February 2024 Update
Key Insights
- Reserve Auctions were implemented to help reward voters and increase participation in governance. Following a Snapshot from Solidity Labs, the Automated Liquidity Incentive proposals now include excess reserves to auction for WELL, which is then allocated to the Safety Module Ecosystem Reserve.
- There were more Snapshot proposals than normal. In February, five proposals were submitted for a Snapshot signal vote.
- There was a focus on expanding partnerships and collaborations. A portion of the governance proposals this month were aimed at third-party partnerships and integrations, including proposals from API3 and Block Analitica.
- New Core Market Proposals are being proposed and voted on. An ongoing trend, the discussion of adding new Core Markets this month included USDe, VVV, and other tokens.
Primer
The monthly governance recap serves as a compendium of key governance updates for the preceding month. This update covers Moonwell governance activities for February 2024.
February had fewer onchain proposals than recent months, but per-proposal voter turnout remained as expected.
Key Metrics
- Four onchain proposals
- Five Snapshot proposal
- 24 forum posts
The number of active voters for onchain proposals averaged 341, with a minimum of 281 and a maximum of 414.
This month, there were five Snapshot signal votes.
At 310 voters, the USDS proposal in January received the highest number of votes for a Moonwell Snapshot proposal.
Success Insights:
- Onchain: The onchain proposals in February had a 100% success rate.
- Offchain: The Snapshot proposals in February had a 80% success rate.
Browse all of the proposals here.
Other Governance Metrics
| Metric | Data |
|---|---|
| Voters | 5,439 (+5.14%) |
| Top-5 Wallets Voting Power | 56% (+4.00%) |
| Top-100 Wallets Voting Power | 83% (-1.00%) |
| Top-200 Wallets Voting Power | 85% (No change) |
| Delegate Quorum Gauge* | 3 (No change) |
| Nakamoto Coefficient** | 5 (No change) |
| Early Voters | 45% (No change) |
| Mid-Proposal Voters | 23% (No change) |
| Late Voters | 17% (No change) |
| End-of-Proposal Voters | 16% (No change) |
| Top-1000 Delegates Active | 15.56% (-1.25%) |
| Top-1000 Delegates Inactive*** | 22.84% (+1.32%) |
| Top-1000 Delegates Ghost**** | 61.60% (-0.08%) |
*Delegate Quorum Gauge: The number of delegates required to reach quorum.
**Nakamoto Coefficient: The number of delegates required to reach 50% of the total voting power.
***A delegate is considered inactive if they have not voted on any of the last 3 proposals but have voted on at least 1 proposal in the past.
****A delegate is considered a ghost if they have never voted on any proposal.
Proposal Participation
Following the passing of MIP-X05, which added a voting requirement to claim rewards, we’ve seen an interesting trend in intra-month voting behavior. Voters typically turn out in higher numbers at the start of the month and gradually taper off over the following weeks. This month, the total number of onchain votes cast was 1365. The first proposal received 30.33% of the total votes cast and the final proposal of the month received 21.10%.
Main Governance Initiatives in February
Expanding partnerships and collaborations
At the beginning of the month, Block Analitica created a forum proposal to launch a Moonwell Flagship USDC Vault on Optimism. This comes after the successful launch of the Moonwell Flagship and Frontier Vaults on Base; Block Analitica presented it as an opportunity to deepen the network liquidity for the stablecoin on OP mainnet and maintain Moonwell’s status as a leading contributor to the Morpho ecosystem. In mid-February, the team created a forum post to list WETH/USDC and wstETH/USDC markets on the Moonwell Flagship USDC vault on OP Mainnet.
In late January, dav3 from API3 created a forum post to aimed at potentially switching Moonwell’s GLMR Market to using API3’s OEV-enabled data feed. He was a previous guest on the Great OEV Debate governance call and he also appeared on the latest governance call to discuss this proposal. It moved to a Snapshot vote in mid-February, which was successful.
New Market Proposals
Early in February, ri5hitripathi created a forum proposal which sought to create a Core Market for AVAIL on Base. AVAIL is the utility token of Avail Network, a modular data availability layer. Another successful Snapshot proposal was passed early in the month to add Ethena’s USDe to Moonwell on Base and Optimism. Following last month’s onchain proposal, a VIRTUALS Core Market went live on Base in early February.
Later in the month, first-time poster @Venice created a forum post outlining a proposal to add a Core Market for Venice.ai’s VVV token to Moonwell on Base. Venice offers private and uncensored access to open-source artificial intelligence. It went up for a Snapshot vote on February 13th and successfully passed. Shortly after, luthfixbt created a Snapshot proposal to add an IDRX Core Market to Moonwell on Base, a stablecoin that offers conversions for the Indonesian Rupiah. The community voted against integrating the asset.
Increasing Governance Participation & Rewarding Voters
At the end of January, Luke created a forum proposal that acted as a follow-up to October’s “Increasing Governance Participation” proposal. He first brought up the protocol’s status as a top revenue generator in DeFi before proposing that excess revenue could be used to reward Safety Module stakers. It would be auctioned off for WELL and used to bolster the Safety Module Ecosystem Reserve. Early in February, Gauntlet signaled support for the proposal and the team recommended minimum reserves for each asset. On February 4th, Solidity Labs submitted a Snapshot proposal, which was successful. The next automated liquidity incentive proposal, MIP-X13, was the first to report on reserves to auction.
Continued Rollout of an Onchain OEV Solution
Following the OEV debate in December, the community voted to move forward with Solidity Labs’ onchain solution. MIP-O12 was then executed on January 19th, marking the beginning of a phased rollout which affected a single market. This month, MIP-X14 implemented Phase 1 of a two-phase expansion of the OEV solution across eligible Moonwell markets on Base and Optimism mainnet.
Risk, Rewards Speeds, and Vaults
Gauntlet published a forum post to adjust market risk parameters for Moonwell’s Base, Optimism, and Moonbeam deployments. The onchain proposal was created on February 24th to adjust parameters for the next month. Throughout the month, Gauntlet also published weekly updates to give an overview of asset utilization, liquidations, protocol growth, and more. Gauntlet used their role as Cap Guardian to adjust Borrow/Supply caps for assets including WELL on Base. February’s monthly reward speed proposal, MIP-X13, successfully passed an onchain vote on February 15th, aiming to rebalance liquidity incentives and maintain healthy levels of rewards on the different deployments. Block Analitica and B.Protocol posted their monthly recap for Moonwell’s Flagship Vaults in early February. The summary notes increased borrowing demand for ETH and the resultant increase in APY on the Flagship ETH Vault. They also noted the increase in USDC demand after the Coinbase integration on January 16th.
Additional Developments
- Record-High Weekly Revenue: During the week of February 7th, Moonwell generated its highest weekly revenue at $262K across Base, Optimism, and Moonbeam.
- Moonwell Virtual Accounts: Moonwell announced Virtual Accounts in mid-February, a partnership with Bridge and the Optimism Foundation to bring a simple yet powerful way for people worldwide to get paid, save, and grow their wealth.
- Moonwell card USDC withdrawals: Late in the month, USDC withdrawals were enabled for the Moonwell card.
- ETH Denver: Moonwell contributor Luke joined Optimism’s Superchain Space to discuss new ways to capture value for sustainable revenue.
Delegate Digest
Super Delegates
| Delegate | Delegation Pitch | Delegation Page | Delegated Amount | Proposals Created | Completed their role’s minimum requirements this month? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0xMims | Link | Link | 1M WELL | 7 | Yes |
| Coolhorsegirl | Link | Link | 15K WELL | 19 | Yes |
Mid-Tier Delegates
| Delegate | Delegation Pitch | Delegation Page | Delegated Amount | Proposals Created | Completed their role’s minimum requirements this month? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kimchiblock | Link | Link | 311K WELL | 0 | Yes |
| PGov | Link | Link | 1K WELL | 1 | Yes |
Junior Delegates
| Delegate | Delegation Pitch | Delegation Page | Delegated Amount | Proposals Created | Completed their role’s minimum requirements this month? |
|---|
Delegate Voting Rate
| Delegate | Number of Proposals Voted On | This Month’s Voting Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 0xMims | 7/9 | 77.78% |
| Coolhorsegirl | 6/9 | 66.67% |
| Kimchiblock | 2/9 | 22.22% |
| PGov | 8/9 | 88.89% |
You can read more about the requirements to join each delegate tier and each tier’s contribution minimums here.
Delegate Highlights
- 0xMims created a Snapshot proposal to add Venice.ai’s VVV token to a Core Market on Base. Late in the month, he created a forum proposal to add a MORPHO Core Market to Moonwell on Base.
- PGov continues to post regular rationales for their votes in their delegation thread.
Community Overview
| Social Channel | Data |
|---|---|
| Main X account | 51.8K Followers (+2.78%) |
| Governance X account | 1000 Followers (+3.63%) |
| Discord | 10,450 Members (+2.94%) |
| Announcements Telegram | 691 Members (-3.04%) |
| Chat Telegram | 7,814 Members (-1.19%) |
Community Trends
Last month, we shared that onchain voter turnout was more evenly distributed than December’s, but the average number of votes per proposal had remained comparable. December’s was 280, January’s was 255, and this month was 341.
At five, this month has tied November for the most amount of Snapshot proposals in a single month. While no proposal reached the record-setting number of votes on the USDS Snapshot from last month, voter turnout reached a maximum of 158 in February.
Social channels continue to grow at a rate that we’ve come to expect: the main X account, the governance X account, and Discord are growing moderately, while the Telegram channels saw a slight decrease in membership.
Closing Summary
February 2024 had a higher average onchain voter turnout than previous months despite there being fewer proposals. Contributors and various third parties are continuing to implement technical improvements and add new Core Markets.
Look for the next Monthly Governance Call on X on the last Thursday of each month. The next call will be on March 27th at 17:00 UTC.