a set of metrics you evaluate against in a more straightforward and objective way. Delegates voting on each other seems ripe for non-meritocratic back scratching imo. If you nonetheless wanted to experiment with delegate voting in the compensation scheme, anonymous voting could potentially lead to more honest assessments by removing fear of backlash. I think the voting pool could probably also be expanded to include the wider community as I don’t see any downside to this (in reality why shouldn’t they have a right to express their opinion on this?), if anything to dilute any potential impact from the risks of biases/collusion.

Compensation caps seems reasonable to maintain fairness, as does having a base compensation plus tiered bonuses based on performance metrics for extra incentives to those that go above and beyond. Another idea if you insist on having delegates voting is also to tie in the performance to weighted voting to give more say to delegates who consistently perform well.

As with any effort seeking to provide structure to a given process, I think agreeing on the goals/type of behaviour we want to see from delegates first is a good starting point. I know there's some work being done to outline a set of guiding principles etc for Uni delegates, perhaps that could be relevant here.

Having reviewed the insightful feedback from fellow delegates, I'd like to share my perspective on how we can balance effective governance with broader participation and alignment within uniswap community.

I understand the concerns about potential collusion, conflicts of interest, and the concentration of delegate representation. If unchecked, these issues could lead to outcomes that harm the DAO's integrity. However, imposing excessive restrictions might inadvertently hinder beneficial participation. We need to find a balance that promotes diversity and encourages new delegates from various backgrounds to contribute effectively.

While oversight is important, we also need to promote and support more participation. This brings me back to the Value-Aligned Approach—which I strongly support. But before determining what those values are, I believe we should first reflect on the role of a delegate. In my view, key responsibilities include:

• Active Participation: Regularly voting on proposals and engaging in governance activities.

• Staying Informed: Keeping abreast of the DAO’s developments and understanding the implications of proposals.

• Supporting Initiatives: Being available to create or back meaningful initiatives that advance the DAO's mission.

• Providing Insightful Rationales: Offering thoughtful explanations for voting decisions, which help shape community sentiment and guide voters—especially during critical moments.

By focusing on these core responsibilities, we can align delegates' actions with the long-term health and success of the DAO.

I agree with @eek637's suggestion of implementing vesting for UNI tokens. Vesting aligns delegates’ financial stakes with the DAO’s long-term health, incentivizing sustained commitment and discouraging short-term opportunism.

Ensuring Separation of Interests:

In some DAOs, rules prevent service providers from applying for committee positions to ensure a clear separation of interests. Adopting similar guidelines could help mitigate conflicts of interest within our governance structures, fostering greater transparency and trust.

The central challenge is how to effectively measure the value of delegate contributions. I partially agree with @GFXlabs' Delegate Rank model, which resembles systems like Coordinape. However, unlike Coordinape, GFXlabs' model proposes anonymity, which could increase the risk of collusion behind the scene.

I believe transparency in ranking and reasoning is essential. Just as we publicly justify our votes, we should also be open about why we rank certain delegates highly. This openness can discourage collusion and promote accountability. If we opt to this delegate ranking model, I suggest it should be for distributing additional bonuses pool, while maintaining a lower fixed compensation based on straightforward, objective metrics.

Tracking On-Chain and Off-Chain Activities:

To gain a complete picture of delegate contributions, it's crucial to track both on-chain and off-chain activities:

• On-Chain Metrics: Voting records, proposal submissions, and other blockchain-based actions. This is an area where us (Curia Lab) is actively working; tracking and analyzing on-chain governance data to provide insights and transparency.
• Off-Chain Metrics: Forum engagement, proposal feedback, and overall governance involvement. We are also exploring methods to effectively capture and analyze off-chain activities to help the DAOs we currently work with. By integrating both on-chain and off-chain data, we aim to offer a holistic view of delegate contributions.

By capturing these activities, we can develop a comprehensive understanding of each delegate's impact. Importantly, all metrics should be fully transparent and traceable, allowing delegates to verify how their scores are calculated and address any discrepancies.

We can draw inspiration from existing frameworks, such as:

• Arbitrum's upcoming Delegate incentive program v1.5: This model offers a detailed approach to evaluating delegate quality through proposal feedback and other contributions. It emphasizes comprehensive evaluation criteria that capture both quantitative and qualitative aspects of delegate performance.

Again, I believe we should establish clear, accessible criteria for evaluation:

• Objective Metrics: Maintain fixed compensation based on measurable activities like voting participation or impactful feedback frequency.
• Qualitative Assessments: bonuses based on the quality of contributions, evaluated through transparent processes.

This approach would ensures fairness while incentivizing delegates to go above and beyond in their roles.

We would like to share with the community a suggestion that we have to make on this subject, which we believe should be evaluated in order to correct an inconsistency that we have observed in the last two cycles:

Increase the Weight of Voting Participation Metrics:

In the previous cycle, the points assigned for low voting participation were very generous. For instance, someone could have a 70% voting participation in off-chain polls and an 80% participation in on-chain polls, yet the penalty would be only a reduction of half a point, while attending a single community call or attending a conference or in-person Uniswap event would grant you a whole point. The main responsibility of a delegate is to vote, as doing so reduces the risk of a governance attack. Therefore, we shouldn't consider a delegate with poor voting practices a good candidate for the program.

A better approach would be to have tiers that range from 100% voting activity down to 70%, decreasing the number of points proportionally until reaching zero at 70%. A formula like this can be used:

Participation Points = ((Voting% - 70%) / 30%) * Points for the Category

For example, in the case of 80% voting and 2 points available for the category, the total participation points would be:

((80% - 70%) / 30%) * 2 = (1/3) * 2 = 0.67

In the previous cycle, this level of participation would have received the full amount of points.

Consequently, as we said above, the main responsibility of a delegate is to vote, so we understand that the weight of participation in both onchain and offchain voting should be increased in comparison to other activities that, although relevant, should not have an equivalent weight to direct participation in governance.

As mentioned in the last cycle's discussions, I think you should have the UNI earned vest over time, like @eek637 also brought up.

For the subjective measurement, the delegates should not be ranking each other. You could have pure UNI token holders (no delegated UNI) vote on which delegates they feel have done the best work. Or even have people vote with their LP shares. This puts more power to direct economic contributors.

-Erick

It's great to see many discussions happening around this topic. We would like to propose an idea of expanding the number of delegates eligible to receive rewards in Cycle 3 and introducing a tiered system to accompany this change, which is somewhat similar to ideas from other delegates.

Problem Statement

Under the current criteria, it's anticipated that many delegates will end up with the same score in the next cycle. This is because the number of delegates considered reasonably active, based on existing standards, is expected to increase. There's a possibility that many delegates will cluster around 6 or 7 points due to points earned from activities like voting, which even new delegates can achieve.

Objective

As a fundamental premise, we believe that the goal of this program is to enhance the overall health of the Uniswap DAO. From this perspective, let's examine the proposed measures.

Firstly, we think that increasing the slots in the Delegate Reward Initiative can simply boost the DAO's activity level. This is evident from the fact that new delegates, including us, had started participating since Cycle 1.

However, merely increasing the number of slots might only inflate the budget, and providing the same amount of rewards to delegates who may be less active than those already selected might not be cost-effective.

To address this concern, we believe that introducing a tiered system would be beneficial. This system would adjust the reward amounts by dividing delegates into different ranks. By implementing this system, we can maximize the program's effectiveness by providing sufficient rewards to delegates who have been and will continue to be highly active, while also expanding the Reward Delegate slots to include new delegates beginning their activities.

Agreement with GFX's Proposal

We agree with GFX's idea to change the reward amount per delegate based on performance. Introducing a subjective component into the compensation structure can incentivize delegates to provide more value to the DAO.

If expanding the budget is acceptable, perhaps we can increase the rewards for the upper-tier delegates while keeping the lower-tier delegates' rewards at about the same level as now. This approach allows us to reward highly active delegates more generously without significantly increasing the overall budget.

Specific Measures

We think it would be best to discuss specific numbers after gauging reactions to the overall direction of this proposal.

As a general idea, we are considering increasing the budget rather than operating with the same amount as before, aiming to limit the increase to only what is necessary. Regarding the tiered system, unlike models in other DAOs like Sky (Maker), which have significant disparities in rewards, we envision a structure where both tiers receive rewards close to the current amount ($6,000).

For example, we could expand the number of delegates in this initiative to 20. Delegates who score higher based on the current criteria (e.g., 8 points or more) could receive higher rewards (around $10,000), while delegates with fewer points could receive rewards similar to the current amount (around $6,000). This approach could maximize Uniswap DAO's activities and quality of them while keeping the budget in check.

Alternatively, we could consider making the top tier consist of the top 10 delegates.

We welcome any opinions or questions regarding the above idea.

Having reviewed the insightful feedback from fellow delegates, I'd like to share my perspective on how we can balance effective governance with broader participation and alignment within uniswap community.

I understand the concerns about potential collusion, conflicts of interest, and the concentration of delegate representation. If unchecked, these issues could lead to outcomes that harm the DAO's integrity. However, imposing excessive restrictions might inadvertently hinder beneficial participation. We need to find a balance that promotes diversity and encourages new delegates from various backgrounds to contribute effectively.

While oversight is important, we also need to promote and support more participation. This brings me back to the Value-Aligned Approach—which I strongly support. But before determining what those values are, I believe we should first reflect on the role of a delegate. In my view, key responsibilities include:

• Active Participation: Regularly voting on proposals and engaging in governance activities.

• Staying Informed: Keeping abreast of the DAO’s developments and understanding the implications of proposals.

• Supporting Initiatives: Being available to create or back meaningful initiatives that advance the DAO's mission.

• Providing Insightful Rationales: Offering thoughtful explanations for voting decisions, which help shape community sentiment and guide voters—especially during critical moments.

By focusing on these core responsibilities, we can align delegates' actions with the long-term health and success of the DAO.

I agree with @eek637's suggestion of implementing vesting for UNI tokens. Vesting aligns delegates’ financial stakes with the DAO’s long-term health, incentivizing sustained commitment and discouraging short-term opportunism.

Ensuring Separation of Interests:

In some DAOs, rules prevent service providers from applying for committee positions to ensure a clear separation of interests. Adopting similar guidelines could help mitigate conflicts of interest within our governance structures, fostering greater transparency and trust.

The central challenge is how to effectively measure the value of delegate contributions. I partially agree with @GFXlabs' Delegate Rank model, which resembles systems like Coordinape. However, unlike Coordinape, GFXlabs' model proposes anonymity, which could increase the risk of collusion behind the scene.

I believe transparency in ranking and reasoning is essential. Just as we publicly justify our votes, we should also be open about why we rank certain delegates highly. This openness can discourage collusion and promote accountability. If we opt to this delegate ranking model, I suggest it should be for distributing additional bonuses pool, while maintaining a lower fixed compensation based on straightforward, objective metrics.

Tracking On-Chain and Off-Chain Activities:

To gain a complete picture of delegate contributions, it's crucial to track both on-chain and off-chain activities:

• On-Chain Metrics: Voting records, proposal submissions, and other blockchain-based actions. This is an area where us (Curia Lab) is actively working; tracking and analyzing on-chain governance data to provide insights and transparency.
• Off-Chain Metrics: Forum engagement, proposal feedback, and overall governance involvement. We are also exploring methods to effectively capture and analyze off-chain activities to help the DAOs we currently work with. By integrating both on-chain and off-chain data, we aim to offer a holistic view of delegate contributions.

By capturing these activities, we can develop a comprehensive understanding of each delegate's impact. Importantly, all metrics should be fully transparent and traceable, allowing delegates to verify how their scores are calculated and address any discrepancies.

We can draw inspiration from existing frameworks, such as:

• Arbitrum's upcoming Delegate incentive program v1.5: This model offers a detailed approach to evaluating delegate quality through proposal feedback and other contributions. It emphasizes comprehensive evaluation criteria that capture both quantitative and qualitative aspects of delegate performance.

Again, I believe we should establish clear, accessible criteria for evaluation:

• Objective Metrics: Maintain fixed compensation based on measurable activities like voting participation or impactful feedback frequency.
• Qualitative Assessments: bonuses based on the quality of contributions, evaluated through transparent processes.

This approach would ensures fairness while incentivizing delegates to go above and beyond in their roles.

We would like to share with the community a suggestion that we have to make on this subject, which we believe should be evaluated in order to correct an inconsistency that we have observed in the last two cycles:

Increase the Weight of Voting Participation Metrics:

In the previous cycle, the points assigned for low voting participation were very generous. For instance, someone could have a 70% voting participation in off-chain polls and an 80% participation in on-chain polls, yet the penalty would be only a reduction of half a point, while attending a single community call or attending a conference or in-person Uniswap event would grant you a whole point. The main responsibility of a delegate is to vote, as doing so reduces the risk of a governance attack. Therefore, we shouldn't consider a delegate with poor voting practices a good candidate for the program.

A better approach would be to have tiers that range from 100% voting activity down to 70%, decreasing the number of points proportionally until reaching zero at 70%. A formula like this can be used:

Participation Points = ((Voting% - 70%) / 30%) * Points for the Category

For example, in the case of 80% voting and 2 points available for the category, the total participation points would be:

((80% - 70%) / 30%) * 2 = (1/3) * 2 = 0.67

In the previous cycle, this level of participation would have received the full amount of points.

Consequently, as we said above, the main responsibility of a delegate is to vote, so we understand that the weight of participation in both onchain and offchain voting should be increased in comparison to other activities that, although relevant, should not have an equivalent weight to direct participation in governance.

As mentioned in the last cycle's discussions, I think you should have the UNI earned vest over time, like @eek637 also brought up.

For the subjective measurement, the delegates should not be ranking each other. You could have pure UNI token holders (no delegated UNI) vote on which delegates they feel have done the best work. Or even have people vote with their LP shares. This puts more power to direct economic contributors.

-Erick

It's great to see many discussions happening around this topic. We would like to propose an idea of expanding the number of delegates eligible to receive rewards in Cycle 3 and introducing a tiered system to accompany this change, which is somewhat similar to ideas from other delegates.

Problem Statement

Under the current criteria, it's anticipated that many delegates will end up with the same score in the next cycle. This is because the number of delegates considered reasonably active, based on existing standards, is expected to increase. There's a possibility that many delegates will cluster around 6 or 7 points due to points earned from activities like voting, which even new delegates can achieve.

Objective

As a fundamental premise, we believe that the goal of this program is to enhance the overall health of the Uniswap DAO. From this perspective, let's examine the proposed measures.

Firstly, we think that increasing the slots in the Delegate Reward Initiative can simply boost the DAO's activity level. This is evident from the fact that new delegates, including us, had started participating since Cycle 1.

However, merely increasing the number of slots might only inflate the budget, and providing the same amount of rewards to delegates who may be less active than those already selected might not be cost-effective.

To address this concern, we believe that introducing a tiered system would be beneficial. This system would adjust the reward amounts by dividing delegates into different ranks. By implementing this system, we can maximize the program's effectiveness by providing sufficient rewards to delegates who have been and will continue to be highly active, while also expanding the Reward Delegate slots to include new delegates beginning their activities.

Agreement with GFX's Proposal

We agree with GFX's idea to change the reward amount per delegate based on performance. Introducing a subjective component into the compensation structure can incentivize delegates to provide more value to the DAO.

If expanding the budget is acceptable, perhaps we can increase the rewards for the upper-tier delegates while keeping the lower-tier delegates' rewards at about the same level as now. This approach allows us to reward highly active delegates more generously without significantly increasing the overall budget.

Specific Measures

We think it would be best to discuss specific numbers after gauging reactions to the overall direction of this proposal.

As a general idea, we are considering increasing the budget rather than operating with the same amount as before, aiming to limit the increase to only what is necessary. Regarding the tiered system, unlike models in other DAOs like Sky (Maker), which have significant disparities in rewards, we envision a structure where both tiers receive rewards close to the current amount ($6,000).

For example, we could expand the number of delegates in this initiative to 20. Delegates who score higher based on the current criteria (e.g., 8 points or more) could receive higher rewards (around $10,000), while delegates with fewer points could receive rewards similar to the current amount (around $6,000). This approach could maximize Uniswap DAO's activities and quality of them while keeping the budget in check.

Alternatively, we could consider making the top tier consist of the top 10 delegates.

We welcome any opinions or questions regarding the above idea.

We believe this is a good idea as it encourages delegates to perform at their best in order to secure a good ranking. While we recognize that some level of collusion may occur, with delegates who share similar political views ranking each other higher, we don't think it will significantly impact the overall outcome. Even if one delegate ranks their friends higher, the remaining non-affiliated delegates would still be ranked based on the value they provide. This ensures that delegates who genuinely contribute value will have a chance to remain in the program, even if they don’t secure top compensation. Well-known delegates will likely receive the highest compensation, but that’s fair given their contributions to the DAO. Overall, we see more pros than cons in this system.

The one suggestion we would make is to increase the number of slots significantly, to something like 50, similar to Arbitrum's delegate program. Delegates ranked 17 to 50 could receive a smaller amount, such as $1,000 worth of UNI tokens. These delegates wouldn’t be selected by vote, but instead based on meeting basic criteria, like voting and providing rationale for their decisions.

This adjustment would give new delegates a real opportunity to compete, as the paid delegates would be more incentivized to contribute and retain their slots. Without this, the same 16 delegates would likely dominate the top positions. By increasing the budget by around $34k per month, we could significantly boost competition and delegate participation. This smaller compensation would help cover costs and motivate newer delegates to learn the protocol and add value, giving them a chance to move up into the top 16 in the future. We believe this would be a great idea to try, and if it doesn’t work, we can easily cancel it. Even if only 10% of these 34 new slots end up developing into strong delegates, it would still be worth it in our view.

you are totally right and I am on the same page on your question. Mine was more a qualitative idea, in the sense: if part of the reward initiative program goals are to shield the DAO from governance attacks, working in tandem to a second round of redelegation could definitely solidify this stance, because you will have not only delegates that are compensated, but that also have a weight in their voting.

Again, more about the goals. And if that is the case, it bears as you said the question about how much in total, how much each, what is the way to split, etc. No single answer to this but top down approach probably is the best approach.

Want to also take a stab to this. How do you define the alignment of a delegate? is a tricky question as well, because technically any vote as long as comes from a distributed set of delegates should be, well, the alignment of the dao. Kinda makes me go back to the main overarching goal of this program. Really think I need to do some digging here.

We are on the same page here: gunning for quality and not just activity should be one of the most important main goal. And totally agree on the fact that current delegates are good, robust actors. But, assuming the program will expand in future, is just too easy to have a collusion situation, especially if someone just spin up 3-4 different "delegate entities". Likely this would create the byproduct of also having a strong set of delegates, well respected because they get more money (yeah i know), not aligned with the overall goal of the dao.

There are a bunch of ways I guess to steer behaviour in a more qualitative than quantitative way, and I guess it partially comes down to what do you want this delegate reward initiative to be. Depending on the fact you want either more new delegates, or current delegates more involved, or reactivate dorment delegates etc, there are different things that could be done. In general tho, if we democratise this evaluation to the people who are also receiving compensation we will always have -ve outcome. Personally i think that either this evaluation becomes centralized, or is outsourced to a set of large people not part of the program.

Think there are easy frameworks for this.

Is not really about important proposals, re: funding uni lab. Is more about tail risk.

IF (and is a big if) we collectively think the reward initiative is an effective stop of malicious governance attack on the uniswap 1B treasury, then a 1M spending per year or 0.1% is an extremely good spending of capital. And can likely increase ten folds (ok not ten folds) and still be a good investment.

But only if the program is an effective countermeasure, and there could be concerns. Foundation is: how much is the collective weight of votings of delegates enrolled in the program + "good" aligned parties vs how much is the cost of a governance attack?

As it is now, without looking too much into numbers, it feels like we might both need more aligned delegates but also a bigger voting weights for the current delegates. There was a few months ago an initiative to increase the voting power of certain delegates, most if not all of which are now in this program. There is a scenario in which this could be replicated and expanded more.

I am quoting this, which is something a bit outside of scope of the current discussion, because as it is now uniswap would see a merit in having both initiatives (increase delegation power of active delegates + reward initiative) run in tandem, in coordination, to leverage positive results one against each other.

But maybe I am just ranting here.

Exciting to see many ideas and discussions. I do feel like it's one of topics where there are valid points for counter points for each one. For example, if the goal is to have diverse delegates and hedge against collusion, then raising the bar with strict requirements or directions will reduce the new delegates and increase the chance of collusion.

Governance and Governance Security is a good example of public good. If the governance came to a halt or decline, it's going face malicious proposals passing similar to what happened in other DAOs recently or at least it will become more difficult for beneficial proposals to pass. Having healthy governance also contribute more positively to resilience as well as other potential risks. Uniswap token, when launched, could have technically gave all of the treasury to Uniswap Labs or later to Uniswap Foundation and removed DAO governance. But of course they didn't because they also knew the benefits of having such DAO governance.

However, the nature of public good would also mean that it will likely to be underfunded compared to their benefits. But of course, it can't be priceless (Sorry but Mastercard commercials lied to you).

There can be several back-of-the-envelope calculations. But is it worth $1,152,000 per year? and clearly this depends on how much is governance security worth in Uniswap DAO. An often discussed model is if the malicious proposal is able to hold Uniswap's $1billion+ treasury in hostage, but even we believe that's an extreme case. More reasonable case could be for example, what happens crucial voting decisions such as funding Uniswap Foundation is not meeting the quorum and has to be delayed for several months till it passes (which does happen in other DAOs). If we believe beneficial proposals can bring benefits bigger than their budgets + $1.1 mil then it can be considered as funding that's worthy.

Another way to think about is UniswapDAO's previous funded public goods. For example, DEF received over 15 million USD total from the DAO. So is DEF worth 15 years of Delegate Reward?

But also to be fair, Ironically, DAO treasury itself also can be considered public good. So maybe this should be bigger conversation on how we should we think about DAO treasury and spending.

In short, here are some of my own thoughts / recent position:

• I like the value-aligned approach of Userisky, though it could be expanded, and may be hard to come up with purely objective criteria
• I also think (against my own interest BTW) that the compensation is too high for the amount of work
• which brings to the next point, I see the DAO more as governing body, rather than a super active actor in the Uni ecosystem that should do a lot of execution on its own. This ties well with the fact that the Uni protocol has very few governance-controlled parameters. One of the highest priorities is to ensure that the delegates don't permit bad decisions to be approved
• IMO the compensation should be tied to following some general principles of the DAO. We're working on a list of such principles at the moment, let me know if you want to contribute

In sum - add more delegates that are closely aligned with the interests of the protocol, and don't shift the focus on compensation for activity on its own. (Other than voting activity, to be clear.)

As others have commented, voting on each others performance has its own problems. The way I see it, for the approach to work as intended, almost all of the voters must be unwilling to collude, not even if "innocent" ways like preferring to vote for their friends.

Traditionally, crypto protocols have had different requirements for the number/power of honest actors for the system to function properly:

• 2/3 N + 1, like in the old-school consensus protocols
• 1/2 N + 1, like in the Nakamoto consensus (with PoW)
• 1 out of N, like in an L2 that has fault proofs - only one honest validator is required

Introducing mechanisms that assume N-1 out of N honest actors seems like a regression, and almost against the crypto's ethos. I think when similar mechanisms have been tried, it hasn't ended well. We have seen protocols like EOS with voting-based delegated PoS become vulnerable to cartelization.

Moreover, even if we roll with the assumption that almost all of Uniswap's top delegates are unwilling to collude (which it may well be at the moment!):

• the DAO still could suffer reputational damage - it's almost impossible to prove that there is no collusion even if all actors are honest
• the mechanism design seems to be inviting for bad actors, who would be attracted specifically because to its weakness

An unrelated point is that designing such an anonymous voting mechanism seems like a non-trivial technical challenge on its own, especially if you'd want the usual properties like auditability and trust minimization in the operators.

We believe this is a good idea as it encourages delegates to perform at their best in order to secure a good ranking. While we recognize that some level of collusion may occur, with delegates who share similar political views ranking each other higher, we don't think it will significantly impact the overall outcome. Even if one delegate ranks their friends higher, the remaining non-affiliated delegates would still be ranked based on the value they provide. This ensures that delegates who genuinely contribute value will have a chance to remain in the program, even if they don’t secure top compensation. Well-known delegates will likely receive the highest compensation, but that’s fair given their contributions to the DAO. Overall, we see more pros than cons in this system.

The one suggestion we would make is to increase the number of slots significantly, to something like 50, similar to Arbitrum's delegate program. Delegates ranked 17 to 50 could receive a smaller amount, such as $1,000 worth of UNI tokens. These delegates wouldn’t be selected by vote, but instead based on meeting basic criteria, like voting and providing rationale for their decisions.

This adjustment would give new delegates a real opportunity to compete, as the paid delegates would be more incentivized to contribute and retain their slots. Without this, the same 16 delegates would likely dominate the top positions. By increasing the budget by around $34k per month, we could significantly boost competition and delegate participation. This smaller compensation would help cover costs and motivate newer delegates to learn the protocol and add value, giving them a chance to move up into the top 16 in the future. We believe this would be a great idea to try, and if it doesn’t work, we can easily cancel it. Even if only 10% of these 34 new slots end up developing into strong delegates, it would still be worth it in our view.

you are totally right and I am on the same page on your question. Mine was more a qualitative idea, in the sense: if part of the reward initiative program goals are to shield the DAO from governance attacks, working in tandem to a second round of redelegation could definitely solidify this stance, because you will have not only delegates that are compensated, but that also have a weight in their voting.

Again, more about the goals. And if that is the case, it bears as you said the question about how much in total, how much each, what is the way to split, etc. No single answer to this but top down approach probably is the best approach.

Want to also take a stab to this. How do you define the alignment of a delegate? is a tricky question as well, because technically any vote as long as comes from a distributed set of delegates should be, well, the alignment of the dao. Kinda makes me go back to the main overarching goal of this program. Really think I need to do some digging here.

We are on the same page here: gunning for quality and not just activity should be one of the most important main goal. And totally agree on the fact that current delegates are good, robust actors. But, assuming the program will expand in future, is just too easy to have a collusion situation, especially if someone just spin up 3-4 different "delegate entities". Likely this would create the byproduct of also having a strong set of delegates, well respected because they get more money (yeah i know), not aligned with the overall goal of the dao.

There are a bunch of ways I guess to steer behaviour in a more qualitative than quantitative way, and I guess it partially comes down to what do you want this delegate reward initiative to be. Depending on the fact you want either more new delegates, or current delegates more involved, or reactivate dorment delegates etc, there are different things that could be done. In general tho, if we democratise this evaluation to the people who are also receiving compensation we will always have -ve outcome. Personally i think that either this evaluation becomes centralized, or is outsourced to a set of large people not part of the program.

Think there are easy frameworks for this.

Is not really about important proposals, re: funding uni lab. Is more about tail risk.

IF (and is a big if) we collectively think the reward initiative is an effective stop of malicious governance attack on the uniswap 1B treasury, then a 1M spending per year or 0.1% is an extremely good spending of capital. And can likely increase ten folds (ok not ten folds) and still be a good investment.

But only if the program is an effective countermeasure, and there could be concerns. Foundation is: how much is the collective weight of votings of delegates enrolled in the program + "good" aligned parties vs how much is the cost of a governance attack?

As it is now, without looking too much into numbers, it feels like we might both need more aligned delegates but also a bigger voting weights for the current delegates. There was a few months ago an initiative to increase the voting power of certain delegates, most if not all of which are now in this program. There is a scenario in which this could be replicated and expanded more.

I am quoting this, which is something a bit outside of scope of the current discussion, because as it is now uniswap would see a merit in having both initiatives (increase delegation power of active delegates + reward initiative) run in tandem, in coordination, to leverage positive results one against each other.

But maybe I am just ranting here.

Exciting to see many ideas and discussions. I do feel like it's one of topics where there are valid points for counter points for each one. For example, if the goal is to have diverse delegates and hedge against collusion, then raising the bar with strict requirements or directions will reduce the new delegates and increase the chance of collusion.

Governance and Governance Security is a good example of public good. If the governance came to a halt or decline, it's going face malicious proposals passing similar to what happened in other DAOs recently or at least it will become more difficult for beneficial proposals to pass. Having healthy governance also contribute more positively to resilience as well as other potential risks. Uniswap token, when launched, could have technically gave all of the treasury to Uniswap Labs or later to Uniswap Foundation and removed DAO governance. But of course they didn't because they also knew the benefits of having such DAO governance.

However, the nature of public good would also mean that it will likely to be underfunded compared to their benefits. But of course, it can't be priceless (Sorry but Mastercard commercials lied to you).

There can be several back-of-the-envelope calculations. But is it worth $1,152,000 per year? and clearly this depends on how much is governance security worth in Uniswap DAO. An often discussed model is if the malicious proposal is able to hold Uniswap's $1billion+ treasury in hostage, but even we believe that's an extreme case. More reasonable case could be for example, what happens crucial voting decisions such as funding Uniswap Foundation is not meeting the quorum and has to be delayed for several months till it passes (which does happen in other DAOs). If we believe beneficial proposals can bring benefits bigger than their budgets + $1.1 mil then it can be considered as funding that's worthy.

Another way to think about is UniswapDAO's previous funded public goods. For example, DEF received over 15 million USD total from the DAO. So is DEF worth 15 years of Delegate Reward?

But also to be fair, Ironically, DAO treasury itself also can be considered public good. So maybe this should be bigger conversation on how we should we think about DAO treasury and spending.

In short, here are some of my own thoughts / recent position:

• I like the value-aligned approach of Userisky, though it could be expanded, and may be hard to come up with purely objective criteria
• I also think (against my own interest BTW) that the compensation is too high for the amount of work
• which brings to the next point, I see the DAO more as governing body, rather than a super active actor in the Uni ecosystem that should do a lot of execution on its own. This ties well with the fact that the Uni protocol has very few governance-controlled parameters. One of the highest priorities is to ensure that the delegates don't permit bad decisions to be approved
• IMO the compensation should be tied to following some general principles of the DAO. We're working on a list of such principles at the moment, let me know if you want to contribute

In sum - add more delegates that are closely aligned with the interests of the protocol, and don't shift the focus on compensation for activity on its own. (Other than voting activity, to be clear.)

As others have commented, voting on each others performance has its own problems. The way I see it, for the approach to work as intended, almost all of the voters must be unwilling to collude, not even if "innocent" ways like preferring to vote for their friends.

Traditionally, crypto protocols have had different requirements for the number/power of honest actors for the system to function properly:

• 2/3 N + 1, like in the old-school consensus protocols
• 1/2 N + 1, like in the Nakamoto consensus (with PoW)
• 1 out of N, like in an L2 that has fault proofs - only one honest validator is required

Introducing mechanisms that assume N-1 out of N honest actors seems like a regression, and almost against the crypto's ethos. I think when similar mechanisms have been tried, it hasn't ended well. We have seen protocols like EOS with voting-based delegated PoS become vulnerable to cartelization.

Moreover, even if we roll with the assumption that almost all of Uniswap's top delegates are unwilling to collude (which it may well be at the moment!):

• the DAO still could suffer reputational damage - it's almost impossible to prove that there is no collusion even if all actors are honest
• the mechanism design seems to be inviting for bad actors, who would be attracted specifically because to its weakness

An unrelated point is that designing such an anonymous voting mechanism seems like a non-trivial technical challenge on its own, especially if you'd want the usual properties like auditability and trust minimization in the operators.

Right now, delegates are blanket compensated without any guide for being "good" or "bad." If we want to encourage delegates to go above and beyond, then we're going to have to introduce a subjective element to compensation. We like to think that Uniswap delegates are robust and honest actors, and many delegates have been active for years, but you are correct that there is a possibility delegates could collude to enrich themselves.

The beauty of this program is that we can try it for one cycle, judge its performance, and modify it thereafter.

Each delegate will have their view on what outcome they want. The nice part about a simple program like this is that delegates are free to develop their own opinion on the behavior they wish to encourage.

As for the compensation model, we're open to suggestions, but we would like to highlight that the base compensation is currently $7,500 per cycle with a total program cost of $242.5K, which is $45.5K less than the current program.