Oracle Contributor

Grants
1

After 6-months, it is great to see the protocol running on the new oracle system. A couple of total ground-up reworks, countless edits, and a lot of convincing, but I am thrilled to see it implemented. The improvement will help prevent another Dai November 2020 event and enable the protocol to list a breadth of new markets.

While the major update has been made, more work is still needed. We still need to transition the Uniswap anchor from v2 to v3, support additional markets, ongoing monitoring, and further research the system’s efficiency. The recent milestone is the beginning of a more vigilant and efficient Compound.

I am requesting a 0.000214 Contributor Comp Speed grant from the protocol. Over the last 6-months, I acted as the project manager for the oracle improvement. I researched a myriad of options, worked closely with the Chainlink team, managed community feedback and input, championed the project, and most importantly, got it through governance. The ongoing contributor grant will be for the work I have done to get the oracle improvement in place and to manage it going forward.

The contributorCompSpeed grant works similarly to the compSpeed parameter for cTokens. The speed is set to a number of COMP rewarded each block, and the grant receipt can claim it like regular COMP rewards. However, unlike a typical grant, it will be distributed over time rather than immediately, and the grant can be ended at any time by governance if the community feels I am not doing a good job maintaining and developing the oracle system.

A contributorCompSpeed of 0.000214 is ~500 COMP a year using an average block time of 13.5 seconds, and the address associated with it will be my governance address 0x9B68c14e936104e9a7a24c712BEecdc220002984/gettyhill.eth.

If this is successful, I hope this encourages other community members to apply for ongoing contributor grants. There is a lot of work that needs to be regularly happening to improve and manage the protocol. Feel free to message me on Discord if you are looking for a way to get involved in the development/research of the protocol.

17 Likes
2

Getty was instrumental to Proposal 047, which took months of coordinating and development, to create a price feed which is likely the most robust /safest in the entirety of DeFi, and met the highest possible standard demanded by the Compound community. He knows the system as well as anybody, and has built a great relationship with both Chainlink and Compound governance.

In addition, Getty has been organizing the bi-weekly general community call on Clubhouse, to communicate development and broaden the Compound community.

Simply put, I strongly believe Getty is the ideal person to carry on the work of the price feed, and serve as a guardian of the protocol.

This would be the first streaming COMP grant, and well deserved.

10 Likes
3

Great work @getty, this was a tough change to make and I was very impressed with your ability to get it done. Personally, I am in support of your request and hope to see others follow in your footsteps :raised_hands::chart_with_upwards_trend:

5 Likes
4

Great job on the proposals, and thank you for your involvement in the community. I definitely believe that you are deserving of the grant.

That being said, why can’t this be done through the grants committee? As much as the streaming grant seems like a nice idea, it’s much easier to implement through the grants committee and much less of a strain on the community.

1 Like
5

I think the grant program is ideal for one-off grants and projects with defined deliverables. In contrast, a contributor grant is more of a long-term investment in an individual/contriubtor. The grants program provides capital to help make an idea a reality, but an ongoing grant doesn’t come with upfront capital, making it more directed at skills/efforts.

2 Likes
6

Impressive how Getty lead the whole Chainlink integration on Compound. This could also be an excellent first step in adding more tokens to Compound. On behalf of Instadapp, I’m in support of this grant.

4 Likes
7

I can’t think of a more deserving community member for a streaming grant than @getty. On top of facilitating a hugely substantial protocol upgrade over the past 5 months w/ Prop 47, he has also played a pivotal role in helping to foster continued community discussion, most notably with his hosting of the community Clubhouse events.

Given the broad scope of his involvement and dedication to improving the Compound protocol, I fully support this grant.

5 Likes
8

streaming comp? cool idea, all for it.

2 Likes
9

I am strongly in favor of providing @getty with a streaming grant of 500 COMP. It would accomplish two things at once:

  • Rewarding a top contributor. Getty led the charge on upgrading the oracle system, which took months of research and coordination. The new oracle system does a lot of good for Compound, and we should reward the person who made it happen.

  • Setting up streaming grants. Unlike grants coming from the Compound Grants Program, streaming grants come directly from Compound’s treasury. While the grants program functions well for one-off grants, it’s not the ideal infrastructure for recurring work. Setting up a streaming grant for Getty sets a new precedent for paying contributors who do great recurring work.

I hope to see more contributors applying for streaming grants in the future!

8 Likes
10

Strongly supportive of this.

Having seen Getty in action on both the oracle initiative and the Compound community calls, he’s added enormous value to the protocol and displayed an ability to collaborate with different stakeholders to iterate towards the best solution. If the goal is to inspire 100 more Getty’s to work on improving Compound, then this is a great step.

7 Likes
11

since its the first stream, maybe some of the comp can go to paying chainlink for whatever fees they may charge. Just spitting ideas…

12

Not much to add that hasn’t already been said. COMP is fortunate to have community members like @getty who have stepped up to solve core issues. I continue to think that paying/incentivizing these contributors is probably the highest-value use of treasury funds.

Polychain will support this.

7 Likes
13

I think this is a great idea, and Getty would be a great hire for the protocol! The grants program can help fund short term projects, while long term contributors with a proven track record can have a more stable arrangement.

Only concern I have is paying out 100% in COMP could cause some issues. If the price tanks, we can’t expect contributors to work for below market rates so governance could be forced to increase the award. On the other hand if the price of COMP increased, we wouldn’t want to reduce an existing payment stream as this will make contributors less willing to work with Compound in the future and reduce trust in Compound governance overall.

I think an ideal solution would be to pay out 60-80% in stablecoins (could be taken from DAI/USDC/USDT/TUSD reserves at governance discretion), with the remainder in COMP. This ensures that contributors will earn at least an acceptable rate of pay in a stable asset, while preserving the incentive benefits and upside participation of COMP payments.

3 Likes
14

I appreciate the endorsement!

As for funding, overall, I like your idea and think it has merit. That being said, I also think it is personal to the contributor. I would rather have the upside and downside than receive a portion in stables. The COMP rewarded for my efforts will be treated as an investment rather than a salary. As well, the protocol isn’t set up for an ongoing stable grant, but I think it is something that we could put together for future contributors.

5 Likes
15

@getty What is your thought on using Sablier as opposed to the native stream grant? I think that Sablier is much better suited for this usage.

1 Like
16

Interesting idea, I think using Compound’s system is easiest for now, but I’ll look into it.

1 Like
17

Copied from the Discord:

@jared asked, “what are actually the stopping criteria for this streaming grant? there’s a ton of support for this proposal fundamentally (myself included), but when do we turn it off? are we expecting specific future contributions or this is all backpay for completed work?”

Good question. The goal of the grant is to reward 6-months of work already done and future work. I think it should run for at least 6 months. That being said, I’m not going anywhere. This is just the beginning; the current solution is far from ideal (best available solution), and I don’t think we’ll ever reach a perfect solution but I want to strive to have the safest and most robust oracle system. If the community ever feels I’m not providing the value needed to support the streaming grant, by all means, it should be canceled.

Adding on: The current priorities for the oracle system are to get more assets on Compound and work on transitioning the Uniswap anchor from v2 to v3.

3 Likes
18

I fully believe that you deserve the grant and am happy to see this happening; however, I don’t think an indefinite grant from governance is good. Creating a proposal to stop the stream (be it in 6 months or 6 years) will be a significant annoyance. Imagine you decide in a year that you want to pivot to something else—do you want to have to spend weeks organizing a proposal to stop your pay?

Overall, I see zero upside and significant downside of creating a contributor streaming payment directly through the comptroller rather than using Sablier.

4 Likes
19

I’d like to echo this thought. Perpetuity probably not the best idea for any of our developers, just from a first principles standpoint.

20

I have the same type of concerns @arr00 pointed out. it doesn’t have clear standard how to evaluate it and when to stop it. if some dev who got received COMP through governance proposal don’t want to make any update for his work, someone should create new proposal to stop streaming comp.
and if its result didn’t meet Compound Community needs how to handle this issue?

I agree that improving oracle task deserves to get received the grant but we need to take more consider whether or not on-going task should be handled through streaming COMP type + goverance proposal system.

I think that Compound grant program is much better form to support this kinds of task

  • Setting up streaming grants. Unlike grants coming from the Compound Grants Program, streaming grants come directly from Compound’s treasury. While the grants program functions well for one-off grants, it’s not the ideal infrastructure for recurring work. Setting up a streaming grant for Getty sets a new precedent for paying contributors who do great recurring work.

@sukernik is it possible to operate series of grant on each milestone in Compound Grant Program?

ex) total grant budget: 500 COMP.

it could have several milestones depends on implementation levels.

initial idea: 20%
implementation: 30%
testing phrase: 30%
final product: 20%