👨‍🔬 Governance Lab #090

Lab Report #090 - Lido BORG Funding Requests, Uniswap Treasury Delegation Pt. 2, Compound's Strategic Crossroads, and more

Mar 13, 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 👀
🧪 Lido’s BORGs seek $40M in funding
🚷 Compound DAO faces critical decision between three strategic paths
💰 Uniswap DAO discusses treasury delegation round 2

Let’s dive in 🏊

Lido Governance

Lido’s BORGs request $40M+ in funding

The Lido Ecosystem and Lido Labs BORGs have submitted two funding proposals. The Ecosystem BORG is focused on advancing stETH adoption through commercial partnerships and liquidity optimization, while the Labs BORG aims to drive protocol research, development, and governance initiatives with primary focus on Lido v3 implementation.
The Ecosystem BORG has requested $10.6M for operations through December 2025, with $6.6M allocated to stETH adoption, $1.1M to validator set expansion, and $2.9M to support functions. Their strategic objectives include regaining 30%+ stETH market share, securing institutional inflows, and ensuring sufficient liquidity.
Meanwhile, the Labs BORG has made a $34.9M budget request covering operations through December 2025, with $21.6M allocated to R&D and $13.3M to G&A expenses. Their key objectives include driving technical research for v3, finalizing the Dual Governance framework, advancing protocol security and decentralization, and leading core research initiatives. The proposal would establish a 5/9 multi-sig wallet for fund disbursement and absorb the LEGO committee to continue ecosystem grants and experimentation.

Compound Governance

Compound DAO faces critical decision on a path forward

The Compound DAO stands at a strategic crossroads. Following the recent approval of the Morpho<>Polygon<>Compound partnership, the community is actively debating the protocol’s future direction. Over the weekend, Michael Lewellen outlined three potential paths forward: (1) centralizing leadership under Alpha Growth with a $7M COMP allocation, (2) deepening collaboration with Morpho following their recently approved partnership, or (3) establishing a structured DAO operational team to lead protocol development.
Each path offers distinct trade-offs: the Alpha Growth approach would provide clear leadership but concentrate control; the Morpho collaboration acknowledges Morpho’s competitive edge over Compound V3 markets; while the DAO operationalization strategy would maintain independence but require ongoing community engagement. Following the Morpho partnership approval, Euler’s CEO posted an informal bid on the forum. Meanwhile, the Compound community rejected AlphaGrowth’s Growth Program renewal in an onchain vote this week. For now, it appears the lending protocol will experiment under Gauntlet’s guidance.

Uniswap Governance

Uniswap DAO considers treasury delegation round 2

The Uniswap community is evaluating a proposal for a second round of treasury delegation, building on the successful program started in December 2023. The RFC proposes allocating either 10M, 15M, or 20M UNI tokens distributed among two cohorts of delegates (8 in Cohort A with 12-month terms, 7 in Cohort B with initial 6-month terms).
Improvements include implementing delegation expirations at the contract level (developed by ScopeLift), establishing clear delegate requirements (80% voting participation, 80% vote justification rate), and creating a structured evaluation process with quarterly reports. The proposal is undergoing community discussions with changes expected to be made.

Proposal Tracker™️

⚡ VOTING UNDERWAY | Aave DAO - Aave DAO & Chainlink Smart Value Recapture (SVR)

Summary: This proposal formalizes a 6-month collaboration agreement between Aave DAO and Chainlink for integrating Chainlink's Smart Value Recapture (SVR) system. The agreement establishes a revenue sharing mechanism (65% to Aave, 35% to Chainlink) effective for six months from the first SVR activation in Aave pools, with Chainlink sending proceeds directly to the Aave Ethereum Collector on a weekly basis.

💬 DISCUSSION | Rari DAO - Delegate Incentive Program

Summary: This proposal establishes a one-year Delegate Incentive Program for RARI DAO with a budget of $31,500 per quarter ($126,000 annually), allocating $10,000 monthly in RARI tokens to active delegates and $500 monthly for administration. The program rewards delegates based on three criteria: onchain voting activity (100 points), maintaining an active delegate thread with voting rationales (100 points), and proposal creation (150-200 points), with eligibility requiring at least 2,000 veRARI delegated, 60% voting participation, and an active delegate thread.

💬 DISCUSSION | 1inch - Recognized Delegates Program Renewal

Summary: This proposal renews the Recognized Delegates Program for 1inch DAO, implementing a structured framework to enhance governance participation and decision-making quality through delegate incentivization. The system establishes eligibility requirements for recognized delegates, a comprehensive reward mechanism for governance activities, and a transparent administration process for tracking and distributing incentives.

From the Lab

Introducing the DAO Delegation Handbook

We’ve launched a new resource aimed at DAO builders, delegates, governance nerds, and beyond. The DAO Delegation Handbook is a two-part guide giving readers insights, case studies, and best practices from our years of hands-on experience contributing to decentralized systems and ecosystems. This initial release is V1, and we plan to update the living document periodically.

▶︎ READ the handbook