I’m Marvin Ammori, the CLO of Uniswap Labs. Since other committee members have commented somewhere publicly now, I figured I would add my voice.
For background, I spent much of my early career as a lawyer fighting for internet freedom and a more decentralized web. I lived in DC for over a decade and was privileged to work on many of the signature internet freedom cases of the era, including the net neutrality fights, some privacy and encryption fights, and some of the copyright/web 2.0 fights. And, while 20/20 hindsight is strong, the truth is we could have lost many of those fights over the internet’s future and were overwhelmingly expected to. But we won most of them.
So I saw what it takes to win. In many of these campaigns, I would help quarterback, direct, and allocate funds and resources. I even worked alongside some of the legendary engineers who helped design the initial internet protocols and across party and national lines. I have worked on policy more than most lawyers and on a bigger stage. I have put in 10,000 hours (twice over) on shaping policy and educating policy makers usually against long odds. It doesn’t mean I know everything, but it does mean I learned at least a few things the hard way. And I try to apply that every day in what I do now alongside this incredible community.
A lot of policymaking is surprising, counterintuitive, and completely bizarre. I understand why some people are confused. I also understand why people, like Matt Corva at Consensys, who have devoted so much time over five years in the policy arena, strongly support the proposal.
I support the proposal and think others should. I am reassured for several reasons:
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This money will be well-allocated. The concern over “too much” or “too little” money seems to really be a concern that money will somehow be wasted, either through incompetence or (some suggest) nepotism or worse. I know many of the people on the committee and I know they are well-suited to manage this process. There won’t be some mad dash to over-invest or misuse funds. They have expertise, are committed to the growth of this space as evidenced otherwise in their own careers, and are also bound by fiduciary obligations, which cannot be taken lightly (as these folks know). We live in a world of imperfect alternatives, but, if you are going to trust a group, I don’t think there is another group of people I would trust more to make these allocations. (If there is simply no group someone would trust, then that is a different point regarding structure and tactics.)
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We are not at the “seed fund” stage for politics. We are more like at the “Series F” stage. For those who think that the size of the proposal alone suggests mismanagement, this is simply (a fraction) of what it costs to win. Politics is sometimes an adversarial game, much like sports or litigation. If you had to beat, say, the LA Lakers at home … you can’t do it on a $2 million dollar budget. There is no point fielding a team of amateurs that will definitely lose, so you have to go big or go home. The top trade association bosses make over $2M each year (it is pretty sickening but there is often much more at stake, and democracy is better than the alternatives). Many of the most persuasive lawyers who lead teams that win these fights earn more than the average professional athlete. The proposed fund here is actually much too small to hire many of those people, but it could support the hiring of more good, hungry junior talent and a few targeted big hires–as needed on specific topics for limited hours–to field a solid team that can win consistently over time. This team could cost-effectively educate policy makers so that the community does not have too many last-minute, rushed, fire-drill, major threats. There will still be some unexpected major threats, and rebuffing those is where much of the budget will go. That cannot be easily predicted. The “seed” stage time for funding crypto policy was long ago; I was a consultant on a project for Coin Center back in 2015 and I remember having the luxury of time and seed stage budgets.
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There will be a full-time hire. Someone has suggested we should name a full-time staff member because the committee members are busy. This is a great point. This overhead is necessary and there will be a full-time staff hire for the 501(c)(4) to focus exclusively on this organization and grant proposals. There would be a process to vet, select, interview, and hire the best person for the role. Interviewing the best people, likely in DC, willing to leave their current employers … is not something that could be done publicly. But doing so is probably the best way to identify and select talent.
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We should agree to move quickly. The industry has had a bit of a grace period at least in the US. The administration change, appointment process, and hiring have given everyone about a 4 month break since the last major battle in January. This relative quiet was a happenstance … things are not going to stay quiet. Now the new administration is settled in. If this committee were funded today, it would also have to spend weeks hiring an initial staff member, reviewing proposals, analyzing strategy, etc. so that these funds are allocated the most effective way by Fall 2021. So the sooner that process could start, the more likely the industry can get ahead of some issues.
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All committee members are strongly aligned with the interests of the Defi industry. Regardless of strategic preferences and tactics, we are all on the same team and striving for a fairer, more accessible, safer future of finance. While the committee does not claim to represent the industry as a whole, the committee does include three head lawyers from some of the world’s leading Defi projects who think about and work to advance these issues every day with considerable real responsibility.
So to summarize:
- If you had worried that 1M UNI is too much to allocate effectively in the policy education process … that’s unfortunately just not the case. If this were a sports match, our side would not even be fielding enough players. To support a winning team on this field, this budget is a great start.
- If you had worried that the committee needs to prove they know how to allocate money with a small amount before being trusted with a multi-year grant and mission … you have better evidence than that. This group has demonstrated the necessary experience and expertise over many years. Plus, you simply can’t recruit busy people of this high caliber to join a committee with an ineffective, tiny amount of money. They would spend their time doing something else more effective than that committee.
- If you simply oppose having a specific group of people allocate funds, and think that there is a better way to allocate these funds to the policy process, you may be right but I doubt it. I’ve been part of many dozens of different policy efforts, all with different organizational structures. Here, a dedicated group with expertise could move most competently, most cost-effectively, and just as transparently on cost without harming the process by leaking too much of the strategy. This is a plan that would work well. Maybe another plan would work marginally more effectively, but I have not seen people put forward or coalesce around a concrete plan for a novel political grant-making structure that solves every problem without creating others–nor a structure that has any precedent for success. No plan is perfect, and you can try to poke holes in any of them, but this plan has a good chance of working. To the extent ideas emerge for new forms of political organizing, activism, or coordination, this committee should fund at least some experimental policy tactics for anyone from the community who wants to apply.
All that said, I agree with many of the suggestions.
- “Defi Defense Fund” does sound too defensive. I have been talking with the other committee members and we like the many suggestions to focus on education. We think that something like Defi Education Fund is much better. Open to better branding too.
- We agree that frequent community updates on progress, grant allocation, tactics, etc. are essential. These updates would not only ensure trust, but will also keep the community informed on when and how they can lend their voice to the process. Ensuring that policy-makers are well informed goes beyond an “inside” game and requires the participation of many more people. It is important not to waste people’s time so that they get involved in ways that have the maximum impact, at the right time, reaching out to the right policy makers. We will provide updates and, where feasible, require grantees to do the same directly.
- The committee should put out a detailed budget within 90 days of the proposal passing. Of course, budgets, projections, and 5-year plans often must be revised and amended. As Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” When there are surprise punches, as there so often have been in the policy space, we should let you know why and how funds will be reallocated to address them.
- I agree that this Fund should protect the Uniswap protocol and educate policy-makers on its benefits. It can not be a slush fund at all, let alone for any other causes. But the Uniswap protocol stands on the shoulders of giants in a complicated web of composable code. Threats or misunderstandings about unhosted wallets, cryptocurrency, Ethereum, and decentralized finance protocols will impact the potential for the Uniswap protocol, so they must be considered. As a matter of strategy, much of the funding may go to supporting and educating policy makers about these lego pieces to protect the Uniswap protocol.
- As noted above, I totally agree on a full-time hire.
I hope people find my views as useful as I have others’ and I look forward to continued discussion.