A Tale of a Delegate

This year, we became a top 5 delegate for Connext DAO, one of the most important bridging protocols in the space. Our journey saw us delving into a diverse array of subjects. While some were right up our alley, others, like legal matters, presented new challenges due to our limited expertise.

The OpenZeppelin Governor, an evolution of Compound’s Governor, has emerged as the go-to governance contract in the web3 space. Top-tier protocols such as Uniswap, Optimism, ENS, and more, have adopted it as their primary tool for consensus and decision-making. Yet, the landscape is changing; Increasing market complexities and regulatory scrutiny have added layers of sophistication to organizational processes, signaling that the Governor, despite its widespread use, may be struggling to keep up with the times.

Let's consider two notable limitations:

• DAOs can only set one parameter configuration (like quorum, approval thresholds, etc.) at any given time.
• Users are restricted to delegating their entire voting power to just one delegate.

Some DAOs are already seeking alternatives. For instance, Arbitrum implemented two Governors, and Optimism launched an RFP for a new Governor model to incorporate stakeholder feedback. The current Governor standards, although effective for simpler scenarios, are showing their age in this fast-evolving web3 era, having been in place for over three years - practically an eternity in our world.

Blockchains offer the potential for much finer control than what we experience in the physical world. Yet, current governance models lack this level of flexibility. To put it bluntly, the existing Governor standards are falling short, unable to fully harness the nuanced capabilities of blockchain technology. Current Governors suck.

Introducing the Wonderland Governoor

Kudos, anon. You fell down the rabbit hole of governance and made it this far. Are you ready to see what awaits you in Wonderland? 🕳️🐇

At Wonderland, we thrive on solving puzzles and because of it we’ve decided to embark on a journey to improve Governors, starting with a first version that will feature:

• Different proposal types: Supporting the addition, removal and management of proposal types, each with different quorums, approval thresholds and voting periods.
• Smart delegation:
  • Delegation per proposal type: Users will be able to set different delegates for each proposal type, allowing more flexibility and specialization of delegates.
  • Partial delegation: Users will be able to delegate its voting power to multiple addresses.

These features could raise the gas cost for ERC20 transfers. To tackle this, the PoC includes an option to use storage proofs for voting on L2 with an ERC20 that resides in L1. This method bypasses the need for L1 snapshots and additional transfer costs, while maintaining L1 security. This approach is inspired by the AAVE Governance v3 implementation.