I think there are mostly three things that we should all collectively address and explore to solve your point 2/ @Link .
This, it goes without saying, could be explored in addition to sustaining and grow 0x adoption (which is your point 1/). I think this is the single, most effective, vector to accrue value for this ecosystem, especially including ZRX tokenholders. In practice, any proposal should, in my opinion, always measured against its effects on 0x adoption. 0x operates in a 2 sided-market, so it’s fundamental that the two sides find value: best prices (end users) and profitable business opportunities (market makers, applications serving users).
Having said so, here are some thoughts around how to tackle 2/ from @Link list:
- bring the governance of the protocol on an onchain-binding system. This should make all ZRX token holders even more empowered and accountable to grow and curate the protocol. 0x Labs will de facto (in the unstoppable code) be ‘just another team’ contributing to 0x protocol. Quoting from the long-term governance roadmap posted in 2020:
In 2021 we’re planning to work on maximizing the onchain portion of the governance system, reducing trust critical points in the deployment of upgrades. While this is subject to the completion of other roadmap items, we can start testing such a system for lower stakes changes that don’t require the deployment of new smart contracts.
- Always in the same governance roadmap, we touched on the concept of Community Treasury. I think the time is ripe to test something out. We’ve kicked off a conversation here and I think there is room to test something meaningful, especially observing what is happening in other communities (Compound, Uniswap being the most similar imo).
- expand the protocol fee model from Open Orderbook only to…something else. As a reminder, right now protocol fees are charged only on what is ~5% of total 0x volume. So, staking rewards are naturally limited, even if this epoch should be pretty sweet (over 100ETH collected so far!).
We are where we are for good reasons: simply put, we haven’t found a convincing (both on paper AND implementable in smart contracts) model to capture value in the network without undermining 0x adoption of the remaining 95% volume. And what an adoption now! We’re in a very good spot. In 2021 we should go back to the drawing board and try to figure out how to solve the puzzle. The good news is that we’ve done this before
But I want to send the message that, especially given what I mentioned in the first bullet, I expect this to be a community effort. I think we at 0x Labs we can do a better job at being more upfront saying “we don’t know yet” instead of waiting to have all the answers before presenting something exciting that ‘works’. I will personally try to do it more often (like now). I hope this is appreciated and triggers a positive contribution on the other side!