Name: Wintermute Governance
ENS: wintermutegovernance.eth
Tally Profile URL: Tally | Wintermute Governance
Hi Arbitrum Community,
We are excited to publicly announce our Arbitrum Delegate Platform and begin supporting the Arbitrum ecosystem in our fullest capacity! We have been an early user and supporter of Arbitrum and our Delegate Platform represents our ongoing efforts to empower Arbitrum’s decentralization and growth.
At Wintermute, we believe that a decentralized world needs robust and progressive governance systems. Our goal is to support DAOs along their journey towards such a state through objective, long-term value-add decision-making.
Our Core Values:
Long-term value creation over short-term opportunism.
For example, we do not support short-term rent-seeking token distribution programs; or the redistribution of tokens that carry no positive second-order effects.
In contrast, we do support and encourage purpose-driven mechanisms that incentivize positive behaviour and are value-maximizing; or that improve alignment between token holders and the protocol.
Transparency, alignment, and proactivity.
We are proactive in providing clear and consistent reasoning behind our decision-making and proposals, ensuring the protocol’s sustainability is at the heart of all governance discussions.
Objective data-driven decision-making.
We use data and research to ensure our final decision is objectively value-accretive for the protocol.
By becoming a delegate we hope to support Arbitrum and have an impact in fostering a user-focused, neutral, sustainable, and inclusive ecosystem.
What area are you most interested in contributing to?
- DeFi development on Arbitrum
- Improving Governance participation
- Supporting Infrastructure
Please share your stance on overall goals for the DAO:
- Fostering Innovation, Human Capital & Ecosystem Growth (i.e., Empowering Decentralization!)
The Arbitrum Community has done a fantastic job at cultivating an ecosystem of diverse contributors that are hungry to provide value to the DAO. Such efforts have transpired into successful growth and development programs and we feel its extremely important for the DAO to remain vigilant in finding and supporting great human capital and providing them with the resources they need to innovate and grow.
- Safety, Security, and Inclusiveness of Users & Developers
Users & Developers are the lifeblood of the Arbitrum ecosystem and great emphasis should be placed on creating an inviting and safe environment.
Sample Voting Issue 1:
Vote: Against
What amendments would you make to the proposal if any?
The proposal suffered from a myriad of misalignments and unnecessary complexity and overhead. We’d recommend the following amendments:
- Eliminate any form of active fund management
We understand the appeal to try and offer cost-free grants through yield-generation strategies, however, it introduces much more complexity, smart contract risk, and price risk which could all lead to adverse situations leaving the DAO with fewer funds.
- Eliminate the Oversight Committee
We agree that there is a clear conflict of interest with Flipside being on the Oversight Committee, but, in all honesty, 3 members should not be making a $10M decision on behalf of the DAO. Instead, the proposal should have aimed to request renewal from the DAO after 1 year assuming the program was successful.
- Reduce the number of Flipside Allocation Committee members to 1
One Flipside member would be sufficient for the Allocation Committee, this would’ve provided them with a way to tee up transactions and then have the remaining Committee members approve it if it’s in line with the intended purpose of the proposal.
How would you approach the tradeoff between centralization of authority and the ability to get things done?
Centralization of authority is not necessarily a bad thing as we have noticed great success come from working groups. It ultimately comes down to the DAO trusting the relevant parties and the size of approved funds will simply be a function of this. Trust is built through reputation, relationship, and context, and it’s very unlikely that less reputable actors will be trusted with large amounts of DAO funds.
In saying this, we always think it’s a good idea (where possible) to implement a mechanism for the DAO to claw back funds if necessary.
Sample Voting Issue 2:
Outside the flipping of the vote, how would you choose to handle this situation?
Vote: Full Reimbursement
If possible, users without a doubt should be offered full reimbursement. Partial reimbursement can be offered alongside for users who want to increase their stake in the future of the protocol and have the belief that the protocol can recover from the hack.
Languages I speak and write:
English, Spanish, Russian, and many more.
Disclosure of Conflict(s) of Interest:
Wintermute is an investor and user of many DeFi-related products and protocols that pose potential conflicts of interest. We aim to make appropriate disclosures and remove ourselves from certain decision-making scenarios where necessary.