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.