Butter'n Up Delegates: An Incentive-Driven Approach to Boosting Governance
The Tally Newsletter, Issue 92
Welcome back to the Tally Newsletter, your weekly source for insights on DeFi and DAO governance. We're dedicated to keeping you in the loop on pivotal proposals, procedural transformations, newly implemented voting mechanisms, and evolving power structures within the Tally ecosystem. Plus, we'll curate a selection of must-read articles and must-listen podcasts each week to ensure you remain a well-informed citizen of web3.
I'm coolhorsegirl, a DeFi native thrilled to deliver the latest updates to you every week. With prior experience with Index Coop and a diverse range of DeFi projects, I have a keen interest in DAO governance and cutting-edge DeFi innovations focused on promoting decentralization to its fullest potential.
This week, we're exploring another aspect of one of 2023's most-discussed governance topics: delegation. We're shifting our focus to professional delegates. Gone are the days of not delegating, choosing delegates haphazardly, or being unsure about whom to delegate to. Butter has introduced an incentive-driven program for Aave DAO that targets professional delegates, a trend we anticipate will become more common as the year unfolds. Additionally, we'll examine a few proposals, including Uniswap's chain expansion and the quirky, unique proposals from Nouns and Lil Nouns. Let's dive right in.
🤿 Deep Dive: Butter'n Up Delegates: An Incentive-Driven Approach to Boosting Governance
Delegation is HOT. A few weeks ago, we covered the rise of university delegate groups and this week, we’re running through professional delegates, the latest of which has been enabled by Butter. Let’s get into it.
Professional delegates are individuals or organizations with a proven track record in DeFi, possessing extensive technical knowledge and experience in decentralized governance. They actively participate in governance discussions, propose changes, and vote on behalf of their delegators. Simply, they participate full-time in governance to act in the best interests of the community to ultimately help protocols succeed. Check out this article for a comprehensive explanation of professional delegates.
On that topic, emerging DAO governance platform Butter has partnered with Aave Grants DAO to launch a 3-month pilot delegate campaign to financially incentivize the best talent and expertise to govern the DAO, which will ultimately lead to the best outcomes for the DAO. Get the full rundown with Butter contributor noturhandle.eth in this podcast, or check out the SparkNotes below:
The 3-month campaign unfolds in three stages:
Election Week: Aave holders cast their (weighted) vote for 1 of the 13 (pre-approved) delegate candidates in a 3-day Snapshot. All candidates have written Delegate Initiatives and spoken on Boardroom’s Twitter Spaces. This period has *just* ended: TokenLogic has won.
Delegation Week: The winning delegate receives delegated tokens over this 7-day period, ideally from all those who voted on the Snapshot. Delegators receive exclusive NFTs.
Campaign (Representation Phase): The chosen delegate represents delegators’ interests in Aave governance while receiving AAVE as compensation (~222 Aave/month funded by the Aave Grants DAO to Butter). During this campaign, Butter provides in-depth performance reviews at the end of each month.
This is exciting stuff—participation in Butter’s campaign proved more than just decent, and this is week 1 of 12. But this system goes beyond Aave and Butter. If all goes well, we could see this in the same system repeated at Aave as well as sprouting up throughout the ecosystem. It seems the next wave of DAO governance lies in professional delegates.
⌛️ On-chain Proposals
On-chain DAOs are decentralized autonomous organizations that operate entirely on the blockchain, using smart contracts and other blockchain-based technologies for its operations and decision-making processes. Tally believes that true DAOs operate on-chain.
Uniswap
Summary: Simple: Deploy Uniswap v3 to Gnosis. The proposal has been in discussion since last April with all temperature checks receiving overwhelming support.
Voting ends: April 15th
Summary: Same thing as above but with Polygon’s new zk-rollup. Makes a lot of sense given the massive user uptake Uniswap has seen on Polygon PoS.
Voting ends: April 14th
Lil Nouns
Summary: 3.75 ETH to scale the POAP Program (that already exists), a body that provides custom artwork to event managers. Funds will go towards the continuation of the program PLUS marketing (that has previously gone by the wayside).
Voting ends: April 11th
Nouns DAO
Nouns Esports - CS:GO and Dota2 Rosters 2023
Summary: Esports Pod, which has been running since August, has seen success in marketing/hype and actual competitions. Now they’re asking for $795,000 for ongoing financial support for the teams.
Voting ends: April 12th
📝 10 Things To Read or Listen To
Article: “Building Psychological Attachment — Not Just Ownership — Into Web3” by Li Jin
Article: “Enhancing Crypto Data Platforms” by 0xDataWolf
Tweet: “ChatGPT is better than my therapist” by Kat Woods
Thread: “How to describe your product in web3” by Kofi
Thread: “Problems with DAOs and Impact Communities" by ManuAlzuru
Thread: “Shared sequencers are one of the few great business opportunities in crypto” by David Phelps
Thread: “Announcing DebtDAO’s Launch” by DebtDAO
Twitter Spaces: “Discussing on-chain DAOs vs in-name-only governance” by Aavegotchi
Podcast: “Celo 2.0 with Rene Reinsburg” from GreenPill
Podcast: “The Evolution of Boys Club: balancing control + scale w/ Parker Jay-Pachirat” from On the Other Side
💫 DAO Talk: DAO Talk Halftime Show || DT Weekly Ep. 36
🤭 Meme of the Week
Get ready for the launch of DAO Talk Season 2 next week! Eagerly anticipate more engaging conversations from Tommy and Frisson as they delve into the most critical (and frequently the most eccentric) topics in the DAOverse. Also, remember that as Delegation Week starts in Butter’s Aave Delegation campaign, you can delegate on Tally!
p.s.- Happy Easter weekend! I’m never quite sure what the protocol in crypto is re public holidays—does anyone really take off work? A few years ago I staged this Easter-themed photoshoot of my (adorable) bunnies. This Easter I was busy grinding Midjourney whilst fighting my crippling addiction to sour gummy worms.
