Wintermute DeFi Governance Digest: March 2024 | Week 1

5 MAR 2024 | RESEARCH | AUTHORED BY CALLEN

Proposals

Angle Protocol (ANGLE)

Proposal: AIP – 85: Rebrand agEUR into EURA

Author: Sogipec

Summary: This proposal requests to rename agEUR to EURA to improve legibility.

Key Points:

• agEUR is Angle’s decentralised EUR-pegged stablecoin established in November 2021 with a market cap of $21.3M USD.


• Despite its age, it still seems that people have trouble pronouncing agEUR and the ‘ag’ part of its ticker makes it look like a structured product to many people not familiar with the product or ecosystem.
  

• Thus, this proposal requests to rebrand agEUR to EURA providing more consistent branding with other stablecoins like EUROC, USDC, USDT, etc.


• The rebranding is expected to enhance Angle Euro’s recognisability and improve its usability throughout DeFi.


• If approved the agEUR contract will be upgraded on all chains with the new name; stEUR will keep its current name.

Our Take: We support the newly proposed naming convention and agree that it’ll improve Angle Euro’s legibility.

Uniswap (UNI)

Proposal: Uniswap V3 Fees: Factory Owner Amendment

Author: MichiganBlockchain, 404DAO, GFXLabs

Summary: This proposal requests to amend Uniswap Foundation’s proposal to Activate Uniswap Protocol Governance and allow for the setOwner() functionality.

Key Points:

• The Uniswap Foundation (UF) recently published Activate Uniswap Protocol Governance which proposed implementing 2 new smart contracts (V3FactoryOwner.sol and UniStaker.sol) that will allow for the collection and disbursement of protocol fees to UNI stakers.


• The proposal had a large focus on immutability ensuring that the proposed smart contracts can’t be upgraded/updated in a significant way.

• This provides clear expectations to UNI stakers while ensuring a high degree of security.


• However, some community members have expressed their concern about the high level of immutability given this is the first proposal of its kind.


• The proposed V3FactoryOwner.sol contract will become the owner of UniV3Factory.sol allowing the DAO to still control enabling fees and setting them on certain pools.


• But the new V3FactoryOwner.sol contract has no setOwner() functionality meaning that once V3FactoryOwner.sol is deployed and accepted by the DAO, there will be no way to change the owner of UniV3Factory.sol.


• Thus, the proposed implementation will be effectively set in stone forever.


• This proposal requests to amend UF’s proposal and add the setOwner() functionality to the V3FactorOwner.sol contract.

Our Take: We appreciate the nice properties that come with immutability, however, we do share the same concerns about locking the DAO into a system that may be suitable now but maybe not in the future.

Yearn Finance (YFI)

Proposal: Launch new yLockers Staking

Author: Wavey

Summary: This proposal introduces a new staking experience for Yearn’s liquid lockers. The new contracts will allow stakers to claim yield as stablecoins and reward users who stake for longer.

Key Points:

• Yearn’s liquid lockers provide users access to veTokens without having to lock up their capital i.e., yCRV (veCRV), yPRISMA (vePRISMA), etc.


• Currently, users can stake their yLocker tokens on Yearn to earn their native veToken rewards that are auto-compounded into the native token by Yearn vaults.

• However given the competitive landscape for similar locker products, Yearn needs to continue to evolve.


• Thus, this proposal introduces a new yLocker staking mechanism that will allow users to claim yield as stablecoins.


• When staking their tokens, users will have the option to select how much yTokens and stablecoins they want to receive from their yield.


• The proposal also introduces enhanced incentives for users based on staking time.


• Users can now earn a boost multiplier depending on the amount of time they have staked their token without any lock-ups or penalties.


• Yield distribution will occur weekly with Yearn charging a 10% performance fee.

Our Take: This is a great update for Yearn that certainly makes their products more competitive while rewarding loyal users.

Votes

Pyth (PYTH)

Proposal: Approval of the Pythian Council Election

Status: Live.

Created: Mar 1, 2024.

Ends: Mar 8, 2024.

Leading Consensus: Yes – 357.5M PYTH (99.9% of total votes).

Summary: This onchain vote ratifies the selection of 8 council members for the Pythian Council. The Pythian council will be responsible for upgrades to the oracle and verification program, setting data request fees, and protocol and network fees. The successful candidates are: Afif (Synthetix), KemarTiti (Pyth Data Association), Robinson (Wormhole Foundation), Guillermo (Douro Labs), Jayant (Duoro Labs), Guilhem (Flowdesk), Shu (HMX), Nope (Solend).

Uniswap (UNI)

Proposal: Activate Uniswap Protocol Governance

Status: Live.

Created: Mar 2, 2024.

Ends: Mar 7, 2024.

Leading Consensus: Yes, upgrade the factory owner – 17M UNI (99.9% of total votes).

Summary: This Snapshot vote will act to gauge the community’s interest in upgrading the UniswapV3Factory owner to V3FactoryOwner from Timelock to enable the permissionless and programmatic collection of protocol fee revenue.

Yearn Finance (YFI)

Proposal: YIP-76: Launch yPools

Status: Live.

Created: Feb 27, 2024.

Ends: Mar 6, 2024.

Leading Consensus: For – 321 veYFI (98.38% of total votes).

Summary: This vote requests to launch yPools – a generalized version of yETH that will be fully governed by respective yPool liquidity providers.