Delegate Proposal - Takeshi / Tané

Governance Delegates
1

Identity and background

What is the delegate’s identity and background?

Tané is formed with a group of crypto-native product builders, based in Tokyo, Dubai, and New York. We are backed by SoftBank, and Japanese tech giants like DeNA, GREE, and MIXI, and closely work with big Japanese enterprises and have great relationships with Japanese crypto communities.

Our investment arm has invested in and supported various innovative projects that contribute to the decentralized society enabled by the new blockchain technology. Our network operation entity started directly contributing to the ecosystem by being node operators for the core infrastructures and protocols that make Web3 move forward and contributors to the DAOs that manage them. We cover several chains such as Ethereum, Lido (DVT), EigenLayer, Avalanche, Secret Network, etc. Each of them requires different operations and we’ve been performative for them. We have even experienced TEE-based node operations with Secret Network.

We also have been active as delegates in Arbitrum, Optimism, Uniswap, Lido and more. In Optimism Collective, we are currently a Grants Council member.

Takeshi, Head of Network Operations, who worked for Twitter as a senior software engineer and for SmartNews, a Japanese unicorn startup that provides a news aggregation mobile app with 30M MAU as a product manager, is the main representative of the account.

Has the delegate historically contributed to the Jito Network?

Though we haven’t contributed directly, we have been following Jito’s growth and Solana’s expansion, and supporting it in several ways.
Particularly, we invested in deBridge, which is a bridge protocol that brings a huge inflow to Solana ecosystem, believing in what they are doing as well as the future of Solana.

Has the delegate historically been involved in protocol governance?

Yes. We have been active as delegates in Arbitrum, Optimism, Uniswap, Lido, and more. In Optimism Collective, we are currently a Grants Council member.

One is about the growth of the protocol’s ecosystem. We have experienced several grant programs, including the one with the Optimism Grants Council, where we learned a lot about the current best practices and their challenges.

Is the delegate committed to helping the Jito Network and Solana succeed? Explain.

Yes.

We are deeply committed to helping the Jito Network and Solana succeed. Solana offers unique value propositions that set it apart from Ethereum, and it has consistently grown through the solid execution and strength of its vibrant ecosystem.

Within this ecosystem, Jito is a crucial player. The success of a PoS network hinges on having a robust LST ecosystem, including not only liquid staking itself but also DeFi protocols that can effectively utilize these assets. Thus, we are so committed to contributing to its success and, by extension, to the continued growth and success of Solana as a whole.

Additionally, we have the expertise required for protocol governance. We have worked extensively with liquid staking and validator optimization in similar protocols within the Ethereum ecosystem, Lido, in the aspect of both node operation and governance. This experience will allow us to provide meaningful input to Jito’s governance and technical progression.

Candidate views

How should JitoSOL validator delegation balance performance (yield) versus decentralization goals?

JitoSOL validator delegation should prioritize a decentralization-first approach without compromising performance. This is where validators are selected based on decentralization criteria from among those who meet certain performance thresholds.

Maintaining high yield levels remains crucial at this stage to strengthen utility and solidify the (re)staking ecosystem’s foundation. However, efforts towards improving decentralization are necessary for making the whole ecosystem robust and resilient, given Solana’s relatively low Nakamoto coefficient of 19.

Specifically, we should focus on geographical and jurisdictional diversity first, to make Jito and Solana resilient against the dynamism of real-world politics. We need more validators in Asia, South America, and Africa. We can start from there, before improving other aspects such as client diversity.

What should be the priorities for JTO liquidity mining and DAO token grants?

Both liquidity mining and grants are crucial for growing the JitoSOL-centered (re)staking ecosystem. However, their priorities should be determined based on their distinct characteristics: Liquidity mining provides direct incentives for liquidity, but grants program offers more flexibility for indirect approaches like functional development.

Liquidity Mining:

The priority should be enhancing existing utility, such as improving DEX liquidity depth. Long-term, sustainable growth is desirable, and reward structures should be designed to encourage this. Emissions needs to be highly targeted to venues offering the greatest benefits to Jito.

Grants:

Grants should be allocated to initiatives that create new utilities for JitoSOL or indirectly improve its value proposition such as building new dapps using JitoSOL. Sometimes we should consider giving grants proactively before the development, even with smaller amounts.

We should also provide grants in enhancing the decentralization of Jito and Solana. As stated above, decentralization cannot be compromised too much to keep Jito running and growing, and grants can also play a role in strengthening decentralization. For instance, if selecting new node operators leads to a trade-off between performance and decentralization, we need to address the root cause: the limited availability of high-performance options. If this issue stems from client software limitations, we could consider offering grants to support client development.

What are your goals for the DAO as a delegate?

Our goal as a delegate for the DAO is to balance the expansion of the JitoSOL-centered (re)staking ecosystem with improving decentralization.

Growing Jito is crucial at this stage, with the challenge being to expand the overall market. To achieve this, our top priority is supporting the development of new applications using JitoSOL and improving utility through enhanced liquidity with liquidity mining or any relevant strategy. Strengthening this ecosystem is significant not only for Jito but also for Solana’s growth and security. We believe this could be achieved with relevant incentive programs including grants.

However, we recognize that further compromising decentralization could undermine the project’s sustainability and the ecosystem’s resilience.

Therefore, we emphasize balancing focus on key issues while improving decentralization. Realizing this balanced approach is our ultimate goal.

Additional information

Contact Information

Disclosures

Our investment arm, as a separate entity, has invested in a number of crypto startups but as of the time of writing this profile, we don’t believe there are clear COIs in terms of contributing to Jito DAO. We are also active in the other DAOs, Arbitrum, Optimism (S6 Grants Council member), Uniswap, Lido and more in the future.

You can check out our voting activities related to Jito from our internal tracker.

Solana delegation address

2r2VxfHDWTXdofckq7NbKGgHL7NaEYpHJv8zBXw4fmUa

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