A Sub-DAO for Treasury Asset Governance
Summary
Valuable governance assets are locked in massive DAO treasuries, being underutilized and stripped of their agency. DAOs with these treasuries are forgoing the opportunity to influence governance decisions that could significantly benefit their orgs.
Moreover, DAOs must vote on other DAOs - and do so with efficiency, purpose, and frequency.
As such, we at Flipside Crypto Governance propose a Sub-DAO governance committee for OlympusDAO to increase the efficiency of treasury assets and vote on cross-protocol proposals.
Why a Sub-DAO?
As of 12/16/2021, OlympusDAO holds 15+ governance tokens, representing large stakes in protocols such as Aave, SushiSwap, Pendle Finance, Frax Finance, Alchemix Finance, and Curve. A few positions and tokens are summarized below:
$xSUSHI - 0.2251% of supply
$mSTABLE - 0.0092% of supply
$ALCX - 0.0185% of supply
$FOX - 0.0105% of supply
The complete list of holdings can be viewed here: OlympusDAO: Treasury Holdings
These are large partners who depend on OlympusDAO for their voting participation and input. As OlmypusDAO continues to grow and integrate with other protocols, the need for a governance focused Sub-DAO compounds. Due to a range of protocols and frequency of votes, it will become increasingly difficult to manage voting and decisions by legacy team members.
Reasons to increase governance efforts:
- Improved Yield Rewards & Token Valuations
By voting on and understanding technical proposals to adjust token emissions or alter pool specifications, proposals have the potential to significantly boost the value of a governance token or rewards for the network. We would outline Terra Proposals ID 133 & 135 - in which it aimed at increasing the rewards by 2x on an annual basis.
- Greater Community Engagement & Brand Awareness
A major limitation of DeFi (and crypto as a whole) is the lack of marketing. By engaging in forums and actively voting, other communities will notice OlympusDAO's engagement and investment in the community. These actions could quickly onboard new users and spread brand awareness across the DeFi ecosystem.
- Continued Treasury Swaps & Partnerships
With the Sub-DAOs expertise and experience with proposals, OlympusDAO can more effectively orchestrate and propose partnerships or improvements in other protocols. Leveraging the amount of token supply the treasury holds and personal connections, OlympusDAO can focus and shape the development of outside protocols as well as its own. This holds powerful agency.
- Recommendations on Internal (OlympusDAO) Proposals
Waning participation in governance is due to a general deficiency in education and understanding of proposals. By providing a recommendation for voting on OlympusDAO’s current votes, OHMies will become more informed and able to follow the recommendation if they choose. This will increase the general participation in OlympusDAO governance and emphasize the creation and structure of new proposals. A later goal would be to incorporate this recommendation into the UI.
The Ask
The creation of a Sub-DAO focused on governance and transition of governance powers to said Sub-DAO. This Sub-DAO will consist of three committee members to ensure a range of opinions and an agile voting construct. With three members, decisions will be made based on supermajority, defined by the following formula: ⌈(N+1) / 2⌉ where N represents the number of council members.
Sub-DAO breakdown:
One member from the OlympusDAO core team
One member of the community
One Flipside Crypto governance contributor to be decided
Sub-DAO roles:
Olympus DAO core team member will provide context around DAO goals & vision, ensuring governance voting & decision-making aligns with the best interests of the org.
Community Member will ensure the community’s best interests are being considered, and will also deliver a weekly summary of governance decisions.
Flipside committee member will monitor relevant protocol governances for upcoming votes, and advise OlympusDAO around how to deploy their treasury assets effectively for proposal voting (as each protocol varies in how voting power is attributed).
In addition, we ask for small compensation for each member:
- $50/per hour for a maximum of 10 hours per week (average 5 hours)
If working an average of 5 hours, this would equate to an annual spend of $39,000.
Benefits from informed governance can easily exceed this cost through voting and proposals.
Why Flipside?
Formed in March 2021, Flipside Crypto Governance (colloquially “FCG”) has been publishing proposals, voting on key initiatives, and providing strategic recommendations to drive protocol health. Our team and resources offer the unique ability (and insights) to boost voter participation and increase overall voter education.
Flipside is one of the few full-time governance teams dedicated to the complete Web3 ecosystem. We have developed a key understanding of the needs and flow of information in the governance process and key tooling to be successful. A few of our results thus far are as follows:
Passed a $1,000,000 SushiSwap Grant, with 99.83% votes in favor
Won awards for activity in Aave, Anchor, and SushiSwap Forums (New User of the Month)
Applied and received ENS DAO delegation, representing 3.10k delegated votes
Active voting in multiple ecosystems: Aave, Sushi, ENS DAO, Terra, Algorand, and more
Research extensively on emerging and legacy Governance structures (SNX, ILV)
Active in over a dozen forums, including OlympusDAO (@fig)
Won multiple grants from Compound, Uniswap, and Aave
These are a few of our team’s preliminary results and we hope to bring this expertise to OlympusDAO’s current treasury. Pairing a Flipside team member with someone from the DAO and an individual from the community allows for a greater range of knowledge and mitigates potential bias. We hope to pioneer this model with OlympusDAO and create a framework for DAOs to come.
Next Steps:
We welcome any feedback from the community and potential suggestions.
If you are interested in filling out the one community spot on the Sub-DAO committee, please reply to this thread with some basic information, including:
Describe your involvement in OlympusDAO
What skills/experience do you bring to the committee?
Can you commit ~5 hours a week?