Welcome to the one-stop shop for a TL;DR on everything discussed on the MakerDAO forum. Links reflect our views of the most noteworthy activities in the governance, risk, and oracles categories. Disagree? Think something should be added? Leave a reply or send a PM. Three-Point Summary ‘What is the most relevant information on the forums this week for MKR and Dai holders?’ 1. @rune published Part 4 of his series on the Endgame Plan, this time with a focus on MetaDAOs and how they can ease governance complexity while opening new revenue pathways. 2. GnosisDAO has approved a proposal to begin a formal partnership with MakerDAO. @Karpatkey shared the proposal on the Forum for community feedback. 3. The GovAlpha Core Unit announced a series of changes to their general workflow in light of recent governance-related mistakes. News and Announcements Decentralized Voter Committees: Endgame Party calls. Everyone welcome @rune will once again be hosting Decentralized Voter Committee calls on Wednesday and Thursday at 9pm CEST this week. Wednesday’s call focused on short-term issues and governance organization, while Thursday’s call will focus on the Endgame Plan’s long-term design. Self Insurance Fund - Update @layerzero of the Sustainable Ecosystem Scaling Core Unit provided an update on the Self Insurance Fund (SIF) initiative for covering legal and liability risks MakerDAO stakeholders may be exposed to. The SES Legal Research team views SIF as the first layer of a comprehensive legal risk management framework. Currently, SES Legal Research is conducting a feasibility study for structuring the fund, aided by risk management firms Artex and Gallagher. As part of a series of exploratory surveys with different MakerDAO stakeholder groups, surveys will be sent out to Recognized Delegates and Core Facilitators in the near future. Deimos Delegation Platform Deimos published their Delegate platform, with the primary goal of pushing through the Endgame Plan and ensuring a good transitional phase. @Deimos believes that MKR holders’ opinions are not being heard and plans to work to change that. Background ● MKR holder since 2017 ● 8 years in entrepreneurship ● 3 years as an operations director Key Info Name: Deimos Nickname: The endgame plan delegate Forum: @Deimos Delegate Address: 0x94070ad138abdd3742166e75b4d4e645b5d8b11e Avoiding the Tragedy: ACREinvest Delegate Office Hours Kianga Daverington, founder of Recognized Delegate ACREinvest, held open office hours on Monday in the form of an AMA. ACREinvest aims to leverage the positive qualities of the crypto space—decentralization, transparency, consensus, cooperation, liberty, and privacy—to help create a better world for everyone. Active Discussions Endgame Plan 4: Understanding MetaDAOs The fourth post in @rune’s series on the Endgame Plan covers a critical topic: MetaDAOs. MetaDAOs come in three different primary forms: ● CreatorDAOs : General MetaDAOs with a very flexible and autonomous scope ● GovernorDAOs : Focus on running core governance processes and bureaucratic systems as a service for Maker ● ReformerDAOs : Handle everything related to the real world, such as Real World Assets and legal and political outreach MetaDAOs have multiple avenues available for generating revenue streams: MetaDAOs also provide a foundation for one of the secondary goals of the Endgame Plan: helping Maker expand to layer-2 blockchains. New MetaDAOs will have an opportunity to stake out exclusive claims to L2s that have not yet been adopted by Maker, opening up further revenue possibilities while helping MakerDAO expand cross-chain. @rune also hopes MetaDAOs will get involved in the Metaverse, an area in which the Maker organization as a whole has yet to find a natural entrance into. The goal is to foster ways for MetaDAOs to create intangible value, such as achieving higher community activation by running private gaming servers for members, getting involved in NFT curation, or hosting real-world events. The post concludes with a look at six different MetaDAOs that could already help rein in governance complexity and provide tangible benefits for MakerDAO as a whole. DeCap + Quadratic Funding: augmenting the EndGame. Optimal infrastructure funding mechanism for MakerDAO What MakerDAO is facing here is the problem of optimal allocation of limited resources towards public goods. @pvl made a post outlining what they believe is the optimal way to finance MakerDAO infrastructure. One popular solution for managing resource distribution for the funding of public goods is quadratic funding, supported by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and others, which enables voters to signal support for a proposed public good as well as the strength of that support, which can be purchased at an increasing marginal cost. A matching pool (budget) then matches voting results with funds. @pvl introduces the idea of DeCaps (Decentralised/Delegate/Degen Capital) to apply this concept to MakerDAO. A DeCap is defined by: ● Delegated MKR ● Reputation earned from objective data (degree of active involvement in the DAO activities: onchain vote participation, successful MIP authorship, etc.) ● Subjective peer assessment (delegates/community members/MKR holders give subjective scores) Each Delegate has their own cumulative, non-transferable, individual DeCap that they vote with and are compensated proportionally to. Using DeCaps, decisions about fund allocation can be made using the quadratic voting mechanism. Under the proposed system, a Global Allocated Budget is designated for a period of time, say three months. Anyone can nominate funding recipients and provide arguments for their nominations. With an individual amount of credits in proportion to their DeCap at the start of the voting period, Delegates allocate their credits based on their own assessments of a proposed funding recipient or project’s value. Delegates can also indicate the strength of their opinions by allocating multiple credits to the same recipient at an increasing marginal cost per allocation, thereby implementing the quadratic voting mechanism. The various metrics and variables involved can be tailored specifically to Maker’s needs. The Endgame Party delegate signup As Rune continues to host the Open Decentralized Voter Committee calls, he recently introduced the Endgame Plan itself will have multiple stages of voting, including a preliminary Signal Request and the Endgame Plan Launch MIP. Additionally, Rune states that it will be beneficial and stabilizing to get a general understanding of the level of support for the Endgame Plan. As a result, Rune posted a thread where delegates can sign up to help run the Endgame Party. However, committed delegates are expected to attend as many Endgame Party Decentralized Voter Committees as possible, vote in general accordance with its direction, and contribute with information, ideas and proposals. Currently, the following recognized delegates have signed up and committed to the Endgame Plan: Recognized Delegate Platform Signup Post Doo Nam Platform Signup JustinCase Platform Signup 3F Delegate LLC Platform Signup Flipside Crypto Platform Signup Penn Blockchain Platform Signup Feedblack Loops LLC Platform Signup Other recognized delegates, such as ChrisBlec, Mhonkasalo & teemulau, and MakerMan, have decided to support the Endgame vision while remaining independent to maintain their platform values and promote decentralized delegation. Furthermore, SebVentures has posted his own Delegate signup platform for a plan that is more business-oriented. His vision is simple: improving balance sheet allocation by investing in liquid tokens, lending against them, and promoting market making. [KICKOFF] Governance from First Principles: Building a Resilient, Decentralized and Uncensorable Stablecoin Independent of the endgame plan or variants thereof, a group of contributors ( mentioned in the thread ) are hosting a call on June 30th at 17:00 UTC to gather an informal group of colleagues who will share their views around governance and help propose alternatives for reform with the goal of strengthening MakerDAO and DAI. The objective of this call is to kick-start a process to give them shape and turn them into actionable items for governance to enact. The thread also offers a number of selected articles that will be referenced for discussion: Call details: ● Zoom Link ● June 30th at 17:00 UTC GovAlpha Internal Process Changes In light of recent governance-related errors, GovAlpha is making a series of updates to its workflow: ● GovAlpha will continue to allow Signal Requests as trials of yet-to-be approved MIPs. They believe this is a valuable tool for MIP authors and Governance when assessing MIPs that can identify edge cases. However, GovAlpha will no longer allow trials due to Signal Requests and top-level MIPs to be polled simultaneously. This may result in delaying the ratification of top-level MIPs until the following month’s governance cycle, in communication with the proposal’s author(s). ● Under every post that will lead to an on-chain governance action (Signal Request/MIP/PPG proposal/Facilitator proposal, etc.), GovAlpha will post a summary of their interpretation of its effects (example here). As per their mandate, this will remain neutral where necessary but will explain steps relating to the Governance process. ● GovAlpha will dedicate resources to developing an automated opt-in notification system for posts/proposals that are given High and Medium impact tags on the forum. GovAlpha has already reached out to Recognized Delegates regarding this, but any solution(s) will be open to the Community to utilize. BFF Partnership with GnosisDAO @Karpatkey made a post outlining a proposed partnership between MakerDAO and GnosisDAO. The proposal has already been approved by GnosisDAO. Gnosis Chain uses bridged DAI as its gas token, so aligning incentives may make sense. GnosisDAO proposes: 1. A GNO-MKR token swap of around $70 million to the Maker community 2. Exploring the use of an institutional MakerDAO vault with the GnosisDAO treasury using GNO + stETH to mint 100 million DAI for the development of the Gnosis Chain 3. Exploring a GNO grant with the Growth Core Unit to expand global adoption and brand awareness of Gnosis Chain 4. Rebranding xDAI to DAI 5. Increasing GNO incentives to DAI pairs on Gnosis Chain 6. Periodically buying MKR on the open market using GnosisDAO’s treasury farming rewards Further details regarding each of these proposals are available in the full post. Modeling DAI maturity @SebVentures of the Strategic Finance Core Unit made a post modeling DAI maturity. The closest traditional financial instrument to a stablecoin like DAI is a bank deposit. TradFi methods of modeling bank deposits, however, are difficult to apply to on-chain assets. Ideally, we would be able to model customer behavior using on-chain behavioral data informed by macroeconomic factors such as bull/bear markets, interest rates, etc., but at the current stage, this model would be very expensive to generate and would be unreliable anyway. @SubVentures settled on a simpler model: Create buckets of on-chain addresses, then generate a worst outflow scenario based on historical data. By splitting addresses that hold DAI into “organic”—all Externally Owned Addresses—and “speculative”—all smart contracts and the DSR—buckets and calculating max drawdowns over different time periods, we get: We can use the same approach to analyze historical data: What can we take away from these models? ● 50% of outstanding DAI is on “long” maturity (more than three months) ● The short-term front of DAI maturity is quite volatile, with more than 20% DAI with a maturity below one day and up to 40% over 1 week In conclusion, the post suggests that “We need to keep at least 50% of outstanding DAI in medium-term maturity assets (unwindable within 1-year), 40% unwindable within a week and 20% unwindable within a day.” [Informal Poll] Direct End Game Party Delegate Compensation To Rune’s Wallet @Ippy submitted an informal poll gauging support for directing Endgame Party Delegate compensation to @rune’s wallet, as he is “doing all of the decision-making work.” Commenters questioned if the poll was serious, but @Ippy maintained that it is. Seeking Consensus ‘Yo, do you even signal?’ [Signal Request] Weather-Proofing Existing RWA Vaults Against Market Conditions This Signal Request is for gauging community sentiment around the idea of programmatically adjusting the existing RWA vault structure and updating the reporting system to help defend against the effects of adverse market conditions. On the “re-pricing” side, this SR proposes updating Vault stability fees to bring them more in line with current macroeconomic conditions. Regarding risk monitoring, RWF would like to require from operators: ● An in-depth monthly surveillance/remittance report on an asset-by-asset and portfolio basis ● A corporate solvency/liquidity report ● Immediate notification regarding any changes to the creditworthiness of any end-borrowers This Signal Request will run until Thursday, June 23rd at 8:30pm UTC. Signal Request: Asset Allocation of MIP65/Clydesdale This Signal Request seeks input on allocating 500M DAI between strategies and asset managers/assets. Publishing this Signal Request is a requirement of MIP65. The allocation options provided are: This Signal Request will run until Monday, June 27th at 9am UTC. [Signal Request] REPEAL Poll ID-827 Deployment of a Permissionless Open Market Operation Trial @ElProgreso submitted a Signal Request to enable Level 2 Community Members to repeal Poll ID 827, which sought to use the DssKiln module to re-purchase MKR on the open market. While the proposal passed, @ElProgreso and others found several issues with it, including: ● Some MKR holders believe the Signal Request and on-chain vote were rushed, and MIP74 has yet to be enacted. ● When this Signal Request was made, the Maker Community was not properly informed that it could possibly be exposed to counterparty risk (Celsius, Nexo, etc.). ● Shadow Delegate 0x749 was not able to vote, as they were in the middle of setting up their Delegate Platform and re-delegating their MKR. ● Recognized Delegate @Hasu was on vacation, as @GovAlpha-Core-Unit and @Recognized-Delegates have yet to design an alternative plan for taking time off from Delegate Voting. ● Some MKR holders prefer a burn at a much lower daily capacity and duration This Signal Request will run until Monday, June 27th at 9am UTC. Signal Request: LP our AAVE and ENS with ETH on Uniswap v3 In response to MakerDAO’s receipt of a large quantity of ENS tokens after last year’s ENS airdrop, this Signal Request gauges community sentiment about LPing Maker’s AAVE and ENS in the treasury with ETH. Selling airdrops may reflect poorly on MakerDAO; putting them to work in liquidity pools may enable Maker to generate additional revenue from the ENS airdrop without jeopardizing community sentiment or rendering MakerDAO ineligible for future airdrops. About $90k in stkAAVE tokens are also currently unutilized. This Signal Request will run until June 30th, 2022. Ongoing Initiatives ‘Oh my god, this is taking ages; why can’t things be simple?’ Maker Operational Manual - @GovAlpha-Core-Unit release the launch of the Maker Operational Manual and invite all members and Core Units to reach out if they wish to provide any help or documentation to add for the Manual. Recognised Delegate Requirements - @LongForWisdom writes a detailed overview of the current requirements and application system to become a delegate in the Maker community. Check out this thread for more posts related to delegation. Where to Find Opportunities at MakerDAO and Open positions at MakerDAO - Looking for job opportunities at MakerDAO? Perfect! @Davidutro and @manomad set up individual threads containing resources to help find available job listings and hiring practices. Please comment on the thread if anybody has additional information on unique hiring practices or job listings. Collateral Calls - Calling all Projects! - @juan sets up a signup thread for projects wishing to present on the bi-weekly collateral call. Know any potential collateral partners that want to present? Refer them here. Collateral Status Index - Confused about the current status of the various collateral types discussed recently? Check out this post to determine the status and current position within the onboarding process. Weekly MIPs Updates - @blimpa brings the latest updates in MIPs. The Official Welcome Thread - A welcome and introductions thread. Not strictly governance, but if anyone new or old wants to introduce themselves, now is your chance! Help Wanted ‘Oh %#$?, we need a doodad, and we need it now.’ We could always use help reviewing MIPs in the Request for Comment phase. Calling All Lawyers! Would You Like To Help Contribute? Feedback Survey Please, check out the Forum at a Glance feedback survey to help us improve and scale these reviews - It will be fun, I promise. Credit: @nothsa and @Artem_Gordon