👨‍🔬 Governance Lab #091

Lab Report #091 - dYdX Surge Proposal, Aave Horizon RWA Controversy, Solana SIMD-228 Vote Fails, Uniswap Incentive Analysis by Forse, and more

Mar 21, 2025

gm frens 👋

welcome back to the Governance Lab, your weekly source for all things StableLab, DeFi, and DAO Governance. As always, we've filtered through the noise to bring you the governance signals (and drama) that matter.

At a Glance 👀
🗳️ Solana's SIMD-228 inflation proposal fails
💰 Aave DAO rejects Horizon's initial proposal
🏆 dYdX DAO considers $13-20M allocation for 9-month Surge Rewards Program
📟 Introducing the Uniswap Incentive Analysis Terminal by Forse

Let’s dive in 🏊

Solana

Solana's SIMD-228 inflation proposal fails to pass vote

Solana's SIMD-228 proposal to reduce token inflation through a dynamic emissions model has failed to reach the required 66.67% supermajority, receiving 61.4% approval with 74% of staked SOL participating—a record turnout for crypto governance.
The proposal would have lowered SOL's inflation rate to under 1% annually at current staking levels (65%), compared to the existing 4.6% rate that gradually decreases to 1.5%. Supporters argued this would benefit long-term holders by increasing token scarcity, while critics worried about impacts on smaller validators.

Aave

Aave DAO strongly rejects Horizon RWA proposal

Aave Labs has proposed Horizon, a RWA product that would allow institutions to use tokenized money market funds as collateral for USDC and GHO borrowing. The proposal included plans to launch a separate Horizon token with just 15% allocated to the Aave DAO, while revenue sharing would start at 50% in Year 1 but drop to only 10% by Year 4.
The community overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, with stakeholders creating accounts specifically to voice opposition. Critics called it a "money grab" that would dilute AAVE's value, with the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) firmly stating: "There's only one token in the Aave ecosystem; its ticker is $AAVE."
Many suggested alternatives, such as rewarding Aave Labs with additional AAVE tokens based on Horizon's performance while keeping all revenue within the Aave ecosystem. Other concerns included centralization risks, regulatory exposure, and compromising Aave's permissionless principles.

dYdX

dYdX DAO considers $13-20M allocation for Surge Rewards Program

dYdX DAO is evaluating a $13-20M treasury allocation for a 9-month Surge Rewards Program running through December 2025. The initiative aims to boost trading activity by re-engaging former users and attracting new traders seeking CEX-like experiences on-chain, reinforcing dYdX's position as a top-three perpetual futures DEX.
The program will initially focus entirely on taker incentives (first six months), distributing rewards across general trading (50%), retail interface activity (25%), and feature activation (25%). The final quarter will partially support maker activity to enhance liquidity, with monthly budgets increasing over time to compound growth effects. Barring significant opposition, an onchain proposal is scheduled for March 25 to formalize the program for 2025.

Proposal Tracker™️

💬 DISCUSSION | Compound DAO - Strengthening Compound Governance using Staker

Summary: This proposal introduces COMP Staker, a staking mechanism designed to address Compound's governance challenges including low voter engagement (~7.4% of COMP supply voting in recent proposals), governance manipulation risks from idle token balances, and lack of value accrual for token holders. Built on the Staker framework by ScopeLift and Tally, the system enables users to stake and delegate COMP tokens to earn protocol revenue shares, with key features including anytime withdrawals without delay, mandatory delegation to earn rewards, and DAO control over reward distributions and eligibility criteria. Implementation follows a phased approach: Phase 1 establishes staking, delegation, and revenue-sharing requirements, while Phase 2 integrates delegate scoring into reward calculations. Next steps include community discussion, an on-chain vote, technical scoping by Gauntlet, ScopeLift, and Tally, followed by an implementation budget approval vote.

💬 DISCUSSION | Aave DAO - Aave Umbrella Activation

Summary: This proposal implements Aave Umbrella, a system allowing users to stake Aave aTokens (like aUSDC or aUSDT) to cover potential bad debt on Aave systems while earning rewards, replacing the current Safety Module. The system consists of three main components: Umbrella StakeTokens (ERC4626 vaults with 20-day cooldown and 2-day withdrawal window), Rewards Controller (supporting up to 8 different reward tokens per StakeToken with dynamic emission curves), and Umbrella Core (orchestrating slashing logic based on objective deficit metrics). The proposal recommends initial activation on select networks (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Base) focusing on major stablecoins, WETH, and potentially WBTC, with rewards management delegated to the Aave Finance Committee.

💬 DISCUSSION | Euler DAO - Euler Foundation Treasury Optimization and Funding

Summary: This proposal outlines the Euler Foundation's financial strategy for 2025, securing $500k USDC from the Euler Treasury to cover operational expenses for the next 12 months, retaining 500,000 EUL for liquidity provisioning and strategic initiatives, and reallocating $5m USDC from Euler v2 on L1 back to the Euler Treasury for flexible capital deployment (with up to $500k USDC available for strategic initiatives at the Foundation's discretion). The funds will be managed by the Euler Foundation Multisig under a 3-of-5 multisig structure, where two signers are Foundation Directors and the remaining are appointed agents or contractors. Under Euler's optimistic governance framework, this proposal doesn't require formal voting but welcomes community feedback to ensure alignment with the broader goals of Euler DAO.

From the Lab

Introducing the Uniswap Incentive Analysis Terminal by Forse

We're excited to announce that the Uniswap Incentive Analysis Terminal is now live! This comprehensive analytics platform delivers detailed insights into the Uniswap Revitalization and Growth Program across Arbitrum, Base, Scroll, and Blast.

As outlined in our community-approved proposal, the Terminal provides data on the effectiveness of over $3.5M in allocated incentives, enabling the Uniswap community to make informed, data-driven decisions about future incentive strategies.

What's included in the Terminal?

The platform features two main sections:

1. Program Overview:

Weekly TVL breakdown showing liquidity evolution throughout the incentive program
Chain-level performance metrics comparing incentive efficiency across networks
User segmentation analysis revealing LP behavior patterns and retention rates
Incentive utilization tracking that follows the lifecycle of distributed rewards

2. Pool-level Performance:

Detailed metrics on individual incentivized pools, ranked by ROI and categorized by type
Post-incentive TVL analysis highlighting long-term liquidity retention patterns

Key Insights: Our analysis revealed that while incentives significantly boosted TVL across all chains, retention varied dramatically by pool type and chain. Volatile ETH-stablecoin pairs demonstrated superior long-term retention despite higher initial costs, while stable and pseudo-stable pairs showed strong immediate returns but poor sustainability.

Perhaps most notably, over two-thirds of UNI rewards were sold immediately upon claim, indicating predominantly mercenary LP behavior across the program.

The Terminal quantifies the program's impact with impressive metrics: $13.6M in TVL growth and $75.2M in weekly volume growth across 4.3k participants, achieving an ROI of $1,281 additional TVL per dollar spent. However, the 47.3% 90-day retention rate highlights the challenge of converting short-term participation into sustained ecosystem engagement.

▶︎ Explore the Uniswap Terminal here
▶︎ Read the full announcement post here
▶︎ Read the forum post here

We’re Hiring:" Data Analyst

StableLab is hiring! We're seeking a talented Data Analyst to join our team and help us expand Forse, a data intelligence platform empowering DAOs. Reach out to us on X.

▶︎ Read the JD here