Hey Marc, I wanted to add a couple additional points to the team’s response above:
As a long time builder in this space, we certainly do not take infrastructure changes lightly! This Oval pilot program proposal has been carefully designed to minimize risks to Aave. We have responded thoroughly and publicly to all questions and comments regarding centralization and risks to Aave in the comments above and in the delegate’s call we hosted. We are a team of nerdy researchers and builders that loves nothing more than publicly discussing our design and its tradeoffs.
Following your post, ACI promoted this TEMP CHECK proposal to a Snapshot vote; we didn’t ask for this and received no communication about this move. From our perspective this vote seems premature as we could benefit from additional discussion with the community. However, we’ll be online all weekend to answer any additional questions from the delegates during the Snapshot voting period.
I’d further emphasize that this is a TEMP CHECK vote to gauge DAO interest in the Oval concept. Quoting the Aave framework: “TEMP CHECKs serve as “temperature checks” to gauge community sentiment on a proposal or topic. They do not necessitate service provider involvement or a high level of precision or technicality.”
From my perspective, this proposal does seem to have captured positive community interest. I have no expectations that passing this stage will mean this proposal will pass the ARFC stage and be fully implemented. However, I do feel like it will be a missed opportunity for Aave if this proposal does not get to the next stage where Aave’s service providers (Chaos and Gauntlet) will respond with their analysis of Oval and its architecture. I believe this analysis will be extremely useful for Aave as it considers its future OEV capture strategy. (And since Chaos and Gauntlet are already contracted by Aave to perform this analysis at the ARFC stage, Aave would get this analysis for “free” if this vote passes).
Lastly, regardless of the outcome of this vote, I want to be clear how excited UMA is to continue to build with Aave. We have been blown away by the interest that Oval has generated, and we are truly grateful for the comments offered here by you and others. UMA will continue to innovate on the Oval design, and we will continue to engage the Aave community for their thoughts and feedback regardless of how this vote goes. LFG.