[RFC] - Supporting Tally’s Continued Development and Enhancements for Uniswap DAO Governance

Requests for Comment
21

@AbdullahUmar - We would prefer to be paid at the start of each quarter. The funds of this proposal go directly into salaries and operational costs which are paid out in real time, so it’s important. The Uniswap Accountability Committee would be responsible for holding us accountable and we will provide metrics and reports so they clearly understand our progress.

Some future feature requests may surpass the current budget or simply cost more than anticipated. In such an event, would Tally return to the DAO with a revised budget or a one-off grant?

Excellent question: It’s very possible there will be feature requests that exceed our ability to implement within the scope of this document. In this case we would build a comprehensive proposal and implementation plan with budget to present to the DAO as a separate scope.

@justErik - Happy to address any specific questions. Tally services the entire DAO ecosystem, we’re not an exclusive tool and indeed many of the delegates here use our tool across many DAOs. Uniswap Foundation funds several other tools, including VC backed tools. This is the first time Tally is requesting funding and we’re really excited to create a relationship with the community.

22

Thanks @dennisonb for the RFC. Tally has been instrumental to Uniswap’s governance infrastructure, and we unequivocally support this proposal. However, to maximize value for both parties, several critical points must be addressed:

  1. Annual $250k Budget Verification
    • Tally must provide detailed cost breakdowns including developer headcount, time allocation, and monthly subscription costs and KPIs such as usage rate for each development function.
    • Based on our Optimism Grant Council experience, implementing an RFP process that clearly defines Uniswap DAO’s requirements would ensure optimal fund allocation and fairness.
  2. Exclusivity Concerns
    • The proposal should address whether the functionality funded by
      Uniswap will be provided to other DAOs. The features that become widely available requires clear justification.

Given Tally’s proven track record in advancing Uniswap governance, we advocate establishing a sustainable funding framework to ensure their continued partnership. Their expertise remains valuable, but funding decisions must align with proper governance protocols.

2 Likes
23

As many DAO delegates have written previously, Tally has become an indispensable service provider for our daily tasks on on-chain voting, and we’re fully supportive of this funding request.

However, we do share some of the “multi-dipping” considerations that other delegates have mentioned. Can we have more clarity on approximately how many other DAOs Tally seeks to ask for funding and the overall distribution? I also second Tane’s suggestion that it would also be great to understand how “exclusive” the Uniswap DAO funds are to Tally’s development on Uniswap vs. DAOs in general.

3 Likes
24

We voted in favour of this snapshot proposal, although we have some concerns that we believe should be resolved before the onchain vote. You can read our rationale in our delegation thread:

1 Like
25

@SEEDGov @Tane @jayyu23

We would like to persuade you to support this proposal as a service agreement for software that we have built and will continue to develop, rather than as a grant or RFP. Meaning: we would like to be evaluated on the value we provide.

We firmly believe that in order for DAO’s to succeed we need the economics of building the best tooling to work, and that involves eventually building a business that can at the very least sustain itself. We prefer if the proposal is evaluated on the question of “Is Tally worth this amount? Do they drive this much value?”. If the value we are providing the Uniswap community is not evident, I would encourage delegates to vote “no” on our proposal as clearly we have failed in our attempt to build valuable software.

About us: In general we are about 15 people, mostly engineers. We pay folks health insurance, family leave (5 teammates have started families since joining Tally), state mandated unemployment insurance, legal bills, and taxes. Engineers rotate between building new features, refactoring software, security testing, and doing research and development on new feature ideas. Non-engineers work in customer management, client services, planning and sales. As the UF and other delegates can attest, we sometimes spend many hours working directly with delegates on crafting proposals and reviewing executable code. The fee we’re requesting equates to about $20k per month, which to put into perspective, is far less than the salary of a single senior level software engineer in the United States. (Yes I know some parts of the world are cheaper, but senior engineers are valuable everywhere, and again, the team that builds Tally is based in the USA).

I firmly support an RFP process, but we’re making a separate pitch here: we build many of these features for DAOs because we think they are valuable. We invest our own time and resources to do the research and pay for development. Because we are a platform and serve many orgs, we can be independent and build great software for everyone, and enable many of the delegates here to effectively operate across the ecosystem with the same great tools.

Our focus on building a business we think will also lead to better DAO outcomes (we think it already has!). Despite Uniswap funding numerous DAO interfaces (Including Agora at nearly the same price as we are requesting, and Sybil which is no longer used), Tally remains the most feature rich and popular tool in Uniswap, and the ecosystem at large.

This is all to say, I recognize your concern on ensuring funds are spent well. I would ask you to take a look at Tally, its contributions to the Uniswap ecosystem, and the wider Ethereum ecosystem, and DAOs in general, and support this proposal on the basis that it’s providing the value we think it is.

Exclusivity:

Many of the features we build and distribute to everyone in the ecosystem, we believe strongly that a “rising tide raises all boats”.

The Uniswap DAO has never asked us not to share work we’ve developed with any other DAO, and currently Uniswap benefits from a large number of features originally developed for other teams. I’m not clear why the Uniswap DAO would want to prevent another DAO from using features that they developed. The Uniswap DAO isn’t in competition with any other DAO.

If the DAO wants to prevent another team from using something we custom develop, that can certainly be part of a custom scope agreement, but again, this service agreement would support us continuing to support Uniswap and bring it new features that are on our roadmap. These features on our roadmap are intended to help the entire ecosystem grow and prosper.

@jayyu23 - “multi-dipping”

As we move towards being a business that is self-sustaining, we will eventually offer a paid service tier to all of our communities. To be clear, no one client of Tally actually covers anywhere near the total operational cost of Tally. We’re endeavoring to get there, but we’re not there yet. We already have enterprise agreements with a number of DAOs, and for the teams with whom we don’t, we will be creating proposals directly to their DAOs.

26

Gauntlet has voted in favor of the Snapshot. Tally has been an invaluable tooling provider in the DAO space for years. That said, we do believe KPIs and Deliverables are important to any grant. We also understand it’s difficult to foresee what development priorities will arise. Still, the more specific the scope of any grant, the easier it will be to ensure the DAO receives appropriate services.

An additional area we’d love to see Tally explore is the front-end integration of the greater DAO tooling stack. The UAC integration is a great example, but it’s an encouraging vision for future integrations to have immediate financial support, whether it’s tooling in treasury management, grant programs, administration, or offchain voting.

Tally certainly has the potential to serve as a decentralized “operational hub” for Uniswap beyond just voting; as more onchain solutions become integrated with the Uniswap governance stack, it’s a natural fit for Tally to have the financial resources to help integrate those tools into the Tally front-end so both delegates and stakeholders can have a seamless experience exploring the DAOs activities, operations, and governance.

27

Tally has been an essential tool with a user-friendly interface for Uniswap governance, we support this proposal to ensure Tally can continue upgrading and maintaining its platform, which has proven valuable for the Uniswap community.

After reviewing the discussion, particularly @dennisonb’s response to @justErik regarding Tally’s commitment to serving the broader DAO ecosystem rather than being an exclusive tool, we see this proposal as a public good. As @Doo_StableLab mentioned, this funding is less about exclusivity and more about supporting a resource that benefits Uniswap.

While we support this initiative as a public good, it would be prudent to set conditions to protect Uniswap’s interests. We also believe that establishing clear KPIs and commitments for ongoing support would enhance Tally’s accountability. For instance, if Tally were to discontinue the platform immediately after the two-year of funding period (which we believe is unlikely), safeguards against premature closure would be beneficial. Open-sourcing portions of the funded code could provide continuity for the community should circumstances change post-funding.

We believe the funding amount requested by Tally is reasonable, especially considering their proven track record and consistent contributions to Uniswap governance. Additionally, this amount aligns with previous Uniswap Foundation grants, such as the similar-sized grant provided to Agora, which was also aimed at supporting a tool integral to our governance framework.

28

How can one justify a $250k spend per year with a 2 years commitment for a 3rd party service?
At the same time, other services in crypto are free or very cheap due to the competitive nature of the industry at this stage.

Tally can be the best service in the world but this cost is not cheap at all in any means.

Therefore my questions are:

  1. What is the justification to pay $250k per year with a 2 years commitment?
  2. Have we evaluated competitors or alternatives?
  3. At the current direction for gas prices and decrease of DAO activity and votes, is it worth shifting to a centralized single system instead of the on-chain decentralized one?

Thanks for the time :slight_smile:

29

The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.

We are voting FOR the proposal.

We recognize and value the contributions Tally has made to Uniswap and the broader Ethereum ecosystem, particularly in the DAO landscape. As delegates in multiple protocols, we’ve crossed paths with Tally numerous times and frequently use their voting platform, even in cases like Uniswap, where multiple front-ends exist.

In general, we’re supportive of proposals that enable and support the development of DAO infrastructure and tooling, as we understand the difficulty of building them. While, as some other delegates pointed out, Tally has received support from other protocols (and might receive it again in the future), we must not disregard the time and resources it takes to develop features across chains or for different protocols.

Tally having received a grant to develop a feature for Protocol A doesn’t necessarily translate to Protocol B being able to ‘plug-and-play’ with the same feature. For this reason, we are looking at this proposal and assessing it based simply on its merit within Uniswap, and we do not seek to compare it to Tally’s presence elsewhere.

Having said that, we believe the scope of work outlined in the proposal and the funding request is reasonable and that Tally is well-positioned to deliver value that will be well worth the funds.

One thing we’d like to mention, however, is that there should be some sort of oversight and ownership counterparty to ensure that a) the funds are being used correctly, b) will work with Tally to ensure that features developed, align with the needs and direction of the DAO, and c) Tally meets the KPIs they’ve set forward and delivers the new features or shows concrete progress towards their completion.

We believe the most suitable entity for that oversight to be either the Uniswap Foundation, or the UAC.

1 Like
30

Gm, gm! :sparkles:

The results are in for the [TEMP CHECK] - Tally Uniswap Proposal off-chain proposal.

See how the community voted and more Uniswap stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1486

31

I’m in favor of this proposal! Tally has proven its value with so many DAOs using it for on-chain voting. I have no issues with the requested budget, but it would be great if the proposal could outline the new features planned and how they will enhance the governance experience.

32

Thanks for the extra bit of information shared by @Sinkas on this matter.
However, there is no clear explanation to why uniswap dao should pay $250,000 per year for the next 2 years (i.e. $500,000) for this service.
This amount is pretty steep and therefore require valid justification.
More so, it seems that part of the justification is “to support Tally’s development for the community”, which sounds more in the lines of paying Tally so they stay alive and benefit other daos.

1 Like
33

About us: In general we are about 15 people, mostly engineers. We pay folks health insurance, family leave (5 teammates have started families since joining Tally), state mandated unemployment insurance, legal bills, and taxes. Engineers rotate between building new features, refactoring software, security testing, and doing research and development on new feature ideas. Non-engineers work in customer management, client services, planning and sales. As the UF and other delegates can attest, we sometimes spend many hours working directly with delegates on crafting proposals and reviewing executable code. The fee we’re requesting equates to about $20k per month, which to put into perspective, is far less than the salary of a single senior level software engineer in the United States. (Yes I know some parts of the world are cheaper, but senior engineers are valuable everywhere, and again, the team that builds Tally is based in the USA).

This comment by @dennisonb might be what you’re looking for.

1 Like
34

Thanks folks, this is really exciting! We’re digesting feedback as we prepare for the onchain vote. Thank you for your support!

35

Does this mean that the grant is expected to cover the full cost of operation for Tally over the next 2 years?
This does not sound like a service provider where the DAO is a client (one of many).

If the grant is truly expected to cover the full operational costs:

  1. what is the “sustainable” future of Tally?
  2. do they have additional clients? if yes, are they also expected to cover the full operational cost?
  3. 2 years commitment is a very long time considering crypto market. why wont the grant be quarterly or for 6 months?
  4. $500,000 in tokens can be worth a whole lot more in the future. is there any recovery process for such case?

tbh, there is always place for another great service provider but it sounds as if this is not a service provider but a team hire (to the point that the grant should be considered as fundraising against equity for example).

36

Hey folks just a quick update. We’re at DevCon this week, we’re going to work towards putting up the onchain proposal after DevCon finishes so folks don’t have to worry about having their keys with them while traveling.

4 Likes
37

I am also grateful to Tally for developing their platform.

However, I partially agree with the previous speakers:

  1. There is no specific budget for 2 years of work.
  2. Why should only Uniswap pay for Tally’s development?
  3. Tully has already taken money from Arbitrum this year to develop their platform (and there was specific work there)
  4. Uniswap still has Agora - are they going to exclude it from voting? Or will it also require money for development?
1 Like
38

completely agree with @cp0x.

@dennisonb, perhaps before you initiate your work towards putting up the onchain proposal, you can further explain the reasons for the 2 years budget and the justification for it being $250k per year.

39

Hello Folks!

Back from Devcon, what a great event. Really nice to meet so many folks at Uniday!

@cp0x @SamSmith I think i was able to address all of your questions further up in the thread.

Thanks to @Getty who has put the proposal up onchain, so it will go live for voting on Saturday!

https://www.tally.xyz/gov/uniswap/proposal/74

2 Likes
40

Appreciate the extra information.
In the proposal, you clearly indicate several points which are “red flag”:

  1. “(1) The Uniswap DAO relies on Tally for governance.”
    This on its own an indication that the proposal should not pass. The dao is on-chain and should not be indicated as one that is dependent on Tally to operate.
  2. “(2) Tally has consistently rolled out key features and improvements that have enhanced the governance experience for Uniswap DAO.”
    These features are great but not dedicated for a specific dao. They are part of your general enhancement plan to stay relevant and attract more daos to use your platform.
  3. “(3) Tally has an exciting roadmap for Uniswap DAO coming up.”
    The lack of clear roadmap where the budget is going to be allocated and use is yet another big red flag we should be warn by.

aside of the fact that this is a bull run moment in time where the industry is “richer” and therefore might be more loose with its funds, I do not see any justification to paying $500,000 for a gov system facilitating 67 proposals in total since 2021.

rough calculation, historically there was a proposal every ~20 days. At this pace, there are expected to be about 36 future proposals in the next 24months, which means about $14,000 per proposal.
a bit expensive.

1 Like