PTIP-32: Ethereum Operations Team

Governance PT Improvement Proposals
1

PTIP-32: Ethereum Operations Team

This proposal will create an Ethereum Operations Team and give it a budget from the treasury. The members of this multisig will be responsible for Ethereum operations.

Update: Ethereum Operations Team Manual

Abstract

PoolTogether prize pools require on-going management. This includes:

  1. Ensuring prize pools are rewarded on time
  2. Ensuring Pod batches occur regularly
  3. Ensuring Prize Strategies that use the Chainlink RNG are stocked with LINK tokens.

Points 1 and 2 have both been automated using Chainlink Keepers. We have two “Upkeep” contracts that are registered with the Keeper system. To fund the upkeep contracts LINK must be deposited into the Keeper Registry for those two contracts.

Point 3 is a simple LINK transfer from the Operations Team multisig to the relevant prize strategies.

Motivation

The operation of prize pools is currently being funded by PT Inc. We need to decentralize the operations so that PT can manage itself.

Specification

The Ethereum Operations Team is a multisig of PoolTogether community members with a budget and a limited scope of responsibilities.

Responsibilities

  1. Ensure there is sufficient LINK balance in the governance-owned Prize Strategies that use the Chainlink VRF. Prize Strategies that use the Chainlink VRF must hold LINK to pay for the service.
  2. Ensure that our registered Upkeep contracts have sufficient LINK balance. We have two Upkeep contracts: one that rewards PT governance-owned Ethereum prize pools, and the other that batches PT governance-owned Pods.

The operations team will not own any smart contracts; i.e. not have privileged control. It will simply manage a budget. In this way, in the unlikely event that the team goes rogue only the budget will be lost.

Budget

  • The multisig will be transferred budget for the first month ($8000)
  • The multisig will be the recipient of a budget stream for on-going operations.
  • The multisig should ideally hold its budget in sponsorship tokens, so capital still contributes to the protocol.
  • The multisig may use the budget to cover gas costs for the members.

Breakdown

Prize pools generally cost $150-$500 to reward. This multisig will be tasked with the Ethereum prize pools, of which there are seven weekly pools. The monthly budget for rewarding will then range between $4200 - $14000.

Pod batching is relatively inexpensive. Two pods will likely run from $100 - $300 per week. That’s approximately $400 - $1200 per month.

The combined monthly budget for the two items would then be $4600 - $15200 per month.

Let’s conservatively say the monthly budget is $8,000 USD. The operations budget for one year would then be $96,000.

We’ll ballpark $4,000 for gas costs, making it an even $100k per year.

Membership

Members should be known members of the PoolTogether community. The members must have verified themselves on Sybil.org for transparency. They must be capable of monitoring smart contract balances and transferring tokens.

Current team membership:

  • TheRealTuna
  • McOso
  • Gio.eth
  • Brendan
  • Aodhgan
  • Pierrick

If you would like to be a member please comment below. If you have an issue with any team member then do speak up.

Process

  • The team will need to coordinate at least once per month to ensure prize pools are running smoothly.
  • The team has the right to regulate themselves. If a member is not participating then the team can remove the absent member. The team should replace that person with another member of the community that meets the eligibility criteria, if possible.
  • The team should have at least five members
  • Must always require a supermajority for quorum (confirmation ratio of at least 60%)

Rationale

The protocol needs a timely way to ensure prize pools continue operating. Governance should delegate this responsibility to a multisig of known community members.

Technical Specification

  • $8,000 ScUSDC will be transferred to the Gnosis Safe.
  • $92,000 ScUSDC will be streamed to the Gnosis Safe using Sablier over one year.
  • Yes! Let’s do it as proposed
  • Maybe: I’d like to suggest a change below
  • No, let’s not do this.

0 voters

4 Likes
2

Tagging those who may be interested in membership:

@aodhgan @Pierrick @kamescg @McOso @Taliskye @TheRealTuna

4 Likes
3

Yes, I would be interested in being part of the multisig.

4 Likes
4

I’m definitely interested in being a part of this multi-sig.

This is another step in further decentralizing the protocol.

4 Likes
5

I would be willing to participate in the multisig!

4 Likes
6

You can count me in!

4 Likes
7

I’m all for maximum decentralization, especially given recent events.
Any hint of centralization is potentially problematic, so this is awesome and greatly appreciated.

The choices are excellent as well.

3 Likes
8

I would be interested in being on the multisig. Also, I think it is important to clarify multisig member compensation in the PTIP. We never really laid that out in the POOL buyback PTIP so myself and the other two members are unsure in that area.

great to see this progress towards decentralization.

3 Likes
9

I’d be happy to also be on the multisig if it can help further the protocol toward decentralization.

3 Likes
10

Having helped design and implement the Upkeep system and involved in ongoing PT operations I think it makes sense for me to be added to the Multisig.

5 Likes
11

I think it is important to clarify multisig member compensation in the PTIP

I do agree that we need to have a discussion around compensation, but I think it’s too early to be talking about it. We don’t know exactly how much work this is going to be or how involved the members are.

2 Likes
12

I’m pleased with the responses so far! The turnout is better than I expected. We will likely want to increase the required # of confirmations, possibly to 2/3 of membership. Then a supermajority is required to make changes, and we have some redundancy.

I’m going to work on some preliminary planning for:

  1. Team purpose (our responsibilities)
  2. Team process (frequency of meetings, how to handle AWOL members etc)
  3. Expectations of team members

I’ll update the PTIP draft when it’s ready.

Once we’ve all reviewed the draft, we should finalize the PTIP. Ideally, I’d like to have a Zoom meeting during business hours. However, I want to take a poll to see what people have an appetite for:

  • Let’s have a Zoom call sometime between 12pm EST - 6pm EST
  • Let’s just post our comments here in the forum post
  • Let’s have a Discord call sometime between 12pm EST - 6pm EST

0 voters

1 Like
13

I’ve added additional details to the PTIP. I have clarified:

  • Budget
  • Responsibilities
  • Membership
  • Process

Would the above listed team members please respond with the address that they will use for the multisig. Specifically @TheRealTuna @McOso @Taliskye @aodhgan @Pierrick @Gio.eth

This address must be verified on Sybil.org

I will be using address 0xa38445311cCd04a54183CDd347E793F4D548Df3F (asselstine.eth)

1 Like
14

I will be using 0xD70804463bb2760c3384Fc87bBe779e3D91BaB3A

2 Likes
15

I just verified on Sybil.

I’ll be using 0x1dBFBAeBC6070f14ae8294ab01252B36d962bf4E (gio.eth).

2 Likes
16

Thank you for your interesting suggestions.
This is an important proposal from the perspective of decentralization.

While the pod batching is reasonable, I thought the prize pool working capital is high.

I guess that it is necessary to consider reducing working capital for prize pools.

2 Likes
17

I will be using 0xa31c2232842e631ccb2d2e4110b356bab21e6020 (therealtuna.eth) and will verify on sybil this evening.

Now Verified.

2 Likes
18

Rewarding the prize pool is fairly gas intensive, and Ethereum gas prices fluctuate significantly.

Something I didn’t mention is that we can use Sablier to stream the funds to the multisig. This allows governance to stream the budget to the team, but have the ability to cancel it later if needed.

It would work like so:

  1. Governance transfers an up-front amount for the first month of rewards. Say $8000. This allows the team to kick-start operations.
  2. Governance sets up a Sablier stream for a full year of budget: $100,000 over twelve months.

The team can pull funds from the stream as needed, and governance can pull the plug on the team if things go wrong.

I’ll amend the proposal with the above changes.

1 Like
19

Okay looks like I gotta finally make a Twitter now :rofl:

I will be back from vacation on the 20th and will be able to get verified then.

The address I will be using is: 0xd095E0f8C72E22319846b643c4bac0caC1f67006

Looking forward to this!

2 Likes
20

I’m Also interested to participate and contribute to multi-sig if there is any available spots. Let me know

1 Like