Meet Your Delegate: Episode # 11

--- tags: Meet Your Delegate --- # Meet Your Delegate: Episode # 11 ## Agenda - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI-nDmwnWpY): Introduction - [00:48](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=48): Jun from Penn Blockchain - [06:29](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=389): Open Questions - [29:11](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1751): Conclusion ## Video [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI-nDmwnWpY) ### General Introduction #### Patrick_J [00:03](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=3) - Good evening, everyone, and welcome to MYD #11; I am Patrick, one of the GovAlpa Contributors. We are here with Jun, who is representing Penn Blockchain. - These meetings are always being recorded and posted on YT, so try to avoid talking over each other. If you want to ask any questions, you can raise your hand or put them in the chat, or feel free to interject if there is a lull in the conversation. - We will start with a short presentation that Jun will give about Penn Blockchain and their delegate platform, and then we will open the floor to some questions. ### Delegate Introductions ### Penn Blockchain #### Jun [00:48](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=48) - Hello everyone! My name is Jun. I am currently a software undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton business school. I am studying finances and blockchain technologies. - I have recently been involved and keep up about what MakerDAO has been doing for a couple of years. Recently, too, I met some of the Maker team at the Harvard blockchain conference, and I got super interested in what is going on behind the scenes. - I am here on behalf of Penn Blockchain to possibly become a delegate for Maker. - About Penn Blockchain: - We are an entirely student-run blockchain organization from the University of Pennsylvania, composed of undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. schools. - The Blockchain club got its actual form around two or three years ago. In that time, a dozen people participate; this semester, we are around 50 or 60, and probably 100 or more the next one. - Our club has committees covering Governance, Research, Education, Business Development, and Web Development/Web3. Currently, I am on the Governance Committee, so I am here on this call. - Our team has different members leading government initiatives for different protocols such as Aave, Compound, Unity, Swap, DYDX, Coop, and, hopefully, MakerDAO. - Our governance leads will share updates with our club about different proposals and things happening in their respective protocols every week. Then, on Discord, we discuss if we want to go ahead with a vote or if we want to propose something ourselves if we deem that necessary. - Our internal voting process usually occurs on Zoom (especially during COVID times). More recently, we are holding in-person meetings once a week, for 30 minutes to an hour. - Some of our actual governance initiatives involve: - _Staying active within our discussion forums_ - _Drafting new proposals when appropiate_ - _Staying updated with the protocols_ - _Discussing models and parameters with different companies_ - _Communicating with internal team members_ - _Hosting speaker events related to club's projects_ - As for the Maker side of things, our delegations have been given to us by different VCs who want to have their university presence and a more democratized, educational, and decentralized space. For example, Andreessen has delegated our voting rights for some different tokens. - Maker, I think, is one of those cool platforms; the way they do their delegation, you know, is really interesting: how Maker incentivizes ourselves to be good delegates. Also, GovAlpa is always up-to-date and involved in everything, and that is a nice way to keep you on your toes and reward those who do more than anyone else. - Inside our club, our goal is to set up this bounty system. If, for example, we get money from Maker as a delegate, we plan to set up a bounty program based on participation. If I were to create a post, I would be active in the community. I will receive a proportional Dai bounty accord to my participation at the end of the day. ### Open Questions #### Patrick_J [06:29](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=389) - That is great, Jun. Thank you very much. I will open the floor to questions if anyone wants to ask something, Jun. #### Frank Cruz [06:40](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=400) - Hey Jun, it is Frank again. Thank you for putting this presentation together on your platform. Very exciting to see Penn University be the first university to take an interest in Maker. - I want to ask you: - _**What are some of the benefits Maker can get here by having a study body council such as the Penn Blockchain Club?**_ - _**Would you say that, perhaps, soon, some of those individuals (I think you mentioned there are a hundred members) be interested in working in the ecosystem, or do you think many of them are just doing it because it is a hot trend?**_ - _**Do you expect any of them eventually want to work in DeFi?**_ - _**What are the demographics of interests?**_ #### Jun [07:34](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=454) - Yes. I will talk about the crypto interest within our club and then relate that to MakerDAO. - In the last year, in Penn Blockchain, there have been incredible amounts of interest in crypto. More and more people are finding the “dropout pattern” more elusive and interesting than going into banking, private equity, or any of those traditional routes. - Many of my friends started their projects and started to work with VCs. Crypto is coming to stay, and 100% of people are getting involved in dialogues about projects and considering going into a Web3-related role for their careers. - As for Maker’s perspective, why would you want to delegate the University platform? - From my perspective, there is a good reason why different companies are reaching out to universities. Reasons are not only for sponsorship and collaborations; many of these top universities will give recruits to those companies in the future. And a lot of these people going through the schooling system see the potential of crypto and want to get into crypto full-on. These universities are getting into the governance side of things and growing exponentially. A year ago, there was barely any interest in getting universities onto delegation, barely any VCs delegating rights. But now, so many universities have been onboarded. And now, every big university either has or is starting to create a crypto club. With respect to Maker, I definitely would be surprised if there weren't more university blockchains trying to become delegates in the future. #### Frank Cruz [10:08](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=608) - Yeah, for sure. Princeton had flown like 16 members of their blockchain club when I met you at the Harvard blockchain conference, so yes, super exciting stuff. #### LongForWisdom [10:34](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=634) - Jun, you mentioned some other DAOs that the blockchain had been involved in. Compared to those, MakerDAO has a larger volume of governance decisions, proposals, etc. - **Are you guys aware of that and take it into account? Are there any concerns you have with it?** #### Jun [11:27](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=687) - Yeah. I think that is why we are introducing a bounty system: many people, at the end of the day, like a little financial incentive, and that motivates them to go into, for example, Maker forums to check what is going on instead of choosing to hang out with their friends. - No other platform essentially pays us at this point; it is mainly VCs paying the club for further incentives. While, with the Maker delegation platform, there will be more budget for us to incentivize people who spend more time with Maker. - In the future (especially next semester), there will be a lot more influx of people, and we will have more roles to cover and people to cover those roles. #### Patrick_J [12:35](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=755) - I am quite intrigued by the unique setup that your club has, being a University-based delegate. You mentioned you had got several members of the club now, so: - _**Does the club has any requirements to become a member or is it open to any student of the university?**_ #### Jun [12:56](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=776) - In the spirit of Web3, we, as a club, are very interested in moving from just a club into a more DAO. We are still finalizing that transition; that way, we will be better positioned to engage more innovation and what we want to do and move things faster instead of going through a traditional Web 2.0 structure. - We are still hashing out exactly what it takes to be a DAO member from that standpoint. Overarching things: You essentially have to be a student at the University of Pennsylvania to apply, and if you do good work, no one will rush to kick you out. #### Patrick_J [14:17](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=857) - When the club is deciding, and you are voting, you mentioned that you discuss things as a group, and then you come to a conclusion yourselves: - _**Is that a one-person vote system, or do some people have higher vote weights than others? Like, some more senior members of the club.**_ #### Jun [14:38](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=878) - Currently, it is a one-person-one-vote. However, I will say that many senior members —or the people who are more involved— many times commandeer the conversation. After discussing their arguments, we go to the fully democratic one-person-one-vote process. #### Frank Cruz [15:31](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=931) - Jun, **what is your stance on the direction or the vision that MakerDAO should take? Because different students might have different visions of what DeFi should be, I am trying to figure out why your platform has not stated its position as to whether Maker should go for growth or should be conservative.** Pretty sure you have seen the debates on the forum. #### Jun [16:13](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=973) - The short answer is that we have not fully decided that yet as a club. - The longer answer is I met the team maybe three weeks ago, and since then, there has been a Harvard blockchain conference, Columbia Hackathon, Bitcoin Miami last week. Many of us have been traveling, and we have not had time to flesh out where our club stands at every point fully. That is something that we will be doing in the future. - However, the discussions that we have had so far point towards a trajectory where we want to innovate, and we would like to take maybe a little bit more risk, some passive growth path, past yields, and a little faster moving in the space. Of course, this is only me speaking, and nothing is carved on stone. - With Adrian and Mark on the Strategic Finance CU, we have been exploring different DeFi liquidity incentives for providing more use cases and liquidity for Maker and Dai. #### Frank Cruz [17:54](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1074) - _**Would you say that some Penn DAO members are more experts in finance than anything else? I mean, do you have any cryptography fanatics?**_ #### Jun [18:09](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1089) - Indeed, people cover everything —whether they specialize in one thing or another— across our different club segments. There is research on people whom we would probably optimize for a VC role; people who can be optimized for developer roles; people who had been occupied for consulting roles, etc. And so from that sense of things, I think maybe that is the reason why different companies have been reaching out and be like, “Hey, we want to establish a direct job posting line and see if there are any potential ways we can get some members to work for us.” - To answer your question: yes, name something, and there are most likely multiple people in our clubs who are very interested in specializing. #### tadeo [19:09](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1149) - _**How do you intend to source your delegated MKR? Coming from the students or VCs, or if you have any thoughts on that?**_ #### Jun [19:30](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1170) - No, we do not hold Delta, and we do not have a fund inside the actual club right now that is market long or market short. - Our funds are essentially stable coins or US dollars to fund our club activities. We are looking more into having a treasury management spin-off or fund the following semester. - Before we move to a DAO sort of infrastructure, more autonomy, there are a lot of legal hurdles that we have to go through and things that we have to comply with. That should hopefully diminish as we become more of a DAO structure. - Currently, the University of Pennsylvania has 0.1 of Maker —like 200 dollars worth— primarily to vote on the immediate projects before we get any delegation. - In the future, as for where our delegation will come from, ideally, the VC game initially is very, very nice. And then, if we can grow and have a good cred in the forums, we will be able to get more delegation from normal users to pay. - About the club members themselves, I know a couple of us to have some Maker. #### tadeo [22:22](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1342) - I think it will be interesting to see your bounty system working with students with different skills, getting that we delegates right now have been asked to vote on a plethora of different subjects; that we go to see how you guys can specialize on each one of them. Great to have you. #### Patrick_J [22:59](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1379) - ***What do you think are some of the major challenges that Maker is facing?*** ---and I know it's difficult for you to comment because you're just a representative of the club rather than an individual delegate--- - ***And what would be your stances as a delegate in terms of trying to counteract those challenges?*** #### Jun [23:22](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1402) - Maker is huge, and every decision has to go through multiple channels before coming to life and fruition. - So, I think maybe a way of expediting that process, or a way of being quicker to act with different things that happen in the space, could be something that we want to explore and work towards. Many things happen behind the scenes, which may prevent that, but that is always a good overarching goal initially. - Also, there is much money sitting stable right now, not earning any extra yield, not doing anything. And that, to me, personally, is the area where I think we have to do something, whether that is like really safe, whether it’s taking it off-chain with the RWA, maybe earning some yield, or doing some DeFi farming and stuff on-chain. I think there is something we should do with that. #### Frank Cruz [25:15](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1515) - ***Is the blog up and running? And do you foresee possibly some of the members writing doing a few write-ups on Maker governor’s governance, the stuff of that nature?*** #### Jun [25:36](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1536) - Yeah, that has come up in our internal talks before. Maybe not specifically with Maker, but just with the different governance initiatives. - One of the key agenda points I have for next semester is for the different people on the other governance teams that have a bi-weekly or monthly checkup, just blog posts or summary of like, and then publish that on our [Twitter account](https://twitter.com/pennblockchain) or on the blog. - As for the actual website itself, I will be totally honest: I can follow up after this call and see and reach out to who operates the website and make sure that it is updated because I am not quite sure if it is right now. #### Frank Cruz [26:34](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1594) - ***And I would imagine you guys will run events down the road. Maybe Penn Blockchain conferences or something?*** #### Jun [26:41](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1601) - Yeah. We got a decent amount of grants from various DAOs, mainly Edu DAO. They were the ones that sponsored the Harvard blockchain conference. - We were very close to having an in-person conference this year that ended up being online for over a day. We brought in some nice speakers. Check it out on [our website](http://pennblockchain.com/) if you have not! - For next year, we plan to rent out a hotel for the weekend and have a bunch of speaker panels, conferences, career fairs, etc. #### Patrick_J [27:46](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1666) - I have one final question: ***How does your club operate when the university is on vacation? Do you have ongoing meetings during that period? Or will there be a month-long, two-month-long period where the delegate is dormant?*** #### Jun [28:15](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1695) - It depends on what committee you are in. And then also depends on your interest. - For example, at the end of this semester, we will have people interested in keeping up and active in our respective committees or shift committees. - One of the committees I will say will be active in the Governance Committee; governance does not take a summer break, so we will still be active in our governance. - For different things, like internal education or internal events and meetings, we will take a break for the summer. However, the people who want to work from there can migrate over to our team for the summer and keep up with the governance initiatives. - As for Maker's stance, we will still be equally involved and active. ### Conclusion #### Patrick_J [29:10](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1750) - Thank you, Jun. That was interesting. Assuming there are no further questions from anyone in the call, I think we will end it here. The recording will be going on YouTube. And you are available in the forum or Discord if anyone has any further questions, is that fair to say? #### Jun [29:30](https://youtu.be/aI-nDmwnWpY?t=1770) - Yes, of course. My Discord is Juanbug9225. If anyone has any questions, definitely reach out. ## Common Abbreviated Terms `DAO`: Decentralized Autonomous Organization `RWA`: Real-World Asset `DeFi`: Decentralized Finance ## Credits - Artem Gordon produced this summary. - David Utrobin produced this summary. - produced this summary. - produced this summary - produced this summary - Everyone who spoke and presented on the call, listed in the headers.