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Ungovernable Podcast Ep.12 – Cole Schendl
Recorded: April 2, 2025 Duration: 1:03:41Space Recording
Short Summary
404DAO emerges as a new project focused on governance, while Uniswap is expanding its ecosystem with Uniswap Unleashed, reflecting innovations and growth. The crypto space faces challenges with regulatory compliance, as highlighted by the FTX implosion and ongoing discussions about the fee switch. Partnerships and events, such as those with Sui and Alpha Growth, indicate strategic collaborations, while the need for structured blockchain education and governance programs points to emerging trends.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. join the ungovernables no filters filters, no apologies. This season, we're cracking open Uniswap governance.
Welcome to a new episode of the Ungovernable Podcast.
Hey, hey, hey. Welcome, everybody, to a new episode of the Ungovernable Podcast.
Today we've got Cole Schendel, co-founder of 404DAO.
Today, we've got Cole Schendel, co-founder of 404DAO.
Cole leads governance across Uniswap, Optimism, Arbitrum,
and somehow still finds time to grow the crypto scene in Atlanta.
We are Joe and Austin of Alpha Growth,
your premier DeFi operations and growth firm.
Cole, thank you for being here.
What else should everybody know about you?
Hey, guys. Thanks for having me.
I appreciate you guys having me on.
I've been following the past couple episodes and excited to join today.
Outside of that, I mean, you guys, great intro.
Appreciate it.
But, yeah, covering 404's governance activities over the past two years now.
Been running 404 since 2022.
Yeah, I guess for you guys that don't know about 404 DAO,
we started in Atlanta out of Blockchain Georgia Tech.
A couple of students along with myself,
you know, tried to create a place
where students come together and talk about digital assets
and emerging blockchain technology.
That all just kind of snowballed into
how can we continue to serve the local area?
And 404DAO is just a natural progression of the work that we did at Blockchain Georgia Tech.
So, yeah, we've past four years been just supporting the Southeast U.S. through events, hackathons, technical workshops, ran our own accelerator for a summer.
And then, you know, we've gotten pretty deep into governance over the last two years. So that's the main gist of it, but sure, we'll get into some more good topics on
this spot. Yeah, for sure. So I'm kind of curious, what got you into the crypto space,
and specifically governance? Yeah. So I I mean, I, during college, I worked for a boutique wealth management firm,
actually late, like late high school. So kind of always had that like technical or
not technical, financial side to me and came at it more from like a, you know, I should be taking
more risk with, you know, my assets. So it was more of the financial angle than the technical
angle, but I was able to see a lot of the downfalls of some of the traditional finance workings and how slow things moved at a young age.
So I was like, once I was exposed to what crypto was able to do and the ability to move money instantaneously for a lot lower fees than you'd see in traditional finance, it started to click there.
lot lower fees than you'd see in traditional finance uh it started to click there the one of
the early games actually you know a lot of people don't play games in crypto these days but um it was
that run it was like you know oh yes horse racing i was like oh this is i got lucky i basically got a
a horse that was good at won its first race. And I was like, immediately hooked. I was like, okay, this is the dope kids my age are looking for. But yeah, that was a couple of different
things that kind of all clicked around the same time. I always had a little bit of an entrepreneurial
itch to myself. And so crypto was that perfect avenue, it's got the entrepreneurial side, it's got the financial side.
And it's that nice mesh of like, also like high risk, high reward. So it was just kind of a natural fit fell into it. For sure. Just a lot of opportunities in the space, right? Just being on
the edge of technology. I think where Zed Run, Rev was also going on, Polygon as well.
I remember that back in 2021.
Yeah, the good old days, 2021 bull market.
It's crazy.
It's been four years now.
I think looking back, it feels like time's flying.
It feels like it's been such a long time, but also feels like it was yesterday.
So maybe we'll get some of those vibes back in the next coming months with a new regulation coming out. So we'll see.
Yeah, I hope so. And I guess I'm kind of curious, like outside of crypto, what other activities
that you do? Because I feel like you do a lot. And so I feel like there's got to be
a way to keep the peace and touch some grass sometimes.
Yeah. Love to snowboard. It's a big hobby of mine.
Picked it up probably about six years ago.
Try to get out there, out west every season.
So do a good bit of that.
Picked up volleyball actually lately.
Recently sprained my ankle, so a little bit of recovery.
But that's all good.
Just, you know, I think it's weird.
You know, you come out of college and you're just so accustomed to being surrounded by young people and like their social scenes are just made for you and then you
you get out and it's like oh you don't have that structure anymore so it's like you then kind of have to come out of your shell and like you know find the local you know community stuff to do and
i guess with also running 404 doubt it was something that was like we kind of built that
audience and community so it was something that was like, we kind of built that audience and community.
So it was something that always just was there. But outside of that, definitely important to, you know, touch grass and get some sunlight.
You bring up a really solid point, which I think is it's almost taboo to where people don't really
talk about it. But after college, it's so much more difficult to meet people that have similar mindsets and values outside of
there's religious organizations you can join but typically it's like you go to the bars you just
go you go out and get a beer and you hope to meet people um i don't think that's necessarily the
healthiest way to to find it but i think what you guys are doing is really awesome it really
connects the the digital and the physical i think that's of all the things i do love about working in this industry one of the toughest
aspects is that you're you're working on your laptop all day and you don't really actually get to
to laugh with human beings and do you know play on the whiteboards with everybody in the office
giving people coffee and awesome is actually um austin has actually been experimenting a little bit with the in-person stuff.
Austin, if you want to speak on that one second.
Yeah, I mean, Cole, you inspired me.
I know you're giving me some advice during GovSwap.
I really appreciate it.
So I had the first hosted event, I think it was about two or three weeks ago. And then now at the end of this month,
we're going to be hosting another event sponsored by Sui and then Alpha
Growth as well.
So we had about 55 people show up and hoping to expand past that.
That's awesome.
I mean, the Austin community, it's such a, it's a great community.
So I feel like, you know, you've got ATX staff,
you've got some existing players, but I feel like they're always so welcoming to to embrace any new you know crypto
ecosystem community events so that's awesome yeah grass has been great oh thank you i appreciate it
i think the hardest thing is just getting going right i mean it's like you have the idea you want
to like build that community and it's like at first it's a little intimidating but then you kind
of get the first you know few out of a little intimidating but then you kind of get the
first you know few out of the way and then it just kind of starts to roll so that that's how i envision
like the first event going is like me and like five other people at one table so i was like okay
if i have that i'll count that as a success so yeah a couple beers a couple pizzas you'll be all right you know yeah you should cost much for
the first couple yeah yeah well i feel like now they have luma and everything else to make the
just the lift so much easier marketing to to get out in front of people so much easier
definitely i think they're like the connected to integrated events where it's like naturally
just has the uh the onboarding flow for future events loom was
great about that and they just added the like token nft gate i believe it was like the one thing
they were missing past couple years and now they've added that so it was a good ad for them
yeah like connect your wallet and i'm like how why do i need to connect my wallet
getting rugged over here that's the future man that the future of everything is
just connect your wallet you're not even thinking about it okay cool back to back to 404 dow day one
do you remember the aha moment when you realized oh this isn't just a student club but this is
there's something here and we can make real world impact with with our governance power
yeah it's tough to say if there was like a certain moment in time that it all clicked i think you know it's funny a majority of four or four thousand events have happened during the bear market um
funny story is like we've through our first conference in 2022 we'd put like four or five months into you
know making it a successful event you know we had a decent amount of people show up we ran a hackathon
in conjunction with it and the next day ftx imploded so it was like the weekend of our
conference uh you know we got through it all and then monday morning ftx goes under and like just you know the whole industry basically blows
up um but that's besides the point that was just you know classic crypto uh you know ecosystem
imploding but i'd say like you know when we were throwing like blockchain georgia tech
like weekly events we had pretty good traction and i think
part of it yes was due to like market at the time was was doing very well people were curious um
but honestly there's been a couple instances where young people specifically freshmen have
you know gotten exposed to the technology through something that we've hosted. And now they've like
continued on their journey and are working in the industry full time now. And I think that's
really powerful when you see someone grow through the ranks of they came in maybe freshman year,
didn't really know what crypto was. They, you know, participated in the hackathon, did your,
They participated in the hackathon, did your intro to blockchain class, and then they've
then gotten their own motivation and their own inspiration from either something that
we taught or something they've learned on their own to go on and to keep contributing
to the ecosystem.
I think that's probably the most fulfilling thing you can um just from like having a community of people that
kind of build and feed off of each other um so it's hard to say like one example here and there
but like there's been a couple of those where it's just like you know those those are the feel
good moments with anything you know so i want to go back to something you just brushed on which was
the intro to blockchain class and one thing i i find really fun about this industry is that
there is no textbook yet there's no like this is defy this is the roadmap that you're supposed to
do when you launch a token or when you run a defy protocol even when uh i don't know about you guys
but when i was in school there was no there's no intro to blockchain class there's zero zilch and i remember i think my like
cryptographer professor i think he like knew what it was but he didn't we didn't learn anything
about this idea of a of a blockchain or let alone defy do you know uh do you know if at georgia tech
in particular if they've expanded into you can study it as a major is it a concentration are
there more than just one
is there more than just a one-on-one class yeah so when we were there yeah it's funny i we started
the club i was a senior so it's like kind of a random thing to do when you're seeing you know
most people have like secured their check consulting job they're checked out and like
you know we were trying to start a club from scratch you know on our way out which
just was you know not normal to see um there was one class for business students but it was a
master's level and we were able to open it up to undergrads so a couple of my friends and myself we
took the class but it was also fintech it was fintech and blockchain so it's like half of it
we were learning about like plaid um and some of these new like fintech players and the other half was like
touching into like the exchanges uh you know some of the blockchains and then very at the
very end it was d5 um that's on the business side on the technical side uh we do have a very well
known cryptographer um his name's Ladd.
I'm forgetting his last name.
But he taught an intro to blockchain and cryptography class.
But he's more on, like, the deep cryptography side.
You really need someone that can, like, marry the crypto side with the cryptography
and, like, be that, like, professor that owns the, like, general crypto scene.
And we didn't really have any professors at the time that owned that.
And those were the only two main classes that we had, which was unfortunate just because Georgia
Tech is very highly technical school and they push a lot of students into SWE roles. So when
we were thinking about it at the club, it was like, like oh this is a very obvious opportunity to like find
students thinking about crypto and to give them the right resources right because all these students
are are capable and able it's just like can we introduce them to the right topics see if there's
any passion there and then give them enough access and education to let them go you know do what they
need to do um so no we didn't really have a intro to blockchain
class to answer your question so we ended up making like a a small like 10 week course as a
part of our club to kind of get people acclimated whether it was like setting up a wallet doing a
couple swaps um and that still kind of goes on today it's a little bit more technical in nature
now with how the club does it but but yeah where where can i where can i take this course i've been meaning to set up a wallet
i can send you the uh the slides but we might have it on the blockchain georgia tech website i don't
know if that's it's still up there but yeah we tried to make it pretty accessible for people
um that was always a decent onboarding opportunity um But I think, you know, blockchain clubs are in a tough spot right now.
Between all the different ways that kids are getting pulled for AI and this and that,
it's, you know, I really commend the folks that take the time to
to try to run blockchain clubs because I know how hard it is.
But it's so important for our ecosystem.
If you think about pipeline development
and making sure that we have, you know, new talent coming into the ecosystem, making sure that,
you know, young people are getting exposed to opportunities in the space.
And Cole, what advice would you give to like somebody starting a blockchain club
in a different city? I would say find a champion on campus you need someone either a
professor or staff member to one you need to find one professor and one other student that's
passionate as passionate as you are about it um because that's something i don't think you can do
alone uh between the amount of groundwork you have to do getting into classrooms to tell
students about what you're doing or actually like you know if you have to do the onboarding
and teaching side of things.
So having a professor specifically that can champion you and promote what you're trying
to do is nine day difference and we've seen that across the board at a lot of different schools.
Like UT Austin actually is a great example where they had a great professor that was
championing, you know, what they were trying to do.
And the amount that can happen when you have someone internal to the university pushing
things forward, it's night and day difference for what you can
get done and what you can execute on as a school club because there's a lot of just limiting
factors right i mean it's like 20 year old kids coming to dean's asking for for money to do this
you know crypto thing immediate red flags for them right and they go they have no incentive to take
that on so if you have someone that does get it, then it's...
Yeah, it's just leave with you.
Yeah.
And there's nobody else to continue it on.
But if you have that champion professor, they're going to be making sure that the club lives on.
Yeah, it's tough with turnover.
I mean, we've seen it at Georgia Tech.
Especially with how volatile the market is, attention is constantly pretty
fickle with students.
So, yeah, making sure you have systems in place and a professor that is tenured is something
that is structured like that helps you kind of keep that going.
Have you been approached by other folks about IK?
We made it a focus during the conference, Web3ATL, to try to attract as many students, especially in the southeast.
Because when we were throwing the conferences, like you think about the core areas, specifically in the United States that are that are primaries for talent rates.
The northeast is covered.
You've got plenty of conferences up there.
Texas is pretty covered just because Austin's kind of a hub.
And the West coast is definitely covered between, you know,
San Fran and the events out there as well as East Denver. Right.
So our like main goal was try to like pull in from the surrounding
universities, think Vanderbilt uh virginia tech
nc state some of the hbcus and provide like an outlet to like that crypto event in the southeast
um and so like we've had discussions around like what would you recommend but even then it's really
difficult you know you have to have a group of students that are very passionate about it
and they have to go you know sometimes
being the crypto guy on campus isn't the most fun um but you know anyone that is you know doing the
legwork to try to promote adoption and education of the space is it's very admirable yeah you got
to get them while they're young right that's the military's motto that's why they that's why they
recruit kids when they're younger because they're like,
yeah, sure, let's do it. No, definitely. I think that's the key thing. You come into school as a
freshman. This is the case with Georgia Tech. You have pipelines, you have pathways that are
already formed for you. They've been ingrained over years and years of curriculum. It's like,
okay, you have your consulting pathway pathway you have your investment banking pathway you have your sweet pathway right and so like for anyone that is running a blockchain
club the biggest thing you can do is think about that like pathway development and how you can
basically meet the needs of students right where it's like they need internships, they need education, they need networking.
And so designing your programming and your products, I guess, around those needs is critical for the success of the club. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that. I haven't actually seen really any emphasis on internships in this space i think that that we're we're severely
lacking in that department i think that would be i think that's low-hanging fruit because you
this this space thrives on high agency young hungry motivated people and i think the best
place to find that is university students so there's a there's a great great intersection of supply and demand that
has not really found um it's super tough i mean like you think about it like you're 100 right we
don't have a ton of internships and like that is the natural thing for kids to plug into and like
you think about how structured some of these consulting internships or or corporate internships
are where it's like
span they're so thought out they're spent they spent a span over like you know two years sometimes
with these co-ops um and we don't have that same structure and obviously it's very difficult with
the amount of hiring freezes and layoffs that we already go through it's a little bit you know i
think as the space
assurers, we'll get to a better space with that, but definitely something that we should
start to think about a little bit more in the space. And I think one of the, it's actually
relevant to Uniswap. I think the delegation programs that A16Z has done are a great example
of that kind of pipeline development where it's like you have blockchain clubs like, you know, Berkeley, Penn, a bunch of others, you know, that get exposure
into governance through these programs that wouldn't otherwise exist, you know, without them.
So that's, I think, a good example of one. And we need more of those kind of programs.
So that's, I think, a good example of one.
And we need more of those kind of programs.
I completely agree.
You emphasized process earlier.
And I think this space lacks a lot of process.
With DAOs in general, especially like Uniswap, who are one of the most mature DAOs, do you
think we're ever going to see formalized constitutions and governance structures that
are just like status quo off the shelf?
You mean like just kind of like straightforward constitutional documents and like operating
like this is kind of the focus of the DAO and this is what it's going to do or you think
you guys clarify a little more?
Yeah, I mean, fairly open ended question. But I always look at
DAOs like countries, right? They're, they're essentially just
governments for instead of a instead of land there and people
they're governing smart contracts, and token holders.
And yeah, so in terms of like a constitution, when you just
approach the Uni swap DAO, you can read on the forum, some different things and some like, oh, here's how you should put a proposal
And that's awesome.
And that's very helpful.
But there isn't a constitution.
There aren't First Amendment and Second Amendment token holder rights.
There's nothing like that where it's very, this is law and we're going to follow this.
And this is how the standard operating procedure of
a specific DAO governance structure is set up. Yeah. I think they're generally constitutions
are good documents to have for DAOs just because they kind of align stakeholders on a general set
of principles that we'd like to follow. And there are some social contracts around like code of
conduct and things like that. So I think it's good to have those general structures i do have seen at least that a lot of those when
they need to be enforced are not really ever like strictly enforced so it's like more of like a
social construct i do think it's interesting especially with uniswap right it was like imagine
if we had a constitution for uniswap dao over the past couple years and then we introduced unichain
right it probably wouldn't you you probably need two different right so it's like i think in this
evolving world where we're going to get a little bit more regulatory clarity you'll have maybe like
mandates more clearly defined mandates for different working groups and different like
operating units within daos that's where i think maybe those kind of constitutional bylaw pieces will come into play more. But more, I think,
still having a general constitution with a social understanding of how folks should be operating
within each DAO is good to have. So you've been a pretty big proponent, I think, correct me if I'm
wrong, but I think you've been fairly in support of working groups and delegate participation in general.
Is that, first of all, is that fair to say that you've been generally in support of those things?
Yeah, I think so.
Broadly speaking, I think we support the establishment of working groups on different initiatives and delegate, you know,
incentives and things like that.
Is there a gold standard in your mind of working group structure, DAO structure that you've seen
in all the different DAOs or maybe outside of the ones that you work with where you say this is
the golden child example of how a DAO should be structured in its most efficient form?
golden child example of how a DAO should be structured in its most efficient form?
I don't think so because each DAO has its own set of problems that it has to deal with and so
different structures will work for different DAOs. The case in being like you have something like an
Arbitrum or an Optimism, right, where they're managing an entire chain, an entire ecosystem. It's not really Apple's to Apple's is like a DeFi protocol. Obviously, you know,
now we're starting to see these things start to launch certain chains. And that's going to actually,
I feel like take a little bit of rethinking and retooling from maybe some of the foundation sides
that are having to rethink their strategy going from strictly a DeFi protocol to
now, we have to build out this entire ecosystem of protocols and, and really cultivate an environment
where different apps are playing into each other and fostering a more collaborative environment
rather than it's like one North star metric of like, for Uniswap, it's like, you know, volume and TBL, right?
I definitely want to pull that thread at some point today
in terms of how that's all looking in your mind.
But we can come back to that when we maybe talk a little bit
about Unichain, Univ4 and Uniswap Unleashed.
But just to stay on the delegate and the working group conversation,
with the regulatory environment, it's shifting. Obviously, it seems like it's shifting every 15
minutes now. But do you see the role of delegates changing as the regulatory environment ebbs and flows in favor or against on-chain activities?
Definitely. I think in a good way. I think, to be honest, delegates are probably in for a wake-up
call in the next couple of months. I think a lot of the, this may be controversial, maybe not.
Bring it on.
I think we've had a little bit of a
proxy system going on for the last couple years you know a lot of larger investors haven't really
known where they can get involved in governance a lot of labs teams you know don't even engage with
you know the dows and and such so i think with regulatory clarity it would be much clearer you
know guidelines of like what is allowed what what you can do, how you can structure things. Obviously still some experimental items with
like DUNA and things like that, but we're getting to a place where teams have a green light or not
a red light, I guess per se, of like where they can start to get involved. I mean, I think we saw
like a compound, their labs team might
have mentioned something yesterday about setting up a foundation or something along those lines. So
whether it's deeper involvement from the dev companies, or, you know, foundations having more
of a stance in governance, I think that's all beneficial, really, I think having uh more a more like respective um
like the current ecosystem when you don't have all the stakeholders constantly contributing and
actually voting is not really representative what the actual ecosystem looks like right like
if we can get to a place where there's all the different
stakeholders are always involved in each discussion or vote or the major ones, and they don't have to
be concerned about the regulatory overhang of those decisions. We get to a better, more
representative governance system and one that should be more aligned with the token holders, right?
Because they all have a vested interest to see it succeed.
Yeah.
So do you see as like mostly we're seeing more and more like actual token
holders participating in governance?
Like what in your mind, what might that end state look like?
It feels like we're kind of going through that transitionary period right now.
Yeah, I think it's hard to say just because we don't know what the regulation looks like yet so it's hard to i guess foreshadow
how everything will start to fit together but i do think there has been a little bit of a
i won't say delegates are spoiled but like in a way like delegates have gotten a
misrepresented version of what
governance will actually be.
And so you've gotten accustomed to,
to a certain system that was actually really just not as representative of
what it actually was to begin with.
And that was just due to like the regulatory environment and uncertainty.
So we were actually just moving in a more natural direction towards
actual representation and how things work. Yeah. I guess to go to the delegate incentive
program, do you feel like any behavior has changed since that program kicked off?
I think so. I mean, looking at some of the other programs, like it's very evident that, you know, whatever the incentive is, like delegates will naturally kind of form to what those responsibilities are.
So I think that's we're in the I think Arbitrum's program has been running for at least a year.
Uniswap's, I forget the total length, but those are the two, I think, major ones right now.
Optimism does a retroactive
based off of a couple of different metrics.
But I think those will continue to change.
And it's nice because there are different experiments
running at the same time.
So there's been some good learnings from some of those.
I mean, at the end of the day,
Uniswap's main focus was quorum.
I think having to secure governance and protect against governance attack is the number one concern there.
So it's tough to say what delegate incentives will look like
in the next six to 12 months.
I think the current system for Uniswap is working decently well.
I don't have any huge criticisms at the moment.
Do you think that paid governance in general is sustainable long-term?
Depends.
In what ways is it unsustainable?
I think there's definitely a little bit of bloat with delegate incentives, depending
on the sizing.
I think having more direct budgets that would inform delegate incentives is a better approach
than just earmarking some arbitrary number for the amount of delegates and another also just like
arbitrary number for like how much they get paid. I think having required, like you need to think
about what we need to like focus on and like securing the protocol is number one with any
of these things, right? So like voting, you obviously want to like encourage collaboration between delegates make sure
people are actually discussing these things at length and they're reviewing them at length and
not just voting to vote um so informed on that note what do you think about i completely agree
with you that it's good the delegates discuss things do you think that most of those discussions should be happening in public in like public or semi-public all delegate chats or should or i mean
in the reality it's all going to happen in dms but do you agree with that approach is that just the
reality in the forums or that shouldn't happen before i think it should happen the forums mainly i think that's good practice obviously and it actually happens a
lot of times in in telegram chats or on calls um i think at least giving any delegate and stakeholder
the space to share their opinion is really important, right?
Like you cannot have a closed off governance process for a decentralized open protocol.
So I think it's important to at least have some sort of open governance forum.
Yeah, that's fair.
I want to pivot into more of like the Uniswap side of things. I think one thing that a lot of people are excited about is Uniswap Unleashed, especially with the incentives coming out hopefully soon. I guess what excites you, Cole, the most about Uniswap Unleashed?
the most about Uniswap Unleashed?
I think there's a lot to be excited about.
I think, you know, one, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there.
I mean, there's obviously the, like, V4 Unichain,
some of the incentives that are moving over there,
as well as, like, obviously the funding for the foundation.
I think, quick note on that,
I think the foundation's done a really good job over the last couple of years of navigating a very complex environment and communicating to a lot of relevant stakeholders the best they can to make sure everyone's on the same page and understands the circumstances that we're operating under.
I think the Unichain stuff's super exciting.
I know there's the UVN, not everything's been released with how the validator will work,
but there is a mechanism there to return value to the DAO and Unichain stakeholders,
which at the current moment, that's the first iteration of value return.
So that's always great to see.
I think it's gonna be cool to see how the...
There's a core contributors funding amount within the funding proposal.
So seeing how we can enable like different development teams to build and expand on top of V4 and hooks.
Curious to see how that kind of develops. but i think there's a lot of promise there this has been a couple different like research firms
that have you know started contributing in the forums and i think are good candidates for for
the core contributor role so having more just dev teams contributing uh will be exciting i think in
terms of like grant strategy the foundation's done a great job
of having very cohesive strategy
that like plugs into their core objectives,
specifically in their developer pipeline,
developer funnel,
thinking about the infinite hackathon,
some of the stuff with Atrium Academy.
Personally know a couple of hook developers
that went through that
and they said it was probably one of the best dev workshop slash hackathon academies that they've ever done. Uniswap, Unichain, and the foundation is taking with respect to trying to increase developer
mindshare rather than maximizing the short-term return. I think it's huge that we're thinking
more of long-term on how we can continue to try to win the race of bringing everyone under the
Uniswap umbrella rather than pinching pennies for, you know,
a couple of bucks over the next like 12 months.
Yeah. There's definitely a shift, right.
From the mentality of going from like a Dex to now you're more of like an
infrastructure product, kind of like, okay,
you're developing the app store for apps, right?
So you got to make sure your apps are successful.
That way you have people wanting to get the iPhone to then wanting to download your apps.
That's an interesting balance. I wonder, I mean, it'll be interesting to see how,
you know, see if there'll be any other like DEXs that don't tap into V4 that deploy on Unichain.
It'd be interesting to see, but like, there's always that dilemma right with like apple and their app store
and how you know they squeeze out different folks or amazon and how they launch the most successful
products under their own like amazon basics um there's that balance of like what is allowed
what's not and it'll be curious i think to see how different competitors in Uniswap's view will try to, you know, see if they actually go to Unichain and try to, you know, acquire users there or if they'll just steer clear. amazon would i think in in the spirit of of decentralization and and just i guess yeah very
very dev friendly it's to your point about the the hook builders um comments about that that was
just fantastic to hear that really is and i think yeah i like the iphone analogy sure austin i think
there's a lot that can be um can be drawn to what's going
on here and and i agree with that definitely like can't see uniswap being more like a predatory
you know web 2 versus web 3 right yeah no no check what's your biggest obviously there's a
lot of good things and it's always nice to to pat on backs and be excited about stuff.
What's your biggest worry?
With respect to Unichain or Uniswap in general?
V4, Unichain, Uniswap Unleashed.
What are some of your biggest concerns?
The delegate in me says making sure we can navigate the regulatory environment with navigate the regulatory environment with kind of the complexities of legal
entity fee switch and ensuring that there is like a path for value accrual.
And there obviously is just still uncertainty there.
I'd say with more respect to
Uniswap and the success long-term is like finding a deeper alignment between
all of the entities. You know, I think generally most DAOs have some sort of communication with
the labs team, the foundation, everyone is kind of organized in some way to like
push things forward. And I think hopefully over the next couple of months
and years, we have deep alignment
where we're all working towards the same goal.
And there isn't that divisiveness
of like people thinking that one entity is,
you know, benefiting at the expense of another.
But no, I'm not super worried about that,
but I think that's more of like a general concern most
people have and I think Dune is gonna definitely help with probably a big piece of that regulatory
chunk I think it's I think Uniswap as a as a thought leader the position that it's in I think
would be great for it to come out and try this thing and make it happen and
make an example of what to do how to do it and hopefully it can it can be the gold standard for
definitely the uh the shell yeah i think like i mean at least from what i'm hearing i'm not in
discussions in dc you know but at least what i'm seeing from a couple folks in our network and
just you know seeing what they're doing on the front lines. I mean,
it just seems like it is night and day difference. Um, just the tone shift over
the last, you know, even six,
six months from what was people were having to deal with to now it's really
exciting. And it's funny because, you know,
this was all we were asking for for years. Right. And like,
it's under two K people are like depressed on the timeline
like i'm like people i don't know this space lacks patience sometimes and i understand it there's a
lot of financial incentives online but i think just we all get comfy and you know we've been
here for a couple years already we might as well stay around for a couple more. And stop checking the charts, people. Just ignore it.
Don't look at it.
It's not going to be getting better anytime soon.
I guess on
the topic of cool incentives,
what's your
core philosophy around
incentives? Is it
to spin to grow
or are we really trying to end game spend to earn?
I think you still should think about
a lot of these thousands high growth startups.
I mean, at the end of the day,
like crypto incentives are to incentivize usage.
Now I think there should be a progressive path on incentives where it can be very highly targeted
for meeting certain, you know, objectives, right?
It's like have very narrow focused incentives
for what you want to do rather than like broad.
Everyone can eat, everyone gets incentives because in
those environments you tend to then have at least that more of the ecosystem level starts to be
uh negatively affecting each other where it's like your incentives are actually competing with
your own incentives um so being very hyper focused on where where your incentives are going to and making sure that you're not creating a conflicting incentive.
And something I think we saw a little bit with Arbitrum, I know a lot of people like to hate on Arbitrum,
but they've done a lot of good work with the DAO and how decentralized it was and how decentralized it is.
as it is and they've learned a lot of lessons over time but one of the things with like the
And they've learned a lot of lessons over time.
long-term incentive pilot program and step was like before the arbitremere drop there was all
these protocols working together you had a strong culture of how can we help each other and then when
you introduce this like mass incentive program it ends up pitting everyone against each other right
and it's like oh they got incentives i didn't get incentives and it like flipped i think a little bit of the culture there where it was like
we all were working together because we're all arbitramed then it was like instead of this
instead of that and so i think if you can keep a very narrow focus on setting those objectives top
down um you kind of promote a more direct outcome rather than keeping it open to have all these kind of
unfortunate situations happen and kind of deter the entire environment ecosystem.
Is there anything that we could change about DeFi liquidity incentives to where it would be
a little bit more of a sustainable flywheel rather than just like
you said mercenary capital and potentially cannibalizing your partners i always liked uh
i know t norm he always had his idea on like direct to contract incentives he did a little
bit of that where it's like you don't pick protocols you pick like pools that you want
to focus on and there i
think they're doing that a little bit with um the upcoming incentives but that kind of goes back to
that very narrow focus where it's like we want to you know support stablecoin adoption on on
unichain it's like then we should be juicing only you know certain stablecoin pools or or yeah
certain stable cone pools or, or yeah, pools and just have that narrow focus so that you
don't have so many things being incentivized at the same time.
People don't know what to go for.
So having more direct incentives with intended outputs, I think would sure up the define
incentive problem.
Gotcha.
So less like analysis paralysis and more, Hey,
we're going to double down on these efforts rather than just trying to throw
spaghetti at the wall.
Yeah. I mean, that's tough though. Cause it's like different stages of product
lifestyle. You're going to, you're going to need to do different things.
So it's like, it's easy to say now, like, you know,
swap very established. It's like, they can basically pick and choose,
but like early on, obviously it makes sense to highly incentivize your protocol for usage but the last thing we want for a
long-standing protocol like uniswap is for the incentives to be the the product right when it's
not yeah and i guess like going into like new deployments of uniswap, how do you kind of evaluate in your mind, like what's a good
new chain to go on to and if they deserve incentives or like co-incentives in that instance?
Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of the existing programs for the DAO were around like getting
a first mover advantage on some newly launched chains. So, well, I think that's, that's powerful to have that first mover advantage.
Uniswap benefits from having that brand advantage.
So I'd say for Uniswap, since it does have that brand advantage, you'd have to
look at like unique distribution opportunities.
I know we've kind of chatted about this a little bit, but finding new ways to meet users where they are,
and maybe they don't know they're using Uniswap.
Like I'm a big fan of Farcaster.
I would love to see more like,
they just changed from frames to mini apps,
but love to see more like mini apps that bake in like Uniswap.
Specifically for chains though, I think,
you know, obviously like base base plugged into the Farcaster ecosystem
I want to see
at least the minimum amount of TVL and usage
don't want it to be like
vaporware chain that's kind of just
surviving off of its
and maybe
more relevant than
v3 deployments moving forward
it would be more so which v4 hook
projects should qualify for incentives because we've we've already seen this cold start problem
where each v4 hook is essentially a standalone defi protocol that has this cold start liquidity
bootstrapping issue and so should every single v4 project that spits out anything be eligible for incentives?
Probably not. Right. So how do we, how can we qualify some of these teams?
That's fair. I think, you know, a lot of times it comes down to people. I mean, it's like,
why would you invest in a product? A lot of times it's, it's, uh, who are the developers?
Who's the team behind it? Right. And it it's like you think about hook developers in the same way that you're going to think about early stage
capital it's going to be people that can adapt to constantly changing environments that can take in
you roll the punches right you don't want someone that's going to quit after they
have kind of first are you are you insinuating that we should have a Uniswap v4 ecosystem fund that invests in the top hook projects?
I think that's a great idea.
I'd love to see something along those lines where the DAO is investing directly in the success of different hook developers.
I think that makes a lot of sense.
I know that's kind of controversial on how the DAO should be spending money if they should be.
It's not spending, it's investing.
Yeah, you have upside in that, right?
Trying to find the next unicorn on you, swap.
Definitely.
But no, I think there's something to say about attracting developer mindshare, right?
And making it more beneficial to deploy a hook versus your own you know amm and so like providing different
parts of the the developer pipeline the developer life cycle that makes it more attractive to bring
people into the uniswap ecosystem um are always something that we'll take into consideration have
always something that we'll take into consideration.
Yeah.
And to maybe touch on like the treasury spin too.
I know there's been a lot of discussions going around there.
What in your mind do you feel like should be done with the Uniswap treasury and how
it might be utilized?
What are some of those particular goals?
And what are some of those particular goals?
Shutting me up here.
Setting me up here.
You know, I don't have any like very strong opinions on the treasury, to be honest with you.
I think it's important for the DAO to have stability, you know, especially with such a volatile token.
Having some sort of, you know, coverage to fund a couple years of operations based on a sound budget makes a lot of
sense. But I don't think that should just turn into needlessly converting uni to dollars,
right? Just to do that. I haven't made up my mind on a stability stability fund i think you know you have some folks that would like to
see a nice fund of usdc come in to buy up and that would be you know similar to a a uh like a buyback
program right um but i think we've seen with like buyback programs and there's a good amount of
research on that that it doesn't make sense to just buy back needlessly just to buy back um i'd actually love to see
dows in general as well as just more teams implement like a structured approach where
it's like okay we're gonna buy back between like a certain range we're not gonna tell you when we're
not gonna get front run um and we're all so not just gonna like programmatically buy every day
like there's a reason that you know we've had a hundred and something years of
corporate equities create a structure where it's like they can issue and buy back at different
times and they announce it after the fact. So I think that's something that maybe leads into
another constant problem that Dow Space is like, since we are always operating in this public forum,
is like, since we are always operating this public forum,
you're kind of always, one, operating in a lag
just because it takes time to get things through.
But all that stuff does get front run too.
So I think maybe like empowering certain groups
of trusted individuals to be able to execute
on behalf of DAO that doesn't have,
it has the same reporting and transparency requirements.
But if it is doing something that is time sensitive, maybe they have a different reporting requirement so that they can execute to the best of their abilities.
Cole, do you think that within the UniSwap DAO, there should be a greater focus on serving the Uni token holders?
Definitely. I mean, I know that's part of the
the mission of conflict out right it needs to kind of think about the uni token holders um
so i think there's and what we're starting to see that with i think you know uni staker
is in the in the works um and once that kind of gets set up
with some of the other pressing legal things,
then there's more of a mechanism to return value.
And I think for,
I know this kind of gets lost
where it's like people want to always ensure
that there's some sort of value return, right?
To the DAO in some capacity,
whether it's a fee switch
or through investments in some capacity, right? But if you think in to the down some capacity whether it's a fee switch or or through investments in
some capacity right but if you think in like the long term of like where uniswap is in the like
larger battle of liquidity it's there's so much so much to go there's so much more liquidity to
bring on chain so it's like keep working on that outward network growth and then the uniswap token
will take care of itself if you can continue to
grow the pie. I think that's a fair take. Definitely. In terms of the fee switch,
do you have any sort of existing concerns about the fee switch, the plans of the fee switch,
anything from a regulatory perspective perspective from a functional financial perspective
or where's your head at with the fee switch
um you know there's been so many like legal discussions around it and a lot of considerations
around like how the fee should switch should operate and what is regulatory like approved and what's not and
how it should be wrapped and such. So I'd say right now I don't have a huge, I mean, I have an
opinion, but I don't have anything that's like maybe like crazy out there on like how it should
be set up. I think the big thing is I think delegates should lean into trusting a lot of
the guidance that they're getting from the foundation and a lot of the work that they've done um because they've been having a ton of those discussions and working to
make sure that there is a path forward uh for the fee switch for the dow in general to be more
enabled to to support its own destiny um and while it might not be moving at the speed everyone likes it is moving forward.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, it's moving at a U S legal speed.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So, I mean, that's the fun thing, right?
We built these systems to not conform to the legal systems, but here we are, you know,
working our way into them somehow, some way.
I got it.
I guess, Cole,
is there any other experiments that we should be
running as Uniswap?
I mean,
there's a thousand things you can do.
I know you guys have some good ideas
on that. I think
thinking about new ways to... I think we need more front ends, to be honest.
You know, it's like at the protocol level, we need to be thinking about unique distribution opportunities and more front ends beyond, you know, the few that we have.
They all do a great job and serve a certain purpose.
But we should be thinking about new innovative ways to reach
new users where they are. I think that's the key thing, right? Uniswap wallet was made
because you need that direct distribution for the wallet. And so I think different exchanges,
right? I think maybe there's an opportunity for, I know it wants to be the exchange layer,
but it's some sort of on-ramp, right?
And I think they're probably solving that a little bit
with Uniswap Wallet,
but just thinking about that full stack
and how we can, you know,
meet the user where they are is key.
What's your most contrarian view
that you hold about Uniswap,iswap governance uniswap ecosystem
v4 unichain i feel like i don't have a real contrarian opinion on any of those things to
be honest i know that's like probably the worst answer you guys uh were looking for but
i'm i feel like i fit more in the the basket of, I see what work has been going on and
I understand that there's a lot of complexity behind it. Maybe my contrarian view is
I think unit chain is going to be difficult. It's going to be really hard for us to bootstrap and
grow an
environment, an ecosystem that already has a token launch, right? If you think about most of these
chains, you know, the deploy and stuff, they get initial users because they don't have their token
yet. So it's going to be a really interesting case study of an ecosystem that has already launched a
token that already has an existing user base spread
across multiple chains that is now trying to aggregate its users to a new chain where it's
already launched a token so it'll be interesting to see but obviously there's going to be a lot of
of groundwork that's going to need to happen to make it successful yeah and you almost even have
yourself fighting against yourself right because like a win on base would not be a win on munichain
so now you're contradicting itself i don't know how i did that but it's pretty cool the balloons
yeah all right cool i guess i'm curious what's uh you guys do you have any alpha like do you have an
underrated project that you've been scoping out that you're interested in um i think the alpha
is for people to get more comfortable just casually acting on chain i think like you will
naturally come across more opportunities if you are just a casual on-chain enjoyer.
So vanilla.
Come on.
But no, I think I, to be honest with you, like the most alpha that I've gotten over the last year has been hanging out on VARcaster, to be honest with you.
Like small micro communities typically bear the most
fruit in my opinion is they kind of catch and grow.
So find little like niche areas of the internet to hang out in and the rest
will take care of itself.
That sucked for you guys.
You're looking for something.
All right.
Hey, this isn't for us.
This is for the listeners that have been crossing their fingers. You're going to drop some alpha for the world. All right. Hey, this isn't for us. This is for the listeners that have been crossing their fingers.
You're going to drop some alpha for the world. All right.
If you had total control, 41 million uni tokens are delegated to you right now.
What is the first thing you would do?
41 million delegated to us.
You are the captain now.
You are the captain now.
I would execute on the distribution pathways, to be honest with you.
I think finding new ways to acquire users is going to be the biggest thing,
especially ones that are not into crypto yet.
So it's designing programs that grow the pie for us
and continue to increase developer
mindshare developer adoption and therefore growth of the uni token top of the funnel
top of the funnel yeah beautiful well cole we we really appreciate you dude we'll uh we'll wrap
there um that that concludes another episode of the Ungovernable podcast.
Thanks for all your insights.
Seriously, cool.
Great time. Appreciate you guys having me.
For our listeners,
do not forget to subscribe. Spotify,
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We are Joe and Austin
from Alpha Growth. Thanks for joining
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This was the Ungovernable podcast by Alpha Growth.
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