Uniswap Foundation proposal gets mixed reaction over $74M price tag

August 5, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Uniswap Foundation proposal gets mixed reaction over M price tag

The largest DEX in the world could be supported by a new $74 million foundation if a new proposal from two community members passes a vote later this month.

The Uniswap Labs community has already begun mulling over a new proposal that would form a Uniswap Foundation based in the United States (U.S.), but first, it's going to cost $74 million.

The proposal has garnered mixed feedback from the community so far, with many praising the foundation’s plans to support and expand the Uniswap ecosystem, while others have balked at its hefty price tag.

The Aug. 5 proposal was put forth by Uniswap Labs’ former Chief of Staff Devin Walsh and Uniswap Grant Program lead Kenneth Ng, noting the foundation's main aim is to “support the Protocol’s decentralized growth, reinvigorate governance, and serve as a Protocol advocate” according to Walsh.

If it passes a vote, the Uniswap Foundation (UF) would be incorporated in Delaware and headed by Walsh as executive director, while Ng will become head of operations.

To make her vision a reality, Walsh has asked for $74 million in UNI tokens over three years, $60 million of which would be used for its own Uniswap Grant Program (UGP), while another $14 million will be used as “operating budget” to build out a team of 12.

Uniswap is the world’s largest decentralized exchange (DEX) by trading volume. Uniswap V3, the third version of the DEX has done $793.8 billion in volume over the past 24 hours, putting it on par with centralized exchanges (CEXs) Huobi Global and KuCoin according to CoinGecko.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams proclaimed in an Aug. 4 tweet that he was “Sooo excited about this proposal.” Adams seemed confident that the proposal would pass when he added, “After this passes, the Foundation will be yet another team working towards a future where the Protocol does not just survive — it thrives!”

5/ The strength of an ecosystem grows with each additional team building and working towards its success.

Imo, after this passes, the Foundation will be yet another team working towards a future where the Protocol does not just survive — it thrives!
— hayden.eth (@haydenzadams) August 4, 2022

Although the proposal has so far enjoyed a fair amount of support from Adams and others in the Uniswap community, it has run into a significant cohort of detractors who say the price is far too high.

Partner at Cinneamhain Ventures Adam Cochran shared his approval for the goals of the UF, but added in an Aug. 4 tweet that the $60 million for the UGP “is misguided at this phase.”

1/17

So I don't mind the proposal to create a Uniswap Foundation - and I think its got decent planning.

But $60M to UGP is misguided at this phase.

Uni Grants Program has thus far deployed ~$7M in grants so and its frankly been underwhelming.https://t.co/Ri3VNOBh6c
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) August 4, 2022

Cochran pointed out that the $7 million in grants that the current UGP has already issued have been spent on “underwhelming” issues. He concluded that while there have been several worthwhil ventures the UGP has invested in, “I don't think the current performance merits "Give us $60M + $14M to run it for 3 years.”

Co-creator of decentralized game Dark Forest Scott Sunarto also felt that the UF’s goals were in line with the protocol’s potential for growth, but that there was too much “fluff” in the proposal. He suggested the UF concentrate efforts on “protocol growth and R&D.”

The proposal will be put to a final vote on the Snapshot governance voting platform on Aug. 8 if the current ongoing straw poll passes.

UNI is up 1.4% over the past 24 hours, trading at $9.04 according to CoinGecko.

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Polkadot Unveils New On-Chain Governance Model

June 29, 2022 The Crypto Briefing

Polkadot’s founder announces steps toward full decentralization with new governance model

June 29, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Gavin Wood said that he seeks to transform the Polkadot blockchain into a full technocracy.

Live from Polkadot Decoded in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama founder Gavin Wood announced that the blockchain's governance model would undergo a new transformation. Dubbed Gov2, anyone would be able to start a referendum at any time for as many times as they wish in the new setup, similar to initiating new transactions on the blockchain.

Thereafter, pending referenda need 50% of the vote from stakeholders within 28 days' time for approval or face rejection by default. Participants can also intervene and launch timely cancellation proposals, which require similar voting procedures, in the event that technical glitches are discovered within the referenda, themselves. Passive voters, t can specify a different delegate for every class of referendum in the system in a process known as multirole delegation.

Wood said there will be a new body, dubbed the Polkadot Fellowship, composed of technical experts who have the power to shorten referenda voting times in the event of time-sensitive matters. Overall, several tenets would remain invariant from the previous governance model. First, 50% of the total stake in the system will be allowed to command the system's future. Greater weight will also be given to those willing to lock their tokens in the system for a longer durationin a process known as conviction voting. Finally, a committee will also remain to oversee the blockchain's technocratic developments.

As told by Gavin, the changes will reflect the flaws of centralization and one referendum at a time voting system present in Polkadot's original governance model. Gov2 is set to launch on Kusama imminently, following afinal professional audit of its code. Once tested on Kusama, a proposal will be made to bridge it to Polkadot.

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Blockchain isn’t as decentralized as you think: Defense agency report

June 22, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Centralization

The report published Tuesday highlights several scenarios in which various actors can garner excessive, centralized control of a blockchain system.

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) and blockchains including Bitcoin and Ethereum may be more vulnerable to centralization risks than initially thought, according to Trail of Bits.

The security firm on Tuesday released its report titled “Are Blockchains Decentralized?”, which was commissioned by the U.S. Government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The report aims to investigate whether blockchains including Bitcoin and Ethereum are truly decentralized, though the report appeared to focus largely on Bitcoin.

Among its key findings, the security firm found that outdated Bitcoin nodes, unencrypted blockchain mining pools and a majority of unencrypted Bitcoin network traffic traversing over only a limited number of ISPs could leave room for various actors to garner excessive, centralized control over the network.

Bitcoin nodes

The report stated that a subnetwork of Bitcoin nodes is largely responsible for reaching consensus and communicating with miners and that a “vast majority of nodes do not meaningfully contribute to the health of the network.”

It also found that 21% of Bitcoin nodes are running an older version of the Bitcoin Core client, which is known to have vulnerability concerns such as consensus errors. It states that “it is vital that all DLT nodes operate on the same latest version of software, otherwise, consensus errors can occur and lead to a blockchain fork.”

A Bitcoin node is any computer that stores and verifies blocks in the blockchain. Nodes are used to monitor the health and security of the Bitcoin blockchain and validate the accuracy of transactions. The current version all nodes should run is Bitcoin Core 22.0.

Another takeaway from the report found that Bitcoin’s mining pool protocol Stratum is unencrypted and essentially unauthenticated.

This means that malicious attacks can be made to “estimate the hashrate and payouts of a miner in the pool” and “manipulate Stratum messages to steal CPU cycles and payouts from mining pool participants.”

Funneling through ISPs

The authors also found vulnerabilities in the infrastructure, based on the fact that Bitcoin protocol traffic is unencrypted and 60% of the network traffic traverses only three ISPs.

This is a problem because “ISPs and hosting providers have the ability to arbitrarily degrade or deny service to any node.”

Twenty-six pages of detailed information, data, and infographics are contained within the report. DARPA started in 1958, and is responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the agency of the United States Department of Defense and the US military. Trail of Bits is a cybersecurity research and consulting firm that was engaged by DARPA to develop the report.

The report comes at interesting timing, after centralization concerns were highlighted on Solana.

On Sunday, Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Solend put together a spur-of-the-moment governance proposal aimed at taking over a whale’s wallet that was facing liquidation which was threatening to put a strain on Solend and its users.

The proposal which was passed by one whale, saw immediate kickback from Twitter, and the creation of another governance vote to invalidate the previously approved proposal. Observers arguing the move could cause damage to the overall image of DeFi as taking control of one of Solend’s wallets means the fundamental principles of DeFi fall into question and reversing a vote wasn't much better.

Governance