Identity and Background
What is the delegate’s identity and background?
Gauntlet is a DeFi native quantitative research firm. Our optimization solutions drive rapid and sustainable growth for DeFi’s top protocols, DAOs, and ecosystems through research, reports, products, and bespoke engagements. Gauntlet has the longest track record in DeFi risk management, with a managed peak at $40B+ for DeFi protocols such as Aave and Compound.
Has the delegate historically contributed to the Jito Network?
While Gauntlet has not directly contributed to Jito Network, several employees have independently participated as stakers to the network.
Has the delegate historically been involved in protocol governance?
Gauntlet has a long track record of participating in protocol governance, dating back to the instantiation of the Compound DAO in 2020. In addition to Compound, we were among the earliest recognized delegates in Uniswap. We remain active as a delegate in both communities today, and additionally in Arbitrum and Optimism. Past delegations include MakerDAO and dYdX, among others, and Gauntlet’s governance team has held positions on Aave’s and dYdX’s grants councils.
Is the delegate committed to helping the Jito Network and Solana succeed? Explain.
As part of Gauntet’s mission to drive adoption and understanding in the financial systems of the future, we are committed to the success of Jito Network and the broader Solana ecosystem. At its core, our work involves leveraging advanced risk management and optimization models to improve protocol performance and UX across DeFi. This aligns well with Jito’s objectives to enhance Solana’s scalability and overall network efficiency. As a delegate, we seek to leverage our expertise to enhance both Jito Network and Solana as a whole.
Candidate views
How should JitoSOL validator delegation balance performance (yield) versus decentralization goals?
Liquid staking tokens function best when they allow users to cheaply enter and exit the asset, regardless of position size. To achieve this, LSTs need to provide sufficient yield to allow market makers and other actors to efficiently make the cost of entry and exit cheap throughout DeFi. At the same time, LSTs need to avoid compromising a protocol’s decentralization by adding an extra layer of governance that can compromise censorship resistance. As a delegate, we view this as an important trade-off that has to be balanced by thorough data analysis and careful monitoring of protocol performance and risks. Given our position as risk managers and incentive distributors, we aim to bring that same lens to our votes as a delegate.
What should be the priorities for JTO liquidity mining and DAO token grants?
If approached correctly, liquidity mining and token grants can be a powerful growth lever. Prior to instantiating these programs at scale, it’s imperative to understand:
- Is the current grant and incentive strategy optimal to meet the stated objective function(s)? How should Jito Network measure the success or failure of any incentive program or grant disbursement?
- Is the current grant and incentive strategy efficient (ROI)? Could grants and incentives produce greater outcomes if spent differently or elsewhere?
- How should current and future grant and incentive spend work?
- Determining the optimal budgets, parameters, and monitoring schema.
We believe in developing quantitative frameworks to analyze the past, present, and future incentives and disbursed grants so the DAO can rationalize expenses and measure their impact on Jito’s growth.
What are your goals for the DAO as a delegate?
Gauntlet’s delegate guidelines are informed by our core values and prior experience analyzing both protocols and blockchain networks.
We’ve seen competition and innovation in the staking/MEV space ramp up dramatically. In this landscape, many protocols have failed to keep up with market changes by not investing heavily in forward-looking development.
Ongoing issuance is a powerful mechanism to incentive development. We believe that Jito should invest resources into ecosystem growth, R&D, auditing, and security analysis. We see the following examples of spending as crucial to the continued competitiveness of Jito Network:
- Incentives and incentive optimization
- Research, development, and security
- Ecosystem growth
- Market risk
- Supporting novel use cases
Overall, we believe the coming complexity should be embraced. Jito Network will continue to grow in complexity as it launches new features that improve network efficiency and UX. Ensuring governance adequately budgets for these initiatives to ensure Jito Network is the safest the highest performing protocol on Solana is crucial for future success.