Authored by Milamber on 21 Mar-24 with review from the Treasury Council
Proposal: Cross-Chain Treasury Safe Migration Proposal - Google Docs
Summary
We propose to repurpose two existing Treasury Council operational multisig wallets into new token and NFT treasury wallets which can be utilised cross-chain, facilitating more efficient operational activities on Layer 2 Networks and reducing the risk of lost assets through transferring to incorrect addresses.
We propose the existing Treasury and Paragons Council ownership of both treasuries be maintained, with the addition of the CFO to the NFT Treasury as a representative for the asset management team.
In future the DAO may wish to transfer ownership of the NFT treasury wallet entirely to the Treasury Council or the asset management team once Parallel TCG bonds and the DAO’s Player Management System are live, given the volume of transactions expected to be taking place on a daily basis.
Motivation
The DAO has two primary treasury wallets, 0xc977CBadD359aE06b236D9581e37fd5A03E54b84 (the token treasury) and 0x12267aefd8Bb461817Df348CE16c933e76C1Aa0D (the NFT treasury), which are managed by the Treasury Council and Paragons Council respectively. The DAO also utilises several other operational wallets used by the Treasury Council, and various operational teams within the DAO.
All of these are Safe multisig wallets which exist solely on Ethereum mainnet and were set up at different times with different initial signers, most of which have changed over time as the DAO has grown. This poses a problem because the industry is moving gradually to a cross-chain and Layer 2 future with Ethereum mainnet acting as a settlement layer only due to high gas fees.
Additionally and of direct importance to the DAO is the fact that its primary partner and the project for which it owns most ecosystem assets and has built its lending model around is gradually moving all its TCG operations over to Base, with a significant portion of assets already there. Furthermore the DAO itself intends to migrate its staking contract and token over to Base and will need to provide liquidity.
And finally as part of its remit to manage the treasury and deliver a low-risk return on assets the Treasury Council has been exploring various yield-generating options, more and more of which exist on Layer 2 networks where gas is significantly cheaper and therefore less costly to manage. All in all the DAO needs to be (and already is) operating on Layer 2 networks, having purchased significant amounts of Parallel TCG assets to date and receiving and sending PRIME rewards though Base using CC wallets.
In theory the DAO could deploy replicas of its existing wallets onto other chains one by one (this is a relatively simple process which can be done through contract interaction or using pre-built UIs). These need creating because the contracts don’t exist on L2s in the same way as normal wallets do meaning through the high volume movement of funds around various chains there is a risk that funds could be sent to a treasury address that only exists on mainnet and these would then be effectively “lost”.
The problem however is that to deploy a replica you need to recreate the initial Safe deployment transaction, which includes the initial signing wallets, wallets the DAO no longer has access to on its treasury wallets, meaning these signers would not be able to be changed once deployed and therefore assets sent there could not be accessed. As such the only option is to deploy new Layer 2 multisigs, and it makes sense that these would have the same address as a mainnet treasury to reduce risk.
Separately, asset management operational activities are picking up significantly however the current signers on the NFT treasury do not have an active day to day involvement in these processes, which creates operational inefficiencies when trying to move assets around in first having to submit a request and then arrange all signers which can take over 24h at times. As an Executive Council and Treasury Council member, CFO and primary asset manager it would make sense for the CFO to be added to the list of signers to directly manage requests and reduce the burden on the Paragons Council.
Specification
Identify the two existing mainnet Safe multisigs to be used
The DAO has several Safes which it no longer uses and can be repurposed avoiding new mainnet addresses with associated gas costs. 0x2FEaBE4c7983e3fA0B8bBd856Fe19F145c78255f was formerly used for team incentives, and 0x7237Ff9D5b9016eCa7fc76ee869436560Ddb6EfA for team reimbursements for example, both of which are now done from the main token treasury wallet.
Deploy replica Safes on Base, Arbitrum and Optimism
Activities are expected to be limited to the above chains, with Base for most day to day activities and the others for potential treasury activities. Tools exist to facilitate doing this easily, for example Smol Dapp.
Adjust signers on intended NFT Treasury wallet to Paragons Council + CFO
The existing Safes all have the Treasury Council as signers, which will need to be amended to the above.
Move any higher-risk assets to new wallets followed by simpler/cheaper assets
There are some assets such as Parallel TCG cards in CC wallets on Base as they have nowhere to be sent at present. These should be the first assets to be moved, followed by the mainnet Token Treasury.
Gradually move NFT Treasury assets over time
There are additional complications with moving NFT assets from the NFT Treasury, including most assets being cached on mainnet. To uncache, send and recache would be expensive in terms of gas. Additionally Alpha cards are on mainnet only but expected to be able to be bridged to Base eventually. It therefore makes sense to move most mainnet assets once said bridge is available, meaning the NFT Treasury will exist as a split treasury for a time, with a primarily mainnet treasury and primarily Base one.
Update relevant processes on third party apps to reflect new wallets
Several third party apps used by the DAO for operational processes such as payroll use the current token and NFT treasuries. These will need porting over to the new identified wallets. Additionally any .eth addresses will need to be transferred over to the new wallets (e.g. paragonsdao.eth).
Update relevant documentation and ensure third parties are using these addresses
In order to ensure no issues in terms of treasury value on any trackers (e.g. Zerion) we will need to ensure that any such applications have already captured these addresses at some point, if not update. Any nomenclature on internal DAO documentation will need updating for new identification.
Rationale
We are moving to a cross-chain and Layer 2 future where most of our activities will be
The industry is moving gradually to a cross-chain and Layer 2 future and Parallel TCG is gradually moving its TCG operations to Base (with other games also moving to L2s due to mainnet gas). The DAO also intends to gradually move its TCG operations over to Base to match Parallel as well as its staking contract and token. The Treasury Council also requires more freedom to seek out opportunities away from mainnet, and so in short it is unavoidable that the DAO needs to exist cross-chain.
There is a risk in having different addresses on different chains
Existing treasury wallets are unable to be deployed on Layer 2s and still be able to be managed. As such the only option is to deploy new Layer 2 multisigs, however the risk here is that with different addresses for different chains assets can more easily be sent to the wrong one and be unrecoverable. This is more pertinent with asset management activity picking up ahead of Parallel bonds going live.
The current asset management process has inefficiencies which will grow as we scale
Current signers on the NFT treasury do not have active day to day involvement in asset management and so additional time is added in arranging requests, with a higher risk of errors (i.e. sending items to wrong places or not sending all assets) which is compounded with scale and also adds unnecessary costs in having to redo transactions. It is cheaper and more operationally efficient to involve someone directly involved in the day to day asset management processes directing any transaction requests.
Timeline
Deployment within one week of this proposal, subject to Treasury Council approval at its next meeting. Transfer of assets gradually over time, not able to be finalised until Parallel deploy a TCG Alpha bridge.
Costs
Minor costs relating to the gas fees for redeployment of the multisigs on Layer 2s. Gas costs over time relating to the transfer of mainnet assets to the new wallet addresses.