I would say procurement is one of the largest DAO challenges. Handing back money requires an auditing structure to be done properly, I wouldn’t suggest that path as it requires a lot of operational overhead.
Right now it seems the vendor is both setting the strategic direction and providing the funding proposals, which doesn’t produce the best competitive marketplace for vendors.
Hoping we can work towards improving that with the new board, some form of RFP, and a bit of free market action with DAO service providers.
The TrueFi DAO could profit from engaging an auditing company to examine the development team’s expenditures. Audits would enhance transparency, accountability, and efficient resource use within the DAO.
It would ensure proper fund allocation, identifies financial risks, aids in governance decisions, builds community trust, and ensures compliance with best practices and regulations.
By identifying inefficiencies, preventing misallocations, and mitigating financial risks, audits could serve as a proactive measure that could ultimately save money for the protocol, making it a wise investment rather than an additional expense.
Just the presence of an auditing firm on the sidelines, ready to go, would be enough to keep development teams accountable. A vote may be held to determine whether or not funds would be allocated for an audit, should the DAO determine that one is necessary.
Overall, I feel development team audits would help maintain financial integrity and effective governance within the TrueFi protocol ecosystem by improving the effectiveness of communication and to better support informed board decision making by documenting existing and future practices.
Lets ask the question; Would @WallfacerLabs be open to an audit if one was requested of them by the DAO?
Would like to point out that Wallfacer is an external service provider and hence shouldn’t be audited as if it were some internal unit, unless there is the nature of the funding proposal and operational structure the DAO decides. I think generally we have seen that these structures do not work well in decentralized settings.
Rather, there just needs to be some reasonable structure that balances risk on both sides before funding to create some accountability and transparency to be measured at the end of each funding term.
How about a self audit and provide that audit to the DAO to provide “Trust” of where the funding was exactly spent. As you said "
So how does a DAO see inside a black box funding arrangement if an audit does not make sense.
Just a post on a forum saying this is what we spent and this is how we spent it… ?
This seems ludicrous to me!
Something needs to be implemented not only for Wallfacer but all future development funding work on Truefi’s Protocol.
This mostly concerns the quantity of work completed in comparison to the proposed and actual financing amounts. I have an unfounded suspicion—which may have nothing to do with logic—that Truefi funds are being utilised to establish Wallfacer Labs and its initiatives.
Again, to be clear! I have an unfounded suspicion
Wallfacer Labs team members and Archblock team members have collaborated on TrueFi for many years. So without a doubt, my suspicions will most likely just fade in the background and Wallfacer funding will just continue within a well said “black box funding arrangement” voted in by very large OG TRU holders.
Although I sincerely dislike sharing my opinion on this matter as i am heavily invested in TrueFi and have high hopes for the protocol, I think it must be expressed.
So how does a DAO see inside a black box funding arrangement if an audit does not make sense.
Prior Feedback
I actually prepared a sample 9 months ago of what a DAO would want to see in order to achieve minimal transparency, and provided the example in this post as feedback to the 2023 funding arrangement.
I would actually now break it into a Milestone/ Deliverable/ Cost Structure, where milestones have underlying deliverables and payment terms and are some portion of the fee is paid out contingent on deliverables. This helps to mitigate risk and ensure delivery, and is relatively standard in professional settings. This is an alternative to hourly reporting or auditing as you have suggested but will achieve similar results with less overhead (symmetric risk to both counter parties).
Again, the issue now is the absence of accountability with regards budget spend. There is no clear understanding of what will be delivered or ability to measure the performance of the arrangement, hence, this confusion leads to your (quite reasonable) anger. Yet, anger is not very productive in solving the issue.
Contributor Representations
Again, to be clear! I have an unfounded suspicion
I wouldn’t say your suspicion of Wallfacer using their time on other initiatives is unfounded. They are upfront and transparent they work on other projects and protocols some of which have adverse interests to TrueFi . The issue is that Wallfacer has not been clear regarding how much time they are committing in exchange for the compensation, and what will be delivered, or how they intend to reconcile or disclose their other commitments.
Perhaps in the next funding cycle, the DAO can begin discussion earlier in order to leave time to structure an engagement more appropriately.
In dealing with issues that seem to be neglected, I’m naturally blunt, assertive, and don’t mind approaching others with a hint of abruptness. But this is hardly an expression of “anger” on my part. However, there’s undoubtedly frustration.
It’s time for the team members who worked so hard on the TrueFi Protocol and are now running Wallfacer Labs to take responsibility for their actions as Wallfacer Labs and not simply as an internal group of individuals developing the Protocol.
I also fully know that Wallfacer Labs’ team members have spent years working alone as an internal team on TrueFi, and that TrueFi is “their baby.” I completely respect and appreciate their very challenging efforts. I know the difficulties in building a successful company, I have 3 along with multiple trusts.
However, those times were over as soon as Wallfacer Labs was established, the TrueFi Protocol become decentralised, and the DAO was implemented. Accountability must now be fully recorded (documented) in a fully transparent, manner; financial slide-through expenditures should not be permitted.
TBH, I feel a little awkward about bringing this up because something ought to have been done internally from the start with Wallfacer Labs, not now by a “outsider.”
"Perhaps in the next funding cycle, the DAO can begin discussion earlier in order to leave time to structure an engagement more appropriately."
Additionally, perhaps funding accountability should display transparent, itemised expenses for this current proposal at each stage of task completion
Hi @StrategoHoldings and @Sanctus - once again, while I do agree we can improve in these areas, I think one of the most useful things we could do to improve our process is to have more development teams involved and providing proposals. As you said, ‘free market action with DAO service providers’ is good for everyone!
Can you please provide an update on the current Wallfacer Lab team
We are a team of 5 TrueFi community members who have helped to build TrueFi and want to continue building TrueFi. Several of us have been here since TrueFi’s inception and all members have played key roles in the protocol’s early formation and growth.
Who we are:
Ryan Rodenbaugh (forum: @RyanRodenbaugh, twitter ): TrueFi community member and head of business development. Previously, Ryan was one of the earliest team members at TrustToken, where he played a key role in the ideation of TrueFi and establishing relationships with many of TrueFi’s partners (borrowers, lenders, other defi protocols, centralized exchanges).
Tyler Wallace (forum: @tylerw, twitter ): TrueFi community member and customer success lead. Previously, Tyler was product manager of TrueFi within TrustToken and helped launch tfUSDC/tfUSDT pools in summer 2021 and TrueFi Capital Markets in 2022. Tyler also builds analytics covering TrueFi on Dune.
Kaimi (forum: @kaimi , twitter ) TrueFi community member and product lead. While he prefers to stay pseudonymous, we’ve worked with him for nearly the past year. He’s deeply technical, and leads products for all of our existing and new initiatives. He previously worked at other leading DeFi protocols.
Bartek Rutkowski (forum: @barrutko, twitter , Github ): TrueFi community member and protocol architecture lead. Bartek has contributed to many of TrueFi’s engineering decisions since the very beginning days and has written or contributed to a large portion of existing TrueFi code.
Justyna Broniszewska (twitter , Github ): TrueFi community member and engineering lead. Justyna (an exceptional engineer in her own right) today manages all of our engineering teams and is the reason things ship on time. She is also very involved in the broader Ethereum community as a co-founder of ETH Warsaw.
