welcome back to the Tally newsletter, your weekly source for DAO governance insights. i'm coolhorsegirl and i’m so happy to be here. 🟣
should DAOs participate in the governance of other DAOs? this is the metagovernance question, and it’s especially relevant coming off the $ARB airdrop.
onchain proposals are coming from Arbitrum, Uniswap, and Dope Wars (oooh, revamp!) this week. and, Gitcoin is setting budgets for next season for a number of different streams. let’s get into it 👇
🤿 deep dive: the metagovernance question
the Arbitrum airdrop happened all the way back in march (>5 months ago now!), but not all $ARB is delegated from the big winners of the airdrop. one of these winners who isn’t voting yet in Arbitrum is Uniswap (currently holding 2M of $ARB). Uniswap just passed Fund Combined Liquidity Incentivization Program to finally distribute this $ARB amongst its community, including 1,779,950 for liquidity incentives. Gauntlet will receive 150k $ARB, OpenBlock 15k $ARB, and Angle Merkle 3% of distrubted $ARB.
this begs the question: should DAOs participate in other DAOs’ governance (or, by extension, give other DAOs’ tokens to their community members to vote with, keeping in mind that these voters would likely want to boost the agenda of the DAO that gave them the tokens since they participate in it)? let’s break down the arguments.
team 'yes' is all in, arguing that DAO participation across the ecosystem is key to a more decentralized and democratic governance structure. letting tokens trickle down from the DAO as a whole to participants can lead to more informed and balanced decision-making and helps prevent power from being concentrated in the hands of a select few. they may also say that DAOs earn these airdropped tokens, and thus have the right to have (an often large) say in the DAO.
team 'no', however, is sounding the alarm bells. they argue that allowing DAOs to participate elsewhere opens the door to manipulation by a small group of individuals or entities holding a large amount of tokens. in this case, that would mean Arbitrum becoming controlled by Uniswap (or again, by extension, Uniswap participants who would want to bolster the goals of Uniswap). this could lead to decisions that benefit the few at the expense of the many.
so who has got it right? metagovernance, like most things in the DAO world, is an early venture into what we can do with blockchain. we’ll follow the voting results of Uniswap’s ARB delegation closely and keep you updated.
⌛️ onchain proposals
💙 Arbitrum
AIP-7: Arbitrum One Governance Parameter Fixes
summary: addresses three independent issues with the Arbitrum One governance system: (1) updates the airdrop distributor fee sweep address to the DAO treasury’s address, (2) changes sequencer gas fee reimbursement parameterization, and (3) amends L1 core governance timelock scheduleBatch Bug.
voting ends: september 7th
😊 Dope Wars
DIP-79(b) DopeWars Mean Streets
summary: DopeWars Frenzy has evolved past a simple PvP game and will be rebranded to DopeWars Mean Streets. this drives that forward, including expansion of modes and features.
voting ends: september 5th
summary: executes two offchain votes that have passed: DIP-78: Operating Agreement Amendment and DIP-80: Contracting with Dope DAO and Intellectual Property.
voting ends: september 2nd
💚 Gitcoin
it’s budget proposal time! voting for each ends by friday.
[S19 Proposal Amended] MMM S19 Budget Request
[S19 Proposal Amended] Allo S19 Budget Request
[S19 Proposal Amended] Grants Stack
📝 what we’re reading & listening to
📄 “Safeguarding On-chain Governance” by matt stein
we’ve talked a lot about risk management, right? this addresses some of the governance safeguards we see commonly and their pros and cons. it’s a helpful, holistic take on what works and what doesn’t for different types of organizations.
📄 “Code of Ethics” by fehz on Decentraland’s forum
not too long ago someone told me that codes of ethics were a “bull-run thing.” weird to hear aloud but potentially not so far from the truth in terms of what is actually prioritized during bears. good to see Decentraland writing their own during this time, and potentially one of those “bear is almost over” signals we’ve been looking for.
🐦 “Takeaways on friend.tech” by david phelps
the future of social media or a soon-to-be-failed experiment? friend.tech has proved a divisive topic since its start; now that we’re seeing use and value diminish, it’s helpful to hear more data-driven takes on its past and future like this one.
💫 DAO talk: keep your friends close and your DAOs closer || DT weekly ep. 52
🤭 meme of the week
Tally has revealed some updated and upgraded docs! If you need some technical help navigating Tally or you just want to learn about the onchain governance system and DAOs in general, check it out.
~ coolhorsegirl 🐴
p.s.- dog at the pub! we won the latest pub quiz via a question about the 3 countries that are completely landlocked: Lesotho, Eswatini, and Vatican City. easy money.