[RFC] - Alastor | w3s - Create a UNI-ARB Working Group

[Stastny]

First of all big thanks for carving and delving deep into our proposal. Your detailed feedback is invaluable to us in shaping this into a significant contribution to the Uniswap DAO.

We especially acknowledge and value the depth of experience and insights you and Erikson bring from establishing the MetaMask Grants DAO at ConsenSys.

Let’s dive right into your questions - here are our responses:

@DAOstrat.C

Questions 1: Process for Establishment

We’re still trying to understand how you see this process going…

• Currently, does this RFC → Temp check establish the entire working group (WG0 + Protocol Delegates + Ecosystem Fund)
• Or are we approving only WG0’s idea and general structure of the program, then there will be further community votes on the structure of the grant program?

As you will see with some of our thoughts below, we would either like to see more oversight or multiple votes to establish the programs.

Answer 1: Process for Establishment

• The latter. This proposal aims to approve the WG0 - tasked with turning the sub-working groups of protocol delegates and ecosystem fund into reality.

This means, WG0 is tasked to:

• Propose blueprint for both sub-working groups
• Collect and implement community feedback on blueprint
• Put blueprint to vote by the community
• Run the contributors’ nomination and election process

Appreciate your push toward oversight here! We are fully aligned with having as much oversight and alignment with the community as possible - and hope to establish this with the met outlined above.

@DAOstrat.C

Question 2: On Working Group Zero

We think (unless concluded otherwise through discussion) this committee should be formed to work through considerations before the final vote for disbursement.

• From a community perspective, There is a general concern with entrusting 3-5 people with no stated oversight in establishing these groups with such a large allocation of the DAO’s ARB.
• We suggest either adding oversight or stage gating the process with community feedback.

Answer 2: On Working Group Zero

Totally hear you that entrusting 3-5 people shouldn’t be trusted with orchestrating such a big allocation.

The WG0 with 3-5 members will have no power to establish the sub-working groups. As stated in answer to Question 1, establishing these groups will transparently go through community feedback and voting. This counts for the structure of the working group as much as for the actual contributors that will be determined via a nomination and election process.

Happy to stage gate the process to mitigate any risk associated with the disbursement of capital to the Ecosystem fund (e.g., disburse parts of allocation quarterly with the achievement of OKRs of the prior “cycle”).

For the protocol delegate program, we’ll need to find a level of oversight that we all feel comfortable with (see suggestions below), as this sub-working group will need a minimum of 1M tokens to participate in governance.

@DAOstrat.C

Question 3: On Working Group Charter

The allocation of 50% of the ARB airdrop derives from where? Is there any benchmarking data or evidence to arrive at this distribution? We would like to understand the evidence-based approach to this.

If arbitrary, that is also OK; happy to discuss this further.

Answer 3: On Working Group Charter

• 1M+ for delegations comes from ARB minimum requirement, so we don’t rely on external delegators (if others decide to delegate tokens to our WG)
• 1M for grants would allow us to allocate the funds within a funding schedule so we support 20ish companies with 50k on average. It would be operationally feasible and aligns with other grant programs (Aave, MetaMask)

@DAOstrat.C

Question Set 4: On Protocol Delegates

LOVE this idea. Cross-protocol governance participation helps to support the growth and considerations of the origin and target protocols/network.

Small considerations that we ran into while establishing the OP committee:

1. What are the measures planned to ensure unbiased decision-making by Protocol Delegates?
2. What is the expected timeline for the appointment and operation of these delegates? Are there plans for time-bound appointments?

Answer 4: On Protocol Delegates

Our primary goal is to ensure that the delegates’ incentives are aligned with the interest of the Uniswap DAO and Foundation - upholding Uniswap’s core values — decentralization, security, and permissionless access — and extending them across the entire Ethereum ecosystem.

We aim to achieve this through transparency in presenting the voting options, enabling the community to challenge decision-making, and making the Uniswap Foundation part of the multisig.

1. Unbiased decision-making:

• We’ll require the committee to explain its voting rationale to the Uniswap community in detail. This is aimed to empower community members to raise their concerns and keep the decision-making process accountable and transparent.
  • The voting rationale explanation will be conducted via a standard framework and include dimensions such as impact on the Uniswap ecosystem, view on connected stakeholders, and decentralization implications, among others.
• Additionally, to protect against potential conflicts of interest, the Uniswap Foundation will retain a seat on the multisig, allowing it to intervene if the committee’s actions don’t align with Uniswap’s best interests.

2. Timeline: We propose a dynamic timeline with terms of 6 months for delegates. Delegates can be re-elected multiple times, which gives the option to reduce operational overhead. However, if any misconduct or biased decision-making is observed, community members should always have the option to challenge the existing delegates.

@DAOstrat.C

Question Set 5: Ecostem Fund

We are also curious about how the community will be involved in defining the operational details of the ecosystem fund. Some of the most challenging aspects of a grants program are the processes, thesis’, timelines, and tech stacks included. We support a working group/council structure to execute a grant for a time-bound period. If needed, this also allows for reflection, course correction, and community oversight. We would like to explore the best way to proceed on this topic.

Thinking this should be defined before deciding on the ecosystem Fund, If defining this with the community is not achievable, we should discuss what kind of oversight this process we as a community will have while establishing these details. I.e., Potential oversight from community members or the UF?

At the end of the day. Grant programs are operationally heavy, especially when these are community driven. Some of our general questions and considerations are below before fully supporting:

1. How will the Ecosystem Fund identify, evaluate, and prioritize investment opportunities through the ARB-Uniswap Grants Program?
2. How will alignment with the Uniswap-Arbitrum ecosystem’s strategic goals be ensured, and how will potential for long-term growth be assessed?
3. How many projects are anticipated to be funded with the 1.1M ARB allocation, and over what duration?
4. What is the grant application process and workflow for ecosystem fund administrators? Will specific tools (Google Forms/Airtable, Notion, Questbook) be used?
5. What is the proposed structure for the dedicated team overseeing the Ecosystem Fund, and how will their performance be evaluated? Will this team solely identify projects, or will the process be opened to other Uniswap stakeholders?
6. How do you plan to manage the challenges of rotating entire working groups due to the specific knowledge required for grant-related activities?

Answer 5: Ecosystem Fund

WG0 is tasked to create a blueprint for the sub-working groups and propose the underlying building blocks (i.e., among others processes, thesis’, timelines, and tech stacks included).

These blueprints will then be iterated together on community input.

Funds will only be allocated after the community votes to approve the ecosystem fund blueprint and the specific building blocks it contains.

Community oversight is a priority. We’re proposing strong reporting standards, and we want community members to have the ability to raise concerns. Our goal is to involve the community in the fund as much as possible while avoiding any unnecessary bureaucracy.

Once the ecosystem fund is established, we recommend distributing funds in stages. I.e., disburse 25% of the total amount every quarter, provided that OKRs of the previous quarter are met.

Being mindful, here are initial reactions to your detailed questions. Obviously would very much appreciate your learnings on these as well to make sure we’re on the right track. Most of these will be up for discussion for the community pre sub-working group set-up.

1. We’ll establish an investment policy for identifying and prioritizing opportunities in the ARB-Uniswap Grants Program.

2. The Working Group will set the ecosystem’s vision, which all sub-WGs, including those managing the fund, will adhere to.

3. We anticipate funding about 5 projects each quarter with roughly 50K ARB each, spreading the 1.1M ARB allocation across a year.

4. We’ll use Notion for tracking applications and Airtable with Plug-ins as the application platform. Obv. happy to hear about your experience if you have another favorite set-up that worked out well for you.

5. The proposed team set-up will ideally be 2 fund leads with complementary skillsets on the operational side of setting up and running the ecosystem fund, and a person more focused on domain and ideally early-stage project support expertise within these ecosystems. The rest of the working group will be reviewer positions that guarantee the flawless execution of the ecosystem fund by validating the effective work of the leads, as well as ensuring the secure and unbiased handling of funds. As for the identification of projects we are currently thinking about ways to enable the wider community to take part - happy to hear outside ideas here.

6. To manage rotation in working groups, we’ll source individuals with the right expertise for grant-related activities. We know this is easier said than done, but will focus on a rigorous nomination and election process aiming to ensure there is always the right mix of skillsets in the sub-WGs.

@DAOstrat.C

Question Set 6: Accountability

We should highlight, discuss, or consider what kind of accountability this program will provide to the community. There was also a recently established Accountability Committee found here . Could this team play a key role here? I would love to see how they can be looped into this discussion.

Some questions and thoughts:

1. What mechanisms are planned to ensure transparency and accountability in the operations of the Working Group, the Protocol Delegates, and the Ecosystem Fund?
2. Given the operational demands of running a grants program, how will the Working Group ensure they can deliver on this proposal?
3. What form of compensation is planned for these committees? Is there potential for retroactive compensation through Hypercerts?

Answer 6: Accountability

Absolutely. We think it makes a lot of sense to make the Accountability Committee part of the process for Grant decision-making. We could see them as essential part of both sub-working groups, i.e., assessing the explanations for proposed votes for the protocol delegate working group, and ensuring the credibility of projects for the Ecosystem Fund.

Wdyt @Doo_Stablelab, @kendraleong?

To answer your detailed questions.

1. We aim to ensure transparency and accountability in the Working Group’s operations through the implementation of 3-month OKRs and monthly reporting. Each report will highlight specific KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that reflect the operational effectiveness of the different entities. For instance, the Protocol Delegates’ activity might be measured by the percentage of votes conducted, whereas the Ecosystem Fund’s performance might be evaluated based on funnel metrics and investment decisions.

2. As for managing the operational demands of the grants program, we the election process to help us onboard high-quality, experienced contributors who can realistically dedicate sufficient time and energy to their roles. To ensure performance and commitment, we will initiate 3-month OKR cycles, which are publicly tracked. In case of significant underperformance, the community, being fully informed of these OKRs, can take action, including the possibility of offboarding contributors.

3. Regarding compensation, we intend to set guidelines established and approved in the Uniswap Grants Program for the Ecosystem Fund, and for the Optimism Delegate program respectively. I.e., we don’t want to make a financial case out of this, but rather compensate for the operational work hours needed in a fair manner. Generally open to considering mechanisms like Hypercerts for retroactive compensation tied to OKR achievement.