This week we spoke with Owen Shen and Philip Silva of WhalerDAO about building more equitable financial protocols in our DeFi Space.
The Manifesto
In the summer of 2020, Zefram Lou wrote and shared a manifeso with several communities, asking for feedback. The manifesto called for more equitable DeFi protocols, and while I suggest everyone read the full version, here is a snippet of what he wrote:
“We the Whalers will transform DeFi protocols into benefactors of good.
We will achieve this by collaborating with existing DeFi governance systems, formally and informally so as to guide them towards a more democratic solution.
We will achieve this by sharing our Windfall Clause with existing DeFi protocols, showcasing the benefits of committing a portion of their income and tokens to causes of good, once they reach a certain size.
We will achieve this by educating the masses about the dangers of plutocratic DeFi, as well as the wonderful things that we can accomplish using democratic DeFi.
We will achieve this by building tools we can’t even imagine today, tools that will facilitate the creation of a global collaborative network.
We will save the world, or at least try our darndest!”
Owen Shen and Philip Silva, who I was lucky enough to speak with this week, were among the first to read this manifesto and respond with curiosity. Both began attending brainstorming sessions on Discord, which Philip described as “a lot of like-minded people that wanted to do something cool and altruistic in the space…everybody was already deeply in the cryptosphere in general (they were already members of DAOs) and wanted to do some good in the world instead of just personally enrich themselves.”
The Growth of “Tree”
Today WhalerDAO is small but concentrated with knowledge and experience – it consists of about ten people from groups like BrightID, RaidGuild, HedgeforHumanity, Peeps Democracy, Status, and others. Their first project is a protocol called “Tree” which aims to fund charities and public goods through the use of yield farming. It is inspired by Yam and seeks to creatively use the rebase to directly allocate funds to a charity pool, creating a virtuous cycle. The thought is that as degenerate finance is happening, there ought to be personal incentives that have charitable outcomes built into the protocol so that, as Philip put it, “doing good is not an afterthought – its part of the design.”
Fun fact: This is the first project to offer yield farming for PAN! (They also have a great tree elf, featured below)
Looking Forward
Owen and Philip shared that right now the members of WhalerDAO are in their final work sprint to finish upgrades to the Tree protocol. However, once it is finished they look forward to welcoming new projects, individuals, and communities that share in their desire to “make systems that are fundamentally fair for absolutely everybody.”
If you are interested in learning more about WhalerDAO, they suggest reading the manifesto and then chatting with them on Discord!
We are so grateful to have WhalerDAO as part of the Panvala League community, and appreciate you reading this week’s issue of the Panvala Observer. Please remember to share and subscribe below!