Yearn Retention Packages

Start Here Announcements
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So from the post it sounds like the core team members now have more established roles, but the wider yearn community isnt allowed to know which of their favorite contributors are in which roles, nor what the budget is for these roles?

This doesnt feel very DAOlike imo.

Security is important of course but once Yearn starts making decisions about non-transparent payments to anonymous individuals it starts to feel much more like a traditional business than the open, permissionless network that I felt such passion for.

How is governance supposed to do their job without relevant information rgarding who is doing what and how much theyre being paid for it?

Its worth noting that I am not just saying this as a 3rd party observer. Yearn has paid me in the past for my dashboard development work, and the payments were completely transparent, without issue. So, I do have a small bit of skin in the game and understand why security is important.

Are grants going to remain transparent while core team packages are kept private?

Or are we promoting security for all contributors equally here?

I want to be sure I understand this correctly, so feel free to correct me on anything I’ve misinterpreted.

I think transparency is key to Yearn’s success (the success of any DAO, really) and will always advocate for more of it.

We are all cartoons for a reason :man_shrugging:

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23

Yea it’s a fair point frankly, and not something anyone took lightly.

Ideally there would be full transparency, with names next to each tier. But that needed to be weighed against the ease of a $5 wrench attack.

These are existing contributors - some anonymous, but others semi or non-anonymous. They’ve operated tirelessly for 6 months without the expectation or opsec of a bearer instrument compensation package.

There’s an unresolvable trade off between security and transparency, and the committee has provided as much transparency as possible without recklessly jeopardizing the security of Yearn’s contributors.

That being said, I do believe the team is looking forward to sharing much more about the org structure as it solidifies and grows.

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I’m curious to know, in your eyes, what is the role of governance in Yearn’s ecosystem?

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25

My bad misread, but yeah not involved in the proposal. Thanks for helping clarify

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My bad misread–thanks for clarifying

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27

Oh, do I have bad news for you ser.

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28

“the people that could go off and start their own project easily”

I don’t remember this being part of the mandate that people voted yes on. I also am not sure that voters had any reason to believe that the 1/3 of minted yfi was reserved for full time contributors specifically.

Reserving a mere 12 YFI to cover 100% of the other work people have done so far feels like a bit of a slap to the face.

I don’t understand using YIP 57 to justfiy this decision when YIP 57 says nothing to differentiate between Full Time and Part Time, and says nothing specific about people who are able to go start their own protocol.

Of course we want our core devs to be well compensated, but do we mean to imply that all non-key contributors to date combined have only provided the value of 1/10th of a single core team member?

This isnt a criticism of the compensation plan, but it is a criticism of the way the plan was created, voted on, and enacted out of view of the project’s diverse group of stakeholders.

I wonder if I am alone in feeling this way. Like this post if you voted Yes on YIP 57 and find yourself surprised that less than 1% of the budgeted 2k YFI will go to contributors who arent already on the payroll.

If a small 5% were allocated to the people on the hoodie (and others who have helped since) it wouldn’t take much away from the core team but it would secure true loyalty from your community that worked hard to help Yearn become what it is today.

Thru my work on the financials we uncovered our cashflow issues, cashflow issues that led directly to the minting proposal. Please keep that in mind as you read the rest of this post.

I saw a place where I could provide value, and I opted to step up. I spend a few hours each week, sometimes more, sorting, categorizing, and investigating various txs to ensure they are all appropriately accounted for, and to ensure the core team has the data they need to steer the ship. And I havent received a grant since November grants were sent out last year.

It hurts to know that I could have made more money by NOT helping out with financials. I could have chosen instead to spend my time learning to craft strategies, I could have started creating value for Yearn 2 months later than I actually did, and would have gotten a substantially larger reward for my efforts. But I chose to use the skills that I already had to add as much value for Yearn as I could.

Incentives not aligned.

Lastly, here is a list of 2095 people who each have well over $120m and are successfully able to avoid $5 wrench attacks without any anonymity or even pseudonymity: https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

I’m not trying to rain on anybody’s parade here, just trying to ensure our incentives are truly aligned for all participants. I love this place. Viva la Yearn!

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29

They all have personal security details, is the suggestion that the people receiving these packages need to hire personal security details with some of their vest? At $11m total for the top tier of vesting over 3 years (with current prices), the people receiving these vests will hardly be billionaires, so I don’t think this is a fair comparison to make. It is a fair amount of money, but the YFI price will fluctuate wildly over the coming 3 years, and we don’t want our core contributors to have to deal with safety concerns on top of everything else, do we?

Asking for more transparency is a different discussion, one worth having in my opinion, but forcing people to divulge details they might not feel comfortable with divulging is not a conversation I’m interested in having. I understand how you feel upset about this specific proposal and how it relates to your expectations, but let’s keep this conversation about improving the proposal, not targeting the individuals involved.

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30

I’m not targeting any individuals, I’m simply asking how the core team intends YFI governance to have an informed say in the process, or if core team expects YFI holders to stay out of the process entirely. My whole post except that one excerpt was written with the intent of improving the alignment of incentives, and addressing the differences between the YIP approved by voters and the actual reimbursement plan.

So far, a lot of my questions still have no answers so I can’t contribute much more without responses from others on the committee. I ask these questions not to be a smartass, but for the sake of pragmatism. So we can find solutions and prevent unforeseen problems.

YFI holders voted to empower the multisig until a specific date so it seems to me that this is an important thing to figure out now, before it becomes an issue we can’t ignore. After that date, who sits inside of the decision making black box?

I did say above that I agree security is a concern. But whether I agree or disagree, it doesnt matter. If we agree that private payments are acceptable within Yearn, that means we have logistical issues to figure out in order to make black-box compensation viable long term. I’m wondering what core team has discussed, if anything, regarding potential solutions.

Can monthly grant recipients also opt for black-box compensation if they desire?

Are future hire vesting packages also black-boxed?

What role do YFI holders play in this whole process?

You do make good points about the differences between the billionaires on the list and the devs building Yearn. That is not lost on me and I do agree with your points regarding those differences.

I’m curious to know your thoughts, if any, regarding the rest of my comment, as that really wasn’t my focus, and more just a side comment that (in hindsight) detracted from my post

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31

I agree with many of your other points, and I want to hear that discussion too. I don’t have a specific opinion besides agreeing on what balance of transparency and privacy is moving forwards. I don’t think we have anything to look at in terms of precedent here, the grants were fairly small by comparison, so I think handling these differently seems justifiable.

I believe @tracheopteryx has a proposal he has been working on for a long while about redefining the governance processes to move forwards from the temporary powers of the multisig granted previously. He can speak further to this point.

The rest of your questions are really great, but I don’t have the answers to them.

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32

Thanks for getting back so quickly!

Regarding the balance between privacy and transparency, the problem I see is that it seems like a binary choice. I dont really see any middle-ground option between 100% transparent and 100% private besides pseudonymity, but that one is out. Its a rock and a hard place type problem and it feels like we just need to pick one (that is not a suggestion by any means, I just admittedly dont have any ideas myself.)

I’m hoping some of the other committee members could give their thoughts on the above questions/concerns in the meantime.

It seems irresponsible from where I sit to forge ahead without addressing those points, especially given that most of the confusion around YIP 57 and compensation is a result of the phrasing of the YIP itself, and the fact that the YIP basically just said “we will figure out specifics later after this YIP is approved”

As a mere YFI holder I cant add much more to the convo without hearing from those who were on the committee. Without knowing the what the committee has in mind for the future, I’m just throwing ideas at a black box

“I believe @tracheopteryx has a proposal he has been working on for a long while about redefining the governance processes to move forwards from the temporary powers of the multisig granted previously. He can speak further to this point.”

I know it will be a while before @tracheopteryx is back around, I look forward to seeing this on his return! I didnt know anything like this was underway, quite excited.

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33

One question to the committee or core members:
This whole topic started as we were on risk to lose Strategists. We are in fact adding vested YFI to 4 strategist. The YIP 57 has been widely communicated.

Question:

  • How do strategist feel right now? do they feel supported?
  • How many strategists we lost? (let’s not share names, no finger pointing)
  • Did we lose any other Devs? (not only blockchain smart contract Devs, but maybe website devs, for example. No names please.)
  • How is the baby strategist group doing? do we see new comers, new engagement, are we now attractive for them?

Basically, I want some data to backup “where we are” with the initial problem.

Thanks!

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This is bullshit, you tell me people can’t keep their own security in place? Poor argument

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  • How do strategist feel right now? do they feel supported?

I had a call with some of them – they definitely feel better now. Main game changer is knowledge transfer, strategists are now motivated to onboard newcomers cause they share upside of the new strategies.

  • How many strategists we lost? (let’s not share names, no finger pointing)

A couple promising ones when we only had handful of them.

  • Did we lose any other Devs? (not only blockchain smart contract Devs, but maybe website devs, for example. No names please.)

None of the critical devs left. However, pay cheque was definitely way lower than it should be for 24\7 working schedule.

  • How is the baby strategist group doing? do we see new comers, new engagement, are we now attractive for them?

It should work both ways, we should be attracted to them first :wink: But there are promising strategists and it seems they enjoy what they are doing.

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36

You mean that management fees upside is shared across all strategists right? The more strategies, more tvl, more fees. Why is this a game changer now, i thought it was always like that

Or you mean that a senior strategists receives fees from the juniors directly? ( That’s like pyramidal stuff)

Thanks

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I mean, previously, strategist didn’t have any YFI and there was no motivation for them to onboard any new strategists – why would they share fees with other people?

With YFI in hands they can help new strategists => new strategies will generate fees => fees will be used to buy YFI => price will appreciate.

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Yo!! Only because management doesn’t adhere to the - across the entire project voted to adhere to - code of conduct doesn’t mean we are allowed to.

Attack ideas, not individuals.

Trust me being banned from this place is hell, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, and you’re playing a very risky game right now.

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Created a vesting escrow contract and a factory as a part of work on this. The contracts are derived from Curve DAO contracts, but feature some additional features which could be useful for other projects:

  • Factory admin controls removed, anyone can deploy escrows, funds are pulled instead of pushed.
  • Factory emits an event which allows finding all the escrows deployed from it.
  • Recipient can claim partial amounts or use a different beneficiary account.
  • Admin can terminate an escrow and clawback all the unvested tokens using rug_pull.
  • First unlock can be delayed using cliff_length.
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what code of conduct?

Individuals are those with a name, we ser are dogs, and dogs in heat no less.

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The vesting packages have been delivered. All of them are vested for 3 years with a 6 month cliff and can be clawed back by Yearn Governance in case of termination.

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