---
tags: G&R
---

# Episode 187: April 21st, 2022

## Agenda

- [00:00](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=4): Introduction
- [01:19](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=79): Votes and Polls
- [03:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KukRFWrMOjs&t=79s&ab_channel=MakerDAO): MIPs Update
- [08:37](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=517): Forum at a Glance
- [14:35](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=875): Discussion: Solving Common DAO Governance Challenges
- [41:59](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=2519): Open Discussion
- [01:08:22](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=4102): Conclusion

## Video

[Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KukRFWrMOjs&ab_channel=MakerDAO)

## Introduction

### Agenda and Preamble

#### Payton Rose

[00:00](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=4)

- Welcome to our recorded session of the Maker Governance & Risk call. My name is Payton, I go by Prose11 online, and I am one of the Governance facilitators here at MakerDAO. Thank you, everyone, for joining us both live and later in the recording for our #187 Governance & Risk call. Today is the 21st of April 2022. A group of awesome people who contribute and are otherwise interested in the Maker protocol is joining me presently. We have a bit of an agenda to get through today. Before we get there, let me remind you that we are recording this meeting. Try not to talk over one another. If you want to add to the conversation, you can use Zoom's *raise hand* feature, and I will call you when appropriate. Nevertheless, we want this to be an open conversation: if you have a question, if someone touches on a topic you would like to explore further, do not be afraid to speak up in the chat or hop in the conversation.

## General Updates

### Votes

#### Payton Rose

[1:19](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=79)

*Polls:*
- 2 Weekly Polls - **PASSED**
- Short Ratification Poll to Amend MIP64 to allow more flexibility in scope (MIP64c3-SP3)
- Whitelist Oasis.app on Multiple Oracles (MIP10c9-SP30)
- 12 Monthly Ratification Polls (**Voting Ends Monday**)
- 2 Greenlight Polls (**Voting ends May 2nd**)
- sETH2 (Stakewise Staked ETH)
- HVBANK (Huntingdon Valley Bank Loan Syndication Collateral)

*Executive:*
- Last week's Executive Proposal - Offload TUSD and DAI Transfers - **PASSED AND EXECUTED**
- Tomorrow's Executive Proposal - Whitelist Oasis.app on Multiple Oracles
- ETHUSD
- WSTETHUSD
- WBTCUSD
- RENBTCUSD
- YFIUSD
- LINKUSD
- MANAUSD

### MIPs

#### Pablo

[03:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KukRFWrMOjs&t=79s&ab_channel=MakerDAO)

[Weekly MIPs Update #83](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/weekly-mips-update-83/14673)



#### [_Short Ratification Polls_:](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=246)

- [MIP4c3-SP3: MIP64 Amendments](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip4c3sp3-amend-mip64-to-allow-more-flexibility-in-scope/14200)
- Amends MIP64: *Bug Bounty Program for MakerDAO Critical Infrastructure* to allow more flexibility in scope.
- **YES**: 57,873 MKR Voting (**83.45%**)
- ABS.: 8,450 MKR Voting (12.18%)
- NO: 3,031 MKR Voting (4.37%)

- [MIP10c9-SP30: Whitelist Oasis.app on Multiple Oracles](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip10c9-sp30-proposal-to-whitelist-oasis-app-on-ethusd-wstethusd-wbtcusd-renbtcusd-yfiusd-uniusd-linkusd-manausd/14379)
- Subproposal to Whitelist Oracle Access to Oasis.app on ETHUSD, WSTETHUSD, BTCUSD, YFIUSD, UNIUSD, LINKUSD, MANAUSD
- **YES**: 69,353 MKR Voting (**100%**)
- ABS.: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)
- NO: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)

#### [_Ratification Polls_:](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=277)

- [MIP66: Pairwyse Licensure](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip66-pairwyse-licensure/13554)
- **NO**: 14,144 MKR Voting (**100%**)
- ABS.: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)
- YES: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)

- [MIP67: Methodology and Review Process for Structured Finance Transactions](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip67-methodology-and-review-process-for-structured-finance-transactions/13737)
- **YES**: 60,290 MKR Voting (**85.69%**)
- NO: 10,049 MKR Voting (14.28%)
- ABS.: 18,43 MKR Voting (0.03%)

#### [_Core Unit Budgets_:](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=303)

- [MIP40c3-SP62: Modify Core Unit Budget - GovComms, COM-001](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip40c3-sp62-modify-core-unit-budget-com-001/13724)
- **ABS.:**: 12,095 MKR Voting (**46.09%**)
- NO: 10,058 MKR Voting (38.33%)
- YES: 4,087 MKR Voting (15.57%)

- [MIP40c3-SP63: Modify Core Unit Budget - GovComms, COM-001](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip40c3-sp63-modify-core-unit-budget-com-001/13654)
- This version of the budget modification proposal includes the plan for a 4th full-time hire as well as the other budget modifications GovComms is asking for.
- **NO**: 14,135 MKR Voting (**53.87%**)
- ABS.: 12,095 MKR Voting (46.09%)
- YES: 9.6 MKR Voting (0.04%)

- [MIP40c3-SP64: Add Data Insights Core Unit Budget](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip40c3-sp64-add-data-insights-core-unit-budget/13791)
- **YES**: 13,717 MKR Voting (**52.28%**)
- NO: 12,522 MKR Voting (47.72%)
- ABS.: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)

- [MIP40c3-SP68: Modify Protocol Engineering Core Unit Budget, PE-001](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip40c3-sp68-modify-protocol-engineering-core-unit-budget-pe-001/13797)
- **YES**: 44,224 MKR Voting (**83.96%**)
- NO: 8,450 MKR Voting (16.04%)
- ABS.: 0,1 MKR Voting (0.0%)

#### [_Core Unit Mandate Refreshes_:](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=328)

- [MIP39c2-SP31: Update Data Insights Core Unit Mandate](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip39c2-sp31-update-data-insights-core-unit-mandate/13790)
- **YES**: 22,158 MKR Voting (**84.45%**)
- NO: 4,071 MKR Voting (15.51%)
- ABS.: 9,95 MKR Voting (0.04%)

- [MIP39c2-SP30: Update Governance Communications Core Unit Mandate](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip39c2-sp30-governance-communications-core-unit-com-001-mandate-refresh/13197)
- **YES**: 26,220 MKR Voting (**99.93%**)
- ABS.: 9,85 MKR Voting (0.04%)
- NO: 8,58 MKR Voting (0.03%)

#### [_Core Unit Onboarding_:](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=341)

- [MIP39c2-SP32: Adding Events Core Unit, EVENTS-001](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip39c2-sp32-adding-events-core-unit-events-001/13780)

- Adds the Events Core Unit (EVENTS-001) to coordinate and execute MakerDAO branded events at Crypto/DEV Conference locations.
- **YES**: 26,795 MKR Voting (**65.49%**)
- NO: 14,120 MKR Voting (34.51%)
- ABS.: 0,1 MKR Voting (0.04%)

#### [_Miscellaneous_:](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=358)

- [MIP4c2-SP18: MIP7 Amendments](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip4c2-sp18-mip7-amendments/13788) - [MIP7c3-SP7: CES Domain Team Onboarding, CES-001](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip7c3-sp7-ces-domain-team-onboarding-ces-001/13794)
- Adds CES as a Collateral Onboarding Team
- **YES**: 40,021 MKR Voting (**100%**)
- ABS.: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)
- NO: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)

- [MIP6c3-SP2: Modify the collateral application form](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip6c3-sp2-modify-the-collateral-application-form/13787)
- **YES**: 44,088 MKR Voting (**99.98%**)
- ABS.: 9,85 MKR Voting (0.02%)
- NO: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)

- [MIP47c3-SP1: Dissolution of Content Production Multi-Sig Request, MKT-001](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip47c3-sp1-dissolution-of-content-production-mkt-001-multi-sig-request/13991)
- **YES**: 44,098 MKR Voting (**100%**)
- ABS.: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)
- NO: 0,0 MKR Voting (0.0%)

#### [_Proposals in RFC_:](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=385)

- [MIP65: Project Clydesdale: Monetalis Arrangement I: Liquid Bond Strategy & Execution](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip65-clydesdale-monetalis-liquid-bond-strategy-execution/13148)
MIP65 will onboard and activate an RWA vault to acquire USDC via PSM and invest them in high-quality liquid bond strategies held by a trust arranged and maintained by Monetalis.
- [MIP68: Monetalis Vault V2](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip68-monetalis-vault-v2/13789)
- MIP68 is a self-contained collateral onboarding MIP that will onboard and activate an RWA vault backed by the assets of a trust arranged by Monetalis.
- [MIP69: L2 to L1 Fast Withdrawals](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip69-l2-to-l1-fast-withdrawals/14041)
- This MIP formalizes technical work completed to deliver Fast Withdrawals on Layer2.
- [MIP70: Huntingdon Valley Bank Self-Contained Onboarding Strategy & Execution](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip70-huntingdon-valley-bank-self-contained-onboarding-strategy-execution/14468)
- MIP70 will onboard and activate an RWA vault, with priority, to acquire loans from HVBank (as described in the [MIP6](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip6-huntingdon-valley-bank-loan-syndication-collateral-onboarding-application/14219) application).
- [MIP71: Huntingdon Valley Bank “Collateral Block” Exemption](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip71-huntingdon-valley-bank-collateral-block-exemption/14469)
- MIP71 exempts the proposed HVBank collateral onboarding and subsequent amendments to the MBPT (as outlined in the [MIP6](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip6-huntingdon-valley-bank-loan-syndication-collateral-onboarding-application/14219)) from any MIP65-like collateral onboarding blocks.
- [MIP72: Delegated Collateral Attachment - RWA Arranger Application - 6s Capital](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip72-delegated-collateral-attachment-rwa-arranger-application-6s-capital/14482)
- MIP72 authorizes 6s Capital as a Real World Asset Arranger for MakerDAO to cause commerce by assembling commercial senior-secured transactions based on the authorization #001 outlined herein.

#### [_Other Proposals in RFC_:](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=459)

- [MIP4c2-SP15: Core Unit Offboarding Process Amendments](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip4c2-sp15-core-unit-offboarding-process-amendments/12920)
- [MIP4c2-SP19: MIP40 Budget Process Amendment](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip4c2-sp19-mip40-budget-process-amendment/14250)
- [MIP40c3-SP67: Modify Core Unit Budget - Strategic Happiness, SH-001](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip40c3-sp67-modify-core-unit-budget-strategic-happiness-sh-001/13805)
- [MIP41c4-SP34: Immunefi Security Core Unit Facilitator Onboarding - IS-001](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip41c4-sp34-immunefi-security-core-unit-facilitator-onboarding-is-001/14610)
- [MIP55c3-SP4: Adding a Special Purpose Fund - Makershire Hathaway](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mip55c3-sp4-adding-a-special-purpose-fund-makershire-hathaway/14643)

### Forum at a Glance

#### Artem Gordon

[08:37](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=517)

Post: [Forum at a Glance: April 14th - 20th, 2022](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/forum-at-a-glance-september-10th-16th/10344)

Video: [Forum at a Glance](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=517)

- [_News & Announcements:_](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=547)
- [ALM Liquidity Update](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/alm-liquidity-update/14687)

- [_Discussions:_](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=574)
- [Series: Why Integrating DeFi and Real World Finance is Hard](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/series-why-integrating-defi-and-real-world-finance-is-hard/14698)
- [What is a Trust Indenture? What is an Indenture Trustee?](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/what-is-a-trust-indenture-what-is-an-indenture-trustee/14697)
- [INFORMAL POLL: Should MakerDAO RWA establish a free speech trust (Delaware) for the benefit of Web3 and Twitter Users to Finance Elon Musk’s Purchase of and Open Sourcing of Twitter?](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/informal-poll-should-makerdao-rwa-establish-a-free-speech-trust-delaware-for-the-benefit-of-web3-and-twitter-users-to-finance-elon-musk-s-purchase-of-and-open-sourcing-of-twitter/14683)
- [INFORMAL POLL: Fund a professional media production company as a core unit that will produce content for the benefit of MakerDAO (e.g., content-marketing to grow Dai supply and expand MakerDAO’s fanbase)?](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/informal-poll-fund-a-professional-media-production-company-as-a-core-unit-that-will-produce-content-for-the-benefit-of-makerdao-e-g-content-marketing-to-grow-dai-supply-and-expand-makerdao-s-fanbase/14641)

- [_Active Signal Requests:_](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=704)
- [Change lid Parameter on the Rate Limiter](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/signal-request-change-lid-parameter-on-the-rate-limiter/14688)
- [Onboard D3M for TrueFi](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/signal-request-onboard-d3m-for-truefi/14563)
- [Extend SHCU (SH-001) Budget Until May Governance Cycle](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/signal-request-extend-shcu-sh-001-budget-until-may-governance-cycle/14511)

## Discussion

### Solving Common DAO Governance Challenges

#### Deniz (0xdeniz) from DUX

[14:35](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=875)


- Payton Rose: I am excited–and a little biased because I participated in this workshop–to have Deniz, the Development & UX Core Unit Facilitator, here at Maker. He led a workshop at the Global Governance Gathering in Amsterdam. We are thrilled to have him talk about what he did and its outcomes. I will let him present it himself.
- Deniz: Thank you for the introduction, Payton. I should start by saying I was not on my own. Tiago was on the team--he is our Designer--, and he happens to be a Design Thinking veteran. We used to work together before Maker. It was nice to be in person with him, jamming together on a workshop again.
- Context: As DUX, we are now focused on governance tooling, trying to build a relevant roadmap and deliver upon it.
- As you work on governance tooling, it is inevitable to conclude that DAO governance is a very intertwined domain.
- There are not many things you can achieve as a single core unit by just iterating on a web app. You need to coordinate with other core units and look at processes, policies, and incentives. Following that train of thought, it makes sense to start thinking about governance and evaluating it in relation to how other projects are doing it.
- As a core unit, we have been slowly finding our cadence over the past couple of months. At this point, we are running very smoothly. We have plenty of head-space to do research, think, and talk to others.
- Back in Lisbon, there was an event organized by [_The DAOist_](https://www.thedaoist.co/)--an organization that does high-quality events and online gatherings–to talk and think about DAO governance frameworks and their processes. It was great. Then we learned that we were doing an event in Amsterdam called [_The Global Governance Gathering_](https://www.thedaoist.co/event/ggg).
- That was our cue to decide to do something this time; it was a huge opportunity. Tiago and I are from Amsterdam; we are local--right now, we are at the conference--. We put in a little sponsorship for _The DAOist_ event--big shoutout to the Growth core unit for helping us with that--, organized a workshop, and invited other prominent DAO and governance thinkers from different projects. We spent the day figuring out the main challenges of DAO governance, and we tried to reach a solution or concepts that might be interesting to pursue.
- I will now run you through the presentation that I did at the [_DevConnect_](https://devconnect.org/schedule) conference on Tuesday, summarizing the workshop itself. The [recording](https://youtu.be/yt8OstQZYPI?t=8844) is also available. After this, we can discuss some of these governance challenges--that we might also be facing at Maker-- and the avenues we could explore to find solutions to said challenges.

[18:47](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=1127)


- We did a redesign of the [_Governance Portal_](https://vote.makerdao.com/) that will be launching in a couple of days on Tuesday. Here is a teaser of what it is going to look like. We are eager to get that out there; we have been working on this for a long time. We think you are all going to like it.


- The core thought of the workshop we organized is that improving DAO governance systems is complex since those are deep-rooted within the rest of a project.
- For example, a large part of a governance system resides on-chain, which is hard to change–especially when you are a DeFi protocol that manages a couple of billion worth of value–. Still, there are also the processes the community uses daily. It is very complicated to disturb existing data structures once they are running.
- Despite its difficulties, there is enormous potential for improving DAO governance. You only need to pay attention to other _layers_ of the stack.
- At DUX, we firmly believe there is plenty of low-hanging fruit on the UX level. We need to figure out the right UX for the interface people use to interact with these governance systems and the level of processes, policies, and more malleable incentives than smart contracts.

[20:30](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=1230)


- This is the name of the session we organized with the DAO Governance Design Jam.


- It was a very intense--nine-to-five--workshop based on design thinking. We needed to make sure not to invite too many people. We wanted to have seven to nine guests, but, at the conference itself, there was a sense of serendipity, and we ended up inviting two more.
- I am still amazed that we could get eleven people together in that room. I am not sure if we will ever reunite this kind of group again. For this particular niche, it is an impressive lineup.
- After the workshop, we connected with all these people and built a relationship with them. We created a Telegram group, and we kept seeing each other over the week.
- I feel this experience will become extremely valuable in the months to come as we try to figure out ways to improve our governance.


- We designed the workshop based on the _Double Diamond_ model.
- We designed the workshop based on the Double Diamond model. The program switches between divergent and convergent thinking constantly. In that process, you try to capture the input of everyone’s minds while aggregating and clustering, creating abstraction from all that; that way, you can effortlessly figure out the most relevant problems and solutions.


- We started with introductions and creating a shared context. At a certain point, we wrote down all the challenges and frustrations that we face being part of a governance system on sticky notes. We put those on the wall, and everyone took about fifteen minutes in silence to take notes for themselves. Then we tried to get duplicates and cluster them to create categories.


- There was a form of abstraction in that process. You begin to understand where lay each participant's interests and main concerns. Groups were forming around that.


- Tiago shared ideation methods from the Design Thinking methodology framework. He has been doing this for some time. He was helpful.


- This was the most fun part of the workshop.
- This was the most fun part of the workshop. Although some stayed inside the venue, the three sub-teams went out into the city to jam together.
- My team found a nice spot near the water, and we used street signs as whiteboards to work on a challenge statement and do ideation. It was fun, and we had plenty of good conversations.
- We were able to empathize with one another. For example, I was on a team with someone pretty high up at *Yearn*. He is involved in figuring out how to scale that DAO. *Yearn* is a different dial from Maker: there was no ‘Yearn foundation.’ Yearn started from scratch. Nevertheless, we are all dealing with the same challenges on a certain level.
- On the left, Laura from _Other Internet_, a research collective. I am utterly impressed by their work. They wrote research reports about communities and DAOs and reported on _Uniswap_ and gathered many insights. It was absolutely interesting to spend the afternoon with these people.


- From time to time, we got together as a group to do some intermediate pitching and give each other input and feedback.


- Every team presented one concept that they worked on that might be interesting for the other groups to pursue.

[25:04](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=1504)


- Looping back to the first exercise we did, Tiago and I still have some work to do digitalizing everything and creating a slide deck or a spreadsheet to make all the challenges and problems we identified available. This week has been messy; it is a conference week. We have not been able to do that yet.
- Despite this, we can say that the top three challenges that participants voted on were related to _**Onboarding, Accountability,** and **Participation**_.
- _**Onboarding**_ is related to designing a beginner-friendly process for DAOs. One that does not involve sending too many resources to new entrants that need too much contextual knowledge.
- _**Accountability**_ is interesting. How do we hold teams accountable for their work after their funds have been rewarded? For example: once a research grant proposal has passed or a team budget proposal has passed, what we often see in DAOs, is that there is a lack of accountability processes.
- Compared to Web2, if two companies were engaging in some collaboration, it usually would start with a signed quote. Then you would have payment terms and such. There are a lot of _legal milestones_ that create an accountability structure. That is what is lacking in DAOs, generally speaking.
- _**Participation**_ is obvious, and it is the most relevant to Maker. How might we incentivize quality governance contributions that are pure voting participation rates and engage in discussion and co-authoring proposals, et?
- I almost forgot to mention: we will share all the results--including all of the abstracted governance challenges that we surfaced--on our Twitter ([@MakerDUX](https://mobile.twitter.com/makerdux)) later.


- The first team focused on _**Onboarding**_, and their challenge statement was: _"How might we empower interested new members to self-select their role and contributions to a DAO?"_


- The core concept behind what they came up with is a diamond-shaped onboarding flow that acts like a funnel, where the first steps of the onboarding process are noob-friendly, narrow, and agnostic to DAO.
- It is primal to understand where people's interests are, their skillset, and their availability. This knowledge will not be specific to any particular DAO.
- As the members move on and progress through this funnel, the following steps and exercises will become personal and more specific to DAOs. At one point, these practices should optimize for self-selection.
- If a contributor follows through with this onboarding flow, it should be relatively easy to understand what might be a good role for them to participate in Web3 and which DAO might be a good fit.
- Another engaging aspect of this design is that it aims for a _quick win_: In the first days or weeks of the process, when the new member is guided and supported in their contributions to the DAO--which can be minor--, there should be a sense of reward and motivation.
- This is also a potential solution to the need for contextual knowledge. For example, if I were to share the Maker Operational Manual, which I like and think is a good resource, it could be overwhelming with someone who has zero knowledge about Maker.
- In parallel to this onboarding funnel, there should be a DAO Librarian. This is a new role for DAOs. The Librarian would be in charge of guiding the people entering this onboarding flow if they want to learn more about specific subjects or whenever they get stuck. The Librarian should be up to speed when managing existing resources, what is happening in the DAO, and any potential opportunities.
- This is the first concept that the team surfaced. And it is just a concept. No one is currently working on it. This shows that if you get a group of people together in a room and get them to focus on a challenge statement, they can whip up a solution feasible to implement for existing DAOs in only a few hours.
- That was the goal of the day. To experience that and come up with some good ideas applicable to existing DAO systems. Too many people are talking about new DAO governance frameworks starting from scratch, but that will not be valuable for the existing governance systems.

[30:56](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=1856)


- The second team focused on _**Accountability**_, and their challenge statement was: _"How might we hold teams accountable for their work after their grant/budget proposal has been approved?"_


- They came up with a process innovation where they defined requirements for proposals that request treasury fund spending. This requires a definition of *success* or a definition of *done* written objectively and measurable way.
- The authors of said proposals should spend time thinking about that, and they should explicitly include those definitions in their proposal. This should be based on the nature of the work.
- It should be easy to find a definition of _done_ for a product-related endeavor. A definition of _success_ would be more fitting for a research project or a growth initiative--which is also more complex to define measurably, but still--.
- For proposals that exceed a certain threshold for the number of funds spent, that proposal should also include appointed members of a committee of advisors.
- Advisors can be individuals from other teams within the DAO or individuals from other DAOs--who might need compensation to be a part of this committee--.


- After the governance vote, the committee of advisors will involve in periodic progress reporting and evaluations of that particular team.
- The concept is similar to that of an investor board. If you are a Web2 investor, an investor board can be valuable because it provides a safe space to talk about how things are transpiring, and it can help figure out where to go next and how to deal with certain challenges.
- This also makes for a good accountability setup. These individuals are appointed to your committee of advisors; they associate with your team, initiative, and work. If they are not happy with your work, they will hold you accountable.
- To make that more explicit, the committee of advisors could be required to approve budget top-ups or periodic payments based on performance.
- These advisors would be staking their reputation by associating themselves with these teams or initiatives. That adds to the overall accountability setup.
- This process innovation should be feasible to implement for existing DAO governance systems–including Maker–and it would be a great way to round up the accountability aspect. And I agree: accountability is difficult in DAOs.


- The third team–the team that Payton was on, I like what they have been working on–focused on Participation. Their challenge statement was: “How might we incentivize quality contributions to DAO governance?”


- Their concept is called _Vested Voting Incentives_, an incentivization mechanism where a protocol must provide funds for incentivizing governance participation.
- The idea is that the distribution will be calculated based on an equation with several inputs. It will not be only about voting participation or voting weight--in our case, this would be MKR Token holdings--but it could also be about the extent of the contributions of a certain individual--for example, co-authored passed proposals--. It could be related to forum participation, communication, and their activity on proposals that passed, so you can figure out to what extent the voting of this member is in sync with where the votes have been going in general.
- These incentives would be vested over a year. The rewards could be in the native governance token, stables, NFTs, etcetera.

[35:57](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=2157)


- My favorite aspect of this idea is that these incentives will be split between the delegates and the delegators. This makes an interesting mechanism that incentivizes delegation.
- Suppose an individual feels like they will not be active enough in governance to do well in this incentivization scheme. In that case, there will be an incentive for this individual to delegate their tokens to a good, active delegate. Then, this individual would still catch some upside of the hard work of their delegate, thus, incentivizing delegation.
- I feel like this is an unsolved problem, especially at Maker, which might be something to consider. I am looking forward to continuing talking about this, Payton, once the dust settles.
- Once again, this is compatible with existing coin-voting systems. It is a mechanism of incentivization that should be feasible to implement.


- The main takeaway that I shared in the talk is that we should prioritize DAO governance, which is difficult because DAO governance is an interconnected domain. It is hard to get stuff done as an individual team. You need to do cross-CU coordination.
- We should also apply Design Thinking methodologies when designing the UX and designing incentivization mechanisms or new processes. Try to have the various stakeholders in mind and empathize with them.
- Try to utilize this methodology while thinking about these things. It greatly succeeds in putting the users center stage.
- We should innovate on processes, policies, incentives, and governance tooling levels. We can all agree that there are better voting mechanisms than coin-voting, but the truth is that it is difficult to change that for existing DAO systems.
- There is plenty of low-hanging fruit for processes, policies, and such. Let us focus our efforts there.
- The last point I made is to collaborate with cross-DAO governance big brains. There is plenty of wisdom out there.
- To a certain degree, we are all dealing with similar issues. There is a lot to learn from one another. I am really happy that, as a core unit, DUX is moving in that direction, collaborating with other CUs more closely compared to half a year ago.
- We created many good connections out of this particular conference. We are going to be able to leverage that.
- That was, basically, the talk that I gave. It would now make sense to have a low-key discussion or bring up suggestions about things we could do or innovations on the abovementioned levels that might be useful for Maker and how we might coordinate that.
- There is a lot already happening behind the scenes, but it could be fruitful to open this up for a broader discussion at the G&R call.

[39:44](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=2384)

- Prose11: I thought this did an excellent job capturing what we were jamming on and the problems we are facing. I see Kianga, one of our recognized delegates. Do you want to take it away?
- Kianga: Yes, that was terrific. I love seeing our leadership for the broader ecosystem. We have a lot to offer. We often talk about our challenges, and it is valuable information. He is dropping in another community orca protocol, one of the participants presented, and I think he will pay dividends across several things. We are also talking about our goals, growth brand, all these things; taking what we do here every day, what you have done, and being a leader and helping teach and convene leaders and other protocols is fantastic, thank you.
- Prose11: Thank you. As a participant, I could not thank you more; that was an excellent workshop. I know the connections I got and having other brains bounce problems off like Thiago does, obviously for the facilitation. He kept our group in check as well. We were nerding out over governance things, which provided us to be productive, which was an important nudge.

## Open Discussion

### Speaker

[41:59](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=2519)

- Robert: I am all for accountability, and I think we need more of it and the DAO; the question is: how much? As I mentioned in the chat, this is not intuitive and is not straightforward. There are no best practices and working from a DAO. I am glad to hear that we are way ahead, Dennis. I feel we are a huge DAO figuring out problems. I am excited about that, and at the same time, it is just a balancing act. I want to be held accountable. I want to make sure my team's work is valuable. We are contributing to the DAO. However, it gets challenging if I have 20 bosses and I am going for re-approval every month or every quarter. It is especially challenging to retain full-time people because they do not know if their jobs are in jeopardy every time I go around for one of these discussions, so there are many things to consider. I am grateful for the work that is being done. I appreciate everything that we are considering, but just something to keep in mind.
- Prose11: Thank you, Monkey Irish facilitator of the Collateral Engineering Services CU - for anyone unfamiliar. I know that came up, but a couple of the panels and discussions and this question of how do you have discussions about performance in the DAO space? Right? Because obviously, it takes much labor from many different individuals to address concerns. If all you are doing is talking about performance, you are not performing either. It is a balancing act and not an easy question to solve.
- Robert: I will give a specific example because of a sense of transparency. I have been hiring a team, and that is challenging in itself. Before we had a full team, and on May 11th, maybe I will start our final full-time hire, we are also hiring an engineer. What is interesting is that now that team is built out. We are not wearing multiple hats, and now we have the opportunity to circle back around and work with each of the people on my team to set specific goals, roles, and responsibilities. And beforehand. We ran all over the place, trying to get things done and organized to know what we were doing. I had the overall vision of what I felt we needed to do at CES. Because of the experience, we know that we understand how the DAO works, and basically, it is a design and moves forward. Grab feedback where you can but keep pushing. Do not wait is a key learning experience we have had because people may or may not give you feedback; you will get feedback when you get things out there. Keep moving forward is the best advice that I could give.

[45:14](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=2714)

- Prose11: Thanks, Robert. It is helpful to ground that with an example. I see Wouter in the chat saying that there should be much more continuous feedback, rather than just either reaffirming budgets or extreme earthquake events, referring to whether it is off-boarding or completely denying a budget. These things can derail not just an individual team but also the DAO and a lot of the people contributing. Keep in mind that the things we did not workshop were just people throwing their heads together and trying to develop their best solution in a day. That does not mean that it is an optimal solution. I was pretty intrigued by the ideas of how we could better hold people accountable.
- David Utrobin: One idea that I saw was that each CU would have a board of advisors that keeps it in check. I like this idea because we have one problem right now: CU and their output are looked at various quantitatively; it is de-personalized. When you have a dedicated individual looking in to ensure their team is accountable, they also get to feel for different things that might change. This could be a change in objective, context, or obstacle out of your control, which puts your team back by a quarter. I like the personal aspect of having that kind of advisor. Having a group comprised of professionals who have had some experience would also be great to share best practices and get that more continuous feedback loop in place. From my team’s perspective right now, I get that with a few individuals, but it would be pretty cool to get formalized and have dedicated people that can follow along with the story in the case of your team.
- Kianga: I have a question in terms of onboarding. I love seeing how we are reactivating Twitter, and we have the Discord; it is a question of how we are thinking about each of these spaces in terms of onboarding, location for the community, and the hierarchy if that makes sense. As a delegate, how should I prioritize where I spend time or keep up? Is there a sense that the Discord is where most new people start? Is that more so happening on Reddit? Is it happening simultaneously? Anyone’s observations in terms of our different spaces: how do you think it is currently perceived or used in terms of the onboarding process of new people?
- Prose11: Who is our target audience when we are talking about onboarding? Who are the people we are trying to reach? How are they getting to us on the platform?
- Someone: I believe we should also ask what type of users, right? Are they looking to contribute to governance? Are they looking to use vaults? Are they looking to use Dai? Well, what are users?

[49:48](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=2988)

- Kianga: And for all the CU, are you keeping up with where people engage? There are threads and channels in the Discord, the forum. Do you have an everyday practice? Like checking different channels. Are you seeing that one particular channel or app is where a certain type of activity or conversation happens versus others? In your day-to-day, how are you engaging across all our main spaces?
- DUX: From my experience working for MakerDAO, users previously on RocketChat now on Discord are much closer to the protocol and the things happening at the protocol. Then, you have social media, people who engage with Maker DAO, which is probably more like engaging in a DeFi level or a crypto level and not on a governance level.
- Prose11: Sure, and to echo that, I bet, Chris, you had a good comment in the chat pointing out that depending on what you are going for, people tend to go in two different directions. Perhaps CU is a little biased because moderation is a part of it. Also, in theory, these are things that we want everyone to be able to read and engage with. It is important to think about how much time it takes to split up and keep track of everything.
- Deniz DUX: This week, I spoke to many people also from other DAOs. I feel we should be asking ourselves what we are trying to achieve or what kind of people we are trying to reach when we are talking about improving the governance system. For example, suppose you are a DeFi protocol that secures billions of dollars in value. Why you pursue decentralization and a healthy governance system is entirely different from many other projects I have discussed here. For example, when I talked to someone from Live Peer yesterday, they were doing all kinds of things to figure out how to decentralize or whatever they were trying to bootstrap their communities to launch DAO and lean into the community to do Decentralized Governance. However, I was like: your problem is that you are looking for people to use your product, so you should be going for the content creators who are now putting their stuff on YouTube and other platforms. That is a whole different audience, and it is also a whole different purpose for pursuing decentralization. I think it also indicates this is a personal opinion. Still, I believe that something like Maker, the governance of a protocol, is not something we should pursue. Every user should participate in all governance roles because the governance votes need much knowledge.
- I will say that the first question we should be asking is, what are we trying to achieve? What kind of persons are we trying to engage and then apply this design thinking principle to empathize with particular individuals and try to see ways to activate them further and retain their attention in this space where there are many opportunities.

[55:00](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=3300)

- David Utrobin: Another interesting aspect of this problem is that we are building a large organization that manages a ton of money. We need and want highly talented people, but the problem is that because crypto has such a high barrier to entry - there are just a lot fewer talented people that are also crypto natives that you can bring in. One challenge is getting people from outside of the crypto world into a DAO, so my team has had a little bit of experience with that. Our third full-time hire was Thomas Flitter. He had 10 to 15 years of engagement, leadership experience, and the US energy industry, so he came in two GovComms, not as a crypto native. I could tell you the learning curve was long: it took a couple of months to wrap them up, to ramp him up. I think it is now six months out, and there are constantly things he is learning to get himself more: more aware of how the DAO works as an organization, what our actual products are, and who use our products and get the entire understanding of the business. There is a massive challenge in finding those highly talented people and bringing them in because historically, Maker has thrived from just finding very passionate and talented individuals to build the organization. We are getting to a place where we need even more specialization and higher degrees of talent. Another key I see is finding those people and later bringing in the passion.
- Prose11: Thanks, David. That was onboarding. That was another one of the things we tackled in the workshop because I think everyone who attended mentioned that it is a pain point in crypto regardless of your DAO's focus.
- David Utrobin: Yes, shout out to Colby Anderson. He is doing a Maker Academy Incubating a project. I think it is a CU, but I am not sure.
- Deniz DUX: I would like to hear opinions on what things you believe we should be trying to improve regarding our governance system: the voting system, governance processes, policies, and incentives. People think about this every day, and initiatives run behind the scenes. Does anyone want to share any thoughts on that? They might be helpful to us.
- Robert: I will share something, MonkeyIrish. Anything that we can do around understanding strategic objectives and how each of the CU can plug into that at a data level would be super helpful. I realized there had been some talk about how potentially we would decide to do that: some of the tools that might be available for us to do that, as well. I think it would be a real big help for the DAO - and there are different opinions - I realized this would be super helpful to know that the work I am doing as a CU is strategic and valuable for the DAO. Based on the feedback and the input that I get already, I can decide, but it is nice to know that we are working towards some common goals.

[1:00:18](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=3618)

- Someone: Yes, I would echo that sentiment. One thing you get in the hierarchical, centralized organization is clear top-down direction. While I think the DAO has many strengths, I would say that is a weakness of the model: knowing whether or not we are all strategically aligned and working in the same direction, even in broad strokes. It would be nice to know that even if CU has some autonomy or the autonomy to execute, we were all tugging the ship in the same direction.
- Deniz DUX: This reminds me of a conversation I had with Payton yesterday: this is what we talked about. As a DAO, I am impressed by how well the CU model has held up to keep the lights on and everything running. It is challenging to find consensus on the more abstract topics: like growth strategies and the big picture stuff. Usually, the big picture stuff is handled by C-level individuals or the board of investors because they are not bogged down with the operational stuff: they have the big picture. I feel that Maker - and Payton agreed there; also, many people think that we lacked the collaboration and infrastructure to discuss this. Many quality discussions are happening on the forum and Discord. I feel we have a lot of leaders or thought leaders in this in this community, but we do not have the infrastructure or the platforms to have like proper debates about these bigger things and try to try to get a feel of what the sides are right and what their arguments are. It seems like a challenging thing to coordinate in that timeframe. I feel there is potential in figuring out a platform for that to have those debates in a structured manner.
- Prose11: Yes, I would love to be working on it, spending a little time and collaborating with others to figure out the best way to bring that; it was exciting getting to talk with Dennis about this. I am grateful to participate and share this with the DAO because I think bringing in different perspectives and being willing to talk about the pain points is one of our biggest strengths. Historically, MakerDAO has been good at acknowledging risks and drawbacks; how can we improve the situation?
- Will: I agree. I think the question is how to get more value than MKR token holders expect. Then, the issue at times is distribution in the CE level of MKR. Token holders are distributed: it is hard to get a standard view for many of them. In a DAO, a force of proposition appears that comes from the bottom over to MKR. The bottom is the agents in operations. The agents coordinate together as different CU facilitators and teams. They work together on our strategy and propose that back to the MKR holders. The people who are not involved in the operations can say yes or no to any opposition force. That is probably the biggest challenge, which involves the whole aspect of the allocation. They have independent teams working on their verticals of what they think is essential for the DAO, and they have to raise that to the CE level in a coordinated fashion. That is not only individual, their CU, but actually, it is to the whole DAO, so that is probably the biggest challenge. Seeing a little bit of a workshop where the team has done their design thinking, I think it is perhaps possible to leverage some of those frameworks to develop those Dai level principles and the direction of travel. This is an alternative model to what we have been doing until now.

[1:06:10](https://youtu.be/KukRFWrMOjs?t=3970)

- Prose11: Thanks. I see the discussion in the chat about token holders, how we value their opinions, the extent we use that to guide our future structure, and the optimal path for doing so. We will not solve all these significant challenges in one call. I appreciate everyone willing to discuss these issues. Meantime, let me give a massive shout-out to Thiago for the workshop that we had on Monday. In addition, he also helped put together some of those awesome graphics on the slide; they brought our ideas to life. Thank you, Thiago and Dennis. I love to see a lot of the side chat continue on the forums, I think discussing budgets, direction, and prioritization is something we will be focusing on coming up here.
- Moreover, we would love to make sure we get those all shared, even if the GNR may not be the best, best way to preserve that, so please, if you are so inclined, the type that up on the forum, and we can continue the conversation there. Thank you for joining us. Like I said, please keep it going in the forums. We will be back same time, the same place next week.

[Suggestion Box](https://app.suggestionox.com/r/GovCallQs)

## Common Abbreviated Terms

`CR`: Collateralization Ratio

`DC`: Debt Ceiling

`ES`: Emergency Shutdown

`SF`: Stability Fee

`DSR`: Dai Savings Rate

`MIP`: Maker Improvement Proposal

`OSM`: Oracle Security Module

`LR`: Liquidation Ratio

`RWA`: Real-World Asset

`RWF`: Real-World Finance

`SC`: Smart Contracts

`Liq`: Liquidations

`CU`: Core Unit

## Credits

- Constanza produced this summary.
- Andrea Suarez produced this summary.
- Larry Wu produced this summary.
- Everyone who spoke and presented on the call, listed in the headers.​