0x Protocol - The Unbundling

🏛 Governance
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Abstract

This post aims to catalyze the unbundling of 0x Protocol and 0x Labs as the latter continues to transition from the builder and original steward of the protocol to its eventual role as one stakeholder amongst many within the 0x Protocol ecosystem.

Context

0x Protocol is an open-source public good providing a fundamental building block for the exchange of value whose decentralization roadmap started with 0x Labs building and stewarding its initial stages and ends with a broader set of stakeholders collectively owning and influencing the protocol.

Up to now, the protocol’s presence and identity has been coupled, if not thought of synonymously, with 0x Labs and its products (0x API, Matcha, etc.) Several key steps have been taken toward transitioning 0x Protocol to it’s intended owners — the community — with the launch of 0x DAO and a community-owned treasury. As 0x Labs continues to transition to its eventual role as one stakeholder amongst many within the community, there’ll be more to unbundle between 0x Labs and 0x Protocol — their identities, internet presence, and content to name a few.

This forum post intends to be a catalyst for the unbundling, starting with three parts: (1) 0x Protocol Constitution, (2) 0x.org refresh, (3) blog refresh.

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0x Protocol Constitution

In 2022, we saw many projects across the ecosystem pursue their own paths toward decentralization. One common part of each of these efforts was the introduction and ratification of constitutions — documents that put the mission, vision, and core values in writing to serve as the guiding north star for the long term development of the protocol and its community (e.g. ENS, Optimism, PoolTogether).

To date, a mission, vision, and core values have not been definitively established as proper to 0x Protocol — components exist across the original whitepaper and early blog posts from 0x Protocol’s original creators Will Warren and Amir Bandeali [1, 2, 3].

We plan to post an initial draft for the community’s feedback and clarifications.

0x.org Refresh

To date, the protocol’s web presence on 0x.org has been coupled with 0x Labs and its products (0x API, Matcha, etc.) — 0x Protocol should have its own dedicated institutional website that would serve as the canonical source of truth for all things related to the protocol.

We plan to post a call to action to the 0x community and broader ecosystem to help bring a refreshed identity, created in a collaboration between 0x Labs and an outside design firm, to life.

Blog Refresh

Content related to 0x Protocol, its development, and community currently lives within blog.0x.org and is intermixed with 0x Labs and its work — 0x Protocol should have an independent hub for its past and future content.

We plan to create a mirror.xyz space for 0x Protocol to serve as that independent hub.

4 Likes
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Thanks @ericwong for the effort to move this further, 0x Labs always was a good pursuit of innovation for 0x protocol and every contribution from them was always accepted with majority, and this move could help new community members from the space to also contribute to it. I believe 0x Labs will still be the major contributor as they have more knowledge of the protocol.

I agree with the path to decouple the protocol from 0x Labs, this way the protocol can live on its own and be independent and more resilient.

I believe for a better innovation of this space related to 0x protocol, a good start besides the ones you pointed out, was good documentation on how to deploy 0x smart contracts (ERC20 and ERC721) on new chains, and a trustless and secure way to do it. This way any actor will be able to pursue the deployment of 0x smart contracts on new chains with the blessing of the protocol team. Additionally, how to deploy transformers on a testnet, transformers I saw one of the most innovative from the protocol architecture and where the community can contribute with big innovations.

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Thanks guys, a few questions for you:

  • Based on what you say, It’s not clear who will be maintaining and developing the 0x smart contracts going forward. V4 is a pretty crazy innovation, but it could have only been built with expertise, time, and compensation. I’m a little concerned that, with the decoupling, there won’t be enough dedication towards building or maintaining the contracts

  • When we built V4, we used our experience with V2 and V3 - as well as our own relationships with key ecosystem partners - to ensure that our new contracts clearly solved a problem that was needed by the industry. Without 0x Labs, how do we ensure that the 0x Protocol keeps on innovating in the right direction and by solving the right problems?

  • How any potential hotfixes or security concerns for the current protocol be addressed moving forward?

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hey @PirosB3, thanks for the good questions,

  • The unbundling initiative is meant to make it easier for more parties to contribute to (e.g. maintaining and developing) outside of 0x Labs. This does not preclude 0x Labs from continuing to be an active contributor to the protocol going forward as it does right now. 0x Labs’ success is tied directly with 0x Protocol continuing to function properly so it is in 0x Labs’ best interests to contribute to the protocol’s development and maintenance to ensure this.
  • Following some discussions on Discord and this Forum, there are certain scenarios when there’s innovation/development that the community wants to be done on the protocol (e.g. bundles for NFTs on v4) – similar to the first bullet, the goal is to empower more parties to step up to do that type of work. The products that 0x Labs has built on top of 0x Protocol represent a subset of use cases that the protocol can serve and thus the work 0x Labs focuses on is a subset of what innovation on top of the protocol can mean. Hopefully by creating more separation between 0x Protocol and 0x Labs, there’s more space for people to innovate in.
  • Protocol security is the top concern moving forward - again, 0x Labs’ success is directly tied to the proper functioning of the protocol. In any governance evolution that is to come, proper security measures will be a pre-requisite.
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Sorry I’ve failed to respond here - I definitely have a few words to say and I’ll get back to you this weekend.

Thanks for your response