Nomination for SpikeWatanabe.eth
Snapshot endorsement link
Preferred Name: SpikeWatanabe.eth
Forum username: SpikeWatanabe.eth
Twitter Profile: @spikewatanabe
Credentials
Top tier Economics education - University College London
Experienced investment banker - worked in a number roles in auditing, private equity and financial consulting companies (combined value of projects where I participated in execution exceeds 1bn USD)
Completed year of study in coding School 42 to better understand development process
Wrote regular column in major news agency, notable publications include interview with Gavin Wood and coverage of Devcon 4
OG Blockchain markets - began my early mining experiments in 2016
2018-2020 built investment fund focused on blockchain assets – conducted in depth research into protocols, nature of consensus and tokenomics // designed pitchbook and marketed fund to investors
ENS highlights
ENS OG, first .eth name registered in 2018
Volunteer support pre token issuance in discord chat for 6 months July 2021 – Dec 2021
Delegate with 15K voting power 100% of which was acquired organically from small token holders appreciating my help as support volunteer. Initially during token issuance event my voting power stood at 60K, gradually decaying over time as people were selling their tokens. 15K is a very “dry” measure of support provided to me by over 1000 users (Tally profile)
Created initial framework for ENS DAO financial planning and fund management
Active participant and contributor within major DAO discussions such as choice of fund manager
What I’m looking to bring to the table
Strong work ethics – as investment banker I was trained to be diligent, pay extreme attention to detail and be committed to the task no matter the hours and effort required.
Integrity – I hold myself to high ethical standards: during my previous line of work as someone who was regularly given access to sensitive information it is naturally a basic requirement to be a person of integrity. I demonstrated to ENS community that I’m an honest person during my six months tenure as support volunteer.
I’m “blockchain finance savvy” and will have no problem building working relationship with Karpatkey. I was interviewed by KK in the past, they grilled me intensively via interviews and case study. Even though we could not finish the hiring process due to technical issues I still regard this as a successful milestone.
Project management – running extremely complicated projects under a very tight constrains both time and human resources wise taught me how to execute workflow efficiently. Exactly as Katherine suggested during the recent call, that successful MetaGov steward knows how to multitask. In my previous line of work I would routine execute single major project, and up to five aux task on the side. I will be happy to bring this skill to ENS DAO.
Intersection of expertise – I’m uniquely positioned to be a useful MetaGov steward as I’m situated at the intersection of “fiat” and “blockchain” worlds. Even though I’m not a lawyer by training, but bankers are also required to be able to align “economic” substance with legal documents. Proof reading share purchase agreements, making sure that contracts do not contradict broad legal framework are just some of the tasks I had to face. In that capacity I will able to assist in building DAO Bylaws.
Global goal
Ideally what I would like to see is to transform ENS DAO into something similar to public company in terms of disclosure, efficiency and audit practices. I can clearly see that the intent to do this is present, because there is a lot of disclosure already available. The problem is that it’s scattered all over the place and it is relatively difficult for an “outsider” to put it all together. The goal here is build an annual report by the end the year, which would be similar to what public companies do.
This document will not carry any legal repercussions with it, as blockchain space is largely unregulated, however there is nothing stopping ENS DAO from self imposing highest standards of accountability. This work will increase transparency and add credibility to ENS DAO in the long run as well as set precedent for other DAOs.
We are looking to onboard several billions of people, for that to happen they need to understand what ENS is. I’m ideally positioned to execute this vision as in my previous line of work I would usually be situated at the intersection of all aspects of project be it legal, financial or managerial.
Personal statement
I’ve invested a lot of time and effort into building my reputation within ENS community as honest and hardworking person. Moreover I have necessary qualifications to excel as MetaGov steward. This is a very exciting opportunity and I’m taking it very seriously. To me this work has many angles - it is a very interesting challenge, opportunity to make an impact and do something meaningful, learn a lot in the process and build the cornerstone infrastructure project within universe of blockchain. Please consider my candidacy. I’m available to discuss any questions on twitter or forum and will be happy to talk you through any points.
Thank you!
Spike
