YIP 41: Temporarily Empower Multisig

Authors

@tracheopteryx @Substreight @franklin @vooncer @anderson

Summary

Temporarily empower the Multisig members to make basic, limited operational decisions including budgetary expenditures, protocol grants, and hiring for six months, as we prepare a more robust governance architecture.

Abstract

The proposed change would allow Multisig members to make personnel & budgetary decisions for no more than six (6) months. Any budget is to be proposed to governance for approval. This change would allow operational decisions to be made at a rapid pace for the next six (6) months. During this six-month term, the Multisig will be responsible for facilitating the creation and transition to a multi-DAO structure. These powers, as well as members of the Multisig, can be removed or modified by governance at any time.

Motivation

In this nascent stage of Yearn’s lifetime, it is crucial to make rapid decisions in order to establish a strong foundation. Structure and support needs to be quickly built around Andre’s development speed in order to ensure the success of the protocol. This proposal formalizes administrative roles that will serve as a foundation for the protocol’s transition to a multi-DAO structure in the near term.

Specification

Overview

This proposal grants the Multisig operational authority on the following decisions for six (6) months from implementation:

  • Determining and distributing protocol grants.

  • Determining and distributing community grants.

  • Determining and distributing legal + DAO consultation grants.

  • Identifying and executing key hires listed on the attached budget.

  • Identifying and engaging security firms.

  • Identifying and engaging analytical firms.

  • Continue executing yVault strategy changes until a dedicated team can take over.

  • Facilitating UI & front-end development.

  • Facilitating business development and integrations.

This proposal does not grant the Multisig:

  • Authority over YFI token or emissions.

  • Leadership powers beyond those described above.

  • Any powers over the YIP process or governance.

  • Authority over the composition of the Multisig group – any changes to Multisig signers will need to be approved by governance.

  • The power to ignore or hinder any approved YIPs or the governance process in general.

  • The power to create a legal entity.

Rationale

Forum Poll (202 votes)

  • 78% “Yes, empower the Multisig”

  • 22% “No, find a better solution”

Important objections raised in the forum poll argued against moving to a foundation model and overly centralizing powers. Here is how we’re learning and adjusting from this feedback:

  • Clarification that this proposal is not for a foundation model and that the yearn governance DAO will retain its dominant authority including the ability to modify or remove the multisig’s members or powers via future on-chain votes.

  • A deeper discussion about decentralization, governance, and the urgency for this YIP to pass can be found in this thread: Understanding Decentralization & Prioritizing an Operations Team.

  • Clearer limitations on the multisig’s authority detailed above to be controlled via smart contract.

Technical Specification

For: Empower the Multisig for six (6) months.

Against: No changes.

Proposed Budget

Discussions

8 Likes

Hello.
I would be voting NO when presented as such. This is just too vague to award with a carte blanche budget of $1-2M. How would we evaluate if the money were well spent if there are no goals (evaluation criteria) provided in the first place?

I would be voting YES if this was only about empowering the Multisig in principle, with the single goal of facilitating and defining goals for the sub-areas, and a budget to reach that. That makes sense to me. Let’s construct and approve a sensible budget to reach those goals in the next step.

4 Likes

Hi,

I’d just like to quickly add that I believe this proposal would be well complemented by a very brief description of each role listed in Staff, somewhat highlighting the main responsibilities and tasks to be carried out for each. This is not at all with the intent of restricting the scope of action of the staff members, as I think flexibility should be encouraged in this type of setup, but more so to provide a bit more insight into exactly what objectives each role is furthering and how they’re doing so. I think this would be attractive for holders and would help us in making a more informed decision.

Other than that, I agree with the overall vision of the proposal and I think it goes in line with what was outlined in both threads authored by @Substreight and @tracheopteryx but I think, given the importance and relative permanence (6 months sure seems to me like an eternity in crypto land) of this decision, I would personally like to see a more fully fleshed out proposal and, as such, for now I will be voting Against.

4 Likes

Thanks for these thoughtful comments @Gekonn and @fish. You both make great points.

I think the first thing to point out is that most of the roles in the budget are for people who have been working non-stop since this thing started. They are the top minds in DeFi and the ones that got us here. I trust them to do right by this community at this early stage without formal goal tracking or role definitions. For example, the Lead Dev is @andre.cronje (108k/year salary for the Andre Cronje – common!) and the Ops Manager is @milkyklim . And auditors have been working unpaid for a while now already. We have to make them whole.

I know there is the desire to get a hold on this beast we’re riding and apply all the wisdom we’ve learned from our professional lives. I want some of that too, and as we grow we’ll need OKRs and more processes etc. But right now we don’t. Right now things are moving so fast and this governance process is actually pretty slow. People have been working flat out for so long, we need to support them. We need this to pass otherwise we cannot hire more devs.

The other thing I want say is that as a relative outsider I’ve been lucky enough to see under the hood here and the amount of respect and consideration the core team has for this governance process is humbling. No one is trying to go and waste a lot of money or slack off. This team has done an incredible job getting us here, let’s give them the power they need to take us the next leg.

I encourage you both to help us develop the process you mention. How would you do goal tracking @Gekonn? Help us lay a foundation for that we can grow into.

12 Likes

The main objectives to be achieved of this proposal and budget are ultimately:

  1. Increase the amount allocated to security/auditing. Allowing the multisig to select, oversee, pay security auditors. Two have already been working, but this proposal would expand the security team to be a more robust and comprehensive. It would likely be faster and more efficient to enable a multisig to do this rather than conducting wider governance votes.

  2. Formalize a bug bounty program, including specifications regarding what qualifies as a valid bug, amount awarded, and enable timely and fair payment for valid bug bounties. If a governance vote needs to be conducted for every potential bug bounty it would be a very inefficient process. Likely deterring potential white hat hackers since they may not get rewarded for a significant period of time. This interim 6 month period would create and implement a bug bounty program.

  3. Select the design firm for the UI/UX revamp, direct and oversee their progress, and pay them accordingly. It will be easier and more efficient to have the multisig oversee and execute this process.

  4. Distribute various development, community, or potential legal advisory grants that will likely be needed in the early phase of this project.

Most of the costs displayed above are already being incurred so the budget merely tracks and formalizes them (i.e. gas costs, developer tools, etc.)

Similarly, much of the staff is already doing this work so this budget formalizes a compensation plan for them to keep them working and doing the job they are already doing. Staff roles include:

Lead Developer - Andre;
Strategy Q&A - individual conducting Q&A and testing for newly launched or soon-to-be launched strategies;
Operations Manager - Oversees various operational tasks, related to back-end rewards processing, third-party contractors identified above, other key processes that will be vital to maintaining the current product lines;
Operations Support - Facilitates management of the Treasury (along with the multisig), monitoring of the budget, tracking profitability and costs by product line, which will help the project analyze product offerings that could be further explored, discontinued, or improved. All of which will help bottom line performance of the entire project, and ultimately YFI holders;
Technical Community Manager - Technically knowledgeable individual able to do various back-end processes necessary to maintain current product lines, as we as responding to queries or concerns related to products. Potentially create a more comprehensive developer guide, etc.
Community Managers - Represent Yearn in public forums, address concerns, questions from third-parties, various community oversight activities, etc.

Over half of the monthly budget goes directly towards security ($64k) and developer ($41k - includes developer grant) costs, which I think are quite vital. The staff costs are quite small relative to revenue and likely below market rates for almost all the positions.

And just to reiterate this is a temporary 6 month proposal and does not give the multisig authority over anything not specified in the proposal. A lot of the items specified in the budget likely need to be implemented fairly soon and early on in the project’s life; therefore, having the multisig implement them is a more efficient process.

6 Likes

I’ve spent my eloquence discussing UX, and will be brief. Apologies, I still mean well.

  • The fact that these roles will be filed by specific people is missing in the proposal. I very very much agree that all those people should be made whole, to a point the proposal should be written with such in mind. That’d be an easy Yes in my consciousness.
  • That’s connected with the goals (or a lack of) as well – while these esteemed individuals don’t really need goals defined, as they have demonstrated having them internalised, and can just continue pushing the boundaries, the proposal can be interpreted as bringing random mercenaries on board. Can the proposal be interpreted as such? I might be a dumb proof of that.
1 Like

Proposing people for specific roles only adds complexity to a binary vote, and misses the intention of this proposal itself. The idea is that the roles can be fluid, even within the 6 month period, and that the Multisig members would be empowered to make quick decisions on filling or replacing as necessary. While there are specific people in mind for a couple roles, the majority of proposed roles (and grant $) are for the community to bubble up and fill.

If this passes, I do hope the community is active in keeping MS accountable to schedule and budget.

8 Likes

@tracheopteryx @franklin

Thank you both for the follow up, I think they complement the proposal really well. If it wasn’t clear, I am quite on board with much of the authors’ thoughts about short-term governance and the ideas behind this model of transition, my comment wasn’t so much as criticism to the core concepts as it was just pointing out there’s information that I think would be worthy to expand on in order to make this a more clear and robust proposal, better inform the decision-making process and maybe even better align the community around it.

That said, @franklin’s reply adds a lot to the proposal and provides much of that, really appreciate it. I’ll be glad to reassess it as a whole and look forward to hearing more thoughts from the community

3 Likes

This looks good, honestly if anything I would say devs are quite underpaid compared to their market value. We need to create a solid basing and this is by far the best usage of funds. Budget looks thoughtful and I see no yellow flags. Basically posting this to signal verbal support and let the authors of the YIP know I’ll be voting yes on it

3 Likes

For this! We need to increase efficiency and continue to empower individuals or groups to continue to drive forward the project without passing every small decision by a community wide vote. We obviously have a lot of talented people here that know what they are doing and I trust them to make the correct decisions.

6 Likes

Hey Everyone,

My name is Graeme Barnes, I’m a product manager with Gnosis working on prediction markets for governance. I created and funded a market asking if YIP 41 will pass. The starting odds matched those in the poll on this thread, so 78% for/ 22% against. The market is well funded with 5K USDC so it can accept large trades.

You can check it out here: https://omen.eth.link/#/0xad6306bd234b606f3d7bac51bddebd91b5425361

My hope is the liquidity backing this market incentives attention to the vote and with that attention comes more debate and opinions. For now it’s quite simple but will be working on more advanced markets in the future which allow traders to forecast the consequences of accepting or denying a proposal. Enjoy the market, love what’s happening here.

4 Likes

Mr @Substreight how did you end up with those 500k/weekly revenue numbers?
Our means of measuring the incomes are kind of innacurate, aren’t they?
Thanks for your contribuition to our community.

Proposal has passed with 99.90% votes for, 0.09% votes agains and 22.14% quorum.

7 Likes

Closed since inactive.