Following the productive discussion in the RFC, we’ve integrated the feedback from the community in this updated version of the proposal for the creation of an Accountability Committee for Licensure and Deployments for Uniswap DAO.
The main changes from the previous proposal are:
- clarified areas of possible scope expansion of the Accountability Committee after the expiration of the BSL;
- added a Selection Process section, outlining the process change discussed during the RFC, nomination criteria, and the candidates that nominated themselves during that phase;
- added an Operating Policies section where we list the norms that emerged from the conversations in the forum, that will guide the work of the Committee going forward;
- added a Vote Process section explaining how the Snapshot Poll will take place.
Proposal Overview
We propose the creation of an Accountability Committee for Licensure and Deployments tasked with overseeing the operational development of partnerships and agreements involving Additional Use Grant requests and deployments of Uniswap V3 on other chains.
While the BSL expires on April 1, 2023, we are limiting the initial scope of the Accountability Committee to licensure and deployments, as these are the areas that have generated the most traction in the forum. The continued launch of new chains and platforms will require ongoing oversight and attention.
Overview
Over the past year, several projects have requested Additional Use Grants to the Uniswap community and/or requested permission to deploy Uniswap protocol to alternative chains (including L2s and alternative L1s). Often such proposals offered financial incentives for Uniswap. However, the delivery of funds has been in some cases delayed or implemented according to mechanisms that weren’t part of the agreement terms.
In order to mitigate this issue and facilitate stronger accountability practices in Uniswap, we propose the formation of an Accountability Committee tasked with the following functions:
- Be responsible for the evaluation of proposals during the first two phases of the governance process (RFC and Temperature Check).
- Verify that proposals comply with the requirements of the Uniswap DAO Proposal Template.
- Implement and manage an on-chain commitment mechanism for Uniswap DAO (i.e. a multisig escrow), and require that licensure and deployment proposals offering financial incentives to Uniswap (including but not limited to grants for Uniswap community, liquidity mining, or metagovernance incentives) may not go forward to the last stage of the governance process without depositing a % of the promised funds into the escrow.
- Provide last-mile QA and technical guidance for deployments.
- Keeping track of commitments, disbursements, and project milestones.
- Report quarterly to Uniswap DAO on activities.
For each proposal that advances to the on-chain Governance Proposal phase, the Committee will engage in the following activities:
- Liaising with the proposer team and evaluating the quality of the project
- Onboarding the proposer team to the Uniswap ecosystem
- Evaluating the security of the chain
- Negotiating Scope of Work
- Providing legal review
- Co-editing the final proposal with the proposer team
Committee Duration
The initial Committee will have 5 members and a duration of 6 months to allow committee members to begin developing practices and processes that may meaningfully carry forward into future iterations of the committee.
After the expiration of the BSL on April 1, 2023 the Committee will focus on deployments. At the end of the term the Committee will be subjected to review by the community to discuss areas of improvement and potential expansion of its scope to other kinds of partnerships beyond deployments.
We believe that there is plenty of scope for the committee to keep providing value to Uniswap community after the expiration of the BSL:
- Cross-chain governance will continue to be an issue after April 1 and the committee will be in a position to provide expert guidance and recommendations in the process, while gathering community feedback, guaranteeing compliance to the Cross-chain Assessment Bridge Process, and overseeing its implementation.
- Partnerships (with integrators, educational initiatives, advocacy groups, other institutions) will play a crucial role as Uniswap keeps growing and the Accountability Committee will be in a position to bring accountability to the evaluation and execution of such partnerships.
- Lastly, we believe future versions of Uniswap core protocol are likely to launch with a BSL.
Compensation
We propose that Committee members are compensated with a retainer of $3,500 per 6-month term and a fee of $6,500 for each evaluated project, paid at the end of each 6-month period. We propose a minimum of 2 committee members’ involvement in each agreement proposal.
Assuming the Committee will review 2 proposals each term, the maximum estimated budget for the first iteration of the Accountability committee is $82,500 for the first 6 months, and $165,000 for a year.
Motivation
The need for an Accountability role in Uniswap DAO was crystalized in the first Uniswap Delegate Forum that Uniswap Foundation and Other Internet hosted in October 2022, following the publication of OI’s accountability report for Uniswap, which explored at length the legal, social and on-chain accountability mechanisms available to Uniswap. The Forum led to the creation of a dedicated Agreements & Accountability Working Group to address Uniswap DAO’s accountability challenges.
As observed in the report, at present Uniswap’s strongest accountability measure in the context of licensing and partnership agreements is the Business Source License, which however has limited application toward enforcing the terms of an agreement and the delivery of promised funds after a proposal has been executed.
Establishing and formalizing an accountability role within Uniswap, with a clear mandate and responsibilities, will greatly improve accountability toward the DAO, avoid repeating past episodes of missing or delayed funds, and overall facilitate the operational autonomy of the DAO going forward. We also plan to leverage work on the cross-chain bridge assessment group and liaise with them in security assessments.
Selection Process
Following the feedback from the community, we supported Uniswap DAO contributors and delegates nominating themselves for a position on the committee. The committee will be capped at 5 members, at least for the duration of the trial period. The goal of the cap is to keep the costs in check, scale manageable, and committee members accountable.
Desired criteria for committee membership includes:
- Context on the history of accountability challenges faced by Uniswap and DAOs in general.
- Demonstrated commitment and active participation in Uniswap governance decisions.
- Understanding and context on prior Uniswap deployment processes.
- Experience managing and negotiating partnerships and agreements.
- Clear understanding of technical architecture of Uniswap v3 and governance.
Proposed Members
The following individuals were nominated by Other Internet and Uniswap Foundation, or nominated themselves during the RFC phase. Proposed committee members Kydo, Cam O’Donnel, and Doo Wan Nam were participants in the accountability working group.
-
Doo Wan Nam (COO at StableLab) @Doo_Stablelab
Experience: Professional delegate at StableLab across major DeFi protocols, including MakerDAO, Optimism, Aave, 1inch, Balancer, Element, InstaDapp, Hop. Previously spent 3.5 years at the Maker Foundation.
Past Uniswap Activity: Participation in an Accountability Working Group that shipped Proposal Template 2.0 - Upgrade for Deployments & Agreements
-
Cam O’ Donnell (Web3 Ecosystem Strategy at Consensys) @DAOStrat.C
Experience: Leads governance education efforts at Consensys, Delegate at Uniswap and MakerDAO, member of Uniswap-Optimism governance council, co-authored Uniswap
Relevant Uniswap Experience: Participation in an Accountability Working Group that shipped Proposal Template 2.0 - Upgrade for Deployments & Agreements. Co-authored Uniswap proposal 32: Enable 1bp Fee Tier for UniswapV3 on Arbitrum. Member of the Uniswap Optimism governance council.
-
Jun Sun (Governance lead at Pennblockchain/FranklinDAO) @pennblockchain
Experience: Governance Lead at Penn Blockchain, Uniswap delegate for 2 years, Delegate at Compound, Aave, MakerDAO, etc.
Relevant Uniswap Experience: Helped draft, steward, and submit cross-chain deployment proposals on Boba, zkSync, and Kava chains. Co-authored a research paper Deep Diving into Uniswap’s Governance with recommendations on reinvigorating governance activity. Active participation in cross-chain governance forum discussions and proposals.
-
Kendra Leong (Governance at she256) @kendraleong
Experience: Professional delegate at Uniswap, Compound, ENS, Hop, and Optimism for crypto nonprofit She256. Prior experience as General Counsel. Familiarity with enterprise risk management structures and creating accountability within transactional proposal processes. Previously Legal Cybersecurity Liaison to the White House.
Relevant Uniswap Experience: Participation in Uniswap votes on behalf of She256 since 2021.
-
Raf Solari (Co-Founder & CTO at Tally) @rafaelsolari
Experience: Senior technical architect and cross-chain governance expert, CTO at Tally. High degree of understanding of different governance processes and accountability procedures across DAOs.
Relevant Uniswap Experience: External technical advisor on UGM bridge evaluation process.
-
Kydo (Lead at Stanford Blockchain Club) @kydo
Experience: Vice President of Stanford Blockchain Club, programming committee member for Stanford DAO Workshop, co-organizer for CEE246A class at Stanford on crypto entrepreneurship.
Relevant Uniswap Experience: Participation in an Accountability Working Group that shipped Proposal Template 2.0 - Upgrade for Deployments & Agreements. Participation in cross-chain governance forum discussions and proposals.
Vote Process
For this vote we will use Approval Voting in Snapshot to ratify the committee. There will be 6 options, one for each nominee. The top 5 nominees will be committee members when the proposal moves to an on-chain vote.
During the vote, people will have the option to choose as many of the options as they please.
- The vote will be considered valid if a minimum of 10m UNI is reached.
- The committee will not be approved if less than 10m in delegated UNI total votes in the proposal. Those who do not wish the committee to proceed encouraged to abstain from voting.
During the snapshot poll, voters will be able to vote on up to 5 choices:
- Yes: Cam O’ Donnell @DAOStrat.C
- Yes: Doo Wan Nam @Doo_Stablelab
- Yes: Jun Sun @pennblockchain
- Yes: Kendra Leong @kendraleong
- Yes: Kydo @kydo
- Yes: Raf Solari @rafaelsolari
Please find the Snapshot poll here.
Committee Operating Policies
We ask that delegates and community members participating in this vote and the activities of the committee abide by the following points emerged in the previous discussion, that form the normative touchstones of this first iteration of the committee, and may be ratified as part of the bylaws of the committee by future governance decisions.
- Candidates cannot vote for themselves in snapshot and on-chain vote.
- Anyone part of Accountability Committee should not write proposals that can fall under the assessment of Accountability Committee or vote on such proposals, to mitigate conflicts of interests.
- Upon approval, the final committee will appoint a Chair. The Chair will coordinate meetings, governance, and assign members to proposal review.
- Committee members should be elected every 6 months and cannot serve for more than 2 consecutive rounds.
- Delegates may nominate themselves or others.
- Retiring committee members are responsible for nominating and educating their successors.
- Retainer compensation is paid at the beginning of the 6 month period, and evaluated project fees at the end of a 6 month term.
Proposer details
This proposal is put forward by Uniswap Agreements & Accountability working group — an initiative stewarded by Other Internet with the participation of Uniswap Delegates and Uniswap Foundation.
Point of Contact
Laura Lotti, laura@otherinter.net
Next steps
The Snapshot Poll will be active for 5 business days. Here is the link: Snapshot