We think it’s worth considering moving polling onchain and simultaneously reforming the governance process to make proposing proposals more accessible. We proposed a solution in December for the community’s consideration.
Historically, polling has been an important piece of the governance process at Uniswap. However, because the polling is off-chain, it isn’t a required step of the governance process and is only socially enforced. For example, GFX Labs could instantly make an on-chain governance proposal, and so long as it reached the required 40m votes in favor, it would execute. We wouldn’t do that because it’s not socially acceptable, and we don’t want to damage our reputation, but it’s best to unambiguously codify what are and are not rules when possible.
Additionally, we’re aware of several funds that utilize custodians and thus cannot participate in off-chain votes such as Snapshot.
In conversation with the Foundation, we proposed the idea of bringing polling on-chain, making polling a requirement to the governance process, and enabling all parties to participate in votes. Effectively, this would be a junior and senior governance structure.
The junior governor would have its own proposal requirements and could feature a lower proposal threshold and quorum threshold. Upon success, the proposal could be passed onto the senior governor, likely requiring a higher quorum threshold to be executed.
In addition to the benefits already listed above, there would be a third primary benefit. This setup could be used to lower the proposal threshold significantly, making governance more accessible, while maintaining the security of the DAO. For example, the proposal threshold for the junior governor contract could be set to 100k and have a quorum of 10m. Improving upon the existing 2.5m threshold. However, only a proposal that achieves a 10m quorum would proceed to the senior governor, where the execution would occur if it reached the full 40m.
For those who are familiar with Community Autonomous Proposals (CAPs), which allow individuals without the necessary votes to make miniature-like proposals, this system would be a massive improvement. CAPs were unsuccessful at gaining traction because they require votes to be delegated, which is unrealistic when votes cannot be relegated.
If voters are interested in seeing this, we could formalize the structure and apply for a grant to develop and implement the new smart contracts.
Since our December post, we developed the next iteration of the Community Autonomous Proposals (CAPs), the Community Proposal Factory (CPF) . We could utilize this work and directly integrate it into the protocol’s governance process. Alternatively, Uniswap governance could authorize additional approved methods for conducting temperature checks, such as utilizing a CPF. If the community is interested in either of the options, we would be happy to pursue them further.
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