IIP-8 Meta Governance Module

[dylan]

iip: 8
title: Meta Governance Module
status: Accepted
author: <Richard Liang (@rliang)>
created: 2020-11-06

Simple Summary

This IIP adds meta-governance support for AAVE, UNI, and COMP to the DeFi Pulse Index.

Abstract

Add the GovernanceModule to the DeFi Pulse Index Set with support for non-staking governance protocols. These protocols are AAVE, Compound and Uniswap. Governance represents a single vote casted by $INDEX token holders off-chain, which is then executed by the Index Multisig via the GovernanceModule. A GovernanceModule implementation is ready and can go live within 1-2 weeks pending audits.

FOR:

• Add the GovernanceModule to the DeFi Pulse Set as specified in this IIP

AGAINST:

• Do not add the GovernanceModule specified in this IIP to the DeFi Pulse Set

Motivation

DPI is already one of the largest holders of YFI (#14, $1.5m), AAVE (#16, $1.9m), MKR (#33, 2.3m), REN (#27) COMP (#62, $1.7m), and UNI (#72, $2.5m), and can exert voting influence for the benefit of the Index Coop. This “meta-governance” can be used to support the addition of INDEX products onto lending and yield farming protocols, and assist constituents’ governance in reaching quorum. $INDEX holders will collectively gain access to millions of dollars of voting power in these underlying protocols.

Specification

Overview

This IIP requests authorization to add the GovernanceModule (specified below) to the DeFi Pulse Index Set.

Once the GovernanceModule is enabled, meta-governance voting is carried out in the following steps:

1. A governance vote is called for AAVE, Compound or Uniswap.

2. The proposal is duplicated on Index Coop’s snapshot page here.

3. The meta governance voting period will end 24 hours before the underlying (AAVE, Compound, or UNI) governance vote ends.

4. $INDEX holders vote on the meta governance proposal on Index Coop’s snapshot page above.

5. At the end of the voting period if a 5% quorom is reached, the Index Coop multisig will vote according to the related snapshot proposal majority

Meta governance is still a relatively new field. Accordingly, this IIP also reserves the right to disqualify any voter manipulation (e.g. flash loans attacks) used to gain an advantage in off-chain voting, as judged at the discretion of the Index Coop multisig holders.

Rationale

This specification uses the existing Set V2 infrastructure and adds integrations with AAVE, Compound and Uniswap governance infrastructure.

Technical Specification

Technical specification for the GovernanceModule can be found here.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.

IIP-008 Governance Vote

• FOR Add the GovernanceModule to the DeFi Pulse Set as specified in this IIP
• AGAINST Do not add the GovernanceModule specified in this IIP to the DeFi Pulse Set

[Kiba]

I think this proposal is definitely the way to go.

One option for governing I hadn’t considered was creating an autonomous subgroup that would manage all inter-dao voting which was listed in this Yearn post. I don’t think it would work for us since not all the governance tokens can’t be delegated so some would still need Coop multisig while others need the subgroup multisig which makes it a bit messy.

If it were possible to delegate all tokens than its probably a more efficient and effective model than the entire coop doing a Snapshot vote since some community members are already getting pretty involved with other DAOs on behalf of the Coop. It’s better to have us represented by real people with reputations and knowledge of each community vs being some abstract juggernaut voting without context on the proposal. The fact that INDEX members will only have info when the vote is called and not knowing anything that led up to the vote plus only a 5% quorum showing we don’t expect most token holders to care or know enough to affect results makes me think a delegate subgroup would give better results for the other DAO we are participating in which is our objective with meta-governance.

But I’m pretty sure it’s not feasible to do the subgroup option since some governance tokens can’t be delegated so this proposal is the best solution as far as I can tell.

[dylan]

@Kiba

more efficient and effective model than the entire coop doing a Snapshot vote since some community members are already getting pretty involved with other DAOs on behalf of the Coop. It’s better to have us represented by real people with reputations and knowledge of each community vs being some abstract juggernaut voting without context on the proposal. The fact that INDEX members will only have info when the vote is called and not knowing anything that led up to the vote plus only a 5% quorum showing we don’t expect most token holders t

+1
We have the Treasury Committee structured similarly for some of the same reasons. Having a fairly autonomous sub committee subject to checks and balances makes it much simpler to interface with the coop as a third party. We’ve seen similar sub committees when interfacing with Maker DAO for example.

[marshmellow]

Hey! I’m looking to better understand meta-governance. Out of curiosity why is meta-governance limited to non-staking protocols only? ELI5 is totally fine.

Richard wrote in his post on how to make DPI more productive, “Non-staking governance does not introduce additional risk to external protocol integrations.” Curious if someone here can elaborate on the risks of introducing staking governance.

Also, are there any proposals coming down the pipe that would expand meta-governance to include additional protocols?

[verto0912]

@marshmellow

Out of curiosity why is meta-governance limited to non-staking protocols only?

My understanding is that meta-governance is enabled for protocols that use Compound’s governance module, which is currently Uni and Aave, outside of Compound itself of course.

@marshmellow

“Non-staking governance does not introduce additional risk to external protocol integrations.”

This one is beyond me.

@marshmellow

are there any proposals coming down the pipe that would expand meta-governance to include additional protocols?

I don’t think we are currently prioritising this.

We also published a post on metagovernance recently. Here’s the link if you want to check it out.

Meta-governance at the Index Coop

[marshmellow]

Thanks @verto0912 ! This is super helpful!

[simplelife]

Hi @verto0912 , is Compound’s meta-governance usage the prevalent / growing model in Indexcoop or even DeFi space in general. I have no knowledge and given that you shared Uni and Aave are both using it, I am doing a uninformed guess that many are as well, including us (Indexcoop).

[verto0912]

hi @simplelife, our governance is done via snapshot at the moment. i think a lot of projects in the space currently use snapshot, while Compound module is somewhat more comprehensive. That’s my understanding.

[simplelife]

What do you mean by snapshot. English please

[verto0912]

it’s off-chain governance, compared to the Compound module, which is one of the examples of on-chain governance. Here the link to snapshot.

https://hub.snapshot.page

[anon10525910]

@simplelife

Hi @verto0912 , is Compound’s meta-governance usage the prevalent / growing model in Indexcoop or even DeFi space in general. I have no knowledge and given that you shared Uni and Aave are both using it, I am doing a uninformed guess that many are as well, including us (Indexcoop).

Hi @simplelife great question! I’ll do my best to tease this apart, I don’t think i’m quite there but here it is:

• I am not sure that meta-governance is a growing model. I can’t recall other examples of meta-governance in action off the top of my head.

• I don’t believe that Uni or Aave are doing meta-governance. Though $INDEX holders can vote on their (Uniswap, Aave) proposals.

Check out this google doc - How We Do Meta-Governance at the Index Coop - and send more questons!

Also, maybe @coopahtroopa has some insight on the prevalence of metagovernance that I’m missing (I’m looking at this November post from the Defiant)