Conversation

Replying to

7) If you want to keep it, though, whitelisting is reasonable: it cuts off the stupidest cases while keeping a lot of the value.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

8) But a key thing here to remember: _this is supposed to be DeFi_!!! And in DeFi, you don't enact arbitrary retroactive rules. In fact in pure DeFi you _can't_ enact retroactive rules, and are really limited even in forward-looking ones.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

9) DeFi is all about creating permissionless systems that aren't at the mercy of people's whims. That's part of what makes DeFi so hard to do well: if you decide you want to change something, often you can't, or are restricted in how. Permissionlessness is a double edged sword.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

10) So I think that, really, making any on the fly modifications here is dangerous for a DeFi project, but especially retroactive ones. And if you do, it's important to follow the governance you set out--or else that loses its importance.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

11) So how did this play out? Well, over on the discord, people debated. discord.com/channels/63846 It was messy.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

12) There were a number of really bad things about the process: A) Voting was done on discord, not by BAL tokens. So that undermines the governance of BAL and makes it seem more like a generic person-driven decision making system to modify the project.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

13) B) There was significant momentum for retroactively eliminating the BAL distributions. It's hard to know how to define DeFi, but "a system where peple can't arbitrarily change rules to take stuff you already have" is a pretty good definition.

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

14) C) There was never any vote, nor was there discussion of who should have been informed or voting (if a vote even was the right way to do it!) D) Discussion was really toxic for a while

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

15) On the other hand, there were a bunch of good things: A) The project leaders consistently advocated for reasonable paths (enable a whitelist, don't make it retrospective) B) Leaders acted quickly and were responsive to the community

SBF

@SBF_FTX

Jun 24, 2020

16) C) In the end, the conclusion was reasonable: twitter.com/BalancerLabs/s D) Whitelisting will be enacted, which I think is good for the project E) Eventually discussion became productive, civil, and understanding

Quote Tweet

Balancer

@Balancer

Jun 24, 2020

According to community consensus reached over at our Discord: The current week will be divided in 2 parts for mining distribution, separated by block 10331138. Before: everything as expected. After: a whitelist of eligible tokens will be implemented until the end of the week.

Show this thread

SBF

@SBF_FTX

17) In the end, I guess my takeaways are: A) DeFi is hard!!! If you don't do things exactly right the first time it's really hard to enact changes without betraying the spirit of DeFi. B) It's important to know what your plan will be when disputes arise

11:03 PM · Jun 24, 2020Twitter Web App

Replying to

and

Who's going to shill

to Sam, which has all the proprieties he mentioned? Shit cant be rolled back

Replying to

and

I love this thread and these concerns will be disregarded by the wider body of stakeholders I bet, but seeing the sheer amount of $COMP proposals coming in makes me fearful that the current governance model coming in can affect serious ramifications on economics is fearful.

Replying to

and

As you referenced, these policy changes are worrisome and sets a bad precident. Nobody expects consensus to be perfect, but imperfect, but these changes you’ve highlighted is dangerous for “DeFi” with potentially billions locked in. I love the ethos of DeFi but is this a facade?

Replying to

and

You are too kind. I have a feeling you are trying to hold your tongue - the process was shit tbh and the way this decision was taken was cefi and thats that

Replying to

and

To me Defi is useless. Shuffling tokens around proves nothing. Financialization for financialization sake is a negative feedback loop. It also contributes to unnecessary speculation. Just bc it can be done doesn’t mean it will contribute to anything economically.