Governance Meeting Notes Mega-Thread

Secret Governance
#12

Abstract (2021-08-18)

  • Analytics and Education committee charters are expected to be posted on the forums this week.
  • Some people have already signalled interest for some of the open committee positions (specifically a co-lead for awareness and dev). A Request for Lead (RFL) might therefore not be necessary. One of the main issues with finding (co-)leads is that people want to contribute but can’t make the calls.
  • The committee meeting notes posted on the forums are considered really helpful, and probably is the most effective way to improve communication between committees and those unable to attend meetings. The education and design committees are planning to increase awareness of open projects on the forums. The Secret Agent overhaul will also focus on asynchronous improvements.
  • We have recently hit 50 out of 50 validators again, increasing the ‘MaxValidators’ parameter soon might reduce the threshold for new validators to join. Such an increase will affect blocktime but it is mostly a coordination issue, not a technical issue.
  • Sentinel bases foundation delegations to validators on criteria. (Sentinel Mainnet Foundation Validator Delegation Criteria | by Sentinel | Sentinel | Medium) A formal system to check these types of delegations periodically may also be a good idea for Secret Network.

Action points

Everyone:

Full Notes:

#13

Abstract

  • Infrastructure and Education committee proposals will likely be posted on chain today (August 25th). Data (formerly Analytics) committee will go on chain on Friday August 27th.
  • The Community Curated Bounty List (CCBL) Idea form is live now, please send in your ideas so they can be included in the upcoming Validator Survey! A draft of the CCBL process is now available in slide form. See the full notes for further details on the CCBL.

Action points

Everyone:

  • Provide feedback on the data (analytics), infrastructure, and education committee charters on the forum.
  • Vote on the upcoming on chain proposals (data, infrastructure, and education committee proposals).
  • Submit ideas for Community Curated Bounty List (CCBL) projects. Link: https://forms.gle/vm9h5hy6KGBmjXaR6
  • Provide feedback on the CCBL process before it is sent to validators (next week). Link: CCBL Process - Google Slides

Full Notes:

1 Like
#14

Abstract (2021-09-01):

  • The first Validator Survey will most likely be sent out early next week, if there are any questions for validators or Community Curated Bounty List (CCBL) project ideas you would like to add please do so before the end of the week!
  • SNIP20s do not have timestamps in the tx history, therefore it is very hard to properly do your taxes if you do not have all your viewing keys you have used in the past. This data could be approximated, but it’s not a straightforward tool to build and there are edge cases (mint and burn; might be solved by looking at gas usage) which complicate the matter. A migration to SNIP22 would solve this going forward, but a tool would still need to be built for past transactions. Everyone agreed a migration should happen, but there is no consensus on the timing and process of such a migration. Stop gap measures (for example a tooltip to remind people to store their Viewing Keys) could be implemented to buy us some time until more permanent solutions can be developed. See the full notes and forum thread for more details on this discussion.

Action points:

Everyone:

Full Notes:

#15

Abstract:

  • All 4 last committee proposals passed with good voting percentages (lowest 42%, highest 64% of staked SCRT). The awareness committee will go to the forums with a new proposal soon and the Secret Code Podcast is thinking about a spend proposal as well.
  • Another discussion regarding the SNIP20 migration happened during the Griptape office hours. Consensus seems to be that a number of important updates are coming that will require migration anyway, that being the case we should wait for that. We should just make sure that it doesn’t become 8 months to a year before we migrate. In the meantime we should work on tools to help out with the current issues to fill the gap until migration. A Migration Working Group should be formed as soon as possible, ideally this includes Enigma, Superfish, Sandy, and a project manager (perhaps Stefan or someone from SF?).

Actionpoints:

Everyone:

Full Notes:

2 Likes
#16

Abstract (2021-09-15)

  • ‘Upgrade’ to secret-3 was briefly summarized by Carter, the best and most complete explanations can be found in the pinned posts on Discord and Telegram: https://twitter.com/SecretNetwork/status/1437856678830133258
  • Incentivizing new / small validators was brought up by Schultzie (lavender.five). This might be a good time for Enigma to reevaluate their staking strategy with everything that has happened in the past 2 days, and those that have stepped up during that time. Schultzie will create a forum thread to discuss the topic further. (How to Incentivize new Validator nodes)
  • The governance committee will look into starting monthly decentralization reports, more to come in the upcoming weeks.
  • As the IBC upgrade gets closer it may be a good time to start the discussion / research into a new maxValidator amount again.

Action points:

Everyone:

Full Notes:

#17

Abstract:

  • The Awareness Committee (Awareness Committee Proposal 10/1/21 - 12/31/21) and the Secret Code Podcast (Secret Code Podcast Spending Proposal) will be going to the chain with spend proposals in the next few days.
  • In the next few weeks the governance committee will create a draft of a monthly governance report (based upon previous decentralization reports by secure secrets).
  • The upcoming validator survey is postponed by a few weeks to allow ample discussion of all submitted CCBL ideas in the governance calls, going through these ideas during the main meetings seems to trigger interesting governance discussions.
  • Should the SNIP20 to SNIP22 migration be fast tracked in view of the SecretSwap staking contracts migration? (Fungible Token Migration (Snip-20 --> Snip-22))

Action points:

Full Notes:

1 Like
#18

Abstract

  • The awareness committee and guerrilla marketing collective spend proposals are on the forums and are about to hit the chain. (most likely in the next days)
  • Community pool funding of start-ups is done case-by-case, certain projects might require more time before they are self-sustaining. Public good initiatives should be able to ask for continued support for as long as the community values its contributions. Performance indicators are important but are already typically found in proposals.

Action points

Full Notes

#19

Abstract

  • There are currently 3 spend proposals in the on-chain voting period: Guerrilla Marketing Collective, Awareness Committee, and BizDev Committee. Please cast your votes.
  • Secret Foundation are looking for people to lead dev committee calls, a tech evangelist, and someone overseeing the fellows, overseeing development, and working with Enigma.
  • Discussion around spending proposal pay-rates sparked a discussion around a ‘Secret Network Charter’ which could start by setting community supported pay-rates as decided by a signalling proposal. The governance committee can then include in the regular updates to validators whether a proposal follows the suggested guidelines put in such a charter.

Action Points

Full Notes

1 Like
#20

Abstract

  • The APIs have been under increased stress the last few days due to the influx of new users and the launch of SIENNA, queries seem to be the main culpret. Three main public APIs are available right now: DataHub, Community API, and CoS API. All have been overloaded over the last 3 orso days. The IBC upgrade should improve the amount of queries per second by approximately 4 (currently around 100 contract-queries per second per node). New hardware will take 2 or more months to arrive so if we want to expand the community API capacity we should consider this as soon as possible.
  • Discussions regarding spend proposal pay-rates seem to agree it should be based on the price at submission and increased by 20%. If the actual result (in USD) is >10% lower a second proposal is put on-chain for the difference. Upper limits should be formulated and all above details validated in the upcoming Validator Survey and a resulting Signalling Proposal.
  • SF is in talks and looking to take steps in providing additional support roles. They see the need and want to plug any holes. Enigma is also open to increasing support. SF is looking into different time zones to increase global coverage.

Action Points:

Full Notes:

#21

Personally the average from the day before doesnt make sense to me. Lets say yesterday the average price was 50% lower or higher than today. Doesn’t make sense to use. Having the 20% buffer for volatility is the buffer. We could just use the price at market when the proposal is submitted.

2 Likes
#22

I agree. Consensus was price of the moment you go to chain

1 Like
#23

Will add it to the notes

#24

Abstract Additional Meeting (15/10)

  • The discretionary budget consists of community funds to be spent to further the committee and the community. It’s risky if you don’t immediately switch to USD for USD costs. These calls should be at the discretion of the proposer / lead, but should be explainable to the public and be transparent.
  • One hard to define issue is where does the committee stop? What is in-scope and what is out of scope? If we limit it to just what is in the proposal or charter it becomes too restrictive. Make the decisions in the moment that you feel are necessary but explain those expenses if asked for. It should be explainable to the public and be transparent.
  • People with different backgrounds might value contributions differently, but all contributions are valuable as long as they help the community. Putting this into guidelines for a ‘Secret Network Charter’ with suggested pay-rates is very hard, but we should get input form the entire community to take steps forward with this.

Full Notes:

1 Like
#25

Abstract

  • A new infrastructure proposal (‘the Spartan proposal’) is on the forums to increase the number of nodes of the community API. This proposal is centered around physical hardware.
  • Ownership of public good hardware should be further discussed if it continues to increase in the future.
  • Consensus seems to have formed that all spend proposals should be based on USD values at the time of submission with a 20% increase for potential swings. If at the end of the vote the value of the received SCRT is 10% lower than the original ask (in USD), a second spend proposal would immediately be ‘approved’ for the difference.
  • Discretionary budgets spending / conversion to stable coins really depend on the specific proposal, for some spends it will be important to immediately convert to a stable coin, for others (paid in SCRT) it might not be necessary. In the end it is the responsibility of the proposer(s). Mismanagement should be taken into consideration for future proposals.

Action Points:

Full Notes:

1 Like
#26

Abstract

  • Technical contributors that are already relayers for IBC have seen the discussion and it seems like they are going to take care of (most of) it.
  • People would support a bigger ask from Figment, to make sure our infrastructure is up to par.
  • The Spartan Proposal (#55) is a very close vote, make sure to cast your votes!
  • We should talk to each other, not at each other, and not use loaded language. There’s always going to be some infighting in decentralized systems, but we have to work with each other. We all agree that our goals are the same, namely what is best for the network.

Action Points

Full Notes:

2 Likes
#27

Abstract

  • IBC upgrade scheduled for November 10th, signalling proposal is currently on chain.
  • The Spartan Proposal (#55) was rejected by a very slim margin (no: 50.26%; yes: 49.51%). This was the closest vote in SCRT governance history, 82 million SCRT cast their votes either directly or indirectly, a 25% increase from the previous record.
  • It’s up to the individuals engaging in the toxic behaviour on Telegram to invoke the positive change we all want to see. One-sided ‘Infographics’ do not support constructive and respectful discussions.
  • Consensus seems to be that ‘receipts & payments’ requests should be limited to committee discretionary budgets. This could be included in the ‘Secret Network Charter’. Previous Awareness Committee proposals can act as examples.

Action Points

Full Notes

Notice

Next week’s meeting (2021/11/10) will likely be dropped due to the IBC upgrade. Due to DST ending, upcoming meetings will move to 16h00 UTC.

#28

Abstract

  • The proposal for initial incentives on SCRT pairs on Osmosis is currently live and should end tomorrow. The forum post on the SCRT forums is about external incentives. Once the initial proposal is passed, then we can put up a proposal for them matching the external incentives.
  • NGine, schultzie, and cryptocrew amongst others are going to run relayers. Priorities are osmosis, cosmos, sifchain, and terra. If you’re interested in running relayers, contact schultzie for an invite to the relayer telegram room.
  • Using a 10% volatility buffer would result in roughly 1 in 10 spend proposals that could go back to the chain (10% below original ask). Without a volatility buffer this would become roughly 1 in 4. Support for 10% seems strong, and will move to the forums for further feedback.

Action Points

Full Notes

#29

Abstract

  • The Secret Foundation Q3 Transparency Report will be presented December 8th during the governance call at 16h00 UTC on Discord. They will try to get the report out before the meeting, but no guarantees can be made.
  • Now that IBC is live we returned to the topic of gas fees, gas usage has improved with the update but our fees are still higher than other Tendermint chains. Data will be accumulated during the next week to determine what the costs of running relayers are. Systematic solutions won’t be available in the next couple of months so reducing gas fees could mitigate this. If we decrease gas fees we should probably decrease it in steps and not reduce by x20 in one go. An additional aspect is allowing other ibc tokens to pay for gas fees, currently every validator can decide for themselves but perhaps this should be a chain parameter? This is a very delicate subject as it directly impacts tokenomics. It is possible to make the fees in other tokens more expensive than the scrt fees.

Action Points

Full Notes

#30

Abstract

  • Next week (Dec 8th, 16h00 UTC) the Secret Foundation Q3 Transparency Report will be presented during the weekly Governance call.
  • Large decrease in relayer fees. Partially due to the gas amount reduction, but also due to gas fees. There are a couple more external relayers, should stabilize us more over the next couple of days.
  • The education committee will go to the chain next week, this time also focussing a little more on the process behind dev educational material. Creation of learning paths for potential new secret network developers, making routes (front / back end / NFTs / other contracts) to guide them in their interests.

Action Points

Full Notes

#31

Abstract

  • The Secret Foundation Q3 Transparency Report was presented by Tor, SF strives to send out the TR 6 to 8 weeks after the end of quarter. This time it was delayed a bit due to events and projects for which they apologize.
  • Fiat (USD) expenses are now also included in the TR. All spends will be higher in Q4 and in Q1 2022 they will be higher again, SF is trying to grow operations as the chain grows, both for the full-time team as well as contractors.
  • SF is looking to expand in-person events in major cities with large blockchain communities across the world, similar to the Secret Beers Chicago event. Anyone in the secret agent program that has proven they have alignment and knowledge of the network will be qualified to lead up one of these local meetings.
  • Probably before the end of year the SF and SCRT Labs roadmaps will reveal the strategic vision for 2022, with its own really cool branding.

Action Points

Full Notes