In production since 2018 (as the xDai Chain), the rebranded Gnosis Chain is rapidly evolving with a new focus and mission. Gnosis Chain (GC) provides a real-world value chain that closely mirrors the Ethereum 2.0 ecosystem. This includes a beacon chain framework, rollups, and other vital functionality. GC will serve in a front-running capacity for important Ethereum 2.0 updates.
Tuned parameters on the Gnosis Chain enable faster blocks and epochs, low-cost stable transactions, and the opportunity to construct trustless bridges and conduct seamless transfers between GC and the Ethereum 2.0 mainnet.
The Gnosis Chain team is committed to ecosystem development, adoption, and growth as the Eth2.0 landscape comes into focus. With a mission to “accelerate Ethereum,” Gnosis Chain is poised for expansion. With this in mind, we propose a Uniswap v3 deployment to the Gnosis Chain. We believe there are many benefits for both Uniswap Labs and Uniswap users, some of which include:
A DeFi ecosystem primed for growth. Once deployed, Uniswap would become a cornerstone DeFi engine for protocols using and interacting within the ecosystem. Perpetual Protocol is a flagship protocol on GC that relies on Uniswap v3. This deployment will enable Perpetual to continue to flourish on the Gnosis Chain. Additional bluechip deployments with growing TVL include Curve, Sushiswap, and Tornado, with many new and promising DeFi projects choosing Gnosis Chain as their homebase. A list of current projects is available at https://gnosischain.world/
An iterative environment. Uniswap Labs can experiment with new functionality and front-run new features in a real-value environment (which differs from a test environment in that users behave differently with value on the line, token supply is limited, real adversaries exist, etc). Uniswap can spot and remediate any final potential issues stemming from important Ethereum updates prior to mainnet activation and take advantage of optimized slot and epoch times for faster iteration.
Tight Ethereum compatibility. Tools, resources, projects, and protocols supported by Ethereum are already supported by the Gnosis Chain, with more onboarding regularly. Gnosis Safe is facilitating daily operations for many existing projects. A trustless bridge architecture designed to connect Ethereum and Gnosis Chain is in the works. The Gnosis Beacon Chain validator set is expanding rapidly bringing massive decentralization to the chain.
The primary differences separating the GBC from the Ethereum Beacon chain include 5-second blocks and < 2-minute epochs, stable transactions with a max target of $.01 per 100K gas, an economically and geographically diverse validator set, and a lower-stakes, lower-TVL environment.
Unique chain characteristics. Stable, low-cost transactions provide unique opportunities for Uniswap users. When gas costs are known and have a low impact on trade decisions, new strategies and approaches emerge which are currently untenable on the Ethereum mainnet or other chains with wide-ranging fee variability.
User incentives. A large directive for the Gnosis Chain is to increase the user base and on-chain activity by strategically allocating funds from the GnosisDAO treasury to promote adoption. An ecosystem fund has been created for this purpose, and we propose to use a portion of these funds to promote Uniswap v3 on Gnosis Chain. We propose providing up to $10M for a tailored liquidity mining program.
The Gnosis Chain is preparing for substantial growth in the coming year. We have implemented an aggressive infrastructure grants program including large grants to Nethermind, Lighthouse and Erigon client teams to support base-layer functionality and security. The ecosystem fund will bring in many new projects, and we feel Uniswap v3 is an essential component that will serve as a foundational layer for this growth.
We welcome any questions and comments and are happy to provide any clarifications as needed. We are excited to submit this proposal to the Uniswap community and look forward to your feedback! Thank you.
Glad to see this proposal. The Gnosis team has done an excellent job so far stewarding Gnosis Chain. I expect it to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation by front-running Ethereum to create a safe production environment for advanced users. Deploying Uniswap v3 to Gnosis Chain is an excellent step to ensure that Uniswap will benefit from this cutting edge approach. Gnosis Chain can serve as a canary to see how upcoming EIPs will benefit or harm the Uni Ecosystem prior to mainnet execution giving time to react accordingly.
Hi Stefan and Gnosis team, thanks for the proposal.
Can you clarify whether the Gnosis Chain team will be deploying, and whether the bridge architecture you linked to in your post is what will be used to facilitate governance of the Gnosis Chain instance?
We’re broadly in support of this proposal as we’d like to see Uniswap on as many chains and L2s as possible. We do have one stipulation we’d like to put forward. Our experience with similar proposals in the past couple months makes us want to take a firmer stance on the accountability around the liquidity incentives on offer here.
We’d like to see a more detailed (if preliminary) plan regarding how and when those liquidity incentives will be provided, prior to the next phase of the vote.
Before the final vote, we’d like Gnosis DAO set aside the entire $10m of offered funds in a multisig on Gnosis Chain chain with multiple representatives from the Uniswap community as accountability signers. Preferably the funds would be sent to the accountability multisig prior to the on-chain vote using something like Kleros Escrow or similar, and returned if the vote does not pass. This seems like a reasonable first step before we have fully integrated on-chain accountability models.
Looking forward to hearing your plan around incentive provision and your thoughts on the transfer details!
Can you clarify whether the Gnosis Chain team will be deploying, and whether the bridge architecture you linked to in your post is what will be used to facilitate governance of the Gnosis Chain instance?
Yes, the Gnosis Chain team would be deploying the application. We are working with Nomad to offer a secure bridging solution for the Uniswap governance. I will post details today in the Consensus Check phase.
We’d like to see a more detailed (if preliminary) plan regarding how and when those liquidity incentives will be provided, prior to the next phase of the vote.
We would like to utilize GNO to foster the usage of Uniswap v3 on Gnosis Chain. We would like to do this together with other projects, which are operating on top of Uniswap v3 such as Perpetual Protocol, Gelato or Stakewise. This should allow for more sustainable utilization of Uniswap as Gnosis Chain doesn’t have a team dedicated to Uniswap v3. The GNO can be used to incentivize liquidity but should not be limited to this use-case. Anything increasing usage of Uniswap v3, including building new applications on top of Uniswap v3 should be supported with the $10M provided. The goal is to spend the $10M in the timeperiod of 2 years. Funds not used after two years would go back to GnosisDAO. The spending is limited to $10M and the amount of GNO transferred at the time of the proposal passing. GnosisDAO can decide to topup this balance based on the performance of the initiative.
Before the final vote, we’d like Gnosis DAO set aside the entire $10m of offered funds in a multisig on Gnosis Chain chain with multiple representatives from the Uniswap community as accountability signers. Preferably the funds would be sent to the accountability multisig prior to the on-chain vote using something like Kleros Escrow or similar, and returned if the vote does not pass. This seems like a reasonable first step before we have fully integrated on-chain accountability models.
This brings up an interesting problem: As the proposal funding has to come from GnosisDAO, this proposal has to be accepted by both: UNI and GNO token holders. I would suggest we make the execution of this proposal dependent also on the acceptance of the proposal by GnosisDAO. The GnosisDAO proposal has to include the setup of the multi-sig and the allocation of GNO and would be executed once it is accepted by GNO token holders. For the multisig I would suggest a 3 out of 4 multisig with two singers from the Uniswap community and two singers from the GnosisDAO community.
The deployment is ongoing. Initially, the plan was to use the nomad bridge for this deployment. Because of recent events, we decided now to go ahead with the native amb bridge. I hope we can give a clear estimate on the final deployment soon, we are currently prioritizing different efforts incl. the merge of Gnosis Chain.
We are on it and are trying to resolve all issues. The main blocker is that the proposal included Nomad as a bridge provider, which is no longer an option. Previously, an update on the bridge would have required another new proposal to pass. Uniswap governance is working on an update on this process, which we hope to benefit from to get the deployment done asap now. I hope we have good news already end of next week.