MakerDAO Governance Changes

GovAlpha steps down and delegates take on new responsibilities

MakerDAO has had a few big governance reorganizations and role changes recently. In particular, around the auditing of spells and governance facilitator roles.

Saying Goodbye to GovAlpha

GovAlpha has stepped down as the Governance Facilitator, largely due to changes in the role related to the Endgame. This is after Prose stepped down a few months prior. GovAlpha did a fantastic job in MakerDAO. They had a difficult role that they performed with excellence and I wish them well in their future roles.

To ensure a smooth transition, they ran a month long training and evaluation process of candidates, followed up by providing analysis to governance. Votewizard, Jansky and Le Bateleur have been voted in as interim facilitators. Please direct governance inquiries to them for now.

A recent proposal from Rune would establish Jansky and VoteWizard as permanent facilitators and remove Le Bateleur as an interim facilitator. There is ongoing discussion on this here.

New Responsibilities for Delegates

Rune has recently been running informal meetings on the future of the delegate role. One of the big takeaways from this process is that delegates will be responsible for auditing spells.

For the unfamiliar, spells are how most decisions in MakerDAO are implemented on-chain. They are a very powerful tool, capable of minting and transfering MKR or DAI, creating new smart contracts, onboarding/offboarding collateral and a wide variety of other functions. As a result, ensuring these spells have been properly vetted is essential.

There is a robust development and vetting process for spells. Rune wants delegates to be responsible for verifying that the spells are safe and that the process is properly followed. This will be a big additional responsibility for the role, and his hope is that delegates will turn into teams with people specializing in a variety of roles(finance, smart contracts, etc).