[Request for Comment] Short Term Delegation Experiment

🏛 Governance
1

tldr;

It has become extremely difficult to pass treasury votes, largely due to a relatively high quorum requirement in comparison to the number of staked and “active” ZRX. There is a process underway to implement a broader re-vamp of 0x governance, but to mitigate the current situation, I’d like to propose a short-term experiment to (1) expand the number of active delegates and (2) trial compensation for delegates. If the experiment leads to meaningful improvements, we can use the learnings to inform a more formal program down the road.

Context

After the treasury was established in March 2021 with initial funding from 0x Labs, a group of community bootstrap delegates were each allocated 1.5M ZRX voting power with the goal of enabling them to advocate for community interests and empowering them to shepherd usage of the treasury funds:

  • Nikita
  • 0xSHA
  • Joao
  • Gabrigo
  • SonOfPegasus
  • DeFiSaver
  • Polygon Foundation

Over the past 18 months overall voting participation has declined, which has had the effect of making it difficult to put treasury funds to productive use due to not being able to achieve a quorum for treasury votes.

Experiment

Because a meaningful portion of the delegated voting power is inactive (29%), I propose (1) reallocating the inactive ZRX delegated to DefiSaver and SonofPegasus to new delegates, and (2) introducing a 3-month trial period to compensate delegates for their work.

If sentiment is favorable for reallocating the inactive voting power, community members may self-nominate to be considered as candidates for the open delegations.

To assess sentiment for this experiment, we can conduct a series of three votes, described below.

Reactivate Inactive ZRX

There is currently 3M ZRX of delegated voting power that is inactive. I propose to reallocate this ZRX to new delegates to increase the amount of ZRX that is active in governance votes, increasing the likelihood of treasury votes reaching quorum.

To gauge sentiment for reallocation, we can conduct two snapshot votes.

  1. The first vote would be a single choice vote to measure overall sentiment for reallocating the inactive ZRX (for or against).
  2. The second vote would be a multiple choice vote to measure the community’s support for individual candidates. Any community member who would like to be considered should reply to this thread indicating so. The top three candidates (as determined by the snapshot vote) will each be allocated 1M ZRX of voting power. Current delegates are discouraged from being considered for additional allocation in order to increase the number of individual/groups who are empowered to help lead 0x Protocol Governance.

Trial compensation period

Participating in governance requires a lot of time and effort, and the quality of governance can be improved by having delegates with relevant but diverse domain knowledge, skillsets, experience, and points of view. Compensating delegates for their work is a proven way of attracting and rewarding quality delegates.

If the community is in favor of compensating delegates, I’d like to propose a 3-month trial period with a budget of $15k. This budget would go towards compensating the 5 current active bootstrap delegates (Nikita, Joao, SHA, Gabrigo, Polygon Foundation) and 3 new delegates at a rate of $715/month and $475/month respectively. The difference in compensation rate is to account for the relative difference in voting power (1.5M vs. 1M).

I do want to caveat that this compensation structure does not necessarily create the ideal incentive alignment between delegates and the community, nor is it intended to set a benchmark for compensation in terms of the monetary value of active governance participation and responsibility. However, I believe that for a trial, this simple structure is suitable.

To gauge sentiment for delegate compensation, we can conduct one snapshot vote that would be a single choice vote (for or against).

Measuring success

The goal of this proposed short-term experiment is two-fold: (1) increase the quality of governance participation, and (2) increase the quantity of ZRX participating in votes.

The metrics that can be used to gauge success of this experiment can be (1) subjective assessment of the quality of forum and discord discussion, and (2) amount of ZRX participating in votes.

Outcomes

If the experiment is successful in increasing both meaningful participation and the number of active ZRX (i.e., both quality and quantity), and if a conclusion can be drawn that compensating delegates is a factor in those improvements, it could be a signal that conditions are now conducive for sunsetting the bootstrap delegate experiment and formalizing a more structured “0x Protocol Voter” program.

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Hi all, Fig from Flipside Crypto’s governance team here :wave:

Flipside is intrigued by this period of experimentation and growth within 0x’s Governance and hopes to self-nominate for one of the open delegate roles.

About us? We are the professional delegate arm of Flipside Crypto, focused on data-driven decision-making and growth-oriented contributions for our DAO partners.

You may follow us on Medium or Twitter where we share our contributions towards DAOs, governance research, or in-depth analyses.

We currently run delegations across major EVM and Ethereum protocols:

  • Aave
  • Optimism
  • Arbitrum
  • Hop
  • MakerDAO

And soon hopefully 0x…

We’d love the community’s consideration for this trial period and are excited to commit our expertise to this growing ecosystem.

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Name: Patrick
Address or ENS: 0x628A1E8143133aC5f26b920797649b21585F72F6
Discord username: Patrick B

At this time I would like to propose myself as a candidate for consideration to fill one of the open delegate roles. I have been interested in cryptography since 2017 and passionately interested in the 0x Protocol since 2018 with a keen interest towards the evolution of the governance framework. I have been an active brainstorming community member and my most recent activity and focus of interest has been involved with drafting the 0x Constitution which can be found here on the following thread. You may also further explore my submission of membership consideration for the 0x Governance Security Council within the following thread. With the community’s support, I am eager to continue my passionate growth with the 0x Protocol by helping to safeguard the protocols governance process as a delegate and assisting to ensure that the future expansions of the protocol and ecosystem are most beneficial towards the long term growth and sustainment of the protocol and its community. Thank you for your consideration.

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Hey Eric,

Firstly, thank you for putting this out. It was a much needed step owing to what we saw in the last voting of Purple Pay (A 100% yes, and still they couldn’t get the grant). This discourages community to actively participate with the DAO. With more proposals on the horizon, this would be much needed.

I’d want to also self nominate myself in my individual capacity here and be an active contributor to the upliftment of the DAO forum. Fairly connected, networked and experienced in the Web3 ecosystem it will enable me to work closely with the core team and help the DAO to grow.

Some of my recent engagements with the DAO have been working with Polygon and Robinhood team around the Robinhood’s non-custodial wallet and working with Purple Pay team to route their on-chain payment volume through the 0x API’s.

You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn here.

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GFX Labs wishes to be considered for delegation.

Who We Are
We look forward to leveraging our learnings from other protocols and the deep relationships our team has fostered across DeFi, TradFi, governments, and academics.

GFX has a record of rolling up our sleeves and getting work done. The GFX team has authored half of all successful proposals on Uniswap (including the first cross-chain governance proposal), listed multiple assets and developed the price oracle on Compound, and led efforts at MakerDAO to interface with regulators, lawmakers, and outside researchers. GFX also holds a seat on the current Optimism Grants Council. GFX is trusted by thousands of delegating addresses across Arbitrum, Optimism, MakerDAO, Uniswap, Compound, Hop, and Uniswap.

Delegation to GFX Labs is a delegation to a governance team that is one of the most experienced in DeFi, able to facilitate partnerships, and with a track record of consistent engagement and delivery of results.

GFX Labs isn’t a fund. We don’t hold positions. We are a team of builders who love DeFi. Our participation in governance is rooted in a desire to see DeFi overtake legacy finance. We promise to be active participants. We’ll explain not only when we agree, but most importantly, when we disagree. As first-hand participants in governance across the ecosystem, know how frustrating it is to work on a proposal, receive limited comments, only to have the proposal shot down at launch. Our door will always be open to those who share the passion for DeFi that we have.

Conflicts of Interest
GFX Labs may from time to time be engaged as a delegate on other protocols. All governance participation is public and done through the same wallet, with the exception of MakerDAO, which is clearly labelled at the MakerDAO voting portal.

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I disagree with reallocating voting rights just because a user in inactive. The token is inactive because it is not valuable. If it had more value I guarantee there would more active users. Rather than reallocating voting rights and manipulating the Treasury, things should be left as they are and the project will either grow or die on its own.

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I share part of the thought of @TonyDoughnuts. In my opinion, paying certain delegates to vote with inactive voting power so that a quorum can be reached for the interests of a few who want to carry out current proposals, even if they are good proposals, seems to me to launder vote buying. The most appropriate thing would be to include those 3M as an abstention, or carry out campaigns calling for the vote. Buying votes with money from the treasury does not seem right to me…

Without intending to offend the delegates who offer themselves, I know many of them are faithful to their criteria, but introducing “money” through them does not seem like a good idea to me.

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:wave: Hi!

This is Daniel from Acilia, and I would like to take this opportunity to nominate myself as a potential candidate for the open delegate roles.

What I can bring to the table:

  • I was a employee of 0x Labs and have worked with the 0x core team, ecosystem partners, and I know the protocol reasonably well.
  • I have been on the receiving end of receiving a grant from the 0x DAO (for the Acilia Swap API), so I know the kind of due diligence that is needed to evaluate a project
  • I have a technical background which can help me evaluate projects under that lens
  • I’ve also been in the industry professionally for close to 5 years at this point and have developed strong relationships with many partners in the ecosystem

The candidacy would be contingent on the commitment (since I also have a day job). If selected, I’d be grateful to represent 0x this way as a delegate in the governance process

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hey @TonyDoughnuts and @heibol appreciate y’all sharing your POV and disagreement with the proposal.

want to share my thoughts around why I think reallocating is an appropriate thing to do and the importance of compensation :slight_smile:

In terms of reallocation, the ZRX used in the initial Bootstrap Delegation comes from the Ecosystem Developer Fund - a portion of ZRX supply that is earmarked for community/ecosystem use for and by the community. As collective owners of it, I think that having effective use of funds is important and if the initial allocation turns out to be ineffective, I would want to readjust vs. leave it as is.

In terms of compensation, I personally don’t believe that the trend of expecting meaningful active participation in governance to be free should continue. Understanding and making informed decisions about how the protocol should continue to develop and how funds should be used requires specialized knowledge/skillset as well as time, both of which does not come free when people have many other opportunities that they can pursue. I don’t think of introducing compensation as buying votes but instead, is a necessity to attract and retain the type of community that is needed for the protocol to be successful in the long term.

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Yes, I understand the point, and the idea does not seem bad to me, but in the current context and situation, it seems to me that it is clearly whitewashing the cause with a purchase of votes with funds from the treasury, to carry out current proposals, which, I think it is not appropriate. I understand that proposal will goes ahead, although for me it is not the way… For so long selling the idea of ​​the importance and growth that governance will have in this project with that pretext and it is getting worse and worse until having to arrive at this point? … It begins to be time to assume mistakes… Even so, I will continue here like many people, taking my time and voting, freely… well… losing… for gas to on chain vote… :man_shrugging:

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I would agree with you if the inactive delegates would at least voted NO or abstain but what I saw was a complete absence. So this voting power should be allocated to other delegates that should be active and represent the community, being absent not means abstain because there was neither a explanation for that. A delegate should IMO, express their views even if it not vote.

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Hi! Nikhil here from the Celo Foundation. I serve as Head of Strategy & Innovation. Excited to see this post up @ericwong following our earlier conversations and how Celo can engage more with the 0x ecosystem. Celo Foundation is interested in being considered for delegation to support the the overall experimentation and growth of 0x.

A bit more info on the Celo Foundation:
The Celo Foundation supports the development of the Celo blockchain. Celo’s mission is to build an open financial system that creates the conditions of prosperity for all. To execute this mission, Celo’s features include:

  • Mobile First: A mobile-first EVM-compatible layer 1 blockchain that is accessible to anyone with a smartphone.
  • An emphasis on regenerative finance and real world use cases including climate finance, social impact use cases, real world lending, emerging market commerce, and native mobile on and offramps
  • Some of our key partners include Deutsche Telekom, Kickstarter, Google Cloud, Opera, Mercy Corps Ventures, CARE International, the Grameen Foundation, and IDEO

Additionally, Back in 2021 we partnered to deploy $4.5M in funding to support the Celo and 0x ecosystems. We therefore have strong interest in supporting 0x given our shared alignment and existing capital commitments. Would love to participate in this!

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Dear 0x Community,

My name is Koppany, and I am writing to express my interest in the short-term delegation experiment and to submit my application.

Established Relationship with 0x DAO and 0x Labs

I have been fortunate to establish a close relationship with both 0x DAO and 0x Labs. Our team began working with 0x DAO in May 2022, and since then, we have been honored to receive the 0xEVE grant twice to support our MVP development and audit. As our product relies on the swap and RFQ APIs, we have also had the opportunity to work closely with the business development and technology teams at 0x Labs. We share the same values as the 0x ecosystem, and the partnership between us has grown stronger over time as we continue to support each other’s work.

Professional Background

Before entering the DeFi space, I worked in a tier-one institution’s hedge fund unit, covering entities such as Point72 or Citadel. My previous experience also includes distressed debt and teaching portfolio management at my previous university.

Currently, my co-founders and I are dedicating our time to building an end-to-end on-chain asset management infrastructure for institutions. Our project is incubated by a globally leading accelerator program and the largest derivatives clearing house globally.

Objective — Giving Back & Actively Engaging

Having received tremendous support from the 0x Community, I would like to give back. I would be delighted to dedicate my time to this cause and potentially lend a hand wherever possible to support other projects and initiatives, particularly in today’s challenging market environment.

Summary

In brief, my extensive collaboration with 0x DAO and 0x Labs, coupled with my experience as a builder and recipient of the 0xEVE grant, positions me to deliver value to the 0x Community not only through voting, but also by actively engaging with new projects, builders, and initiatives.

Thank you for the continuous support, and look forward to building together.

Best,
Koppany

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snapshot vote for this is live here: Snapshot

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IMO an inactive delegate has abandoned their post. I believe that Joao is correct, a delegate needs to convey why they are abstaining if they choose not to vote and inactivity is not considered abstaining without a justified explanation. Inactivity is simply an abandoning of a delegation role and as such the role needs to be recalibrated into a functioning role as the ear marked governance ZRX was intended to be utilized.

Furthermore I do not believe that compensating delegates can be interpreted as vote buying when the delegate is not instructed on how to vote. The purpose of compensation is due to recognizing that quality delegation takes certain skillsets and time. Therefor those skillsets and time are compensated for to reward the time and energy being put into the delegation roles processes.

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the first snapshot around community support for reallocating the inactive voting power passed :slight_smile:

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Hey 0x community,

I’m interested in this short term delegation experiment. I’ve been following 0x since 2019, and even though I don’t agree with every decision, I believe in the project’s core ideas and potential.

Nikita’s comment in the discord governance channel (Discord) got me thinking about the catch 22 issue we’re facing. It actually reminded me of proposal ZEIP-79 (Open discussion on ZEIP-79 (decreasing protocol fee multiplier)) that aimed to decrease the protocol fee multiplier. This outcome wasn’t the most favourable for many individual users.

In the past, I felt like my relatively low voting power wouldn’t have made an impact, but as a delegate, I know I can help represent the community’s interests and make sure we consider a wide range of opinions.

The 3-month trial period for delegate compensation sounds like a fantastic opportunity to bring in passionate delegates. If I’m chosen, I promise to act in the best interests of the community and help the 0x Protocol thrive.

Cheers,

JBaxta

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Hey JBaxta,

Really awesome to see you want to contribute to the future of 0x Protocol!

We did wrap up the voting power reallocation portion of the experiment already so we’re not looking for more applicants right now. However, there may be future opportunities so definitely keep following along.

In the meantime, even though you may have relatively low voting power, starting discussions and contributing to ongoing ones can definitely have a lot of impact as well so I’d encourage you to do that.

-Eric

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