Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG) Application

Governance-Meta
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The temperature check to establish the Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG) passed with over 20M YES votes. This formally demonstrates the DAO’s interest in pursuing a research initiative to begin mobilizing the Uniswap treasury. The working group will consist of four members, two of which have been determined as part of Working Group Zero (WG0), composed of @AbdullahUmar and @Doo_StableLab. After this election, all 4 spots will be filled.

The UTWG itself will not be determining how the treasury will be managed–rather, its goal is to conduct research into best practices for treasury management, specific to Uniswap. After conducting 8 weeks worth of research on historical attempts at treasury management across various DAOs, as well as interviews with multiple treasury and fund managers, the UTWG will publish its findings to the Uniswap DAO. The group will also submit at least two deliverables, highlighting recommended next steps for the DAO to pursue. At this point, the working group will ideate in concert with the DAO to potentially see through a series of proposals–for example, a treasury manager RFP process. Note that the implementation of the working group’s findings will need to align with further clarity around the Uniswap DAO’s adoption of a legal structure.

This present forum post will serve as the space for candidates interested in applying to the UTWG to submit their applications. For more information on the motivation and operations behind this proposal, please visit the initial forum post: Mobilizing the Uniswap Treasury.

Application Logistics

  • If you wish to apply for a position in the UTWG, please comment on this forum post by completing the below application format. Try to keep your responses brief and to the point.

  • The application deadline is Sunday April 14 @ 12pm eastern time.

  • WG0 will sift through the applications by the deadline time and disqualify incomplete or incoherent submissions–all applicants that properly complete the application will be included in a Snapshot vote.

  • The Snapshot will run for 5 days, between April 15th - April 19th

  • The top two candidates by received votes will be rolled into the onchain vote that will commence during the following week, which will propose to officially establish and fund the UTWG, composed of WG0 and the two candidates elected by the DAO.

  • Only respond to this forum with applications. All questions about procedure, operations, etc should be directed to the original forum post and will be answered by WG0.

Application Format

  1. Applicant name:
  • You may apply as an organization or an individual. If you’re an organization, please have your primary point of contact submit this application.

  1. What is your motivation for applying to this working group? (max 3 sentences)

  2. Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO

  3. Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing (max 5 sentences)

  4. Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury (max 5 sentences)

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Applicant Name: Franklin DAO [POC: Jonathan Wong, Co-Director of Governance]

POC TG: jonathanwong3

Voting Wallet: 0x070341aA5Ed571f0FB2c4a5641409B1A46b4961b

What is your motivation for applying to this working group?

As a longstanding delegate we want to see that Uniswap’s treasury in fact becomes diversified, given that it’s composed mostly of the native token itself. One of the most important things a treasury can do for itself, particularly one which we may refer to as an endowment, is not lose money – this starts by reducing the volatility within the portfolio and then finding additional ways to earn revenue to continue to grow the portfolio. We are eager to conduct research on how to make this possible, thus formulating a long term strategy to perpetuate Uniswap DAO’s dominance and ability to provide for and contribute to the protocol.

Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO

Franklin DAO has been an active member of Uniswap’s DAO since we first became delegates ~2 years ago. We pride ourselves on having strong working relationships with key members/delegates of the DAO, and contributing in a way that promotes the sustainability and growth of Uniswap. In sticking to this we were recently in attendance at the GovSwap event in ETH Denver to collaborate with the rest of the community, particularly on what the future of Uniswap DAO looks like and how we get there. Following this event we took the time to share with members of the DAO (She256 and Butter) our experience as a delegate and how we see delegate compensation playing out in the future. It’s obvious that Uniswap is positioned to continue pushing the boundaries of DeFi and decentralization forward, so we’d love the opportunity to play a bigger role in making this possible.

Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing

Our team members have diverse backgrounds in the space:

  • Directly managing risk + incentives via market parameterization and ML modeling (Ion Protocol)
  • Investing at notable venture funds (Portal, Galaxy, Big Brain, Ethereal)
  • Working alongside risk managers to pioneer new methods of treasury management (AERA, KarpatKey)
  • Contributing to various DAOs and opining on treasury management decisions

Treasury management is such an important facet of governance to Franklin DAO that in the annually held Penn Blockchain Conference, one of our Co-Directors, Alex Duckworth, led a panel on treasury management with some of the leading treasury managers in the space including Gauntlet, Fyde, Range Protocol, and KarpatKey.

Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury

One way to bolster the treasury while playing a contributory role to the rest of DeFi is to support adjacent DeFi markets by diversifying into their products. Examples of such products include digital asset managers or DAMs such as AERA or Range Protocol, liquid staking tokens and liquid restaking tokens (along with their respective vaults), and of course some diverse mix of stables. This would help the DAO limit/target specific volatility ranges for the portfolio as a whole while introducing new sources of non-operating income. In addition, the risks associated with such products rely less on liquidity and more on infrastructure and backing. Hence, the risks of a withdrawal queue and cost of waiting to redeem tokens at fair value are lower with respect to the treasury since they are not held responsible to any counterparties.

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Applicant name

Solo Labs Corporation

What is your motivation for applying to this working group? (max 3 sentences)

Solo Labs Corporation is motivated to join the UTWG to actively support the diversification of the Uniswap treasury, ensuring its sustainability while facilitating the expansion of the Uniswap protocol. We aim to contribute our expertise in treasury management and liquidity provision to enhance Uniswap treasury stability through risk management and asset diversification. Solo Labs supports a wide range of clients deploying liquidity through Uniswap and has a vested interest in the success of the UTWG efforts.

Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO

Solo Labs is an active builder on the Uniswap protocol, with current deployments to Uniswap on Ethereum, Polygon PoS, Arbitrum, BSC, Celo, Blast, Scroll and Base. We collaborate with liquidity providers and token projects to deploy their liquidity on the Uniswap protocol.

Solo Labs has built relationships with key members of the Uniswap DAO while supporting expansion of the Uniswap Protocol to new chains including GFX Labs, Arana Digital, and Stable Labs. The team behind Solo Labs has been involved in proposals with the Uniswap DAO going back to 2021.

Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing (max 5 sentences)

The team behind Solo Labs includes 4 prior crypto project founders. Don, the CEO of Solo Labs, previously founded a $2B Ecosystem Fund designed to incentivize adoption for a top 50 coin.

Solo Labs, since inception in the fall of 2023, has advised on the incentive programs and treasury strategies for over 15 AMMs as well as having supported liquidity deployment for over 10 token projects.

Solo Labs partners with funds and liquidity providers including Wave Digital Assets, Ethos Markets and more to deploy token liquidity strategies through DeFi.

Solo Labs product deployments today support over $50M in TVL leveraging concentrated liquidity AMMs across the crypto industry.

Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury (max 5 sentences)

Uniswap can bolster its treasury without impacting the $UNI token’s price by leveraging its own protocols in a smart, decentralized manner. $UNI tokens are placed in non-custodial, automated vaults that deposit to Uniswap V3 or V4, paired with major cryptocurrencies like USDC, WBTC, and ETH, across a broad price range. Arbitrage bots trade these pairs to capitalize on price fluctuations. Chainlink Automation or Gelato adjusts the vaults’ price ranges to optimize returns. Periodic rebalancing of assets supports $UNI’s value and diversifies the treasury, enhancing platform stability and yield.

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Quick comment for curious parties:

We are accepting applications from all entities, including treasury managers, and it is ultimately up to the DAO to vote in who they deem best fit for operationally managing the treasury later on. Some folks have asked–if a treasury manager is elected into the research working group, won’t they bias the outcomes of this initiative? That’s always a possibility, and delegates must decide if they’re comfortable with onboarding a treasury manager using their votes in the snapshot election happening next week. Both @AranaDigital and @StableLab are already a part of the UTWG, so we, as delegates, will of course do our best to counterbalance opinions and reconcile any biases.

To those ends, any treasury managers elected into the UTWG will also be able to apply for future elections or RFPs pertaining to actually managing the treasury. We believe that no party should be disqualified from applying since it is ultimately up to the DAO to determine the best fit candidates for this research group.

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  1. Applicant name:
  1. What is your motivation for applying to this working group? (max 3 sentences)
  • We believe that we can be helpful and provide a unique perspective blending traditional finance experience with a DeFi native flavor
  1. Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO
  • We are heavy users of Uniswap and advocates of minimal, immutable DeFi primitives
  • We are otherwise a small firm and usually more focused on research and proposals rather than governance
  • https://github.com/Steakhouse-Financial/univ3_gsheets: We ported over jeiwan’s UniV3 math code to Google Sheets to allow spreadsheet users easy access to AppScript functions that calculate pool size for target levels of price impact and other functionality
  1. Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing (max 5 sentences)
  1. Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury (max 5 sentences)
  • Stop counting UNI as an asset
  • Set a clear mandate, funding target, funding gap relative to the contemplated starting size, strategy and benchmark to follow
  • Devise the most minimal strategy possible for following or beating the benchmark, staying entirely on-chain for transparency and keeping the number of differents assets to a minimum
  • Calculate and report how much UNI dilution the initial funding contribution will represent
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Applicant Name: Nathan van der Heyden

Telegram: nathan_vdh

Wallet: 0xf9551c66995eD3Ff9bb05C9Fd7ff148Bd75dc99a

Motivation:

The topic of DAO treasury management is particularly interesting to me because it aligns with my current research and my goal of increasing direct participation in the DAO. I’ve spent two years at Snapshot advising various DAOs on general best practices and I’m passionate about making sure DAOs will survive long term. This is an interesting opportunity to participate in an important bit of research for a DAO that has a history of leading the way. Finding legal and safe treasury diversification strategies for Uniswap will help the entire ecosystem.

Lately, I’ve been doing independent consulting for some of the largest DAOs in the space, and I’ve chosen to do it as an individual to maintain as much neutrality as possible. I don’t have any ties to any Uniswap competitor or any decentralized exchanges. This is also a reason why I believe I’m a good fit for this role, professional track-records like mine often comes with various ties and potential conflicts of interest, here I can be entirely impartial.

Prior experience:

My participation in DAO treasury management is often linked to my time at Snapshot Labs where I helped some of the DAOs using the platform solve their issues by collecting best practices and sharing them openly. Due to the large variance in the scope of these DAOs, this experience showed me that each DAO needs custom solutions that are adapted to its size and mission.

Also relevant is my experience as a delegate: perhaps most recently I’ve worked with the Arbitrum DAO as part of their STIP initiative to get a better hands-on experience of grant programs. I’m also an active delegate in the Optimism DAO, though I’ve scaled down my involvement due to a disagreement over the recent direction of the DAO. Finally, I’ve been advising the Starknet Foundation on the management of its treasury as an independent consultant.

I’ve been an advisor to two funds in Belgium, recommending onchain solutions for capital management and security practices.

Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury:

There is an evident argument to make for diversification as the DAO treasury contains less than $1M worth of stablecoins. The real complexity of diversification is the governance aspect of it: any decision needs to be made collectively and there are various risks associated with that from frontrunning to negative community sentiment. Recommending something here is very difficult because you can’t diversify without selling, and you should clearly not be selling for reasons cited above. The solution is certainly linked to the ongoing debate around the fee switch and will require a lot of thinking; providing a clear answer here is certainly premature.

I’m also using my last sentence to add: the recent discussion over investing into the Ekubo Protocol on Starknet was a great sign of the DAO positionning itself intelligently by investing in both growing the Uniswap developer community and hedging the DAO in case of Starknet being a massive success: more of that please!

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Applicant name

GFX Labs
Point of contact: PaperImperium & Getty Hill

What is your motivation for applying to this working group? (max 3 sentences)

GFX Labs has an interest in a strong, financially sound Uniswap governance, and relevant experience.

Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO

GFX Labs has a long history of participating in the organization. Notably, GFX Labs runs the Oku Trade interface, implemented the 1bp fee tier, executed the first cross-chain governance proposal, and has been working to expand Uniswap to new chains. For more information, please visit our delegate profile.

Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing (max 5 sentences)

GFX Labs has extensive experience in the stablecoin and RWA space, as well as Uniswap LP assets, all of which are likely to be asset classes considered for a diversification program. We currently serve on the Arbitrum Treasury Diversification Program’s screening committee, as well.

Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury (max 5 sentences)

Securing assets that are stable, yield-bearing, and liquid allows Uniswap governance to forecast its ability to support development, grants, and other expenses without being dependent upon market conditions. Emphasis should be on safety and liquidity,

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Applicant name:
JoJo, individual

What is your motivation for applying to this working group? (max 3 sentences)
While my main duties are in JonesDAO and partially in governance of Arbitrum, I think treasury diversication for most protocols has to start, as a research, now, to be able to execute meaningful activites in the next 12 months and ensure proper runaway in the next 4 years. Uniswap is one of the core pillars of DeFi, which is still one of the most important use case for crypto. We all need Uni to prosper for crypto to prosper.

Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO
I currently serve along Doo, Honn, Nneoma and Bernard in the UAGP committee. On another note, I am personally working on Jones on innovative Concentrated Liquidity products that, while currently live (in beta) in Camelot will be also deployed in Uniswap in the next couple of months.

Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing (max 5 sentences)

  • for treasury management, between April and May 2022, I have helped JonesDAO divesting most of crypto assets into stables, understanding as part of the strategy team the moment in which crypto was as beginning of the bear cycle. This, in a moment in which it was “not cool” and market was “soon to bounce backTM”
  • for treasury management, for the UAGP program, I have pushed for the conversion of our ARB assets in stables when $arb was trading above 2$, to ensure the ability to serve as much protocols as possible in our grant program and ensuring a further >50% runaway for the program. As I am writing this, $ARB is currently trading at $1
  • for incentives program, I have both helped designing the incentives programs for JonesDAO for the STIP proposal, and evaluated more than 150 grant/incentive proposals between the Questbook Arbitrum Grant Program (1 and 2), the UAGP and the LTIPP
  • I have traded options on VIX and SPX, especially delta neutral and short vol strategies, for years, before going full time in crypto. Mostly short VXX strats based on the future vix curve and iron condors on the spx.

Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury (max 5 sentences)

  • utilizing portion of the UNI in the treasury as collateral in battle tested lending protocols to borrow USDC/USDT against them, with a VERY safe leverage (10%); eventually, by also creating an infrastructure able to automatically monitor the LTV and repay the loan if LTV goes above/below certain threashold
  • use the stables to purchase ETH, RWA and all assets that we are interested in owning in the treasury, and pair it with further UNI in specific V3 liquidity pools (UNI/ETH and others), thus creating a revenue generating asset and also deepening liquidity for the Uni token
  • add further UNI as liquidity above the current prices in the pools above, in a way that stil manages to allow for price discovery but also takes advantages of historical support/resist zones (so, high volume zones)
  • remove the liquidity once the price discovery goes above these volume zones, thus allowing to have converted a portion of the UNI into diversified treasury assets.

This is just an example strategy that has the benefit of not only creating initially liquidity in the pool, but also to foster A LOT more liquidity for the bull market (remember: liquidity placed for example at double the current price is effectively liquidity that is double the depth of liquidity at current price).

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Applicant Name: 404 DAO [POC: Rika Goldberg]

POC TG: RikaGoldberg

Voting Wallet: 0xE93D59CC0bcECFD4ac204827eF67c5266079E2b5

What is your motivation for applying to this working group?

404 DAO’s motivation for applying to this working group stems from our passion and commitment to the Uniswap DAO. As active Uniswap Delegates, we are responsible for making process and policy decisions that impact the allocation of funds from the Uniswap treasury. It is this commitment to governance that motivates us to apply to this working group and play a direct role in ensuring the long-term health and sustainability of the Uniswap treasury.

Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO

Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing

Our team is composed of individuals with education and experience in finance, accounting, and digital asset management. Specifically, the following team members plan to be most active in this working group:

  1. Ryan Demattia has over 12 years of experience in blockchain and crypto and has been managing institutional capital on chain since 2020. He is the Founder and Managing Director of multiple institutional digital asset funds, including Coindex Capital which was nominated for the HFM Best Digital Asset Fund in 2023, and has previously managed over $35M in AUM.

  2. Rika Goldberg has been working in blockchain and crypto since 2017. She is a former CPA and has worked at Deloitte and ConsenSys. In addition to her governance work at 404 DAO, she also contributes to Content Guild, MetaCartel DAO, and is a delegate for Open Dollar.

  3. Kaleb Rasmussen is a junior studying Finance and Computer Science at Georgia Tech. He is the VP of Governance for Blockchain at Georgia Tech and has interned with Engage Venture Capital, where he produced blockchain research.

Our team provides a risk management perspective to treasury management as Ryan’s work has focused on delta-neutral strategies with an emphasis on risk management

Additionally, 404 DAO was elected to Arbitrum’s Long Term Incentive Pilot Program Council, where we helped to design the program’s application and a scoring system (rubric), and reviewed 120+ applications, mostly targeted towards DeFi projects.

Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury

First and foremost, we acknowledge that this working group’s scope does not encompass the direct implementation of treasury management strategies. Instead, the goal of the working group, as written in the forum post, is to “present the DAO with an assortment of options, backed by interviews and research.”

Given this context, we appreciate the opportunity to address this question hypothetically, drawing upon the expertise of our team members.

Uniswap can bolster its treasury by using DeFi protocols to unlock capital efficiency. For example, Uniswap could open collateralized-debt positions using UNI as collateral to borrow stablecoins. Uniswap could then lend these stablecoins on reputable battle-tested DeFi protocols such as Aave to earn interest.

We strongly advocate for Uniswap to take a holistic and balanced approach when executing this strategy. Alongside evaluating the strategy’s upside potential, it’s crucial for Uniswap to factor in risks and costs of using borrowing and lending protocols. Factors such as impermanent loss, accounting and tax implications, as well as administrative and operational best practices, should be thoughtfully considered. Moreover, it’s essential to weigh the opportunity cost of borrowing and lending on DeFi protocols against alternative strategies, such as simply swapping UNI for stablecoins.

We believe that a scoring system (i.e., a rubric) should be created to provide clear guidance for any implemented strategy. Such a system would strengthen Uniswap’s treasury by empowering the working group and ultimately the DAO with a structured framework and a North Star for thoughtful and clear decision making.

Lastly, we emphasize the importance of ensuring that any DAO-required actions around treasury management include strategies aimed at alleviating the decision-making burden and time constraints faced by delegates. It’s crucial to consider approaches that streamline decision-making processes to enhance the overall efficiency and effectiveness of governance within the DAO.

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Hello Uniswap Fam :wave: great to be here

  1. SpikeWatanabe.eth

  2. What is your motivation for applying to this working group? (max 3 sentences)
    I’m OG blockchain markets and care deeply about decentralization. Uniswap as one of the foundational stones for decentralized architecture is particularly important. I would like to continue being efficient contributor towards ecosystem.

  3. Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO
    I’m a long term user of Uniswap, helped to test the protocol way before the airdrop. I’m also active contributor to ENS DAO, and it was my pleasure to see how recently two protocols collaborated and created uni.eth name to provide better service.

  4. Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing (max 5 sentences)
    I was active participant throughout discussion where the decision was made who would be service provide as treasury manager for ENS DAO. Participating in this debate gave me an invaluable insight into the process of such decision making. In addition approximately half of my career I worked as investment banker, executing a variety of complicated deals with combined value exceeding 2bnUSD. Having experience at the intersection of traditional finance and DeFi puts me into a position where I can provide unique insight from both world.

  5. Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury (max 5 sentences)
    Diversity part of UNI token into ETH neutral strategy. In turn ETH neutral strategy should be diversified into a number of staking providers. Such approach is important because it allows to deal with centralisation issue in the space of staking providers. For example LIDO has a dominant share, and it is up to large treasuries such as Uniswap to mitigate that centralisation.

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Applicant Name: karpatkey
Primary point of contact for treasury research is @santinomics and supported @coltron.eth.

What is your motivation for applying to this working group? (max 3 sentences):
We are motivated to lend our expertise to this working group because Uniswap has led the evolution and growth of DeFi. We want to see Uniswap engage in healthy treasury management practices. As leaders in DAO treasury management, we can contribute positively to this effort.

Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAOs:
karpatkey has been an active delegate in the Uniswap Protocol since August 2023, with a 93% participation across all voting actions. We have demonstrated our commitment to governance health and protocol improvement discussions by ensuring our team participates at in-person delegate gatherings, regularly attends community calls, and provides a delegate platform with voting rationale.

Within the Uniswap DAO, we are directly contributing to the Uniswap Delegate Reward working group. Here, we are assisting with research on established delegating reward systems throughout the ecosystem to incentivise healthy governance activity in Uniswap.

In addition to our Uniswap DAO contributions, we’ve historically deployed a combined $62.91M worth of LP positions in both Uniswap V2 and V3. We are intimately familiar with the value of the Uniswap protocol.

Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any sort of professional investing (max 5 sentences):
Our expertise is non-custodial DeFi treasury and risk management. karpatkey currently serves in treasury roles for AAVE, Balancer, CoW Protol, ENS, Gnosis DAO and Lido. We have a team of DeFi engineers, treasury managers and analysts who regularly lead DeFi incentive programs and actively manage treasury assets within the protocols that we serve.

A view of our treasury reports can be found at reports.karpatkey.com.

Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury (max 5 sentences):
In the near term, diversifying the treasury is a straightforward and impactful strategy for enhancing Uniswap’s financial health. Uniswap should prioritise acquiring stable assets to reduce treasury volatility and shield itself from fluctuating market conditions. This diversification would allow for allocating a portion of treasury assets into carefully vetted on-chain, low-risk positions where Uniswap would receive competitive risk-adjusted yields while bolstering its own ecosystem’s liquidity. This diversification is the foundation for supporting further ecosystem expansion with various initiatives, such as grant and incentive programs, M&A, or others.

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Applicant name: Blockchain Education Network

1. What is your motivation for applying to this working group?

The Blockchain Education Network is a 501(c)3 and 1101.01(a)(2) entity established in 2014 to educate the next generation of Blockchain innovators. We are currently the largest network of blockchain university students, professors, alumni, with over 50k+ followers across all our socials.

Because of our mission and our non-bias as a non-profit, BEN has always been a trusted leader at the forefront of pushing blockchain innovation. We set up the BEN-Meta Delegate program for Uniswap, Aave, Compound, etc., assisted in setting up blockchain clubs as Uniswap delegates throughout 2021 and beyond, and created an educational DAO delegates course with an Aave DAO Grant.

We can also help navigate the tax and compliance complexities associated with treasury decisions. Since gaining IRS tax-exempt status in 2014, we have extensive experience managing and advising treasuries across both Web2 and Web3 sectors and a deep understanding of U.S. regulatory complexities for non-profits. We diligently maintain tax reporting standards and comply with local, state, and federal regulations.

2. Please list your association, history, and contributions to the Uniswap protocol or DAO

Since 2021, we have run the BEN Meta-Delegate program with the support of the UNI Grants Program. We experimented with a “1 student = 1 vote” model, held various governance calls, and voted on several proposals with 70+ students participating from over 13 universities around the world. This model also enabled international students to participate in governance without the bureaucracy of setting up a blockchain club at their school.

Webinars:

BEN Uniswap Committee: Uniswap V3 Celebration
BEN Uniswap Governance Call
BEN Uniswap Governance Call: Universities - Let’s Talk about Uniswap V3

We assisted several blockchain clubs, including Rutgers, Blockchain at Michigan, and Penn Blockchain, in setting up their own Aave, Uniswap, and Compound delegates through educational workshops with Harvard Law and Berkeley and direct connections to interested parties like a16z who wanted to delegate their voting power to more student groups.

Webinars:

How to Become a Uniswap Delegate w/ Harvard Blockchain & Blockchain @ Berkeley
The BEN Uniswap Meta-Delegate
Additionally, we hosted a series of Twitter Spaces to educate about various UGPs, as part of our “UGP Grantee Showcase”:

Webinars:

Flipside Crypto
Bring on the Stable
PolyWrap

Briefly provide an overview of your experience with DAO treasury management, traditional fund/asset management, DeFi incentive programs, and/or any professional investing

Our team has extensive experience in managing DAO treasuries, traditional fund and asset management, and DeFi incentive programs. We have effectively managed significant donations and governed financial strategies within the digital asset space, demonstrating strong compliance with U.S. Treasury regulations. Recently, we were awarded over 6-figures educational grants from a highly competitive pool, such as Aave, Uniswap, and others for creating educational content on financial products, showcasing our capability to handle impactful projects and contribute to developing accessible financial systems. This grant further underscores our proficiency in leveraging financial resources to foster inclusive and open financial environments.

Tony is the President of the Blockchain Education Network (BEN), established in 2014, which is a premier network for student-led digital asset education. He graduated in 2020 from the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida. As an immigrant, Tony was driven by the pursuit of alternative financial inclusion solutions, leading him to a conference in 2015 where Ethereum was first introduced by Vitalik Buterin. This pivotal moment launched his career in digital assets.

Tony has held significant roles at Oracle Inc. and various venture capital firms, enhancing his expertise in strategic business alignment and operational execution. As the Capital Markets Architect at GDA.Capital, which has facilitated over $70M+ in private placements and managed over $100M+ in digital asset financings, underscoring his significant influence and deep expertise in the digital asset sector.

Erick Pinos is the Ecosystem Lead at Nibiru, where he has deep experience in managing a grants program and advising ecosystem projects on treasury management, incentives, and airdrops. Nibiru recently raised $6m through a Coinlist sale and launched the $NIBI token on four simultaneous exchanges reaching a $1b+ FDV. He is an angel investor in several industries outside of crypto, including biotech and sustainability. Previously he was the Americas Ecosystem Lead at Ontology Network, where he helped with the launch of Wing Finance, setting up the Wing DAO, various proposals to improve WING’s tokenomics, driving $350m in TVL to the platform, and more. Erick has a BS in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was the President of the MIT Bitcoin Club and a researcher at the MIT Digital Currency Initiative.

Propose one meaningful way by which Uniswap can bolster its treasury

1- Uniswap could diversify its treasury into U.S treasury-backed assets aka bonds, achievable on-chain through the new wave of various RWA & RWUS products. Some examples we are drawing from of DAOs that have done this include Frax, Maker

DAO, Synthetix, and Arbitrum:

  • Frax Finance moved $20 million of its stablecoin collateral into U.S. Treasuries through Centrifuge
  • MakerDAO deployed $500 million into U.S. Treasuries and corporate bonds, more information available.
  • Synthetix raised $12 million from venture capital firms by allocating SNX tokens from its treasury,
  • Arbitrum’s Stable Treasury Endowment Program also explores investments into RWAs like treasury bills.

2- Uniswap could acquire a diversified basket of indices with exposure to different Web3 projects aligned with Uniswap’s mission to “unlock universal ownership and exchange for everyone”, including other DeFi projects, DePIN, RWAs, and RWUs. Ultimately, positioning Uniswap with a highly diversified portfolio of products that benefit everyday users, creating a sustainable long-term economic model, which would also generate dividends in the cyclical markets our industry faces, allowing a buy-back/reinvesting into Uniswap tokens.

3- Uniswap could employ various yield-bearing strategies made available through DeFi and LSDs. This approach has been suggested by others and is worth merit with a concerted risk analysis. We have seen organizations get risky in the chase of APY and negate all they earned via capital depreciation, or at worst getting liquidated on their principal.

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Applications are now closed—the above candidates will be included in a Snapshot vote shortly.

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Hi everyone, thank you for the applications, the poll has been now posted on snapshot https://snapshot.org/#/uniswapgovernance.eth/proposal/0x7584aabd34944953f37008d4a6209e4efee8f1a066a5051fbba37910dae80b49

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The below response 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 in favor of Karpatkey and GFX Labs due to their experienece with treasury management, but also due to their proximity to and familiarity with Uniswap’s governance. Knowing first hand and understanding the needs of the DAO is an important factor for any treasury management solution and we believe it’s also an important consideration to make when researching best practices that can be applied.

We see no conflict with them potentially applying to be the treasury manager down the road -if anything we’d expect them to do so- as long as the research of the UTWG (and not only their recommendations based on the research) is published to give any other applicant the same level of information.

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The UTWG results are in–congrats to @karpatkey and @pennblockchain on being elected!

We will move to an onchain vote shortly to finalize the formation of this working group. Thank you to all those who participated.

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