Decision making is moving too slowly and unable to keep up with the pace of development. I propose that we turn the MultiSig into an operating council for a six-month period, giving the group authority on basic operational decisions such as budgetary expenditures, protocol grants, and hiring.
Abstract:
The proposed change would allow MultiSig members to make determinations on how to spend a budget, which will be approved by the community. This change would allow operational decisions to be made at a rapid pace for the next six (6) months. During this six-month term, work will be done to design and implement a more decentralized structure for this process, with the goal of handing authority off to a multi-DAO structure.
Motivation:
The motivation for this change is three-fold, focusing on increasing decision-making efficiency in the short term.
The pace of development is outstripping the pace of operations.
We need to formalize certain roles and reward contributors for work being done.
We need a council to fill roles and make determinations on expenditures.
Specification:
Formalize MultiSig members as temporary operational council.
Propose a Y1 budget, to be updated, reported on, and re-approved by the community on a bi-annual schedule.
Cap budgetary expenditures at $250,000 / month. MultiSig must seek approval if monthly expenditures exceed this.
Identify DAO consultants to assist with design of and transition to a more decentralized structure by February 1, 2021.
For: Give operational authority to the MultiSig for six (6) months.
Against: No changes, allow community to vote on everything.
EDIT: If you vote no, please suggest better alternatives.
Agreed we need to enable the team to be move fast. I support it.
Just some more clarification,
How would this affect the ability of the community members to submit new proposals for voting? Only certain areas will not need to go through onchain voting or we will freeze onchain voting for all topics for six months?
Preferably we can set it up in a way the team takes control of areas that need the most immediate attention while leaving room for the community to continue contributing in their own way.
Yeah the intention is to leave proposal power in the hands of the community, who can even turn around and vote this structure out if itās not deemed to be effective. The budget itself and other majors will still be determined by the community, but will give the MultiSig freedom to operate within boundaries detailed in this proposal (and forthcoming budget).
The main points I see this touching are:
Determining and distributing protocol grants
Identifying and making key hires (within budgetary lines)
Determining and distributing salaries (within budgetary lines)
Determining and executing strategy changes (already happening)
Engaging security and analytic firms.
Formalizing UI & front-end development.
Any proposed changes to economics or governance would be put in front of the community for vote.
Full disclosure, there is a basic budget being worked up that allows the MultiSig ~$200k of expenditure overhead every month. That will be put forward for feedback and vote rather soon as well.
This also leaves a window to take proper time to structure the next evolution of the DAO / Governance, which would be created with heavy involvement from the community at large.
Thx for the clarification. Yes this makes total sense at this early stage to establish some basic framework of operations before handing control back to the community.
Substreight - can we work through some of these. I agree that we need to get some formalized decision making in place. Can we talk about how we go about hiring these roles as well.
I have no skills to help with tech, but I have been in finance and treasury roles with GE Capital for a decade and would like the chance to participate in the financial operational changes.
Given the multisig is made of most of those in the industry that had the means to earn and generate quite the voting power - I would expect that outside of this all other roles are in some way voted on to keep an element of decentralization in this process. I am not looking for financial return either, but there are quite a few that do deserve this and would like to make sure they are compensated as well.
Multisig = Council
Define budgetary costs that are acceptable within the $250k per month
Pre voting submission for support roles (outside of Andre, Klim)
I would be happy to be a consultant for the DAO transition and design process to decentralized governance.
This is a great idea but just needs some more detail - thanks for championing Substreight
Iām overall supportive of increased efficiency. However, this does come at the cost of decentralization. Can we get some more information about who the MultiSig members are and how they were originally chosen? Also, will there be a structure in place to ensure their decisions are transparent to YFI holders?
Personally, I think a bit of a hybrid model would be good. I think we can empower the multisig committee, but at the same time have them bring major items forward for voteā perhaps every week, every two weeks, or just as they see fit. I think we already place a lot of trust in these people (plus Andre) so itās not like this is a huge change anyway realistically.
I donāt necessarily like the idea of just saying āhey, go do whatever you want and weāll check back in six months laterā but I do agree that this would likely help speed things up. So maybe have weekly reports from the operational committee that just lets the community know whatās going on, and we can vote on issues as they see fit.
We need to level up our financial + accounting game. I have decent operational experience but by no means should be in control of this longer term. Iām looking to replace myself in this capacity and would appreciate your help in both filling that role + advising on future changes.
There is a rough budget being worked on that will be put forth soon for input from the community. Would like your input on that as well.
A big part of the inspiration for this is to avoid putting every single candidate for a role in front of the community at large for vote. The thought of that makes me shudder a bit. Iām thinking thereās a period where people can self-nominate for an open role beyond core (Andre, Klim) and after a period of discussion the MultiSig could make a determination. Really open to feedback on the specifics of this as there is obviously a balance between efficiency and decentralization that I donāt want to abuse.
While I am not sure that all of the MultiSig members are prepared to come public, many of them already are public and rather trusted figures within the community. We will also have the option to replace less active members of the MultiSig with more committed ones, if this becomes an issue.
Definitely for transparency behind thinking and decisions made. Weekly updates can be made, and we can move towards a recurring governance call that provides clarity for everyone.
I agree, and definitely not the intention to just hand over the keys, so to speak. A big part of this is formalizing whatās already going on
All for regular reports and transparency. I would reiterate that governance calls are a proven method for this.
Any proposed budget will have clear line items that will dictate how the MultiSig can operate.
Please keep coming with feedback. I will continue to dial in details and wonāt rush this to a vote.
Iāve attached a snip of the current āline itemsā I have running in my draft budget, to give a better idea of what weād be hiring for. Dev 00 & Steward would be Andre & Klim, respectively.
Iām not in favor of giving the spending power of the treasury to 6 internet randos. Multisig already has way too much power already ā if anything, to ensure Yearnās long-term viability, we should be stripping power away from multisig ASAP.
I also donāt see any way to hold multisig accountable for how the $250k/mo is spent, which raises tons fo red flags. Sorry if I sound like a deranged paranoid person.
JFC - you are worried that the people who took us this far are going to run off with 250k? When they all likely have many times that in $YFI? It makes no sense.
Thereās zero incentive to poorly spend and full incentives to build.
I would give Andre the entire treasury and say, āHey man, do what you think is right and not even blinkā
This is good. Another role in āpersonnelā I feel is greatly needed is communications. YFI is a project with nuance, and creating video/content that ELI5 both what is happened, what will happen, and communicating both the value of the protocol & tooling & value prop (etc) is sorely needed. Learnyearn is good (oh my, few understand) but the goal should be as the project continues to dynamically evolve we donāt just stay in our bubbles and scale our comms to those who may be interested in using the protocol or joining/voting in on governance discussions (ie: purchasing YFI)
For multisig to move faster. Yes please. This is a no brainer honestly and I become more bullish by the minute if we can get this through. The balance & check thing that needs to happen is the idea of once decisions have happened theyāre transparent. Ie: We can see where the cash flow is going/has gone, but you donāt need to slow things down beforehand.
Let me clarify that Iām not accusing multisig of malice. The existence of multisig is already a flaw which creates a system that is compromisable. This proposal makes it even more so.
If I were an attacker and owned 6 of the signatures, I could funnel the $250k/mo into my account and DCA or even just market sell all the $YFI in the 6 accounts.
Iām not sure I agree with the premise that ādecision making is moving too slowly and unable to keep up with the pace of developmentā.
If the goal is to incentivize faster/more development, let the community vote on bounties for projects verifiable on something like ErasureBay.
Edit: To expand on this even more. You could create a YIP which links to N ErasureBay bounties you created, for projects you want completed. If the YIP passes, the treasury is used to pay off the bounties.
Edit2: You can even include a bounty for this YIP in the YIP itself so you can get a cut for your work.
Do you understand the protocol didnāt emerge out of thin air? There are a lot of passionate people working on it every day behind the scenes.
Multisig consists of a few people who have seen the potential since day one, and we have expanded the core by a factor of ten since then. The proposal is just to revise and ratify the current state of affairs.
As for bounties and grants, this is also being worked on. Foundation model has been very successful in this space, lots of more mature projects are a testament to that. I think we should try it.
