[TEMP CHECK] Aave | Flipside Proposal

Governance
13

The Aave-Chan Initiative (ACI) has consciously refrained from commenting until the TEMP CHECK concluded to avoid any undue influence on the governance process. As we now approach the ARFC stage, we feel it’s appropriate to share our perspective:

  1. Flipside is a top-tier delegate platform for our DAO, and we’re proud to count them as part of our community. Their selection for ACI’s Orbit program is a testament to their value.

  2. We find ourselves in agreement with most of the points raised by @eboado, so we see no need to reiterate those here.

  3. Timing is a crucial factor for this proposal. The protocol, in its current state, isn’t equipped to accommodate a service provider of Flipside’s nature. Should the ARFC not pass, we would encourage Flipside to apply for Orbit funding, which we’d be honored to provide. In a quarter’s time, we anticipate that the DAO will have better frameworks, GHO & Portal revenue, likely improved market conditions, and a more defined global DAO budget.

  4. The ACI is currently on a cost-cutting trajectory, making us hesitant to approve expenses that are neither technical nor safety-related.

  5. This proposal doesn’t extend Skyward; it’s essentially Skyward without the coding component. Given that Skyward includes the technical elements that form the core of AIPs, our suggestion is simple: “just use Skyward.”

  6. While having a contributor who isn’t a co-founder or Aave OG is a positive sign of decentralization and maturity, Flipside isn’t particularly community-supported. Most, if not all, of Flipside’s voting power comes from a single well-known entity. This doesn’t represent the delegation diversity needed to ensure independence.

  7. A recurring theme in the current proposal is “our budget is only half of ACI’s.” However, if Flipside aspires to half of our budget, they should be prepared to provide at least half of the services we do, which is significantly more than what’s currently offered.

  8. We still hold the view that Flipside meets our expectations for a delegate platform. We believe delegates should be held to high standards and fairly compensated as such. However, the path to sustainability should be achieved by remaining a delegate platform, not by becoming a service provider just for the sake of sustainability.

For these reasons, the ACI doesn’t currently support Flipside’s onboarding onto the Aave DAO service provider budget. However, we believe that in the short term, we’ll establish a more suitable DAO framework and situation that can sustainably accommodate this type of onboarding and/or offer fair delegate platform compensation. We invite Flipside to accept Orbit support, and if that stream is deemed unfair compensation, we encourage the Grant DAO to support Flipside again.

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