I’m a researcher and consultant fascinated with the Uniswap protocol.
My approach for the DAO governance is to look at the data (where possible) before making any decisions, and aim to increase the robustness, decentralization, sustainability, and transparency of the Uniswap’s ecosystem and its governance. My aspiration is that both the Uniswap protocol and the DAO should be models for the rest of this industry.
I’d support
Cautious progress with the fee switch, with slow rollout and carefully designed experiments.
Creating committees and focused groups within the DAO for specific tasks, similar to the Deployments Accountability Committee.
Limited spend on funding initiatives and friendly forks. Only support initiatives that clearly benefit the protocol ecosystem. Public goods funding is important, but keeping Uniswap credibly neutral and sustainable is more important.
Measures that add more transparency & accountability to the UF and its grants.
Why me?
I’m deeply familiar with the technical aspects of Uniswap, and have been involved in its ecosystem since 2021. My articles on the topic include:
I have some real-world governance experience as the chairman of the scientific council in my research institute (from May 2021 to December 2023), and a solid reputation and professional accomplishments in my career outside of crypto (>1500 academic citations for my work, h-index above 20).
Last but not least, my potential conflicts of interest are minimal, as I am not professionally affiliated with any other DeFi companies, protocols or DAOs, aside from owning a small company of my own that assists and advises DeFi protocols, working mostly within the Uniswap ecosystem.
In my view, LPs are the most important stakeholders in the Uniswap’s ecosytem. Without LPs there’s no liquidity, and without liquidity there’s no trading. In order to make DeFi competitive with centralized exchanges, the LP experience and opportunities must be improved. Furthermore, this must be done in a way that keeps the door open for retail and passive LPs, ensuring that democratic and decentralized participation remains an option.
1. Complete initial funding of the UF Vote: Yes, fund UF Summary: The Uniswap Foundation is doing a good job, and is critically required for the Uniswap ecosystem, essentially serving as the executive arm of the DAO. While some aspects are less-than-optimal in their funding proposal in my opinion, I appreciate its general direction and their willingness to adjust to feedback.
2. UADP Team Election Vote: Abdullah Umar - @Michigan Blockchain Summary: Abdullah’s experience and thoughtfulness make him a very suitable candidate.
3. UAGP Team Election Vote: Nneoma_StableLab, Honn, JoJo, Sov Summary: My decision was based on carefully reading the candidates profiles and on information about their previous roles.
4. Temperature Check - [Issue a Visa Card with Uniswap Logo ] Vote: Abstain Summary: The intellectual property belongs to the Uniswap Labs; the DAO should not vote on such matters.
5. [Temperature Check]: Invest in Ekubo Protocol Vote: No change Summary: Interesting proposal that I wanted to like but could not. Concerns are related to the general lack of investments strategy for the DAO, lack of details required for proper due diligence in this particular case, and high FDV of the future token.
6. [Temperature Check]: Delegation of UNI to Active but Underrepresented Delegates Vote: For Summary: In favor, hoping it will increase the participation of the delegates in voting and help to decentralize the DAO.
7. Deploy Uniswap V3 on Scroll Vote: For Summary: Scroll is an emerging L2 with a good potential and Ethereum alignment. It has a trustless native bridge which will be used for message passing.
1. [Temperature Check] Uniswap Deployments Accountability Committee Competition Vote: All (with different weights) Summary: I think it was impossible to go wrong with this candidate selection. I voted for all, but slightly prioritized those already with experience in the committee and others that I perceived more experienced in coordinating with the chains.
2. Lower Onchain Proposal Threshold Vote: Yes Summary: Will help to decentralize the DAO while keeping the risks minimal.
3. Deploy Uniswap v3 on Rootstock (Bitcoin Sidechain)
Vote: Yes Summary: In general, I’ve started to favor deploying Uniswap on all chains unless there are significant concerns. DeFi on Bitcoin is an emerging area with high growth potential, and the liquidity incentives provided by the chain are appreciated.
4. [Temperature Check] Uni Onboarding Package Vote:$250k for most, with Against for BSC and Abstain for Blast and Taiko. Summary: Why support: to be clear of the goals of this package, I perceive it is as relatively low-cost package, with the main objective to increase Uniswap’s market share. For that prioritizing the newer chains with smaller incentive amounts makes sense. The investments are only somewhat data-driven, both because many of the chains are simply too new to have reliable trends in their historical data, and because most of the benefits are expected to show up from the future growth of these chains. The initial amount of $250k can be increased later on if the program appears to successful, especially if the chains match this amount in their own incentives, or similar. Why Against or Abstain:
BSC is an established chain where Uniswap has been present for significant duration and failed to establish a notable market share. If (and that’s a big if) the DAO thinks it needs to change this situation, a more data-driven approach like the one Gauntlet is doing with Arbitrum would be more suitable, rather than just throwing money at the chain.
On a different note, since Blast and Taiko are not in the mainnets yet, or even audited yet, so I think it’s premature to allocate anything at this point.
Uniswap Revitalization and Growth Proposal Vote: For Summary: After some deliberation I decided to support the initiative package. It will strengthen the Uniswap’s market position on newer chains, reward and align important Uniswap ecosystem players (GFX Labs and Merkl), and help to move away from the Labs UI as the only option. It’s not perfect and the process felt rushed, but would be good to get the ball rolling, and hopefully the DAO will be open to future improvements in the package.
Vote: For. Initially (in 2023) had some concerns related to the deployment & maintenance costs (e.g. documentation, integration) and the potential for it to steal the focus from Uniswap v4. However, after looking at the empirical LP performance (good results) and trading popularity of the v2 deployment on the mainnet, I changed my opinion, and now fully support deploying v2 along v3.
Vote: Yes, Upgrade the Factory Owner. An epic proposal! I’m broadly supportive of it, and can only agree that the preparation work is excellent. At the same time, I do have concerns related to LPs. The needs of UNI stakers should be balanced with the needs of the LPs. LP interests should be more widely represented in the DAO voting, otherwise we have a situation where there’s taxation without sufficient representation.
Vote: For. I’m happy to see this proposal and strongly support the idea of diversifying/derisking the treasury as soon as the legal concerns are alleviated. It makes sense to do this regardless of whether we think about it from the mark-to-market value’s perspective ($6 billion) or from the unissued shares perspective.
Vote: Deploy, with $500k in incentives as recommended in the proposal, to match the contribution of Sei. It will certainly be interesting to observe whether the rapid finality and short block times Sei advertises significantly affect empirical metrics such as execution quality and LP profits.
Vote: Update Process. I agree with streamlining of the process. Most of the last year’s on-chain Uniswap DAO votes have been for new deployments, which is not an insignificant overhead (including gas fee costs) to the delegates, and in most cases the DAO is already rubber-stamping the deployment accountbility committee’s recommendations. It’s crucial that there’s a challenge period kept to escalate the deployment for vote if there are some issues.
Karpatkey - because they undeniably are experts in treasury management.
Steakhouse Financial - because they have the expertise, I liked their “Benchmarks and performance attribution for DAO treasuries” report, and see some merit in the argument to keep it all on-chain for transparency.
404DAO - because their application shows high professionalism and relevant expertise.
nathanvdh - because he can be more impartial as an unaffiliated individual, and he correctly stresses the risks of frontrunning.
JoJo - because he has the relevant experience, and because has concrete and convincing ideas for utilizing the treasury.
Vote: For. This vote is in line with the Sei’s, Manta’s, Taiko’s, and Moonbeam’s onboarding packages that have passed the temperature checks. Sei’s deployment includes $500k in LP incentives (since they’re promised to be matched by the chain), the others $250k in LP incentives.
Votes: Against + Abstain. The DEF does seem to be doing a good job, however, I voted against this request as asking for public goods funding, and my delegate statement clearly says that I don’t believe the Uniswap DAO should fund public goods. This is both due to neutrality issues, and because these days DEXes have relatively small profit margins, especially compared with L1/L2 projects. Additionally, for someone not based in the US, it’s difficult to evaluate the cost effectivenes. Grant-based approach with clear milestones and requirements, including increased transparency and reporting, would be a better option; funding the current request may send a bad signal on the thoroughness of the DAO with their funds. Contrary to some comments in the forum, I disagree very strongly with the attitude that the DAO should pay talented individuals whatever they ask for, since it has “a treasury of 4 billion”. I abstained in the “Options” proposal since it was not clear if the DEF would accept the different terms and amount.
Vote: Yes, Proceed. I support the program as an initial 3 month experiment, hopefully as a something from which lessons can be learned and more iterations made in the future. Delegate compensation is important, however, ultimately, I’d expect some better solutions over the hard problems presented by such as scheme, such as the conflicts of interest, selection of the “best” delegates for the DAO, and dealing with the overall issues created by the “1 token – 1 vote” governance.
Vote: Deploy without incentives. In general there is little to lose by deploying Uniswap on any legitimate chain. Since the TVL on Redstone is low at the moment, deploying the LP incentives is premature.
Voted, in the order of preferences: $750k – $500k – $1M – $250k – Do Not Fund
The funds will mostly be used for a Gauntlet-run liquidity mining program. So far, Gauntlet-operated v3 LM programs have seen mixed success. Some pools were able to take market share away from competitors, and in most pools, the incentives facilitated more liquidity and resulted in swap execution at better prices. On the other hand, LPs were perhaps less forgetful than we hoped for, and typically didn’t keep their liquidity in the pool after the incentives ended. Nevertheless, Arbitrum has been great for Uniswap and DeFi in general, and it would be fair to pay back some of that by contributing to the LP incentives.
Regarding the amount, the idea would be to try to match Arbitrum’s contribution at a 50:50 ratio. At the time of the voting, the price of ARB was around $0.80, meaning that Arbitrum’s contribution would be around $800k. From the options, $750k was the closest fit.