Compound Foundation Statement on Extending Gauntlet Partnership
The Compound Foundation supports extending our relationship with Gauntlet for one year. This decision follows extensive discussions with delegates, Gauntlet, and other risk vendors over the summer.
Continuity. Gauntlet has supported Compound since 2021 and brings a deep understanding of our protocol’s risk dynamics. As the longest-standing lending protocol in DeFi, we take that seriously— especially as convergence with TradFi heightens the importance of consistent risk and compliance practices. With a recent transition in our audit provider, an additional change now would introduce unnecessary risk.
Avoiding disruption. The Foundation recently completed a major risk-provider transition through a rigorous RFP process, securing ~$2M in annual savings for at least two years. That process demanded significant resources across vendor diligence, negotiations, and stakeholder and change management. Diverting Foundation’s attention to repeating this process now would take away attention from other strategic initiatives critical to Compound’s success in the current market environment.
Strategic initiatives. In discussions with Gauntlet leadership, we focused on deepening the partnership beyond risk services—into product support, business development and public go to market initiatives. We heard the community feedback on past decisions and visible ties to industry peers, and have voiced those clearly to Gauntlet. With the Foundation newly empowered to represent Compound, Gauntlet reaffirmed its commitment as a strategic partner and expressed readiness to engage even more proactively in supporting the protocol’s priorities. We can see a path to generating tangible wins for the DAO that extend well beyond the potential cost savings of running another RFP at this time.
Contractual enhancements. We negotiated additional value on behalf of the DAO, not only on new initiatives across product and growth, but also on SLAs and a refreshed risk framework designed to raise standards further, address community feedback, and improve market agility. These commitments set a clear benchmark against which progress will be measured in the months ahead.
We thank Gauntlet for their yearlong partnership and look forward to driving Compound’s growth together, with the expectation for tighter alignment with Compound and the Foundation, addressing community feedback and demonstrating urgency in execution. The community should expect to hear more about exciting strategic initiatives starting the community call today at 9:30a PT.