PTIP-74: Treasury Working Group Third Quarter Renewal

Simple Summary The Treasury Working Group (TWG) was formed after PTIP-46 1 was passed. Last quarter, the TWG was funded with 12,820 POOL for our third operational quarter, plus 3,000 USDC for execution and reimbursement costs. Now that the TWG’s second operational quarter is complete, members are seeking renewal for a third quarter and a budget request of 52,314 POOL/quarter, as well as 2,000 USDC (to be converted to ETH) for PTIP and execution gas costs.

If this PTIP is approved, the TWG’s third quarter would begin on Wednesday (15 June 2022).

Abstract The TWG reviewed our third operational quarter performance and outlined our third quarter deliverables in the forum post below and within the TWG Notion page.

Per our original proposal, the TWG’s core purpose is to:

Ensure safety and prudence go into every decision Drive future protocol growth Identify sustainable solutions Present objective data to the community In keeping with our core purpose, the TWG will focus on our core duties plus the following high level deliverables, which we’ve identified as top priority for our third quarter:

Motivation The TWG provides objective analysis and data for any governance proposal or forum post that discusses a potential use of treasury funds. During our second quarter, the TWG provided analysis on POL initiatives, received approval to experiment with Uni v3 on Polygon, advised on prize tiering to reduce subsidy but stay competitive, advocated for deployment on Ethereum rollup solutions (i.e., Optimism), and more. For a full review of our activity, Poolers can review the Treasury Working Group page on Notion.

Members of the TWG have played a vital role in governance discussions regarding prize tiering and simulation.

For our proposed third quarter, the TWG will focus on pressing issues for the DAO: namely, reviewing the new prize pool network on testnet, potential avenues for growth, infrastructure that can be used to create new products (via bounty), DAO expenditures, and POL analysis, recommendations. The main theme of our third quarter will be on sustainable practices, which concern DAO expenditures and growth initiatives (re: growing inflows to offset outflows).

The TWG will also expand the core duties of the working group, like those stated above. Over our first two quarters, members have provided sound analysis and recommendations on the proposed core duties–the community has been receptive to the past RFCs and PTIPs put forth by the TWG, as reflected in governance outcomes.

We’ll also work with other working groups within PoolTogether, such as the Marketing Working Group (MWG) to determine how the protocol can balance expense management with the Optimism launch campaign and the mutli-delegator contract to achieve growth in deposits.

In our third quarter, the TWG will deliver on our core purpose, while providing DAO members with the objective analysis and insight necessary to make informed decisions on treasury-related governance proposals.

Specification In our second quarter, the TWG requested a budget of 12,820 POOL/quarter, with an allocation of 4,273.33 POOL per month that was distributed via Coordinape. Distributions were executed from the TWG Polgyon multisig: 0x8F8e905Cd8b7b0e435e1030BE250970Bf8c9ab8B

Over the course of our second quarter, 4,273.33 POOL were distributed among active contributors each month.

When our second budget was requested, POOL was ~$3.34/POOL. The TWG chose to be paid in POOL to align incentives with the DAO. The total quarterly budget was $30,000 USD, or $10,000/month. During our second quarter, the average contributor received $712.16 in POOL for their monthly contribution due to the change in POOL prices.

For our third operational quarter, the TWG is seeking $35,000 in POOL, which is equivalent to 52,314 POOL/quarter, or 17,438 POOL/month at the market price of $0.66/POOL. We still believe payment in POOL aligns incentives with the community and drives us to work for the betterment of the protocol. An increased allocation to our budget is intended to reduce the churn of contributors and provide incentives for at least 6 contributors, so we can expand the scope of the TWG’s analysis and core duties.

If this PTIP is approved, our third quarter would begin on Wednesday (15 June 2022).

Review of, Request for Compensation Related to On-Chain Governance Gas Costs Members spent a total of 0.48808710089 ETH in gas costs for submitting on-chain transaction executions and proposals on behalf of the TWG. This amount includes direct costs from the mainnet multisig and the reimbursement costs for members.

Our initial funding was 3,000 USDC, which was converted to 0.87367 ETH. Currently, the TWG has 0.3856 ETH remaining in the mainnet multisig. As there are additional gas costs associated with submitting on-chain proposals and executing transactions on mainnet, we request a 2,000 budget in USDC that will be used to acquire ETH that is held in the TWG multisig on mainnet; some of this funding will go to reimbursing TWG members over the next quarter for executing transactions and submitting on-chain proposals. Any ETH that is not used for executing on-chain proposals can be returned to the treasury or rolled over at the end of the operational quarter.

Read more in the governance thread: https://gov.pooltogether.com/t/ptip-74-treasury-working-group-third-quarter-renewal/2333