just I quick follow up question regarding this proposal and its execution
Was there any publicly available information (cannot find in any threads) about how the DEFI fund would release UNI tokens to the market. imho this should be a standard for anyone received funding from uniswap, to include an outline of future allocation of funds
what was the reasoning behind using genesis trading to swap 500 000 UNI for USDC, not using the uniswap exchange, from what I see there is $60mil locked in 0.3% USDC/UNI pair, I understand fee slippage is around 4.5% for such big trade, but it could easily be mitigated by swapping smaller amounts over longer period of time, thus avoiding further sell pressure, yeah I also understand and respect that you are not obligated to answer this, since funding has already been issued and it should be non of my concern on how you allocated your funds, but would really appreciate if you could clarify
Itâs been called to our attention that you previously worked at Digital Currency Group and Genesis Trading is owned by Digital Currency Group. Given the lack of transparency, several folks believe it would be helpful to understand the following:
How did the DeFi education fund select Genesis?
What was the pricing of the trade?
If you solicited other quotes in a competitive bid, what the quotes were (vs that of Genesis)? If you did not solicit other quotes, why you did not
To my understanding, OTC trades do not affect market prices. If the 500k UNI trade took place on Uniswap, that would drive the price of UNI down significantly. It would also allow MEV bots to have a go at front running the trade.
As an immediate first-order impact, no, they are âoff marketâ. But there are a bunch of secondary effects â every buy and sell impacts the market in some way, even those done privately.
It appears that the DeFi education has already started! How to NOT fund a grant through UNI governance proposals. Can the DeFi Education Fund please explain why they needed to sell/trade 500k UNI (about $10m) with such haste? I was surprised that this happened before a budget came out.
âThe 501(c)(4) will issue a detailed budget within 90 days of the proposal passing. Budgets, projections, and 5-year plans often must be revised and amended.â
What this âEducationâ Fund is trying to achieve and how it tries to achieve is way too broad. There are no explanations on how $20m will be spent and what the interests of this funds are. We see a lot of large VC interests at play but we fail to see what they stand for or what they seek (besides the obvious which is money). I donât believe they act in good faith or for DeFi greater good, I believe they will act to defend their own interests which are extremely large stakes in large protocols like Uniswap, Compound and MakerDAO.
What is this fund going to be lobbying for exactly? This is a genuine question which hasnât been clearly answered and I read bullet points about creating educational content but I see a committee full of corporate counsel for large protocols (Compound, Uniswap and AAVE).
I think a similar project like this could have success. A more clear roadmap, and team with a solid track record can make this work. But after learning more, sounds like this one was a clear failure, doesnât look good on the school.
Original Post 1/21/21
New to this platform and DeFi in general. Curious about the current state of this proposal as well. But here are my thoughts after reading this:
Transparency & education is definitely needed in this ânew waveâ. Thereâs several fraud cases, scams, misunderstandings etc. in this space which can be discouraging to those venturing into DeFi. Those elements donât reflect the practical application, and true potential decentralization has in the world of finance.
I think this proposal will help create solutions towards that problem; giving people more control over their wallets & funds. Itâs also geared towards benefiting UniSwap, the consumers, and governance long-term. I believe similar policies will branch out to influence other DeFi companyâs moves in finance & tech.
Well, the idea of the DeFi Fund is a good one and yes, it does exist, but the execution of the proposal was truly a sight to behold. Extreme carnage, disarray, and amateurism
Half of the UNI that was awarded was sold into a multi sig wallet for operating expenses in USDC (sell price around $17-20 according to transaction date):
Which was a good decision to do at the time considering the market down turn.
It looks like around $1.5 million has been cashed out to centralized exchanges in the last 136 days, I assume for operating expense, and awarding grants out to policy efforts.
The twitter for the Defi Education Fund is here (which also has the website for grants, similar to the UGP):
Happy to see the new form of thinktanks emerging for DeFi with more power and support from the community. We have a long way to go in created a DeFi friendly global ecosystem
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