Forum at a Glance: March 31 - April 6, 2022

--- tags: Forum at a Glance --- # Forum at a Glance: March 31 - April 6, 2022 ![](https://i.imgur.com/Q1bLWKb.png) Welcome to the one-stop-shop for a TL;DR on everything discussed on the MakerDAO forum. *Links reflect our views of the most noteworthy activities in the governance, risk, and oracles categories. Disagree? Think something should be added? Leave a reply or send a PM.* <details><summary>Where else can this post be found?</summary> [Online PDF version](https://pdfhost.io/v/bawa7GOUx_Forum_at_a_Glance_March_31_April_6_2022) [Medium]() *publishing soon!* | [GovComms Medium Account](https://medium.com/@MkrGovComms) </details> ## Three-Point Summary ‘What is the most relevant information on the forums this week for MKR and Dai holders?’ - The Growth Core Unit has announced detailed plans to incubate a Maker Brand Team to unify MakerDAO's branding, reach a broader audience, and better engage existing users. - [Penn Blockchain](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/penn-blockchain-delegate-platform/14419) throws their hat in the ring; check out their delegate platform presentation during the [Meet Your Delegate Call](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/meet-your-delegate-11-penn-blockchain/14458) happening April 13, 2022. - The Maker forum is getting a [navigational upgrade](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/introducing-forum-explorer/14384) to improve user experience. *March's Financial Report is now up! [Check it out.](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/financial-report-2022-03/14487)* --- ## News and Announcements **[Penn Blockchain Delegate Platform](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/penn-blockchain-delegate-platform/14419)** Penn Blockchain submits its platform as a Recognized Delegate. <details><summary>Summary</summary> [Penn Blockchain](http://pennblockchain.com/) is a student-run blockchain organization at The University of Pennsylvania with the objective to use its wide-ranging experience in crypto governance to help Maker make the best decisions for our protocol. Members are involved in governance initiatives for several popular protocols they have delegations for, including Aave, Compound, Uniswap, and DyDx. Proposal author @juanbug is currently working with us internally to investigate on-chain strategies for increasing treasury and liquidity for Dai. **Core Values** - Broadcast Maker to not only Penn but also the greater university community - Help Maker through its Layer-2 and cross-network integrations - Advise and support Maker with treasury management initiatives - Educate and teach students about the Maker project, expand its connections with university teams, and provide opportunities for future collaboration Penn Blockchain will present their Delegate Platform during the [Meet Your Delegate #11](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/meet-your-delegate-11-penn-blockchain/14458) public call on April 13 at [date=2022-04-13 time=19:30:00 timezone="UTC"]. Join the call [here.](https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89405194818?pwd=YmZFMEhlV2tHaGY5QjdNbXl4OGl3Zz09&sa=D&source=calendar&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw3Hz4mp0l_FbJIykLHS3Emr) </details> **[Financial Report 2022-03](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/financial-report-2022-03/14487)** The financial report for March 2022 is now available [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14U-3xlXC59zmFCd2u42CAFc7uw-NSKaJ/view?usp=sharing). <details><summary>Summary</summary> Overall net protocol income was 2.7M DAI, down 44% from February and 69% from March 2021. Annualized ROE has remained stable at approximately 90%. **Selected Observations** - QoQ Recurring Net Protocol Income (rNPI) change of -4.8M DAI driven by a change in assets. - MoM increase in workforce expenses driven by higher C.U. costs. - Caveat: We do not report workforce expenses on an accrual basis, so that some C.U.s will have a phasing issue, with higher expenses one month and none the next. - A P/B Ratio of 23.4x suggests that there is a lot of value expectation priced into MKR at current capitalization levels; for comparison's sake, Bank of America trades at ~1.2x and Citigroup at ~0.6x. - The YoY ETH lending market contracted by 18%, but in this context, Aave took a large share, growing 35% to MKR's -33% and Compound's -42%. - The WBTC lending market expanded 36% YoY, with Aave growing 250% to MKR's 80% after the last-minute loss of a key WBTC vault. - DAI outstanding is slightly up to 9.5B DAI. </details> **[The Maker Brand Team](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/the-maker-brand-team/14442)** The Growth Core Unit is requesting to develop a Maker Brand team to help market MakerDAO to a wider audience and better engage with existing users. <details><summary>Summary</summary> If approved, the Maker Brand team will first be incubated with the Growth Core Unit, after which it can propose becoming an independent, self-contained C.U. The organizational structure of DAOs, often composed of disparate and independent teams, can create challenges when it comes to defining a consistent organization-wide brand. The primary goal of the Maker Brand team is to ensure that MakerDAO remains a dominant protocol that is "top-of-mind" when people think of DeFi. The team will focus on four main areas: Brand Research, Content, PR & Comms, and Strategic Initiatives. These activities will help the team execute its five core missions: 1. Define brand strategy and implementation plan for new strategic partnerships 2. Communicate protocol updates to the public 3. Build brand awareness 4. Own and develop the protocol’s intangible communication assets 5. Build strategic activations with providers The team will also track four key performance indicators to gauge performance: 1. Number of announcements 2. Twitter metrics 3. Social media sentiment analysis 4. Dai holders The [full post](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/the-maker-brand-team/14442) goes into great detail about the team's goals and the means of achieving them, as well as how it will be structured. ![](https://i.imgur.com/JCYnQJF.png) </details> **[Monthly Governance Review | March, 2022](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/monthly-governance-review-march-2022/14428)** Governance Communications posted a summary reviewing everything that happened in governance through the month of March. <details><summary>Summary</summary> The summary is relatively technical and breaks down all the votes and polls throughout March. Additionally, governance-related activity is also available in the Monthly Review if anybody has missed something or would like to catch up on a specific topic. The summary includes financials and budgets, delegation, tokenomic discussions, collaterals and RWAs, Core Unit activity, and what to expect for April 2022. </details> **[Introducing Forum Explorer](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/introducing-forum-explorer/14384)** The Forum Explorer is a Discourse plugin added to the forum by GovAlpha to make it easier to search through the forums using accessible filters and custom queries. <details><summary>Summary</summary> ![](https://i.imgur.com/zQ7geQw.png) **Main Features** * Forum admins can create custom queries complete with titles and descriptions. This enables us to surface key forum content more effectively than the default tools. * Users can apply tag and category filters using the sidebar at the left, allowing more natural exploration and discoverability of relevant content. * Users can search/filter boxes for posts, tags, and categories within this U.I. to further aid navigation to relevant content. Feedback towards improving the Forum Explorer is encouraged. Please, submit any ideas for improvement to the GovAlpha team. Additionally, LongForWisdom asks general questions to the community, such as: * What queries do you think you would find most useful? * Is there anything you find unintuitive or confusing about this U.I.? * Are there additional query criteria you would like to see? (Currently supports tags and categories.) * Are you noticing any bugs while using the Explorer? *Here at GovComms, we will help manage unique discussion tags using the Forum Explorer every time we put together one of these publications.* </details> **[6s Capital - Audited Financial Statements](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/6s-capital-audited-financial-statements/14420)** In accordance with their [Credit Agreement](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/6s-credit-agreement-conformed/9775), 6s Capital Partners LLC (“6sCP”) is required to complete an audit of its financial statements after each calendar year. 2021's audit, conducted by Watkins Uiberall, PLLC, has been completed, resulting in a "clean" opinion. <details><summary>Summary</summary> 6sCP is a financial ratio-driven operating business, which means that oversight regarding the amount of equity in the business is critical. 6sCP decided to include an audit requirement in the Credit Agreement even though MakerDAO did not request it. The 6sCP team believes that "a U.S. GAAP financial statement audit is a milestone and from our lens should be a required component for all RWA DAO participants." </details> **[6s Capital - Growth Pains & Plans - Here we grow!](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/6s-capital-growth-pains-plans-here-we-grow/14421)** This post outlines how 6s Capital plans to reduce reliance on any potential single point of failure, including project pipelines, investors, and credit sources. <details><summary>Summary</summary> Relying on a single lender means taking on more systemic risk than necessary. To combat this problem, 6sCP plans to achieve "client diversity," in which each party must “compete” for each other’s business, helping foster a win-win environment. The fundamental determining factors that help LendCOs choose credit providers are: * Scope * Scale (e.g., size) * Transactional certainty * Economic terms 6s Capital intends to expand the scope of its lending activities beyond credit tenant leasing with other investors and credit providers. 6s Capital will also be submitting a MIP that outlines how and where MakerDAO can participate in the near future. </details> --- ## [Active Discussions](https://forum.makerdao.com/latest) **[MakerDAO at FATF’s meeting about AML and crypto](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/makerdao-at-fatfs-meeting-about-aml-and-crypto/14483)** Community member @jacek has been asked to speak at the global AML watchdog and standard-setter FATF's meeting next Tuesday about AML and crypto. This post aims to gather feedback from the Maker community about the message @jacek should convey during his presentation. <details><summary>Summary</summary> @jacek provides a succinct summary of the purpose of this meeting and what FATF wants to hear from him: "FATF's Virtual Assets Contact Group organizes the meeting as part of periodic consultations with the private sector. They want me to provide thoughts on the revised FATF guidance and DeFi. The guidance spurred heated discussion a few months ago (including [here in the forum](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/emerging-global-aml-kyc-framework-and-defi-and-maker/7104)). It has already led to [the E.U.'s crackdown on unhosted wallets](https://mobile.twitter.com/paddi_hansen/status/1507741879563132928), and that is just the beginning. The request I received is to reflect on the guidance and provide insights about what can be improved and what further work the FATF should consider." If crypto regulation is a topic you are interested in, share your feedback on [the post itself](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/makerdao-at-fatfs-meeting-about-aml-and-crypto/14483) or D.M. @jacek directly. </details> **[Proposal: Maker3.0 - The future of crypto lending. (RFC)](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/proposal-maker3-0-the-future-of-crypto-lending-rfc/14374)** Recognized Delegate MakerMan submitted an aggressive growth proposal for Maker3.0: "The future of crypto lending." <details><summary>Summary</summary> First, to clarify the terminology: Maker1.0 refers to SCD and SAI, while Maker2.0 refers to MCD and DAI. This proposal is broken down into three concrete actions, some with several sub-actions and additional considerations. 1. Start fresh: Utilize all available information to create a new, more competitive, better Maker. 2. Create an MKR3 token with 1T issued, and: a. Fund an AMM LP b. Commit to a tight issuance policy of MKR3 c. Create an MKR3DAI v2 vault on Maker2.0 with low S.F. d. Use MKR3 as a reward token to help supercharge TVL in vaults on Maker2.0 e. Use new DAI earned by Maker2.0 from the increased TVL in the MKR3 rewarded vaults to build MKR3-DAI-owned LP f. Solicit MKR3 sales to V.C.s to raise capital for what will become the Maker2.0 and Maker3.0 secondary loss backstop and/or treasury proper g. Create and fund a unit tasked with managing MKR3 markets, liquidity, price, and reward flow h. Create and fund a unit to begin work on the vision and design for Maker3.0 i. Use MKR3DAI LP to organize token swaps with other communities that support the creation and use of TOKEN-DAI v2 vaults 3. State that MKR3DAI LP will be the backbone of governance in Maker3.0 rather than MKR3 The proposal concludes with a discussion section to prompt feedback and discussion from the community. </details> **[Immediate & Short-term Parameter Changes Proposal for CRVV1ETHSTETH-A - DC and gap increase](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/immediate-short-term-parameter-changes-proposal-for-crvv1ethsteth-a-dc-and-gap-increase/14476)** The Risk Core Unit team has put together a proposal for two sets of parameter changes to CRVV1ETHSTETH-A. GovAlpha has tagged this a high-impact proposal. <details><summary>Summary</summary> **Parameter Change 1**: The Immediate DC-IAM line (D.C.) changes from 3M to 5M DAI Due to technical concerns aired by the Risk Core Unit, the team proposed 5M DC in October 2021; this was lowered to 3M in March 2022. These concerns have been addressed, so this proposal would immediately increase D.C. for the remaining 2M to 5M. This proposal will be included in the next executive vote on April 8. **Parameter Change 2**: The Short-term Parameter Changes Proposal This proposal would result in an additional increase in the debt ceiling and the DC-IAM gap, now advisable because this collateral has passed the initial performance observation period, during which initial D.C. is set lower for observation purposes. This proposal will be included in next week’s on-chain poll on Monday, April 11. </details> **[Parameter Changes Proposal - PPG-OMC-001 - 31 March 2022](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/parameter-changes-proposal-ppg-omc-001-31-march-2022/14347)** The MakerDAO Open Market Committee has submitted a proposal for parameter changes to collateral types WBTC-A, WBTC-B, WSTETH-A, CRVV1ETHSTETH-A, GUNIV3DAIUSDC1-A, GUNIV2DAIUSDC2-A, and AAVE D3M. GovAlpha has tagged this a high-impact proposal. <details><summary>Summary</summary> In the first section, the authors provide context for their proposed parameter changes, outlining parameter changes other protocols have implemented recently to boost their market competitiveness. In summary: **Aave**: Introducing stETH as collateral resulted in a significant boost in demand for borrowing ETH, increasing ETH deposit rates from close to 0% to about 0.4%. This increase may be further amplified if Aave passes a [proposal](https://app.aave.com/governance/proposal/?proposalId=68) to update the ETH interest rate model, potentially leading to a deposit rate increase of about 1.9%. ![](https://i.imgur.com/MqmYTci.png) **Compound**: Compound recently adopted a [proposal](https://www.tally.xyz/governance/eip155:1:0xc0Da02939E1441F497fd74F78cE7Decb17B66529/proposal/92) to reduce COMP liquidity incentives by 50%. To bootstrap liquidity, a proposal to limit incentives to newly added assets is likely to follow in the coming weeks. ![](https://i.imgur.com/bOeKtwS.png) On to the proposed changes themselves. In summary: **WBTC-A** *Parameter Change*: Reduce stability fee to 3.25% *Goal*: Reverse the recent trend of large outflows of WBTC-A **WBTC-B** *Parameter Change*: Reduce stability fee to 4.5% *Goal*: Help grow usage of this vault type **WSTETH-A** *Parameter Change*: Reduce stability fee to 2.25% *Goal*: Help maintain competitiveness with Aave (which has recently seen a large amount of stETH deposits) and attract new users as the stETH total supply increases **CRVV1ETHSTETH-A** *Parameter Change*: Reduce stability fee to 2.25% *Goal*: Take market share on this collateral type from Abracadabra (the only other lender accepting this asset as collateral) without exposing Maker to excessive risk **GUNIV3DAIUSDC1-A** *Parameter Change*: Reduce stability fee to 0%, *Goal*: increase the debt ceiling to 750M and increase the gap to 50M *Goal*: Significantly reduce exposure to USDC through the PSM, improving Maker’s centralization risk profile at a very low cost **GUNIV2DAIUSDC2-A** *Parameter Change*: Reduce stability fee to 0.05% and increase the debt ceiling to 1B *Goal*: Improve centralization risk profile **AAVE D3M** *Parameter Change*: Increase bar to 3.5% *Goal*: Address concerns regarding Maker's debt ceiling being fully utilized and competitive borrowing rates being forced down, potentially reducing Maker’s market share; ensure Maker adheres to the voter-approved mandate of making up only 30% of real Dai supplied and 0.5% maximum effective spread between Maker and Aave rates These changes should reduce yearly revenue by about 6 million DAI (~8%), thanks to a roughly 100M reduction in expected debt exposure to the Aave D3M and stability fee reductions on stETH and WBTC collateral types. The proposed changes will be submitted for on-chain voting next week. </details> **[Rethinking budgeting for CUs](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/discussion-rethinking-budgeting-for-cus/14410)** Core Unit budgeting has been a hot topic on the forums in recent weeks. The latest addition to the discussion comes from Recognized Delegate Justin Case, who analyzes the topic into its parts and explores which parts may be most valuable to focus on. <details><summary>Summary</summary> @JustinCase begins by identifying the different elements any budget process must balance: - Ease of comparing different budgets to each other - Governance overhead of evaluating a growing number of budgets - The ability to make meaningful changes to a budget vs. the need to avoid micromanagement and respect C.U. autonomy - The need for oversight vs. work demand on reporting and evaluation - The risk of providing C.U.s with too many funds that remain unused and unreturned vs. keeping efficient operations and the need for frequent additional budget requests - Over- or underutilization of a given core unit given their budget, especially for core units that primarily serve other core units Next, Case focuses on two areas where improvement can encourage better budget discipline and help ensure resources are spent on more valuable initiatives. **Indirect Financing** Indirectly financing some Core Units—meaning they will not receive a direct budget but will be funded on an as-needed basis—will help ensure that only the community's services are funded. **Competition** Next, Case describes an interesting idea for introducing natural competition to exert downward pressure on budget proposals. By adding redundancy to the organization of Core Units, namely by establishing parallel C.U.s in the same field while also ensuring that neither C.U. can monopolize all the work, C.U.s will compete to provide the best services the DAO at the lowest cost. Like any proposal, this one comes with its advantages and disadvantages. **Pros** - Greater focus on objectives as they are now set at the protocol level. - Increased cost control because Core Units will have to be attractive to win bids for work. - Better redundancy because other Core Units can step up and replace others if they cease to function. - Less focus on micromanaging Core Units and detailed budget proposals. - Increased Core Unit autonomy. **Cons** - Increased governance overhead in designing objectives. - With individual Core Units reduced in size, they may be less capable of independently moving the protocol forward. - Less security for Core Units may lead to detachment from the protocol. Discussion on this topic is already heating up. Share your input [here](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/discussion-rethinking-budgeting-for-cus/14410). </details> **[Using Large Cap Coin as Collateral Offchain](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/discussion-using-large-cap-coin-as-collateral-offchain/14356)** Recognized Delegate, Doo Nam, submits a discussion on using large-capitalization coins as off-chain collaterals. He also asks the community whether they support this idea and, if so, what should be the minimum requirement of Dai minted for these large-cap coins? <details><summary>Summary</summary> On-chain liquidity is an important part of the criteria for collateral to be onboard. However, there are many large capitalization coins with low liquidity on centralized exchanges that show interest in wanting to provide large collateral and mint a large amount of Dai if they were to be onboarded. As RWA has been gaining attention for Maker Protocol, these coins can be seen as low-hanging fruit. There may be the potential for Maker protocol to create a system that holds collateral tokens in custody, such as exchanges or OTC desks, and if it is liquidated, they can still sell them on the market to ensure that debt is repaid. Doo Nam sets up this discussion as a primer, seeking community feedback on the idea. He believes that the criteria to onboard any of these coins should meet the following: * Be greater than $2 billion in circulating market capitalization. * Be greater than $200 million in daily trading volume (or a better option would be to examine ways of measuring liquidity risk in the case of large sell-offs). * Be willing to mint a significant amount of Dai (amount inquired in the poll below). ![](https://i.imgur.com/sZO6Tia.png) ![](https://i.imgur.com/SnoitHr.png) </details> **[Chips to Tires and Collateral](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/chips-to-tires-and-collateral/14402)** @monkey.irish posted a call to action admonishing Maker community members against shifting important issues—an action that only results in new issues—and encouraging solving issues instead. Toward this goal, he is asking the community to vote "No" on any MIPs that include prioritization or blocking language. <details><summary>Summary</summary> The post opens with an analogy to the car industry. Cars require semiconductors. When there is a shortage of these chips, car companies can manufacture fewer cars. But what happens if we solve the chip problem only to run into a shortage of one of the raw materials required for producing tires? We have the same issue in a different place, and we still cannot produce as many new cars as we would like to. Applying this analogy to collateral onboarding at MakerDAO, @monkey.irish points out that moving collateral Prioritization and Assessments into the Implementation phase is unlikely to do much more than shifting the issue somewhere else. ![](https://i.imgur.com/i6BpoT5.png) The post closes with a statement of what @monkey.irish is asking of the MakerDAO community. He argues that the keys to solving issues instead of shifting them are **prioritization** and **transparency**. @monkey.irish is asking the community to help fix the prioritization issue. Describing the current collateral onboarding process and its prioritization phase as broken, he argues that the next round of MIPs is likely to include an expansion of the current approach, which will create further ambiguity and unproductive hours on the forums implementation bottlenecks. To avoid this state of affairs, @monkey.irish asks the community to vote "No" on MIPs that include language about prioritization or blocking, as stated above. </details> ------ ## [Seeking Consensus](https://forum.makerdao.com/tag/active-signal) ‘Yo, do you even signal?’ **[Advance “MIP4c3SP3: Amend MIP64 to allow more flexibility in scope” to on-chain poll](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/advance-mip4c3sp3-amend-mip64-to-allow-more-flexibility-in-scope-to-on-chain-poll/14435)** @psychonaut submits a signal request to push [MIP4c3-SP3](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip4c3sp3-amend-mip64-to-allow-more-flexibility-in-scope/14200) as an on-chain poll. **Vote will run until April 12, 2022.** <details><summary>Here are the current voting results:</summary> ![](https://i.imgur.com/B0pa0Mv.png) </details> ----- ## [Ongoing Initiatives](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/governance-initiatives/1347) ‘Oh my god, this is taking ages; why can’t things be simple?’ [Maker Operational Manual](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/announcing-maker-operational-manual/12553) - @GovAlpha-Core-Unit release the launch of the Maker Operational Manual and invite all members and Core Units to reach out if they wish to provide any help or documentation to add for the Manual. [Recognised Delegate Requirements](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/recognised-delegate-requirements/9421) - @LongForWisdom writes a detailed overview of the current requirements and application system to become a delegate in the Maker community. Check out this [thread](https://forum.makerdao.com/search?expanded=true&q=%40LongForWisdom%20%23governance%3Adelegates) for more posts related to delegation. [Where to Find Opportunities at MakerDAO](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/where-to-find-opportunities-at-makerdao/10076/2) and [Open positions at MakerDAO](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/open-positions-at-makerdao/12197) - Looking for job opportunities at MakerDAO? Perfect! @Davidutro and @manomad set up individual threads containing resources to help find available job listings and hiring practices. *If anybody has additional information on unique hiring practices or job listings, please comment on the thread.* [:mega: Collateral Calls - Calling all Projects!](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/collateral-calls-calling-all-projects/3715) - @juan sets up a signup thread for projects wishing to present on the bi-weekly collateral call. Know any potential collateral partners that want to present? Refer them here. [Collateral Status Index](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/collateral-status-index/2231) - Confused about the current status of the various collateral types discussed recently? Check out this post to determine the status and current position within the onboarding process. [Weekly MIPs Updates](https://forum.makerdao.com/tag/mips-update) - @blimpa brings the latest updates in the world of MIPs. [The Official Welcome Thread](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/the-official-welcome-thread/771/4) - A welcome and introductions thread. Not strictly governance, but if anyone new or old wants to introduce themselves, now is your chance! ----- ## [Help Wanted](https://forum.makerdao.com/c/miscellaneous/help-wanted/11) ‘Oh %#\$?, we need a doodad, and we need it now.’ [Wanted: Governance Contributors for GovAlpha](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/help-wanted-govalpha/8811) - @LongForWisdom puts out the call for new team members! Different tracks are available depending on interest and time commitment. We could always use help reviewing [MIPs in the Request for Comment phase](https://forum.makerdao.com/tag/rfc). ## [Feedback Survey](https://survey.sogosurvey.com/r/qTb1p7) *Please, check out the [Forum at a Glance feedback survey](https://survey.sogosurvey.com/r/qTb1p7) to help us improve and scale these reviews - It will be fun, I promise.* Credit: @nothsa @Artem_Gordon