Announcing Dharma's Intention to Propose the Retroactive UNI Distribution

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This thread is helping me appreciate why the Roman Republic capitulated to an Empire, forcefully ending 500 years of a representative democracy. I feel the same urge as Caesar right now. How awfully centralist of me.

The protracted debate is hurting all sides at this point. Once dug in, humans are unlikely to change their mind. We are predisposed and wired for confirmation bias. As much as i enjoy hearing the @reluctantdelagate reluctantly campaigning that VC-backed bad guys don’t deserve to support their users, the circular argument has run its course. The bottom-line is that if you have heavily invested in crypto-anarchist ideologies like decentralized governance, anything that smacks of money or power will be mercilessly suppressed. The alternative is to participate in a rational debate, and to walk away feeling like both parties gained through compromise. So, if it must be rhetoric, then i would recommend we lock the debate and go to a vote, and put this to bed. There is enough material here to make an informed decision, and to write a plethora of articles entitled “Uniswap drama…”. They have already begun.

And please stop claiming this is about protecting the interests of the ‘little guy’ and ensuring the integrity of the decentralized governance process. The little guys who want to participate in governance with their own UNI, or the little guys that are having a tough time makings ends meet, are not getting well served here. In fact, the few that make it to these forums get overrun with disservice from our members who claim they are being ‘greedy’ and ‘dishonest’. It’s no wonder we never hear from them again. Are we ambassadors of a powerful DeFi brand called Uniswap or are we the governance mob?

Our job here is NOT to put Dharma on trial for crimes we INSIST they committed.

Our job here is to decide if we want to retroactively ASSIST uniswappers who happened to get caught out because they used a proxy client. Uniswappers or LPs that CONTRIBUTED their hard earned capital to our ecosystem and collective wealth.

Everything else is theatre and virtue-signaling. I get it. For some here it’s ‘fun’ (direct quote). Let’s just go to a vote. Stick to the facts presented in the proposal. We can argue who’s dogma is better in the ‘meta-governance’ section.

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Ah, I was expecting you, personal attacks. Welcome to the fray.

Your conspiracy theory about me forming conspiracy theories would make total sense… if what I said hadn’t been true.

If you knew how tech businesses worked, you’d know that Dharma stands to greatly benefit from this airdrop.

Generating this kind of good will could provide user retention & reactivation benefits that far outweigh even the value of the airdrop itself.

Active users will be more likely to build a stronger relationship with Dharma as a result of this “battle” that they’ve engaged in to win wealth for their users. The stories that will be told after this magnificent war will rival those told about King Arthur and Excalibur.

Dharma has been around for a while, and likely has a number of lapsed users. Companies are constantly trying to figure out how to reactivate users who have stopped using their product. An airdrop is a wonderful way to bring people back to the product after having stopped using it for months or years.

Once there are more active users, the valuation on the company magically goes up. Because of this, Dharma’s investors would love to see the airdrop happen.

These are not conspiracy theories. This is how technology businesses work.

Sadly, none of this even matters because Dharma and it’s powerful associates have more than enough voting power to vote this into reality without any of the community being necessary. Including you, @monet-supply. Your role as a delegate is absolutely meaningless in this context. Sure, they’ll let other delegates vote in favor of the proposal and feel like they are playing a major role. But it’s simply platitudes. If they want to win, they can win. They have the votes.

Is that what you signed up for? If yes, then you can go ahead and support this plan. But if you believe that users such as you and I should be able to play some role in what this governance system will look like over the coming months and years, then the time to push back on these kind of governance takeovers - the kind that allows ten whales to override the will of thousands of users.

By the way, I make about $175/month off YouTube ads and not much else. Thanks for reminding me of how little money I have right now. Cheers.

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Dharma is using Uniswap underneath, correct?

Did Dharma get tokens for their users in the initial drop?

If not, where did those tokens allocated to those users go?

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Good point, Dharma directly influences their own valuation through a vote lead by its founders. If this were to be a user focused proposal, then shouldn’t Dharma release or make a promise to having new features deployed (voting capabilities and limit orders) and developed before receiving an airdrop?

This would show goodwill to make good on promises without a no guarantee UNI treasure payout.

Shouldn’t Dharma users be entitled to an enhanced product day 1 of receiving the UNI airdrop?

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I agree with what you’ve said, and I’ve changed my mind. I’m pro Phase-1 proposal.

It is a low price to pay to not leave anyone behind.

I do think that application integrations users do qualify as Uniswap users.
(Fwiw, I don’t think Dex aggregator users do)

Even though airdropping is an inefficient way of UNI distribution in the vacuum, it does make sense to reward users evenly.

==

On a side note, I think Dharma does a poor job of signaling its stances, intentions, and actions. If more transparency were to be brought, the communication would get much easier.

For example, instead of telling people that the votes were delegated, Dharma can simply let the community know the number of votes that it delegated to itself.

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If you’ve been in the crypto space long enough, you’d know volumes mean jack shit - most of them are blown out of proportion and manipulated (wash trading, arbitrage, etc.)

Order books matter. Open up binance and look at the order book of UNI token. You think 12 million wouldn’t impact the price “that much”? Think again.

As I’ve stated before. This airdrop is useless. If somebody wants to use Uniswap - they will use it because of its advantages (many tokens listed, great liquidity, etc.). An airdrop won’t make users come and use it, rather it just gives money out of thin air, and EVERY UNI token holder will PAY for it.

Good luck to everyone. Congrats to Dharma devs if this proposal is passed - I’m certain they’ll get rich from the many addresses they have under Dharma (because I assume its natural to test your own product with multiple wallets, etc.)

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Great response Chris.

Yeah, i’m sorry for being heavy on the rhetoric. There is a fine line between criticizing someone’s ideas and not their person, and i always try to remain on the correct side. I respect the fact that you are empowering our community with the tools to navigate this crazy, and ludicrously risky, DeFi space. I also acknowledge that you aren’t becoming fabulously wealth doing so. Despite how much i cringe hearing your philosophical stance at times, i do find myself enjoying the content you provide. (advice: i think the 60 sec countdown timer is a tad long - once yes - every time?)

Yes! and Yes! I’ve worked in Tech for 20 years. From large (Accenture) to medium (Logitech / Kobo) to extremely small startups (20 ppl or less). Account acquisition and retention killed a few of those initiatives and people went home without jobs eventually. I understand what ‘sweat equity’ feels like as i coerced a team of friends to work on a gaming company for 1 year, before giving up. The user is all that matters in today’s world.

I get it. Painfully so. In fact, executive teams are starting to rethink organizational behaviour, and corporate strategy in this new world. This idea that we have to moat ourselves off from the competition and live in our walled garden, is dying. MBAs no longer drive strategy with their tired conventional roadmaps. Execs are now building and developing eco-systems, because they understand that a strong community of partners leads to greater success for themselves. In this strategic model, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Crypto partially grew out of a disenfranchisement with traditional approaches to financial and social governance, and the irony is that many of us have dug in so deeply we are unable to see the non-crypto space shifting dramatically around us.

Crypto/blockchain tech has less than 1% adoption worldwide. If we cannibalize ourselves, we will struggle to achieve coherence. If instead we treat this as a broader community, and without all the enmity, we have something more noble to work on. Dharma is a partner, a friend, not a self-serving VC backed whale. If you want to know what a whale looks like, just watch what FB does with Libra, or Google when they start bulldozing this space like a bull in a china shop. We’ll be scrambling to make friends then.

We have to be careful with this logic. If you have at least 1 UNI, are you not part of the community? So, if you have 1 Million UNI, does it not retain your community status? And, what court or what type of governance is going to ‘flip’ your switch from community member to whale? Where is the threshold? If you happen to acquire 10 Million delegated UNI, should we not flip your switch to ‘whale’ then and by the same logic? These are ideological concerns that we often forget to consider, especially when our own solutions force us to violate those ideals. You see, the rush to diminish power requires us to grab that same power to make it an even fight. History is littered with examples to illustrate why that never works. Appeals to “well… i will govern by the grace and will of the people!” are a historical cliche. It doesn’t mean you should not run as delegate, or be wildly successful at it. It only prompts an inner dialog around the contradictions between ‘means’ and ‘ends’ that every leader faces.

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This is where we differ in our thinking.

Every company operating in DeFi, including Dharma, puts their business survival ahead of principles of decentralization… as they should! A smart business will scrape & claw at whatever is necessary to be able to survive… whether it’s grabbing power to vote for an airdrop to its users, or soliciting support from its investors & strategic partners to be able to do so.

This is not a bad thing for business. However, this fact should preclude any of these businesses from being trusted in a “decentralized” governance setting. Not just UNI governance, but any governance claiming to be decentralized.

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That’s fair. I would say it is essential to differ in opinion. That’s where innovation lives. You are helping me see DeFi and governance differently from before.

Systems are reinforcing loops - positive and negative. Everything is interconnected and co-dependent.

Strong business models --> happy wealthy users.
happy wealthy users --> demand greater decentralized governance
greater decentralized governance --> erodes strong business models
weakened business models --> sad poor users

I exaggerate of course, and it doesn’t always happen this way, but nevertheless, we are not allowed to presume linear causal relationships.

decentralized governance --> everyone is happy

Our job is to find that perfect compromise where ‘users’ are happy, and the businesses who serve them are ‘successful’. Governance in this model is like the runt in a litter. It feels out of place.

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Decentralization is never efficient, profitable or easy. It’s always difficult.

The idea of decentralization is not to make anyone happy. It’s simply to remove as much centralized power as possible. This should result in a very tenuous, difficult, leaderless situation. That’s what decentralization is about. Decentralization should be very uncomfortable.

Businesses will always find it extremely difficult or impossible to operate in a truly decentralized way. That is by design.

For these reasons, I cannot call Uniswap governance “decentralized” yet. Even at this nascent stage, it’s seeking comfort by trending toward centralization. This is why I’m pushing back.

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@chrisblec and @0age – where are you guys finding this information?

ie, composition of delegations by individual contribution

@0age – It is absolutely imperative and immensely relevant to understand how and why a given voting bloc is composed. Consider the impact of dark money in the American political system. We have the (potential) ability to be radically transparent in our governance. Why shy away from exercising it?

@chrisblec – please source this “discovery”. Is there any indication of who owns the addresses that comprise the 98%? @nadav_dharma, @brendan_dharma: as the folks behind the delegation, where is Dharma’s vote count coming from?

Unfortunately, DAO governance such as it exists now is inherently plutocratic. While unique voter totals are useful in informing us on user sentiment, it is the richest holders who have the most impact. I find the argument that Dharma has “the most” unique users after Univalent or Gauntlet… to be less than compelling. We have 3 large delegations. So, of those, it’s the least decentralized both in user count, and apparently, in composition (viz a viz 4 addresses with 98% of UNI).

Again, I’m interested to see some sources for these claims. I’ll look to spin up a Dune dashboard when I get some spare time.

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This Dune Analytics query allows you to see each delegator and to whom they delegated.

Column e1 is the delegate (just add the 0 to the front to get an ETH address).
Column e2 is the delegator (again, add 0).

I suggest descending sorting by “value” column to see the largest delegates.

You can cross-reference with delegate names (where known) here.

Pls note that I didn’t create the query. Just been using it as a resource.

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If UNI holders( Farmed or Bought) doesn’t benefit from any proposal, I won’t give a yes to it. The last airdrop benefited majority who don’t even have any UNI in their Trust Wallet or other DeFi wallet anymore. Let’s be guided. I truth the governance.

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No, this address would not receive more UNI from this proposal. This proposal excludes all addresses that already received UNI.

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Thanks for replying
I support your proposal :+1:

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If Dharma really wants to help/guide/lead uniswap governance why is it first focusing on proposals about airdrops? Shouldn’t there be other priorities? What are the next proposals that Dharma wants to propose? And if you have more proposals, why must the airdrop be first? You would probably have less resistance to this airdrop proposal if Dharma had already proposed something that does not involve Dharma directly… call it a show of good faith.

If Dharma really has the votes from the uniswap dev team, i think that should be clear. Although i would much prefer that uniswap dev team represented itself, i would prefer to have benevolent dictator for this early stages of governance then, than this show of influences.

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Thank you for that Sir.

This airdrop will really help 12k new users.

I just don’t understand why users who got free tokens oppose something like this.

And…

I ask all the UNi holders Big whale or small guys please do support.

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dharma is for the crypto newbs tbh. y’all be saying ugh corporations… blah blah… but the proposed additional distro goes to the users the same way as the initial distro. if u love uni so much then buy the uni that goes on sale from newbie sell pressure after dharma user distro if passed. like this is a no lose proposal but ppl tryna shape weird narratives…

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:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::handshake:

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I am surprised that you have such an issue with the phase 1 airdrop. Phase 2 I can see where the frustration may come.from as the user base is so high, but phase 1 is people who (myself included) knowingly used Uniswap through Defi Saver on the smart wallet with their boost and repay features, and am now being punished for what was originally a developer oversight.

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