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Jesse Walden Profile picture
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3 Dec, 6 tweets, 4 min read
📢 RFC/POLL: Uniswap Grants Program v0.1

A proposal for funding @UniswapProtocol ecosystem development with grants from the UNI treasury.

Authored by @VariantFund (me) + @nkennethk (EF grants coordinator)

Please comment and/or poll yr feedback!

gov.uniswap.org/t/rfc-uniswap-…
tl;dr

The mission of the UGP is to provide valuable resources to help grow the Uniswap ecosystem.

The plan is to start small by, for example, sponsoring hackathons—but with an eye to growing impact over time (with renewals approved by gov)

Eventually, fund core dev work!
A grants program is a by definition a subjective process — it can't be easily automated.

So we propose a small committee of 6 members—1 lead and 5 reviewers—to deliver an efficient, predictable process to applicants.

Efficiency is a driving principle of this MVP!
The committee/multi-sig proposed is:

Lead: @nkennethk (EF Grants)

Reviewers:

- @MonetSupply(@MakerDAO)
- @rleshner (@compoundfinance)
- @kaiynne (@synthetix_io)
- me (@variantfund)
- a Uniswap company member TBD, if willing
The budget proposed is:

- $750K per quarter
- Over 2 quarters

$1.5M seems appropriate for an MVP, especially relative to the size of the treasury that UNI token holders are entrusted with allocating.
More details and an explanation of the methodology that got us here are live on Discourse, and we are polling consensus before putting this to a governance vote — as soon as next week!

gov.uniswap.org/t/rfc-uniswap-…

Please jump in!

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More from @jessewldn

Jesse Walden Profile picture
1 Dec
Minimizing governance is a goal of crypto protocols, but for necessary & subjective inputs/decisions, leadership can be more efficient than voting.

@c_spelliscy & I explored how crypto founders might continue to lead, alongside compliant user ownership.

variant.fund/leadership-in-…
tl;dr

Where a network is sufficiently similar to a cooperative, its possible a team can launch a token and decentralize ownership, while continuing to lead their project—without fear of violating securities regulations.
IANAL and this post does not provide a comprehensive legal analysis.

We are flagging this argument for further consideration in the hopes that crypto teams will consider them with their own counsel :)
Read 15 tweets
Jesse Walden Profile picture
23 Oct
In crypto, user-ownership can help drive network growth faster than any Web 2 growth hacking tricks

But nailing an effective ownership distribution is one the biggest challenges (and opportunities) for teams.

Best practices remain murky.

Can we fix that? Thread 👇
Taking a step back, figuring out ownership distribution is an exercise in Mechanism Design:

"a field in economics and game theory that takes an objectives-first approach to designing economic mechanisms or incentives, toward desired objectives..."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism…
Mechanism design assumes rational behavior, and is easiest to reason about when the designed-for objective can be verified deterministically.

Miner rewards in BTC & ETH are an example of mechanism design for verifiable work: PoW + transaction ordering.
Read 14 tweets
Jesse Walden Profile picture
9 Oct
Product Design continues to be a gaping hole in the crypto talent market (next only to mechanism designers.)

If you’re looking to do life changing work in a burgeoning industry, nows the time to jump in.

Happy to connect to top teams in the space.

Even if only curious, lmk!
If you're interested in the future of finance, here are some teams looking to hire (feel free to add more!)

Read 4 tweets
Jesse Walden Profile picture
8 Oct
Ownership Economy platforms (e.g. @UniswapProtocol, @compoundfinance) benefit from independent delegates representing users in governance.

@variantfund wants to delegate to user reps (esp in DeFi) today.

Thinking about getting involved?

Wrote a list of delegate DOs & DONTs 👇
First, what does it take to be a delegate?

A: Whatever you have to give.

Value add in governance comes in different shapes and sizes: full-time, part-time, developers, users, marketers.

If you have an opinion, you can get involved.
So HOW do you get involved?

To start, monitor and participate in topics that interest you.

For example, track topics directly on governance dashboards like gov.uniswap.org or across projects aggregators like boardroom.info
Read 17 tweets
Jesse Walden Profile picture
8 Oct
Paging data-driven, crypto-curious researchers:

@variantfund is growing the team!

I'm hiring a data-driven Research Analyst to work w/ me on new investments + supporting founders building crypto networks & The Ownership Economy.

Interested? 👇
variant.fund/hiring-a-resea…
YOU:

+ A detail oriented self-starter, intellectually curious, with strong analytical and communication skills

+ Thrive off of new ideas and excited to push our thinking

+ Have a technical background or a demonstrated ability in data-driven analysis
+ Are excited to design and track the metrics that are most critical to understanding and forecasting the progress of important crypto and Ownership Economy projects.
Read 7 tweets
Jesse Walden Profile picture
14 Jul
In pursuit of a more equitable and innovative internet, I'm launching something new 🚀

@VariantFund is early-stage venture capital for crypto networks and founders building The Ownership Economy.

Whats that? I explain here: variant.fund/the-ownership-…

Thread 👇
One of the most remarkable things about the technology we use everyday is the degree to which it is built, operated and even funded by its users.

Think of open source software, user-generated content, marketplaces, crowdfunding.

The Ownership Economy is what comes next.
Ownership has been a powerful tool for incentivizing talented people to dedicate their skills to building startups in Silicon Valley.

While this model has been incredibly successful, it hasn’t been accessible to all.
Read 24 tweets

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