Notes: ENS DAO Twitter Spaces

This thread will contain all of my archival notes for ENS DAO Twitter Spaces.

To keep things organized and easy to reference, I will be replying with new notes to this thread, rather than creating a new thread for each space.

INDEX

2023

Date Summary
Jan 19 Draft Proposal Discussion, Sell ETH into USDC
Jan 9 Stewards Intro, WGs Overview, Proposal & Delegation Info

Notes from ENS DAO Twitter Space - Monday, January 9, 2023 @ 5PM ET | Recording

Hosted by @alisha.eth

This was a space to meet our new and returning stewards and to learn about the ENS DAO Working Groups. 351 people tuned in to listen.

Q1/Q2 2023 Stewards

Stewards are elected for one term, which runs two quarters.

ENS Ecosystem

Meta-Governance

Public Goods

Working Groups Overview

ENS Ecosystem
This working group’s purpose is to direct funding to projects and builders who grow the ENS ecosystem. We provide funding to builders and help facilitate the development of projects like ETH.LIMO (@ethlimo.eth) and web3 social projects like Nimi (@dave-nimi).

The main focus is to support anything that is especially ENS-centric in the web3 ecosystem, whether building on ENS or helping to grow the ecosystem.

A big chunk of our spending goes to Hackathons for sponsorships and prizes. Before ENS DAO existed we didn’t have funding to attend or sponsor these types of events, but now we do through the Ecosystem Working Group, which is a big win.

Meta-Governance
The three areas of focus for Meta-Gov are:

  • DAO tooling (tools related to the governance process)
  • ENS governance, including working group administration
  • Endowment/treasury management

Public Goods
The purpose of the Public Goods working group is to provide funding for public goods in web3 apart from just ENS-specific projects and builders. There are lots of public goods that make up the Ethereum infrastructure, which we are all building on.

To the extent that ENS has a revenue generating function and additional funds beyond what is needed to fund the working groups, article 3 of the ENS DAO Constitution provides guidance for additional funding to be used for Public Goods.

ENS itself is a public good that was born from an Ethereum Foundation grant.

Steward Introductions

Ecosystem:

  • Slobo (@slobo.eth) - Lead Steward
  • Limes (@Limes)
    • Former Community working group steward.
    • Has organized IRL events for ENS.
    • Background: CPA in the traditional sense, and works with crypto clients.
  • Yambo (@Yambo)
    • Product builder and manager that has worked in web3 for 5-6 years.
    • Background: working with startups in fintech and in VR/AR.

Public Goods:

  • Coltron (@Coltron.eth) - Lead Steward
  • Eduardo (@vegayp)
    • Has been around since term 1.
    • Brings thoughtful and mindful contributions to Public Goods discussions.
  • Alex Van de Sande (@AvsA) (not in attendance)
    • He is an OG.

Meta-Gov:

Notes on Proposals

There are two types of votes:

Social proposal

  • Held on snapshot.org.
  • Don’t have any onchain consequences.

Executable proposals

  • Held on Tally.
  • For changes that are executed on chain.
  • We are building our own interface for executable votes in the future.

There are two options to submit a proposal:

Option A: (preferred)

  • Post a temp check to forum.
  • Delegate(s) may elevate the proposal to a draft proposal and then to a vote.

Option B:

  • A proposal may be put straight to a vote by individuals or delegates that hold enough ENS voting power to reach the following thresholds:
    • 10,000 for a Snapshot proposal (currently over 50 delegates)
    • 100,000 for a Tally proposal (currently 26 delegates)

Notes on Delegation

  • Delegation functions on a per wallet basis. This means that delegation will apply to all tokens in the particular wallet, no matter if the amount of $ENS in the wallet changes.
  • Delegation can be changed at any time, however, when a Snapshot for a vote occurs, delegations set at that time are locked in place until the vote concludes.

Delegation can be done at delegate.ens.domains or agora.ensdao.org.

Q&A

(PoolKing)
Q: Is there a way for me to post questions that can be answered for others to see?
A: (Alisha) The governance forum.

Q: Regarding delegates, is there a maximum number of votes that can be delegated?
A: (Alisha) No, there is no cap on the voting weight for delegation.

Q: How is voting weighted?
A. (Alisha) 1 $ENS = 1 vote.

Q: How do I get $ENS to vote?
A: (Alisha) Buy it from an exchange of your choice, and then you will be able to delegate the tokens to yourself or a delegate of your choice.

Q: (Katherine) How do Working Groups determine what their priority focus should be?
A: (Alisha) Stewards collaborate with Governance Lead (alisha.eth) to talk through funding expectations. The #1 objective of the ENS DAO is to ensure that ENS continues to exist.
A: (Slobo) We want to be flexible in what we believe is the best use of funds.

Up Next

Working Group Budget
Before the end of January we will see a Working Group budget proposal put to vote.

Working Group Calls
The best way to get involved with ENS is to join a working group call. You do not have to turn on your camera or doxx yourself.

Calls take place on a weekly basis. For the specific times, please see the ENS Calendar.

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Notes: ENS DAO Twitter Space - Jan 19th, 2023 @ 5PM ET | Recording

Pinned Tweet

Hosted by: @alisha.eth and @James

A space to discuss the draft proposal, Sell ETH into USDC.

This discussion contained a lot of information and debate that is far too much to cover here, but I will try to include significant points that stood out to me. It was a very dense and productive discussion, and I recommend listening to the full recording if you are interested in this topic.

Topics included:

  • Details and intent of the endowment vs this proposal
  • The best method to liquidate ETH
  • Potential optics/narrative of liquidating ETH for USDC, as the Ethereum Name Service
  • Merits of selling into USDC vs alternatives such as ETH or Pax Gold in the face of a potential economic recession.
  • Dollar cost averaging (DCA) the ETH liquidation vs a Gnosis auction

Noteable Q&A:

Q: Would the ETH for this proposal come from the ENS Controller wallet?
A: Yes, the first step of the proposal specifies that the ETH be transferred from the Controller wallet (controller.ens.eth). The Controller wallet contains all ETH from domain registration sales as well as premium name sales.

Q: What is the goal of the endowment in contrast with this proposal?
A: The point of the endowment is to retain unearned ETH and gradually convert everything else into USDC in order to ensure the continued successful operation of ENS.

Q: If you really believe in Ethereum, why not use Ether as money?
A: I agree with that concept, but the practical reality of trying to pay people for their needs and requirements favors using USD for price stability.
A: The ENS streaming payment is in USDC, so at a baseline, USD is needed to fund that requirement. If the working groups were to request their funding in Ether rather than USDC, the ETH request would need to be higher to account for price fluctation.
A: Many crypto operations have gone out of business in the past due year to price depreciation incurred in a bear market. Until rent can be paid in ETH, stablecoins have a use case.

Q: How do you reconcile the narrative that Ethereum is “ultra sound money” while choosing to sell ETH for USDC, as one of the biggest platforms on Ethereum?
A: ENS is a public good that has never received VC funding and is in the very fortunate position that we generate revenue in ETH. The intention is to spend that to survive. The continued survival of ENS DAO is the top priority. Article 3 of the ENS DAO constitution provides for income to be spent on the development of ENS.

Notes

Santi (Karpatkey):
The endowment proposal will be posted tomorrow. The intention is to give the community plenty of time to discuss the proposal before going to vote.

The proposal is expected to request the equivalent of $16 million USDC across three installments.

There will be a Twitter Space to discuss the endowment proposal.

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