Summary
This proposal seeks to trial run a Technical Advisory Board (TAB) within the Uniswap DAO with the aim of providing expert insights on proposals for a period of 12 months. The TAB will be assisted by a professional delegate who will act in service to this body. To empower the TAB, a total of 2.5 million in UNI will be delegated to the expiring Franchiser contracts.
Motivation
The Uniswap DAO governance process plays a crucial role in shaping the protocol’s evolution, yet it currently lacks consistent, structured technical expertise. While many active delegates contribute valuable insights, only a small subset possess deep technical knowledge. Simultaneously, many developers and builders, who have direct experience with Uniswap’s codebase or the market dynamics surrounding its use (e.g. partnerships, integrations, supporting infrastructure like routers and aggregators), lack the bandwidth or the structured pathway to engage meaningfully in governance.
Through our conversations with various teams building on Uniswap, we consistently heard that developers and technical contributors want to provide input but find the current governance process opaque or inaccessible. Many expressed that their expertise could help improve governance proposals by assessing technical feasibility, estimating implementation timelines, identifying risks, and evaluating potential costs. Furthermore, developers emphasized that better governance participation could help ensure that ecosystem upgrades align with the needs of those who build on and integrate with Uniswap.
By establishing a Technical Advisory Board (TAB), we aim to bridge this gap—providing the Uniswap DAO with a dedicated body of experts who can offer structured, reliable technical guidance while ensuring that builders have a clearer pathway to engage in governance. The TAB will serve as a critical feedback mechanism, improving the quality of governance proposals, mitigating risks, and ultimately strengthening Uniswap’s decentralized development process.
Background
Technical expertise is a cornerstone of effective protocol governance, yet it has often been an underrepresented voice in Uniswap DAO decision-making. Inspired by Optimism’s Developer Advisory Board, we propose implementing a similar structure, adapted to Uniswap’s unique governance model and market position.
Our research and interviews revealed a recurring theme: builders who work closely with Uniswap’s infrastructure often see governance decisions that could benefit from their insights but lack a structured way to contribute. Key takeaways from these discussions include:
- Developers want a role in governance but need a structured way to engage.
- Many proposals lack clear technical feasibility assessments, leading to inefficiencies and unforeseen challenges.
- Builders can provide critical feedback on proposal risks, implementation timelines, and ecosystem impact and budget costs.
- A dedicated advisory group would enhance transparency, community trust, and long-term sustainability.
To address these challenges, the TAB will focus on delivering expert evaluations of governance proposals, helping the DAO make informed technical decisions. The TAB will work alongside a Professional Delegate (PD) to ensure their insights are effectively communicated and integrated into governance discussions. By creating a structured mechanism for technical input, we aim to foster a more inclusive and technically sound governance process for Uniswap’s continued growth.
Specification
Technical Advisory Board (TAB):
Composition:
The Technical Advisory Board (TAB) will consist of 6 seasoned professionals, including builders, security researchers and experts with significant experience in smart contracts and the Uniswap protocol. The strength of the TAB will lie in its diverse expertise and its commitment to providing comprehensive, start-to-finish support for informed governance decisions within the Uniswap DAO.
This structure emerged from dialogues with Uniswap’s ecosystem, revealing a lack of technical expertise in governance, often resulting in impractical proposals. Inspired by Optimism’s Developer Advisory Board, we tailored the TAB to balance technical evaluation and community education, thus improving proposal quality and transparency while preserving DAO control through iterative feedback and a decentralized focus.
Through dialogue with builders and the Uniswap Foundation, we suggest the following individuals be part of the first cohort of the Technical Advisory Board:
- Akshat Mittal - Senior Protocol Engineer at Reserve and Founder of Metacrypt. Akshat has over 10 years of experience in the technology space building products and startups. Since committing to the Web3 ecosystem 6 years ago, he has contributed to and developed several DeFi protocols. He has deep technical expertise in all things DeFi, from building fundamentals to protocol design and beyond.
- Alex Netto - Founder and CEO at blockful, an organization preventing governance attacks, increasing DAOs security on different fronts. Experienced in smart contract engineering, governance research, and Uniswap V4 by winning its category on an ETH Global hackathon. He’s also an ENS metagov steward, proposer, and member of the security council. Hands-on experience with
- Ben DiFrancesco - Founder, CEO and Lead Engineer at ScopeLift. Ben and his firm have contributed to mission critical smart contracts for many noteworthy projects, including Uniswap. He brings deep experience building on the EVM, and particular expertise in DAO governance engineering.
- Dakotah Moses - Leads growth at Bunni, a Uniswap v4-native DEX focused on liquidity optimization and rehypothecation. He bridges the gap between engineering and strategy—helping to translate complex technical systems into narratives and programs that drive adoption
- Haardik H - Experienced developer with over 7 years of professional involvement in the space as an engineer and consultant ranging across Identity, Privacy, Enterprise, and DeFi organizations/projects. He has also built and run technical educational programs that have onboarded hundreds of thousands of developers into the space through his roles at LearnWeb3 and Atrium Academy.
- Kris O’Shea - Blockchain developer at Olas Protocol and previously a developer at Sumero Finance. As a Uniswap ambassador and hookathon winner, Kris brings in-depth experience building and securing smart contracts across Ethereum & EVM compatible layer 2s as well as Starknet & the CairoVM. A recognized contributor to the Uniswap ecosystem, he has co-authored V4 technical documentation and mentored teams at Uniswap hackathons.
Responsibilities:
- Analyze all governance proposals from inception, evaluating the feasibility and impact of proposals which are technical in nature throughout the voting process, while providing timely and insightful feedback.
- Proactively identify and address potential risks or unintended consequences within proposal design
- Vote on all proposals during the 12-month term and provide a brief overview of the TAB’s rationale.
- Translate complex technical concepts into clear and accessible language for non-technical delegates.
- Develop educational resources and explanations to enhance understanding of proposal implications. This could include publishing reports, hosting webinars, and generally simplifying technical concepts to foster community understanding
Professional Delegate (PD):
Role:
- Create an onboarding package for TAB which includes documents and info sessions to ensure smooth onboarding and uniformity of context and knowledge.
- Act as an operational support role for the TAB, ensuring their recommendations are accurately represented in governance forums and votes.
- Manage day-to-day governance interactions and communication with the broader Uniswap community on behalf of the TAB.
- Outline a communication plan in cooperation with the TAB, detailing how they will interact with the community, share their findings, and explain their recommendations.
- Facilitate logistics, such as organizing meetings and maintaining public-facing documentation.
- Assist TAB in creating educational initiatives such as workshops, webinars, or documentation to help community members understand technical proposals and the governance process.
- Work with the TAB members to identify gaps in knowledge or expertise within the board and coordinate with external experts when necessary to address those gaps.
- Act as a liaison between the TAB and the Uniswap Foundation or other ecosystem stakeholders to align efforts and gather additional context when needed.
Positioning:
The PD will not act independently but will serve solely as a representative and operational extension of the TAB. The role of PD shall be performed by DAOplomats
Voting Power Delegation:
- 2.5 million UNI tokens delegated to the TAB to empower their governance participation.
- TAB members shall create a 4 of 6 multi-sig which will hold the VP for a period of 1 year.
- The TAB wallet is expected to vote on every proposal.
- Uniswap Governance retains control and can revoke the delegation if necessary.
Transparency:
All TAB discussions, recommendations, and PD actions will be publicly documented in governance forums.
Timeline
This timeline shall go into effect if the DAO votes to execute the trial run.
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Month 1: Initial cohort of TAB members will be chosen based on research and feedback from the UFD (Done)
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Month 2: Proposal will be put to vote and deployment of franchiser contracts for token delegation shall proceed
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Month 3: TAB is onboarded with the resources created by the PD and they begin reviewing proposals and participating in governance.
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Month 6: Conduct the first performance review and gather community feedback.
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Month 12: Evaluate performance of current members based on community feedback and open positions to replace members if necessary
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Month 14: Conduct fresh elections if members need to be replaced
Budget
Technical advisors and professional delegates will be paid in UNI, delivered as a continuous stream over the length of their term. The following table only summarize the UNI to allocated for the budget, further clarification on how the actual expenses shall occur is detailed in the compensation structure section.
| Role | Monthly Compensation (UNI) | Number of Members | Duration (Months) | Total (UNI) |
|-----------------------|----------------------------|-------------------|-------------------|-------------|
| Technical Advisor | 400* | 6 | 12 | 28,800 |
| Professional Delegate | 1,000 | 1 | 12 | 12,000 |
| Buffer* | | | | |
| Total | | | | 41,800 |
*A buffer budget is allocated for creating educational materials for the community to understand technical proposals as well as incorporating help from other experts whenever expertise inside the TAB proves to be insufficient. Any unused funds shall be returned to the DAO treasury at the end of the program.
*400 UNI compensation is split into two payments of 200 UNI and 1000 USDC
Compensation Structure:
- Total monthly compensation will be 200 UNI and 1000 USDC
- Each TAB member shall be compensated 200 UNI/month via a superfluid stream
- A second stream of 1200 UNI/month shall be sent to the UAC wallet. The UAC shall send each TAB member 1000 USDC per month.
- Professional Delegate will receive 1000 UNI/month via superfluid stream and accepts the consequence of price volatility and shall perform their duties regardless
Proposal call data:
- Eight payment streams of 12 months will be set up via superfluid. (Six for TAB members, one for PD and one to the UAC)
- One transfer will be set up to send the buffer to the TAB multi-sig address
- 2.5M UNI will be transferred to a franchiser contract which delegates the tokens to the same TAB multi-sig
Uniswap Governance retains control and can revoke stream as well as delegation via a proposal