I fucking hate governance.
For one, it’s expensive. If there are ~1,000 participants that put in on average ~10 hours reading/thinking/talking/debating this, and their time is worth on average ~$100/h, then so far this proposal has cost the community $1M.
In this specific case, the outcome is also fairly zero-sum, in that 1) it doesn’t create any wealth for UNI holders, it 2) takes UNI from the treasury that could be spent on other things, and 3) gives it to folks who will likely sell it, probably having a small negative price impact.
I’m inclined to vote NO, mostly selfishly, but also because I think “redistribution of wealth” is basically the absolute worst possible norm to set in governance. The obvious failure mode to avoid is UNI holders voting to give themselves the remaining UNI treasury (or alternatively, giving it only to those who vote YES).
However, if we vote NO, there’s basically nothing stopping Dharma from continuing to do propose this, just like how Polkadot shills tried to infiltrate Ethereum governance [LINK BELOW] to pass EIP999 and recover the $100M+ they got stuck. And given that Dharma has $15M on the line… ugh.
So here’s my compromise proposal. I will vote YES (and encourage others to do the same) if and only if:
THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE LAST FUND RECOVERY EVER.
What I want to see is basically everyone who is in support of this proposal also promise that they will never support another retroactive UNI distribution for as long as they live (and hold UNI). That doesn’t mean abstaining on some future redistribution, that means actively assembling the squad and shooting that shit down. If the supporters of this proposal and the community can rally to establish the norm of NO MORE RETROACTIVE UNI DISTRIBUTION, then I think this proposal is not as bad.
If not enough of the supporters of this proposal signal as I described above, I will vote NO and encourage everyone else to do so as well, EVERY SINGLE TIME THIS PROPOSAL COMES UP, until Dharma gives up.
I’ve spent more time than I care to admit fighting ProgPOW exactly because it’s a zero-sum redistribution of wealth that favors special interests, and because if that shit passes it will erode my and many other ETH stakeholders’ faith in ETH governance as it would demonstrate to us that the core devs are captured.
Let’s try to avoid these kinds of governance quagmires for Uniswap.
I’ll conclude by saying that I think the Dharma squad is chill and has good ETH vibes, so if we can get norm right they are probably at the top of the list in terms of being aligned community members. There could be much worse potential recipients for this grant.
[LINK] twitter .com /rzurrer/status/1103627204250877953