author: <@Kowrigan> created: 2024-11-12

Simple Summary

This is a truncated version due to snapshot character limitations. Please refer to the forum post for the full version of the CIP.

This CoW Improvement Proposal (“CIP”) requests the DAO to approve the allocation of 5,100,000 USD from the treasury to Nomev Labs, Lda (the “Service Provider”) for the execution of the Services related but not limited to CoW Protocol, CoW Swap, CoW AMM, MEV Blocker (“CoW DAO Products”) under the terms of the Service Agreement hereunder (the “Agreement”). The compensation will cover the Service Provider’s labor and expenses related to this Agreement for the period from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025 (the “Term”).

Motivation

The Service Provider remains committed to fulfilling CoW DAO’s vision of a decentralised future where digital assets can be traded in a fair, efficient and reliable manner among people and communities around the world. Any trades, liquidity provision, and any blockchain transaction must be securely protected.

We consider this CIP critical to ensure ongoing development and refinement of the CoW Products and for keeping a competitive edge within the decentralised exchange ecosystem, including strategic pivots.

The Past Execution in a Nutshell

See the forum post.

Scope of Services

Services

The Service Provider agrees to deliver comprehensive technical and non technical services to CoW DAO (the "Service"), including but not limited to:

• Code development and design based on Section on “Development Focus” below;
• Continuous improvement of the existing Products and user experience;
• Executing relevant user research and proposing development focus adjustments based on its findings;
• On behalf of CoW DAO, hosting relevant interfaces, upkeeping and housekeeping of forum.cow.fi;
• Assisting the CoWmunity in the promotion of the CoW Products, including at and for conferences and with promotional materials;
• Engaging in, and maintaining the activity of participating in the consensus of proof of stake blockchains such as but not limited to Gnosis Chain as part of the DAO’s treasury management
• Fostering collaborations and partnerships on behalf of CoW DAO;
• Any other assistance and advice that may be provided by the team’s expertise, e.g. computer engineering, design as well as relevant project management, accounting services, legal, compliance, and other relevant fields of expertise;
• Facilitating solver onboarding and solver management, vetting, and assisting with payouts on behalf of CoW DAO;
• Overseeing the management of CoW DAO's bonding pool, potentially implementing enhanced security protocols to mitigate risks from malicious solvers, designing incentives to encourage solvers to establish independent bonding pools, and enforcing recourse measures against malicious actors.
• Ad payments / Paid Media ;
• Ensuring system security, providing development operations and security personnel. Per need, driving bug bounties for CoW DAO’s settlement (incl. via Grants DAO);
• Engaging the CoWmunity in the decision making process using the regular governing mechanism (not limited to but including enhancing the delegate program and fostering governance participation engagement)
• Thoughts and proposals around governance and decentralisation
  • Assistance in updating terms and conditions such as but not limited to the participation agreement and GrantsDAO related documents;
  • Coordination around GrantsDAO processes
  • Clearer transparency and accountability rules.
• Effective outsourcing to specialists and external parties;
• Explore the opportunity to set up a legal entity (such as a foundation or similar entity) to legally represent CoW DAO’s governance or parts thereof in a DAO-adjacent structure (to be proposed to CoW DAO in more developed state, for public discussion).

Other Services may be included in further CIPs for CoW DAO to decide upon separately (they can but must not lead to additional funding requests, dependent on scope, timing and efforts).

Main Development Focus

In the spirit of fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment, our main development focus follows the collective wisdom and insights of the CoWunity and our users.

This approach ensures that the development aligns with the needs and aspirations of CoW DAO, resulting in more impactful and user-centric products. However, it’s the responsibility of CoW DAO and its members to propose and decide the way forward - we want to comply with this ethos: it’s important to keep this focus flexible to adjust to community voices and successful proposals, changing competitive environments as well as improving and changing technological advancements.

We propose that the year 2025 be dedicated to the below items and features. This list is not exhaustive and may evolve based on the CoWMunity feedbacks, decision and change of priorities:

• Network expansion: deploying CoW Protocol to other Ethereum based networks
• CoW AMM: expanding on the functionality of CoW AMM
• MEV Blocker: Technical improvements to MEV Blocker, including roll-out on relevant L2s
• Continuous experimentation around fee models, according to suggestions of CIP-34 or the finalisation of a fee concept that has been successfully tested, including fee cuts for partners (to be put forward in a separate CIP for discussion and approval by CoW DAO directly).
• Continuous decentralisation of the CoW Products, including governance.
• Support of documentation, SDKs and external teams building on top of the Products (also via GrantsDAO)
• Development of a Smart Contract Version 2 for CoW Protocol enabling advanced functionalities such as NFT support; enforcement of post order interactions; etc.
• Support for additional smart orders (such as DCA, stop loss, etc)
• Support for a CoW Hook UI and SDK allowing for easy integration by partners

Compensation & Budget

Compensation

The Service Provider calculated a spend of 7,600,000 USD for the delivery of the Services, for the period of 1. January 2025 to 31. January 2025.

Estimates are based on projected labour, materials, and other direct/indirect costs to provide the Services as defined in the Budget section below.

The Budget section below shows the composition of the total of 7.6m USD for the entire year of 2025, of which 2.5m USD can be rolled forward and 5.1m USD requested under this CIP.

[...] See the forum post.

Budget

From 1st of January 2025 - 31 Dec 2025, the USD budget estimate comprises the following significant positions. Given funds still available from prior executions, returns of investments of idle funds, not needed calculatory provisions, and minimisation of costs around third party services, infrastructure credits and delayed hiring, the Service Provider is in the favourable position to ask for a significantly lower amount than the budgeted development budget:

Cost Centre	CIP Total
Team compensation	5,398,000
Third party services	517,000
Events & Travel	366,000
Hosting	570,000
External tooling	144,000
Office	42,000
Tax Provision	563,000
Total	7,600,000
Rolled-forward allocation	2,400,000
Funds requested in this CIP	5,100,000

These categories are estimated to include the following positions:

• Team compensation - Includes total compensation of existing team members and planned hires for the service period.
• Third party services - Includes all outsourcing providers and financial intermediaries & banking fees as well as third party development providers.
• Events & Travel - Covers relevant presence in conferences, business development events as well as team meetings.
• Hosting - Covers mainly DevOps related expenditures (AWS and nodes). An increase from prior years is requested due to added network costs from launching in new networks.
• External tooling - Covers softwares and subscriptions.
• Office - Includes fees supported for temporary rental of spaces.
• Tax provision - lump sum provision of 10% for potential tax costs (unforeseen and relating to various tax categories)
  • Accounting provisions (such as tax provisions) that are dissolved, arising in a positive cash-flow, will be reinvested in line with CoW DAO’s vision of a decentralised future and mission of enhancing CoW Products. Remaining funds from the execution of this CIP as well as other financial decisions in the upcoming year may prolong the estimated length of the Service Agreement.

The Team

[...] See the forum post.

Execution: Proposed transaction/ Payment

Upon approval of this CIP, CoW DAO agrees to an upfront payment of the approved fee to the Service Provider.

Upon successful passing of this CIP, CoW DAO’s treasury team is mandated to transfer the payment of 5,100,000 USD (in any relevant stablecoin) to the Service Provider at eth:0x51678341B2a5c063ead2ecfcA91e05ba73B09CAE by 10.th of January 2025.

Terms and Conditions

[...] See the forum post.