Episode #209: September 22, 2022

--- tags: G&R --- # Episode #209: September 22, 2022 ## Agenda - [00:00](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8): Introduction - [02:08](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=128): Votes and Polls - [06:02](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=362): MIPs Update - [13:28](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=808): Forum Recap - [16:45](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=1005): Initiative: Using JokeDAO for Soft Consensus in Governance - [22:55](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=1375): Discussion: EndGame Latest MIPs, Feasibility, & Transition - [1:15:48](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=4548): Conclusion ## Video [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T56N0u881M8) ## General Updates ### Votes #### Payton Rose [02:08](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=128) **Visit:** [_Voting Portal_](https://vote.makerdao.com/) > **Votes:** > - *Polls:* -- [03:20](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=200) > - *Executive Proposals:* -- [05:06](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=306) ### MIPs #### Gala [06:02](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=362) **Visit:** [_Weekly MIPs Update #105_](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/weekly-mips-update-105/17999) [MakerDAO Votes and Polls Public Calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=bdf4un05hpg0611lg3ieue4t3c%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America%2FNew_York) **Important Dates:** _Ratification Polls will close on Monday Sept 26th and the Frozen Period will start Wens Sept 26th_ > **September Ratification Polls:** > - _MIP Sets_ -- [06:41](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=401) > - _MKR Budgets_ -- [6:52](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=412) > - _CU Offboarding_ -- [7:05](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=425) > - _Amendments_ -- [7:12](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=432) > - _Special Purpose Funds_ -- [7:49](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=469) > **Proposals in RFC:** > - _Standalone MIPs_ -- [08:11](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=491) > - _Cu Budgets_ -- [9:50](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=590) > - _Special Purpose Fund_ -- [10:16](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=616) > - _Amendments_ -- [11:06](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8) > - _End Game Prelaunch MIP Sets_ -- [11:23](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=683) ### Weekly Forum Recap #### Artem Gordon [13:28](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=808) **Visit:** [_Weekly Forum Recap: September 14th - September 21st, 2022_](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/weekly-forum-recap/16247/17) > **News & Announcements:** > - [_Today's End Game Call_](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/todays-endgame-call-transition-post-transition-steady-state-q-a/18031) > - [_Coinbase MIP81: CFO - Community Questions_](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/coinbase-mip81-cfo-community-questions-monday-september-26/18037) ## Initiatives Update ### Using JokeDAO for Soft Consensus in Governance #### Tim Black [16:55](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=1015) **Visit:** [_Using jokedao for soft consensus in governance_](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/using-jokedao-for-soft-consensus-in-governance/17673) > **Contents:** > - _Context_ -- [17:05](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=1025) > - _Ralph's Goals_ -- [18:35](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=1115) ## Discussion ### Endgame MIP Set #### Pyschonaut [23:34](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=1414) - Much discussion has been about the end game, meta DAO, tokenomics, and how everything fits together. Rune’s MIP84 is part of a package and has significantly changed the DAO’s workings. I want to focus scrutiny on MIP84. Any surplus buffer above 20 million Dai is transferred to this special MIP 84 Protocol. There won't be any Maker burn for the foreseeable future. The protocol uses the funds to buy low-stake ETH at 1.8 leverage, and liquidating this leveraged position is conceivable. A good portion of the money typically set aside to cover losses and pay salaries will now be invested in staked ETH or similar investments. Its value will fluctuate while we commit to taking on more real-world asset risks. There's no change in real-world asset exposure; we will continue real-world onboarding assets. But we have a lot less surplus buffer to absorb losses. - **David Utrobin:** Is the main concern the reduction of actual capital in the surplus buffer, then resulting in a shorter runway for our workforce? [28:10](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=1690) - **money-supply:** _Makes two layers of concern for MIP 84 Protocol:_ 1.) We would need more cash than the 20 million left over for our existing risks. These risks include existing vaults, bad liquidations, real-world assets, workforce expenses, and Oracle's. 2.) If we buy a bunch of staked-ETH or other protocol-involved collateral, it'll approach under collateralization if the prices go down enough. Then, we'd be forced to sell some of those assets to avoid going under 100%. [31:00](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=1860) - **Psychonaut:** How will we accumulate enough staked-ETH over the next five years to back a substantial portion of Dai? [33:36](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=2016) - **David Utrobin:** What is GovAlpha’s readiness for this MIP set to go into formal submission? - **Payton Rose:** Our approach as GovAlpha is to respect the MIP author's intentions. They have the right to have their vision heard by Maker holders if it doesn't break any of our MIP rules. Core Unit offboarding should be put up independently. When we think about the Core Unit's side, we understand the possible frustration of being offboarded when it had nothing to do with your performance. By keeping it individual, we allow for self-advocacy and campaigning for your Core Unit. Only the off-boardings and LDO to MKR spot will be separate. The rest of the MIPs will be bundled together. Circling back to David's original question of completeness, there have been a few incomplete things with the MIP. Rune will submit his edits before Wednesday. [37:45](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=2265) - **Raphael:** If the MIPs pass, the pregame products will be developed? - **Payton Rose:** Yes. Rune said there isn't much to go first. Maybe ETH or Dai can be developed in terms of the wrapper. Once the MIPs pass, we will deliver on the tech. From a governance perspective, this is the first wave of proposals asking the community about the end game's direction. - **Raphael:** Assuming this will pass, should CUs take on additional tasks? I assume this would be extra work on front ends and smart contracts, for instance, deprioritizing collaterals. - **Payton Rose:** I am not sure if there has been explicit mention, but I think groups would naturally shift together as they seek to meet these goals. #### Q&A [00:00]() - **Kat:** We have translated MakerDAO Docs. We put a [forum post](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/makerdocs-en-espanol/17132) up in Spanish; some people could have missed it. We could not integrate it into their site yet; we have it on [Notion](https://sebix.notion.site/MakerDOCs-en-Espa-ol-07d9dd32599640ad91ca1431797627e5). That is able for everybody to access. [40:00](https://youtu.be/7o-PQUH52wM?t=2400) - **Juan:** There was something you did go over on the Forum but skipped this time: the metrics for the previous stage of the Program. Presenting metrics and setting milestones could potentially help Delegates to evaluate the proposal. [41:05](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=2465) - **David Utrobin:** What is the support of the Protocol Engineering Team on this? - Derek: We work at the will of governance. If the MIPs pass, there will be some work, and we will need to scope out what that involves. There are a lot of things that come into play. We will do a typical product management planning around what that work involves. We have not done any of that. We had conversations, but they have all been in the spirit of exploratory. Let us see how the MIPs evolve, what happens, and then take it from there, but once we go through the MIPs, the MIPs will get passed, then we start allocating formal resources to this work. So that will happen if MIPs pass. - The other question is around the L2 work. We do not plan on stopping any of that work. We only have a portion of the team working on L2 work because it is very specific in nature, and that is still focusing on the Optimism, Arbitrum, and the fast withdrawals work, so now moving on to the L2 to L2 space. We are also looking at the ZK-Sync work, starting in 60 days. We are working on a DAI contract for them too. That work will continue. It is a different group of people within the team. We are waiting on the MIPs, and then we will dive into more detail. - This aligns with Rune's discussion on the calls. He has talked about Protocol Engineering having three key focuses as we go forward. One of them is the security and protocol hardening piece. The other is the L2 work, and the third, if I have interpreted it correctly, is around the core protocol work. Much of the stuff around the D3M that we have been working on is slowly wrapping up as we worked our way through the comments with auditors and then some oversight with CES around collateral types. That work is all going to continue. [44:18](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=2658) - **Kianga Daverington:** (x?)(Any compliance on the regulatory review required for MetaDAOs to tokenitiences at any time? Are people worried about securities issues with launching a new token?) - **Payton Rose:** I am not a lawyer. I cannot give a legal answer. Even those of us that are might be hesitant to. However, from the governance end, if there is a specified legal review in the MIP, then that would need to take place for it to go forward. If there is not, we would not require it on the governance end. It does not mean someone could try to pursue some legal advice from one of their entities independently. But we use the MIPs as the bylaws. If the MIPs specify that something needs to happen before it could go forward, that is for us, as governance facilitators, to say: the MKR holders voted for this. They wanted this dependency covered before it reached the next stage, so we will not let it reach that next stage until that dependency is uncovered. - So there are jurisdictional questions. Can Maker create smart contracts like the tokens? Does that improve regulatory or legal risk? [46:45](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=2805) - **LongForWisdom:** At least the written parts of the Endgame plan so far do not tend to go into that much detail about how exactly these things are happening and who is doing them, technically entering that stuff. I am not sure if there is a clear answer to that at this point. - **Payton Rose:** Much appreciated. On the DDC calls, these have been like a work in progress. Everyone is often sketching things out and asking for feedback; sometimes, it changes weekly. It could be that these are intended to come in written form later on with more clarity. [48:08](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=2888) - **(Lazer?):** To answer Kianga's comment. We have not identified the risk that some of these tokens could be considered securities. We will conduct an initial analysis SES legal research. We will share the results because we want to share these concerns with Rune. We want to mitigate the risk that we are here issuing securities, or if there are securities, how can this be done in a compliant manner? But we will conduct an initial analysis because we have not identified this risk. - These questions are always jurisdictional. We will start analyzing American jurisdiction, how we test it, and so on. It is not the only jurisdiction in the world but is the most predominant. So we will do an initial analysis and share it with the community. [50:44](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=3044) - **Raphael:** I would be interested in sharing, from the perspective of CUs, how do you prepare for the Endgame plan, or are you waiting? How are these preparations happening? How much of your time does that take? - From our perspective, the Endgame plan takes considerable time of our work as delegates just to read and understand. We try to understand the best as possible and provide the best input possible because we think it is a good initiative and want to go forward in the best possible way. I would say it is 30 or 50 percent, depending on the week, how many DDCs calls there are, and how many other initiatives there are on top of what we do is concerned with the Endgame plan. And that is fine to know how much is invested in preparing for that if you care to share. - **Derek:** I joined these calls. I do not join all of them, but I try to make the majority of them and keep a hold on how the concepts evolve, and they have evolved quite a lot since. We started talking Sagittarius initially, and there has been a lot of evolution since then. It takes a lot of my time, so I try to give summaries back to the team, and we had one-on-ones with Rune earlier this year. From my perspective, it takes up quite a bit of time, a chunk of the week, but others are focused on the existing work. That is my previous point. We are focusing on what the current mandate is. If that mandate changes, it will be reflected in our work and how we structure it. But at the moment, it has been a relatively minimal interruption to our existing work. - **Robert:** I have attended every call that Rune has hosted and the ones the delegates of ours did. I appreciate the time people spend trying to bring the information out. The challenge that I have is that everything is conceptual. Anytime I ask a question on specific implementation or the next level down from the 50 thousand foot, getting a specific answer is very challenging. As someone in implementation as a CU all day dealing with thousands of details and the volatile nature of the thoughts behind RWAs and trying to translate that into let us make sure the plates stay up in the air and then we have business continuities. - My concern is more about the implementation. We will move forward, and these MIPs will most likely get passed. Then we will go into a period of implementation, and there are a lot of details that we have no answers to that need a lot of work by many different people and CUs. So far, Rune is trying to do everything, and many people are saying they can help. And I do not see that pick-up happening. I am just sharing my concern from a facilitator that has got a lot of work in progress, and there are dependencies that we have on a lot of the concepts that are being created, but it is very unclear. For example, there is Vault Adoption and hundreds of details behind the scenes happening on each of the RWAs, and we are managing those. So if we do a Vault Adoption, they will most likely be a MIP for that. But we have never done this before. We have never done the Endgame before. My concern would be trying to figure out the details behind how we do the Vault Adoption and make sure that the work successfully gets transitioned over to what a Protector MetaDAO would do, just one example of many. - **Raphael:** I share some of these concerns. We are addressing them slowly but steadily. We have started surfacing these questions, and now that the MIPs will get published, this will make stuff clearer, that we will answer these questions as soon as things start getting implemented. I share the concern that, at the moment, there is a lot of ambiguity. It is very vague how that stuff will go down. Rune's Endgame plan has been constantly simpler. From the beginning to now, there has been a huge change. I find interesting looking forward to what MetaDAOs should be, is that we should change our way of thinking about the work to be done from governance deciding for the whole DAO what to do. Then the DAO does it to a decentralized, permissionless model where people start doing the work and implementing the details. This is how it is going to be. By implementing them without asking for permission first, they are shaping the plan to be what they want it to be. This is how I see the Endgame plan, which would unlock the most potential of the workforce if accepted. - **Robert:** You made a good point. I have been through many reorganizations, and I am the one that led the transition from the Maker Foundation into the DAO. Anytime you have been involved with organizational change, it takes a lot of planning. Inside that planning, a lot is education up front, and we are doing some of that. Then there is a plan that has to be implemented, and it takes a while to do that. There is a lot of jocking for ideas behind the scenes and some plans of an organizational change that we are going through. But other than having specific conversations with Rune, I do not see a concerted effort by the DAO. A DAO-driven effort to do this by people in the trenches daily dealing with the details. One example: What are the roles and responsibilities of the main scopes? By doing that, we can determine if we have roles and responsibilities to understand what portion of the workforce will fit into that. The same is true with the MetaDAOs. We are moving forward and putting together a MIPset that fundamentally changes our DAO. We do not know what our next step is. I can work with unclarity, but there must be more people involved. [1:01:41](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=3701) - **Someone:** I wanted to share how it is for me and growth with all the Endgame and the transition. After it is approved or not, it will be easier because that will help us inside CUs to focus on developing the Endgame plan. Because we now have a plan and a vision, we must go to the details and implement them. The same for MetaDAOs, and clusters. And there has not been a DAO effort on that because it has not been approved yet. Whenever this is approved, it will become our priority for CUs. - My main concern is that the Endgame plan is coming all this time, and this transition time has been quite difficult because it is hard to plan, know what my team will do for the next months, and set objectives. With uncertainty, it is hard. I suppose that is the same for all CUs because without understanding the direction of the DAO, it is hard to organize ourselves and go for a goal. So we are doing what we suppose will continue, whatever will result from the Endgame plan voting. Teleport is coming, Multichain, and it has to continue as one of the biggest and main strategies for Maker, so we are going in that direction. But then, it will be a different story once the Endgame plan is approved and started because CUs mandates and the budgets will be reduced, and we will have to reorganize everything. It is hard for me to plan anything without a time frame and in the middle of a storm. We have no idea what Maker will look like in three months. That is the hardest part. - In terms of time, I am spending time to understand all of this, but I am with Derek on this: I do it and then I go by to my team and share what I have learned of the things that I could understand after listening to Rune. It has not been a disruption in the time we dedicate to that because I do it, and I consider that part of my role as a facilitator. And my team has not been affected by that, but it is affecting me in planning for the future. [1:05:56](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=3956) - **Someone:** This is my idea of how to work and have a piece of mind right now. Suppose you think about Maker as something that has a great product and is generating revenue. Then you think about the CUs as an independent business that in the Endgame plan, if you think where in this plan do I see myself, where do I want to go there, how can I improve, make sure that I create an outcome that is profitable for the whole team. Then you are in a good spot because you do not need the permission of Rune or anybody to go and create. That is the plan of the Endgame plan to unlock all this. And Flipside is going through a very similar transition where we are moving away into a future that is much more enabling for individual contributors to go and create. We have challenges. People are struggling with how vague it is, but it is the biggest strength because it is a blank canvas you can use to paint. That is the framing I choose to think about that. - I have seen Rune taking input without compromising on his basic tenet, which is how to create a DAO that scales in a purely decentralized fashion. That is a radical departure from how the DAO currently operates. - **Nadia:** I am not concerned about my CU's future or the growth contributors within the Endgame plan(...) My concern is how to plan. For example, should we consider the metaDAOs or stick to the mandate? Let us say we have a campaign with finance, but to do that, we have to sign an agreement and commit with them for the next six months. Should we do it or not? In terms of the Endgame Plan, we should not because what Rune is looking for is that Maker Core is as permissionless as possible where agreements with third parties do not exist; everything is permissionless. If you think about that, we should not do it, but if we do not, we are losing a huge opportunity for Maker, which is part of our mandate as a Growth CU. That is the hard part. We struggle every day because we want to help Maker holders do whatever is best for the protocol, but we also have a mandate. ## Conclusion ### Payton Rose [1:15:48](https://youtu.be/T56N0u881M8?t=4548) - If you did not have your voice heard in today's call, the forum threads would hopefully provide a more long-lasting testament to what we are discussing and debating. I would encourage anyone to engage and follow up on these threads later. - I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and lead these calls weekly. We will be back same time, the same place next week, and huge thanks again to everyone who helped make this call possible. [Suggestion Box](https://app.suggestionox.com/r/GovCallQs) ## Credits - Kunfu-po produced this summary. - Larry Wu produced this summary. - Everyone who spoke and presented on the call.