JoJo Delegate Communication Thread

JoJo · May 25, 2024, 1:13pm

JoJo Delegate Communication Thread

Delegate address: 0x4f685b29514eed0c9d929386e86d9cd81981118b

Delegate ENS Address: jojothecow.eth

Forum Usernames: @jojo

Voting Activity: Tally & Snapshot

Big fan of iterating imperfectly and fast, especially in a world, crypto, in which we go at fast speed light. Cow engineer, doing risk analysis and models at Jones DAO, helping in Arbitrum governance as much as I can. You might have seen me in a few grants program, such as the LTIPP, the Questbook “New protocols and ideas” domain, and the Uniswap Arbitrum Grant Program. Yes, I like helping protocols grow in Arbitrum a lot.

Note: this thread will encompass only my personal voting reasons, and does not represent the opinions of any protocol or entity that I might be part of, partner with or contribute in any form. Remember, I’m just a cow.

JoJo · May 25, 2024, 4:27pm

May 2024 voting

Snapshot votings

GovHack at ETH CC (Brussels)

Vote: For

Grant Request - Curve Finance

Vote: For

All LTIP proposals voted after counci’s feedback: Buffer, Sushi, Synthetix, Clipper, DODO, Tradao, Deri protocol, Yearn, Bedrock, D2 Finance, Rage trade, CVI.Finance, ACryptoS, Smilee, Connext

Vote: Abstain

Since I was one of the advisor involved in the LTIPP program, I decided to abstain to maintain neutrality on all protocols who resubmitted after the council’s feedback.*

Proposal for Approval of DeDaub as the ADPC Security Advisor

Vote: For

Adding a Security SME to the ADPC

Voting “for” on onboarding DeDaub as security consultant

price is reasonable

there is the need of a technical consultant that knows both the topic and is engaged in the market, so understand rates and other relevant issues

appreciate that ADPC has money in their pocket but is still asking the DAO to use it.

On people asking “can we get other SME / alternative”. I totally understand where this comes from, and I undertand is the first thought one could have. But I think we should detach a bit from this type of thinking that, at this point, is a bit encapsulated.
If we elect a committee, and we assigne a budget, we should trust that committee. Micromanaging the committee instead is only detrimental, drags the discussion toward how to do stuff instead of effective doing stuff, kills the purpose of having a committee in the first place cause if they have to ask to the dao for everything at that point why were they even elected?

Pilot Phase: M&A for Arbitrum DAO

Vote: For

All STIP Addendum challenged proposals: Umami, Dolomite, Thetanuts, OpenOcean, Angle, Socket, Furucombo, Stake DAO, Savvy, Thales, Boost, Gains, KyberSwap, Tide, Sanko, Solv, Stargate, MUX

Vote: Abstain

As for the LTIPP, since I was one of the advisor involved in the STIP Brdige program, I decided to abstain to maintain neutrality on all protocols who went to vote either because they were challenged or because they posted a late application.*

Arbitrum Multi-sig Support Service (MSS)

Vote: For

[RFC] Arbitrum Multi-sig Support Service (MSS)

After some thoughts, decided to vote “for”, including the reporting implementation.

I want to clarify a few things here.

inclusion of monthly report: it is a bit costly to be honest. But it makes a lot of sense to have data reporting on the txs executed, is the only way to really keep track of what the dao is doing

performances of signers: this should likely be included in the above report. With no judgment, just as data. Knowing how many tx were created and signed by each signer. It will be clear, over time, if there are outliers that never take part to the program or not, and at least the dao will be able in a future election to know who should not be re elected

i agree with users above stating that 12 months is not the standard time for these roles in the dao. To me tho, is not a detail significant enough to vote it down or even to change the proposal: a multisig should be something quite mechanic, quite reliable, quite boring. It can make sense to effectively have a 1y mandate on this (and potentially also on other boring, mechanic, reliable roles that we will need in future).

But, this is not necessarily an endorsement on a tally vote.
Initially i thought it would be hell cause signers would need to be able to create txs for all programs. And while this seems trivial for people outside of multisig world, is definitely not (ie: txs for a group of people, but excluding one that didn’t kyc yet; tx that is partially paid in fixed amount of arb, and variable amount of arb cause payment is in usd equivalent at the time of the tx itself; same as before, but with the usd value that has to be on a 30day moving average; etc).
Then, luckily, @dk3 educated me on the delegation feature that will allow external people to post a transactions in the safe for signers to sign. But I also understand there could effectively be issues, especially because not all programs are equal (ie: the delegate incentive program is one if the highest lift in term of number of transactions, variability of payout, problems with kyc and timing).

Regardless of the chosen solution, we need to address the above cases with a plan that will have to be integrated in every program using the MSS, in a way that scales and either allows one of the program main stakeholder to post transactions, or provide a way for a chair/signer to more actively participate to the single program. Which means, necessarily, a bigger overhead in time and costs. The latter solution also means finding a consensus mechanism between participants (=signers for that program) to choose the designated one. Either randomly, by internal election, they all fight in a room, but there is going to be one member who will effectively be paid more and also have more responsibility and will need to invest more time talking with someone from the program. If it’s the chair I am not sure. But in general, my suggestion for programs in which there is the need of scalability without effectively knowing the final size of labour needed (ltipp anyone?), should be to think about both a fixed comp, and the one proposed above is to me good enough, but also a potentially variable one tied to the number of programs one should interface with. Would dare to say, potentially even further specialise this component between programs with low amount and variance of transactions and high amount of txs or heterogeneous ones.
Hope the suggestion helps.

Streamlining the LTIPP Bounties

Vote: For

Kwenta x Perennial: Arbitrum Onboarding Incentives

Vote: For

Kwenta x Perennial: Arbitrum Onboarding Incentives (UPDATED)

I am voting For on this proposal.

I am intrigued by the shared mechanism of two protocols, and I personally love incentive mechanism aimed to acquire/retain users in other chains. The quest for kwenta users in other chains is good (and i suggest the team to put a cutoff to wallets right before this mechanism was published). For the fee rebate, would suggest, if it was not done yet, to align to other perp protocol to have a 75% rebate and not an 80%. Seems like there is a general consensus on this number for this asset class; the leftover 5% of the 36% (so, 1.8% of the total or 34200 arb) can likely be allocated to quests or LP, or potentially be used as wildcard for other initiatives still allocated to users.
There is overall a net benefit for Kwenta to be here, and the fact that the proposal is outside the framework of stip, ltipp and others should not stop us from moving forward good initiatives, in the same way it happened with curve a couple of weeks ago.

Tally votings

Double-Down on STIP Successes (STIP-Bridge)

Vote: For

Confirming snapshot vote, which I report here for completeness

Double-Down on STIP Successes (STIP-Bridge)

I am voting yes for this proposal.
I wrote the reasoning publicly on twitter 10 days ago. This is what I firmly believe right now.

image1238×1402 203 KB

(from here)

I also understand the questions of some who are saying: why we should double down on stip if we can’t measure it yet. Why don’t we wait for the ltip to iterate on that. Etcetera. I get it. These are all valid concerns.
But, to me, the above is valid: we can’t stop right now. And also, if we REALLY want to know what success looks like, we would need to all sit down at a table, for a few days, and just discuss what we want to achieve in arbitrum in the next 6 months, 2 years, 5 years. Which is something realistically not doable in a DAO and that is usually what a board + a ceo do in the corporate world. What I mean is that while there is a merit in knowing what metric grew and what didn’t, metrics are just that: metrics. They don’t define necessarily on a 1:1 relationship success.

Lastly, i think that crypto AND the ethereum world AND the L2 world are in a specific phase (at least for another few years): growth. Which means, it could make sense to target generic metrics (users, tvl, volume) as proxy of a pathway to greatness, which is what we should generically pursue regardless of specifics.

NOTE: i obviously have also a biased interest here in voting yes, since i work for Jones DAO. For what it matters I would have voted yes even if i was working in a mc donald tho.

GovHack at ETH CC (Brussels)

Vote: For

Confirming snapshot vote

Grant Request - Curve Finance

Vote: For

Confirming snapshot vote

*note: in future I might reserve the right to vote in a non neutral way, opposite of what I did in STIP Bridge and LTIPP, in programs in which I am directly involved. This because, after what has so far been happening with situations like the one of Synapse, we just can’t be sure that others will speak when there is, indeed, the necessity to.

JoJo · May 25, 2024, 10:40pm

June 2024 voting

Snapshot votings

Set up a Sub-Committee for the Security Services Subsidy Fund

Vote: For

Proposal [Non-Constitutional]: Set up a Sub-Committee for the Security Services Subsidy Fund

Contrary to most here, i am voting in favour of this proposal.

Yes, there is definitely the merit in saying that ADPC should pursue this goal with their own current means.

But the way this is shaping is that it will be basically the equivalent of a grant program: from a protocol standpoint, applying to get money for incentives, or for audits, or to pay operation is quite similar. The end result, to me, could be the same of every grant programs we already had: an underestimation of the demand we will have (remember stip in which we had 2 rounds and we overbooked the first by 50%; ltip, that was about potentially 80 protocols with 60m available, and we ended up with 180 protocols asking for 160m).

I don’t think the adpc has the necessary manpower to do it. And in case the program will be overbooked (which i don’t think will happen), they current mix might not be the one with the best capabilities to discern who should and should not get the security grant.

AIP: Nova Fee Router Proposal (ArbOS 30)

Vote: For

AIP: Activate Stylus and Enable Next-Gen WebAssembly Smart Contracts (ArbOS 30)

Vote: For

AIP: Support RIP-7212 for Account Abstraction Wallets (ArbOS 30)

Vote: For

[NON-CONSTITUTIONAL] Pilot Phase: Arbitrum Ventures Initiative

Vote: Abstain

[Non-Constitutional] Pilot Phase: Arbitrum Venture Initiative

I am voting ABSTAIN on this proposal.

I really like the idea. We should pursue the venture investment thesis for our DAO. We are in a phase of our industry mature enough in which this is doable.

Just, I think this pilot phase as it is doesn’t make too much sense.

If I read both the current AVI proposal that has been published in snapshot just a couple of days ago, compared to the tally m&a proposal already approved , this is what we can read.

In the M&A proposal we have: value upside analysis […], Assessment […], Facilitating interactions across the DAO […] strategic analyses of target areas […], Integration options […]

In the AVI proposal we have: The outcome of this pilot proposal is to produce a detailed investment thesis, market consultation findings, community engagement feedback, strategic recommendations, and an operational plan.

This clearly shows for the AVI initiative not only very similar deliverable of the M&A, but also a very similar semantic, without the specificity (not reported here but available in tally ) of the specific, different field: ventur capitalism. Amost a 1:1 overlap, up to the point in which in the AVI initiative there is also the willingness to have an IRL event much as in the m&a initiative that will participate to GovHack at EthCC.
The above is especially true when i read about new initiatives such as Elixir which adds a lot of detail to the venture considerations, despite being a younger one.
And speaking about Elixir, another thing to consider, which could be secondary but worth some reflection, is how AVI proposes to “funding and oversee” eventually initiatives like this one and others in venture capitalism, without really providing any meaningful detail.

Don’t get me wrong: i am ok in AVI going for a pilot phase, I am ok with it doing also an IRL event, much as m&a. The fact that the structure is a copy carbon can likely mean that the pilot phase for this type of initiatives should be structured this way.

But to me it just seems strange that the outcome is exactly framed in the same way as the m&a activity without the same specificity for its specific field - being in the venture capitalist industry -.
If I also look at the cost being double, $99k, compared to the $52k of m&a, it raises even more doubts for me.

I don’t know if the proposal will go through or not. My hope is that, if it goes through, the above will be addressed before tally at least.

Let me reiterate again: I think this is a good idea for our dao, and i think there are differences compared to m&a and, partially, with gcp. I just think we need to better tailor the initiative.

Finally, just to be crystal clear and shred any doubt: i have actively participated to the m&a working group, but i am not currently part of areta which is leading that initiative. So I am relative neutral to this, and giving opinion mostly from the standpoint of an arbitrum builder looking at the future of arbitrum. Yes, let’s do venture, but let’s do it in the right way.

Election of STEP Program Manager

Vote: Steakhouse, 100% allocation

AIP: BoLD - permissionless validation for Arbitrum

Vote: For

AIP: Funds to bootstrap the first BoLD validator - Bond sentiment.

Vote: For

AIP: Funds to bootstrap the first BoLD validator - Operational cost sentiment.

Vote: For

AIP: BOLD - permissionless validation for Arbitrum

Finally, voting in favour of funding the operational costs for the BoLD validator run by the foundation. The proposal makes imho a good breakdown on the cost related (3% of the 3600 eth for 3 years, so 432 eth, plus the buffer of 68, + 400 eth for gas costs to post and challenge + 500 eth for service fees). Up the point a simple cow is able to understand it. Also foundation won’t take service fees from this.

As a final note, we likely want to keep a tab on all of these numbers and more in relation to the discussion we are having about using the sequencer revenue. While I don’t think is written anywhere, my educated guess is that we will take the eth from there indeed (if not and I missed something feel free to correct me). We finally got an excuse to use them i g

Vote: For

Pilot Stage – Treasury Backed Vaults research and development

Vote: Against

[Non-Constitutional] Pilot Stage: Treasury Backed Vaults research and development

For the reasons I stated above, I have to unfortunately vote Against this proposals.
I will just quote my previous post for the motivation, and add something as a follow up.

[Non-Constitutional] Pilot Stage: Treasury Backed Vaults research and development

I was a bit surprised when this popped up on snapshot today. This proposal was brought to life just 1 week ago in the forum, and there are several unanswered questions from several folks.

First, I’ll report my opinion, already shared privately, and then a considerations on the proposal.

I see 2 scenarios here:

we create a vault for which we establish a cap. Let’s say is 50M stables. And we back it up with 500m arb between collateral and reserve, meaning arb has to go to 0.10$ to get liquidated. We have something that let us get $50m in liquidity, but this amount is basically 1 incentive program for us. All of this by using half a billion arb. Feels like the amount received is too small to have an impact, and so is not that important considering we would have to put on stake half a billy of arb to do so.

we decide to use the vault, with a certain cap tied to the arb price, over time. Which means, while w allocate 300-400m arb between collateral and reserve, we found ourself with arb going to 10$. We now a 4B collateral we can borrow against. And we still borrow 1:10 ratio so we borrow 400m. That is a meaningful amount.

Let’s not consider scenario 1, because to me scenario 1 is not likely important nor worth the effort. Let’s only consider scenario 2, with whatever degree of numbers you want (amount of arb, price of arb, amount we borrow), keeping in mind tho that we want numbers that have an impact, so we are on the high end of the barbell.

Whatever amount you have as collateral. Whatever amount you have in the reserve. Whatever amount you borrow. You now have a target on your back.
You have a series of number which, summed with depth of liquidity of dexes and cexes, can be put in a spreadsheet to calculate how much capital you need to liquidatate that position.
This could be economically viable, or not. But the moment in which it becomes viable, trust me someone will exploit it.

I want to state that

this is obviously my personal view

I am being pessimistic here

I am also realistic tho.

And this was my take on the product. I also reflected upon it, chatting with proposers, and agreed that, for sure, we can do researches on this.

Which takes me to the second big surprise that I have: why are we packing the research with the product? Shouldn’t we first just research if this is viable, or if we are just falling in a crv type of scenario, with the difference that mitch can pick up the phone, his trezor, send money around, gather collateral and manage risk and we, as a dao, are as slow as a crippled elephant?

I thank a lot the author for the numerous answers. We discussed about a research being important in this topic, re: can we effectively create a vault in which DAO can deposits ARB and borrow against them?
I don’t see anything wrong in the research. I personally think the answer of such a research will, likely, be a big sounding no, but I am happy to be proven wrong. All the risks I stated above I think are here, and what has happened to curve just show that a target will be hit at some point. What I am seeing as a problem here is that the research here is tied to development of such product. And I don’t see why the two should be packaged together.

I would more gladly see something like

we have a separate, proper research on lending risk for an arbi tailored vault, exclusive property of the DAO

open dollar can eventually be an advisor in this research (but not the main player: we will go into a trust me bro situation, in which the proponent has all incentive to have a study that reassures the dao without necessarily having a critic eye on the risk per se)

we analyse the research, and if it’s positive in saying “yes risk can be managed” and the dao wants to move forward, we then build the vault. And then Open Dollar can indeed implement and manage it.

I am pretty sure the whole team has done a lot of work here, as well as I am sure they have no bad intentions, nor they are a malicious actor. Just, I think the risk is too high in general, and one way to derisk is to have first the research and then, if any, the product.

[Non-Constitutional] Betting on Builders: Infinite Launchpad Proposal

Vote: Against

Betting on Builders: Infinite Launchpad Proposal

I voted against the proposal.

I am getting familiar over time to what danielo is doing with RnDao.

What I like about him is that he is taking a path I would never take, with an approach I would never had. And at this point I am old enough to understand that even if I don’t agree with something or with a specific mission doesn’t mean there is no value behind, or that it can’t be pursued in ways outside my personal framework.
What is he after, and how, is something I support. And I am also trying to give him a bit of a hand in this sense, starting with the questbook grant for collabberry.

But the current proposal imho just doesn’t properly work. I echo the opinions of, generally, too much overhead costs. This solves either through cost cutting, or increase the amount of capital requested to distributed, and I am not sure what is the right way here.
I am also a bit conflicted on the merge of the initiatives of RnDao, EVM capital and Outlier Venture, that in my understanding initially were separated. I understand how joining forces could be seen as a winning strategy, also how a joint force can be “easier” to manage for the dao in term of voting, but I am not sold on this, sorry. We have different teams, different personalities, and different scopes.

I also want to highlight that my vote, is not a vote against the matter per se; i am willing to support the proposal the moment in which is reworked (because, I think it can be reworked), and be addressed for the following

overhead costs → either we lower the costs directly, or we start with an initial smaller phase and a second phase, larger than the one proposed, so overhead is not that big if phase 1 is succesfull

clear scope between the 3 ventures, and properly understand if they have to run in tandem vs solo

(in general) clear scope on targets, what we want to accomplish etc.

ArbitrumHub Evolution: The Next Step in Streamlining Information Access and Raising Awareness for Arbitrum DAO

Vote: Against

Multisig Support Service (MSS) Elections

Vote: 0x_ultra, defipm, cattin, Sinkas, Frisson, Griff, CastleCapital, AbdullahUmar, Matt_StableLab, juanbug, AlexLumley, memyself

[RFC] Arbitrum Multi-sig Support Service (MSS)

I am voting for the following 12 people, in no precise order, for the Arbitrum Multi Sig.

0x_ultra: works for me at Jones, arbitrum builder, he is sooo security oriented, great fit

defipm: another arbi builder, dopex/stryk, another great fit

cattin: work with him in questbook, not only he is a great delegate but he is currently managing the delegate incentive program and the transactions from that msig which is a nightmare

Sinkas: I was so glad when I saw his candidacy. With l2beat he is doing a GREAT job, and in the same way we are seeing krz going solo as dao advocate, I would really love to see sinkas contributing on his personal behalf to the dao

Frisson: one of the strongest partners of Arbitrum through Tally, he is really aligned with the Dao, always around, and tries to make our life easier through new Tally features

Griff: he is not only a big delegate, but also a delegate that tends to have some time an independent voice. Likely, the multisig would benefit from his perception, despite this not being specifically a council type of job

CastleCapital: I have had the pleasure to work with @Atomist in LTIPP/STIP.b as advisors, I know how oriented they are to details. I want to see them more involved in the dao day to day operations

[RFC] Arbitrum Multi-sig Support Service (MSS)

AbdullahUmar: while AranaDigital is a “new” delegate in arbitrum, I have been knowing AbdullahUmar for a while thorugh the UAGP program. He is quite grounded, has ton of experience through Uniswap (both in msig and op in general), so he is a great fit as well

Matt_StableLab: same as for castlecap, we have been working together in the incentive program, and I like how he works

juanbug / PGov: I have always liked pgov as delegate, and started to know juan better lately, he would be a great fit here

AlexLumley: not only he is another arbitrum builder in Savvy, he is also always around giving a hand and crafting proposals for the Dao.

Me myself of course

I’m quite excited for this election tbh, putting together these many good contributors and delegates is only possible in a program like this one. As i said initially, is gonna be fun

EDIT (something got lost in copy pasting message in 2 posts). There are a lot of good folks listed here, more than the 12 that will be elected imho. While I could have voted for more, I decided to stick to only the 12 I would like to see in this program. This doesn’t mean that others are not endorsed, is just a personal preference, and I really hope to keep seeing some of these and others names more involved in operational programs like this one for the dao. Is all about trust, and trust is something that you build over time and should be rewarded by roles like the above

Tally votings

Front-end interface to force transaction inclusion during sequencer downtime

Vote: For

Confirming snapshot vote, which i report here for completeness:

Pilot Phase: M&A for Arbitrum DAO

Vote: For

Confirming snapshot vote

Catalyze Gaming Ecosystem Growth on Arbitrum

Vote: For
Confirming snapshot vote, which I will report here for convenience

Will also add what I wrote in the comment of Tally.

Despite some stuff have changed (specifically: comp from 10 to 25M and the initiative from 2 to 3 years, so effectively considering that around 6M are about marketing+legal+misc we effectively have an overhead of “only” 3M, which is on the VERY HIGH END of a carry, not here present, of 20%), I don’t think this 3M out of 200M is worth killing the initiative. I still believe games are underserved in crypto and this is a big asymmetric bet.

Constitutional AIP - Security Council Improvement Proposal

Vote: For
At the time I didn’t vote in Snapshot. Regardless of this, the idea to improve the amount of signers will give us the flexibility to go back if/when this is going to be needed; since the other msig is already a 9/12, it doesn’t effectively change that much to increase threshold of the second.

ArbitrumDAO Contribution; Safeguarding Software Developers’ Rights

Vote: For

Confirming snapshot vote (even if at the time i voted for 1.5M, definitely supporting still at 1M)

Kwenta x Perennial: Arbitrum Onboarding Incentives

Vote: For

Confirming snapshot vote

JoJo · June 30, 2024, 8:03pm

July 2024 voting

Snapshot votings

Approval of STEP committee recommendations

Vote: For

Improving Predictability in Arbitrum DAO’s Operations

Vote: Favour (predictability only, predictability + approval, abstain, against)

Improving Predictability in Arbitrum DAO’s Operations

Voting in favour of predicability only.

We need a way for people to know when they will have to do their job (yes, doing this has the responsibilities of a job knowing the consequence of certain votes; and also has for some compensation attached).

I don’t currently fancy having delegates having to approve it to go to snapshot, because I don’t think we are at a point in which votes are spread enough in enough active delegates. While the numbers might seems to point so, we already have a good amount of non active ones. Likely this will translate in pinging some high vote and usually very active candidates to push for the publication.
Would like to see this option (approval), if fails, to be reconsidered in 6 months, after a) we have more data on this b) we have had redelegation weeks and other initiatives that might help toward this goal c) other initiatives that could further reinforce the governance strength we have in arbi.

Cheers!

Pilot for a Questbook Jumpstart fund for problem definition and DAO improvement

Vote: Abstain

Furucombo’s Misuse of Funds

Vote: For - Ban Furucombo from the Arb

Change Arbitrum Expansion Program to allow deployments of new Orbit chains on any blockchain

Vote: For

Temperature Check: Change Arbitrum Expansion Program to allow deployments of new Orbit chains on any blockchain

Voting FOR on this initiative.

One of the biggest strong point of Arbitrum is the tech stack, and we should leverage it as much as we can.

While some, as we discussed in calls, believe we should keep it more focused on the Eth world, there is a pragmatic consideration to do: if we don’t do it, someone else will. And, likely, we are going in a world in which every dapp might just have his own chain; how big could be the network effect of having Arbitrum tech being the engine of 90% of the L2s and L3s in the world?

Still think we need to refine a bit the proposal. Specifically, we need to be able to monitor and analyse returns over time from specific chains, to understand where the effort should be put BD wise. We need to also understand the cost that offchain labs might have in term of supporting all of these chains, and in general manage the economy at scale. There is also potentially a merit in being able at some point to revise the numbers proposed above (10%) accordingly to business needs.

Finally, since this won’t happen in a short period, the more we go “outside” of the ethereum world, the more we should be aware of the possibility to just have a sentiment checks to understand if we are still going in a direction that is aligned with the vision of the dao.

Tally votings

Subsidy Fund Proposal from the ADPC

Vote: For
Confirming my previous snapshot vote

Pilot Phase: Arbitrum Ventures Initiative

Vote: For

JoJo · July 27, 2024, 2:58pm

August 2024 voting

Snapshot votings

Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP) Council Voting

Vote: CJ, David Bolger, Coinflip, equal weights

GCP Council Nominations

I’m placing my chips on the following candidates:

coinflip: doesn’t need to many presentation, it is likely one of the best figure for oversight on behalf of the DAO in one of the most novel and important initiative we have spinned up in Arbitrum

DavidBolger: not only deal with gaming partnership, he is part of Offchain Labs. One of the biggest perk of this choice imho is that we get Offchain closes to our DAO activity

CJ.Bzdewka: his experience in private equity and him being part of governance of Treasure makes him the perfect candidate with the perfect mix of skillset.

Few notes: there are A LOT of good candidates here, was quite hard to nail down a choice and was only possible since I have followed closely these candidates. My main choices are about introducing the “dao” element in the GCP election, since the 2 already nominated (Andrew Green and Tim Chang) have strong Growth And Venture experience.

Entropy Advisors: Exclusively Working With Arbitrum DAO

Vote: For

Entropy Advisors: Exclusively Working With Arbitrum DAO

For the reasons above, and all the reasons i posted previously, I am voting “for” on this proposal.

I can see why some, like GFXlabs, can really focus on the overall cost, and tries to cut it through a shorter mandate + wave of exclusivity. It can make sense, from their point of view, and I am glad we also have in the debate voices that can bring a different opinion on the table.

But personally, in this vote, I am focusing on the cost we will face as a DAO of not having a leadership role, even if temporary, in a pivotal moment for our ecosystem in which we are moving toward even more important initiative.
In the last few months, and at EthCC, entropy has shown how they can effectively cover that leadership role. It doesn’t mean that they will have to do it always and in perpetuity; I actually hope they will be the enabled who gives us the tool to have other entities able to lead (some) initiatives.

But again, not having them, here and now, not having them help in the next few months, will likely cost us way more than the amount they are asking here to give a 1y exclusivity deal to our DAO.

ARB Staking: Unlock ARB Utility and Align Governance

Vote: For

ARB Staking: Unlock ARB Utility and Align Governance

I’m voting “for” on this proposal.

As stated before, I really praise Frisson for being able to put together this many conflicting feedbacks together: he was able to find the perfect solution by saying: we build the skeleton, let’s make the dao fill it (amount of rewards, source of rewards, active delegate definitions etc).
I think this will be an initial powerful signal for markets, and also a way to increase governance. While the 2 don’t necessary belong together, I am personally fine with that.

BUT, I have a big caveat to this: we need to create a definition of active delegates that doesn’t hinder protocol representations. One of the potential byproduct of certain parameters could be, for example, that users might redelegate from protocols to others just because the protocols are active, but not as much for the metrics of the program, to allow users to get the yield. This can happen because for example they don’t comment too much on the forum, or don’t vote all proposals.
While we want to obviously incentivise the participation of protocols in governance, we also have to remember that the main job of protocols is making arbitrum a great place for users through developing dapps and other stuff. Let’s avoid to kill the representation they currently have.

To be more detailed, this is the current situation.

image1646×958 115 KB

The current top 4 delegates, making a total of more than 60M votes (or between 33 to 50% of the average amount of votes we have in each proposals) are from non protocol type of entity.
And don’t get me wrong: l2beat, gauntlet, olimpio, wintermute, they are all great delegates well aligned with arbitrum. But we can’t imho create a system that would lower even more protocols’ representation in our governance. It would be a bad outcome.

Transparency and Standardized Metrics for Orbit Chains

Vote: Against

[Non-Constitutional] Transparency and Standardized Metrics for Orbit Chains on growthepie.xyz Allowing Data-Driven Decision Making

I am voting “Against” this initiative.

Nothing wrong with it as a general idea, I appreciate the intent, but I would like first to elaborate on what AlexLumley posted:

[Non-Constitutional] Transparency and Standardized Metrics for Orbit Chains on growthepie.xyz Allowing Data-Driven Decision Making

Why is this Orbit chain data so important for the DAO? I don’t understand why it is important for the DAO to have this data? Will this cause more people to switch to the Arbitrum techstack? Will it improve our Orbit chain incentive programs? Simply having “data” is not enough, it needs to go towards our business objectives.

While I think this could be valuable data, I don’t think it would be valuable now, at least not until orbit chains take a big market share. As a consequences, it feels like the current tools and info instruments we have now to evaluate tvl, data, txs, are more than enough for something that will be (hopefully) extremely important in future, but not prominent in the short term.
Adding to that, the fact that davidgarcia just posted that the Foundation is finalizing agreements to index and distribute data to me is just a confirmation that is too soon for this initiative. We could be easily see more dashboard and services like this born after data is available, with different costs, different use cases and different outcomes

ArbitrumDAO Governance Analytics Dashboard

Vote: For

[RFC] ArbitrumDAO Governance Analytics Dashboard

I am voting “FOR” on this proposal.

I share the concern of gauntlet and maxlomu about potential overlap with other initiatives; but, I will be honest, this is also the reason why we should likely have another source of truth about delegation, voting, activity and all things related to arbitrum governance. The delegate incentive program is becoming a key part of all the DAO, and @seedlatam could potentially see how there could be an integration with this new platform, or even suggest some tailored development to have quality of life upgrade. At the same time, we have live on snapshot the vote about staking arb from Tally. I easily see the potential opposition from some parties, concerned about current karma implementation, and a call for a second source of truth, or just an alternative to their system. And nothing against karma here on my side: just, if delegation and forum activity will become so important, it can make sense to have different parties track governance metrics in different ways.

So Curia you got my support here. But please, when you will move to Tally, try to take in account all of the initiative above, to tailor current key initiatives in our dao; try also to have API implemented in a way that is functional to the data other parties might need as well. We are at the point in which we have a lot of good tools in our dao, but we need to make them work together in a better way

Should the DAO Default to using Shielded Voting for Snapshot Votes?

Vote: For Elections Only

Proposal to Temporary Extend Delegate Incentive System.

Vote: For

An (EIP-4824 powered) daoURI for the Arbitrum DAO

Vote: Against

ArbitrumDAO Off-site

Vote: Abstain

Should the DAO Create COI & Self Voting Policies?

Vote: FOR: Disclosure Policy, FOR: Responsible Voting Policy

Should the DAO Create COI & Self Voting Policies?

For all the reasons mentioned above, I am voting for “FOR: Disclosure Policy” and “FOR: Responsible Voting Policy”.

I think is definitely good if people disclose their conflicts; is also good if, in a vote that can benefit themself, they also vote in a way that is “responsible”, so for other 2 seats in a 3 seats election etcetera.
I am against the self strict voting policies, especially because protocols for example should be allowed to vote for proposals that directly involve themself. If that was not allowed any user delegating their precious arb to the protocol of their choice would see their delegation being useless, because the protocol can’t vote for his own benefit. A byproduct that I don’t want, among others.

Regardless of my vote, Entropy I am also interested about the specific implementation of this proposal. Knowing it can’t be enforced, should any new vote from now on decide what happens if there is a self voting (with the strict voting policy on) or anything that is against the expected behaviour? How we will specifically handle these conflicts?

Ethereum Protocol Attackathon Sponsorship

Vote: Panda, Abstain, Against, Unicorn

Tally votings

[Constitutional] ArbOS 31 “Bianca” (Stylus, RIP-7212 Support, Nova Fee Router)

Vote: For
Confirming previous snapshot votes about Stylus and https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/aip-support-rip-7212-for-account-abstraction-wallets-arbos-30/23298/17?u=jojo

Arbitrum Multi-sig Support Service (MSS)

Vote: For

Entropy Advisors: Exclusively Working With Arbitrum DAO

Vote: For

Confirming snapshot vote

JoJo · August 27, 2024, 9:26am

September 2024 voting

Snapshot votings

[Constitutional] Extend Delay on L2Time Lock

Vote: For

STIP-Bridge Operational Budget

Vote: Abstain

[Replace Oversight Committee with MSS] Delegate to Voter Enfranchisement Pool — Event Horizon

Vote: For

ArbitrumDAO Procurement Committee Phase II

Vote: For

Arbitrum DAO Procurement Committee: Phase II Proposal

Strongly voting “for” on this proposal.

ADPC created one of a kinda entity in arbitrum and I think in crypto in general, and goes in what I think is an extremely good direction for high decentralized orgs like our dao: bridge well known framework and way to solve problems from more traditional industries to ours.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel everytime, we can easily adapt what already exists in professional world into crypto, with a tailoring for the specific tools and needs we have, and this is what is happening here in my opinion.

I also like the expantion in scope, and I partially share the concern of @Frisson about it potentially be a big too big as workload; at the same time, knowing the parties involved, I think they can pull it off.

As a final note, in this case, like in the stylus sprint, I am strongly against any new election. While I think there could be others that potentially have the knowledge to move this forward (even tho 90% of the lawyerish force of arbitrum is in the parties above), even just the handover, and the reshape of vision, would literally eat on the whole mandate time wise with suboptimal results.

[Pyth Network] Arbitrum LTIPP Extension Request

Vote: Against

[RFC] Pyth Network Arbitrum LTIPP Extension Request

Going back to the snapshot, as for the synthetix application, I am, unfortunately, voting against it, as well as the other extention requests in Arbitrum. To quote my previous answer:

[RFC] Synthetix LTIP Grant Extension Request

I would have normally been in favour if it wasn’t for the detox proposal just recently presented, and passed, in our DAO; but that proposal is an extremely important signal about 1) trying to see what happens to our chains with no incentives 2) give the time to the DAO to best reflect how to weaponize these programs in future. There is also the secondary point, not necessarily as important but indeed important, about competitive advantages of protocols asking for an extention versus protocols that just finished in LTIPP or about to finish in STIP.

In here we have a different situation, which is a potential usage of funds for an infra product, so I could see the merit of the extention. But the mix of the detox proposal + the fact that most of the leftover funds are tied, in my understanding, to lower costs than expected, means that the only real reason to keep Pyth in an extention would be to facilitate his role in Arbitrum. This is something we could advocate for Synthetix and Aave as well, even if their role is different. Again, the vote of the DAO for the detox proposal is more important, and should just be respected by participants.

Synthetix LTIP Grant Extension Request

Vote: Against

[RFC] Synthetix LTIP Grant Extension Request

Thank you for this detailed feedback.

I am, unfortunately, voting against this and all the other extention requests in Arbitrum.
I would have normally been in favour if it wasn’t for the detox proposal just recently presented, and passed, in our DAO; but that proposal is an extremely important signal about 1) trying to see what happens to our chains with no incentives 2) give the time to the DAO to best reflect how to weaponize these programs in future. There is also the secondary point, not necessarily as important but indeed important, about competitive advantages of protocols asking for an extention versus protocols that just finished in LTIPP or about to finish in STIP.

But I also want to add a few things. I really feel you about first, the excitement of participating to this program, and then the constant small delays of integrations and tech development that turn out to be eating more and more week over week on the timeline, up to the point you had to come here to ask for this extention; I have seen this happening, and even in the protocols i work for we had to take hard and complex decisions due to delay of partners’ integrations.
As you already partially mentioned most of the issue would be addressed by a longer program, in which of course we need to embed a process for these and other similar situations: if you have 1 year, and you need to skip the first three months for technical issue, you will still have a way in.

Finally, i want to commend the effort the synthetix team made to come to arbitrum. You decided to go for a specific push in our chain, with an ad-hoc application and obviously a lot of work behind it, on a product level, strategic level and marketing level, and what did happen is indeed unfortunate but also something quite common in the tech world. For this reason, in the next program, I will be one your stronger supporter fwiw.

Enhancing Multichain Governance: Upgrading RARI Governance Token on Arbitrum

Vote: For

Fund the Stylus Sprint

[RFC] Fund The Stylus Sprint

this proposal makes sense. Voting in favour: pushing stylus, from adoption and marketing standpoint, can only increase the strength of technical positions of Arbitrum as a chain, which hopefully will also reflect on the economics down the road. Stylus is a strategic advantage we have.

Now, a few points worth discussing.
Not sure if this would be outside the idea of a “sprint”, but maybe is worth discussing @Entropy.
The amount of the program is non trivial, and the minimum amount suggested, 50k is non trivial either. For a budget of $750k in new protocols and ideas i received 84 proposals in 4 months. While here is more scoped, the combination of only an 8 weeks application + a relative high budget might create a rush of application which, while indication of success, might not be the best organic answer you might be looking for. Suggestion could be a cohort type of approach like the one we had in the UAGP program, potentially here alternative a 4 weeks application + feedback with a 4 weeks evaluation, and repeat for 3 seasons, covering the first 6 months of the program. And this would also mean putting at budget a little bit more than what was posted due to operations extending for further 4 months.
Due to also how the committee is structure and the length of the program, I suggest you to either select in the committee a program manager or add one when you go to tally. There will be plenty of decisions or complex situations along the way such as

evaluating diversity of application from a higher point of view

keeping consistency in modus operandi of reporting and communication

being the ultimate decision maker, in case of disagreement of the commission, on changes from protocols’ developments along this long year, non expected outcomes from protocols and other circumstances that are just too heterogeneous to be mentioned here.
As you described it, entropy could be that program manager, but I also see you listed as advisor; might be worth clarifying.

On the milestones:

[RFC] Fund The Stylus Sprint

Milestone distribution will function as the following are achieved:

10% - Planning + Building: Creation of a Development Plan, Architecture Design, Prototyping, Implementation, Optimization.

30% - Deployment: Testing, Auditing, Deployment. *Projects will be eligible but not guaranteed admission into the subsidy program per the ADPC

25% - Checkpoint 1

25% - Checkpoint 2

This makes a lot of sense theoretically but might just not be practically doable based on previous experience. You should try to integrate this in the template/framework for protocols, but you should also be flexible to other type of structures, because is extremely likely that other needs will arise.

As a final note, i am TOTALLY in favour in a non election type of the committee. In general, while a dao should be open for roles, there are several situation in which the knowledge to be part of a committee is just too vertical that elections are just detrimental. This program, and the ADPC, are clear examples.

Hope this helps, and sorry for not providing this feedback earlier before the snapshot.

[Aave DAO] LTIPP Grant Extension Request

Vote: Against

RFC: Aave DAO LTIPP Grant Extension Request

Voting against. Let me first report a previous feedback released for synthetix, and still relevant here.

[RFC] Synthetix LTIP Grant Extension Request

I am, unfortunately, voting against this and all the other extention requests in Arbitrum.
I would have normally been in favour if it wasn’t for the detox proposal just recently presented, and passed, in our DAO; but that proposal is an extremely important signal about 1) trying to see what happens to our chains with no incentives 2) give the time to the DAO to best reflect how to weaponize these programs in future. There is also the secondary point, not necessarily as important but indeed important, about competitive advantages of protocols asking for an extention versus protocols that just finished in LTIPP or about to finish in STIP.

But I also want to add a few things. I really feel you about first, the excitement of participating to this program, and then the constant small delays of integrations and tech development that turn out to be eating more and more week over week on the timeline, up to the point you had to come here to ask for this extention; I have seen this happening, and even in the protocols i work for we had to take hard and complex decisions due to delay of partners’ integrations.
As you already partially mentioned most of the issue would be addressed by a longer program, in which of course we need to embed a process for these and other similar situations: if you have 1 year, and you need to skip the first three months for technical issue, you will still have a way in.

And I’ll be honest, I am quite said of not seeing the full fledged program about GHO going live in arbitrum, especially after being the LTIPP advisor for AAVE. I can see value + utility for the ecosystem.

My strong advice here, is prepare in the next quarter everything that is needed, from a tech/audit standpoint on the GHO ecosystem. Whatever the next iteration of the program is going to be, I don’t see AAVE not being part of it as one of the main lender, and not being part of it as stablecoin facilitator in the ecosystem, including GHO. I think it will be a no brainer a collaboration between arbitrum and AAVE, also on the diffusion and adoption of gho and increase of stablecoin liquidity in the ecosystem.
So, while I understand this vote can be a frustrating, I am definitely keen to see AAVE here as a constant presence in crypto and in Arbitrum specifically, as well as an important participant to any relevant incenive program we might spin up in future.

Constitutional AIP: Proposal to adopt Timeboost, a new transaction ordering policy

Vote: Collect bids in ETH to treasury

Terms of Tenure for STEP program manager

Vote: Earmark Funds from existing, Have a new elections, Run the program for only 6 months, Liquidate the program, Abstain

**Non-Constitutional: Terms of Tenure for STEP Program Manager**

exploiting for shortening reasons the response from Pennsylvania University cause i voted in the same order (earmark funds, new elections, only 6 months, liquidation of the program, abstain)

Goal is to find the funds to pay Steakhouse for a whole year, to me anything else is unacceptable knowing the effort that was done to create this program growth oriented. Let’s find the money to keep the program running please.

PS please, for the future, write the options in the snapshot in a better way. I understand that there are characters limitations, but a simple option a / b / c etcetera with an explanation of each option in the test would make everything clearer. Took me a few minutes to understand how to properly vote in the way I wanted.

ArbitrumDAO Off-site

Vote: IRL/conference/no scholarships

Arbitrum Offsite format: online vs IRL

Voting as per the below

image1210×806 51.3 KB

I’m in favour of meeting people, but with a series of caveat.
IF we have to do it, to me would be key to have it on major conferences: despite all the fun and giggles, this event or conferences are de facto job travels, and would like to keep it at minimum if possible.
I am also not a fan of scholarships in a case like this one, so it was not my first choice.
As a final note, I think online would not be meaningful nor different from the calls we do on a day to day basis.

Would also like to add that while i can generally support the idea, a potential tally vote to me is dependent on the initiatives that will be moved forward by the GovHack team, that I would favour over this one due to the previous track record.

GovHack Devcon in Bangkok - Hack Humanity

Vote: FOR

GovHack Devcon in Bangkok - Hack Humanity

GovHack Devcon in Bangkok - Hack Humanity

This is proposal is something I am really glad came in our forum.

It has several stuff that either we did succesfully in the past (the govhackaton) or stuff that naturally came in during previous govhacks that the dao and delegates ned (core day).

I told this klauss in a call, when people come to govhack, since it is the first event that gathers people in the arbitrum ecosystem, it naturally transforms (also) in a BD event, with delegates jumping between helping teams and tracks vs personal meetings with others; but this latter part happens without a dedicated time and space, thus creating and inefficient situation.

While I understand that some might ask themself why the addition of core, this is the exact reason: satisfy a need that happens naturally cause of the dynamics described above.

Some more details are likely needed to lay down the proper rules of this new part, but these can be decided together in the next 2 months.

Full support to this initiative, especially cause is quite contained in price.

consistently with this, voting a strong FOR on this initiative.

I really appreciated GovHack at ETHcc, and Klauss was able to go around and gather feedbacks on how to improve.
The initial core day i think is quite important because of the timeline dynamic we see, and is perfectly complementary to the event as we know it. Plus, the budget is somehow contained compared to similar initiatives currently in discussion/vote.

[Non-Constitutional] Arbitrum DAO Delegate Incentive Program

Vote: FOR DIP 1.5

Proposal - Delegate Incentive Program (DIP)

After all the feedbacks here, feedbacks in the call and private feedbacks, voting “For” on DIP 1.5.

Is gonna be a mess, seed is gonna have the hardest time of their life, and I am pretty sure a lot of folks will initially complain about having that 0.75 points more in this or that category.

But often times than not the hardest path is also the path that leads to the biggest growth, and I think evaluating not only the votes, but a big part of the arbitrum governance life, is what we need. We literally need to put all delegates in the position of interacting, and interact in a meaningful way.

A few things here

we are going to have to obviously trust the seed gang here. I won’t quote Uncle Ben here. But you know where i am going with this

that said, if I had to trust one delegate on a massive program like this, it would be seed. Having had the pleasure to work with some of them, and meet a few of them, I see them as a force of good that is pushing more than others for adoption of crypto not to speculate but to solve specific problems. I quote this because is easy for some, as we saw in the call, to think that there could be too much power concentration. While is true, is also necessary since a public mechanism for evaluation would be not only extremely unfeasible, but won’t be consistent over time. TLDR: I trust seed latam, a lot, to run this in the fairiest way possible

As suggested, I think the spread of costs between 1.5 and 1.1 of around 40k is too small. We could find ourself to have a (positive) explosion of delegates presence between this program, the staking program and all the initiatives we have. The amount of work is almost linear with the amount of delegates we have, and since this program is a 1y long one my strong suggestion is to add a clause, on the tally vote, for which that if we will be above X amount of delegates, they might ask for some further funds to cover opex, which is mostly manual labour

in the previous iteration, seed if i recall was not able to enroll in the program to avoid conflicts. I think this be removed for 1.5. To make the participation fair and agnostic, the evaluation of seed governance could be only about the amount of votes, onchain and offchain, plus call particpation. for the rest of the evaluation, subject to interpretation, it could just be the median of the score of all delegates involved in the program, or maybe the median of the second lower half.

Yes, in all of this I am saying that seed should be able to ask more and enroll in the program, thus incresing overall cost. While aware of this, I also understand the enormous amount of workload this program will bring to their shoulders, being a cow that reads all the posts and comments in the forum: if i imagine myself not only reading all, but also evaluating all, and knowing how much this program will probably be relevant for the arbi staking proposal, I really want for seed to have all the ability to do the best job possible here. And here it means being able to onboard all the people they think are needed to have a consistent evaluation over the next 12 months.

[Non-Constitutional] Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget

Vote: FOR

[Non-Constitutional] Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget

I am voting “for” on this proposal.

As stated above, I think the idea of the foundation having a fund to foster growth for specific deals, is what is needed, especially for orbit expantion.

I partially second the voices of folks calling for more transparency; I also understand that not all details should be disclosed and, in some cases, some details can’t be disclosed due to either specific agreements or just business logic.
We have several gaps here due to the status of Foundation, as the most important stakeholder in our ecosystem. And I don’t think anybody wants to challenge this status, nor thinks it doesn’t hold true. But potentially, this is not for example a way to disclose some information to the dao (re: foundation grant program, while we can see the end protocol getting the grant, I don’t think there is a public list of the amount or scope for each grant request, just to give an example).

So, while the above could be a bit off topic here, would be a solution similar to the one adopted for the GCP be useful?
In there we have a council, under NDA, that can have full knowledge on the operation behind, and can alert the DAO in case something is wrong, and potentially claw back funds (paging @Djinn for confirmation here). I don’t think we should gun necessarily for this specific type of dynamic, nor I do think the DAO should claw back funds from the foundation. But a certain degree of oversight/collaboration, even if under NDA, could be useful, and in general could be a good tool to leverage the operation of DAO and foundation. This council can indeed steer the convo of dao’s initiative toward specific ones that would benefit on going deal of the foundation, and the council could be part of the transparency semestral report (or, add an indepedent section all together).

I am spitballing ideas here, and I am open to a feedback that is: all of this is just nonsense, is non applicable, doesn’t solve problems, does only introduce friction.

But since the foundation is coming to the dao, and since we should enhance the synergy between the dao and the foundation in general because we all have the same goal, this initiative could be a start.

Tally votings

Funds to bootstrap the first BoLD validator

Vote: For
Confirming previous snapshot votes about letting foundation run the first Bold validator and financing potential third parties.

ARB Staking: Unlock ARB Utility and Align Governance

Confirming previous snapshot vote; I also think the new details on the technical implementation (the unistaker module, ability to introduce a small timelock and others) make a lot of sense.

Vote: For

[CANCELED] Delegate to Voter Enfranchisement Pool — Event Horizon

Vote: Against
Vote cancelled due to the wrong details in the proposal, voting against

Delegate to Voter Enfranchisement Pool — Event Horizon

Vote: For

Security council

Nominee Selection

Vote: Dedaub (100% of the weight)

JoJo · September 27, 2024, 10:25am

October 2024 voting

Snapshot votings

[Non-Constitutional] Whitelist Infura Nova Validator

Vote: For

Research on context and retention

Vote: For

An EIP-4824 powered daoURI for Arbitrum DAO

Vote: For – Use ENS txt records

LTIPP Retroactive Community Funding Selections

Vote: Tokenguard
I was quite impressed by their presentation during the Incentive call of this week: they are one of the few providers who decided to try and go more in depth in the data analysis, regardless of LTIPP council not selecting them in the previous months.
I would have normally voted against funding any initiative, but this one bears to me a push forward to keep the team engaged in our DAO: their data while imperfect is to me a good step toward the right direction analysis wise.

Establishing a DAO Events Budget for 2025

Vote: For

Establishing a DAO Events Budget for 2025

With the primary proposal + changes I want to show my overall support.

As a Dao, our goal is to, generically, evolve and get better. While this concept is abstract, from a pragmatic pov it means filling the gaps we have and remove friction.

One of the biggest friction we have is what is in between good proposals from good contributors vs the final outcome; often times than not this is about having not only a budget, but a budget by a certain date. With the previous even we saw that you need to move with weeks and sometimes months in advance, and the event budget will likely remove this friction (same as the treasury initiative to have a certain amount of stables, in our pocjets, will allow to remove friction from programs that requires a usd denominated budget; OT here, I know, but to me it has the same overarching goal of removing friction).