Announcing the Launch of Puffer Governance

We’re excited to announce the launch of Puffer's governance on Aragon. Together, we’ve developed a custom governance solution to launch alongside the PUFFER token, a meaningful step on their decentralization roadmap.

Puffer Finance is a leading innovator in Ethereum infrastructure, focusing on next-generation rollups supported by liquid restaking (LRT) and preconfirmation as an AVS. With products like Puffer UniFi and Puffer UniFi AVS on EigenLayer, Puffer is dedicated to enhancing Ethereum’s decentralization.

What Makes Puffer Governance Unique

Puffer’s governance roadmap focuses on Ethereum alignment and takes into account EIP breakthroughs with a goal of becoming completely decentralized. PUFFER holders don’t just receive staking rewards, but obtain voting rights that increase in power over time—ensuring long-term security and the sustainable evolution of the protocol.

veLocker

To support Puffer’s token launch, we built a new and custom vote escrow (ve) contract that encourages the Puffer community to stake their tokens to earn rewards and increase their voting power over time. This helps incentivize token holders who receive rewards for helping secure the protocol, while also allowing the community to actively engage in shaping Puffer’s governance from day one.

Here are some key features of Puffer’s modern veLocker: 

• PUFFER holders can stake their tokens to mint vePUFFER NFTs representing their staked tokens.
• PUFFER tokens can be staked at any time. There is a warm-up period of up to 3 days before vePUFFER holders can participate in governance, and a minimum staking period of 1 month.
• The voting power of vePUFFER increases over time, as long as the PUFFER tokens remain staked. 
• vePUFFER can be unstaked at any time. There is a minimum exit queue duration of 1 month, and unstaking tokens resets the voting power.

Puffer’s veLocker is built with Aragon’s new modularized veLocker library. Many projects have relied on forking ve contracts from other protocols to implement ve governance models. We drew on learnings from many DeFi protocols and projects including Curve, Mode, Solidly, Aura, Balancer, and Aerodrome to develop a standardized veLocker contract that is easier and safer to customize. Our solution helps projects define parameters with more granularity such as the lock duration, the warm-up and cool-down periods, and the ve curve increasing or decreasing voting power over time. 

Aragon OSx DAO

At the core of Puffer’s governance system is our next-generation framework, Aragon OSx. Once PUFFER holders stake their tokens and pass the 3 day warm-up period, they can begin to participate in temporary signaling votes with their vePUFFER, which will soon move to onchain votes.

Specific milestones on Puffer’s governance roadmap can only be unlocked by future planned upgrades to Ethereum itself, which means it’s essential that Puffer’s governance system is designed with adaptability in mind. This is made possible with Aragon OSx’s plugin-based architecture, ensuring changes can be safely made by upgrading or installing a new governance plugin. Connecting an Aragon OSx DAO to a custom veLocker ensures Puffer’s governance can safely and sustainably grow alongside their committed community members.

Puffer Governance Hub 

The Puffer community now has a dedicated home for governance. In the Puffer Governance Hub, vePUFFER holders can temporarily participate in signalling votes from day one. This is where future iterations of Puffer Governance will live, as the hub can adapt by adding the flows and features the community needs to participate in governance as it evolves over time, including moving to onchain governance in the upcoming versions of PUFFER governance. 

The Governance Hub was built with our Governance App Template. It allows projects to quickly deploy a unique interface to interact with custom governance contracts.

What's Next

This marks just the beginning of Puffer’s governance journey, with more exciting updates to come as Puffer’s onchain governance model is implemented in the near future.

DAOs are not one-size-fits all and the Aragon team is hard at work building custom solutions for a wide-range of Ethereum protocols. Whether you’re in need of a custom ve solution, or would like to hear more about the adaptability of Aragon OSx, we’d love to hear from you.

Our products are customizable and adaptable, so you can start your decentralization journey in a way that supports your project today and well into the future.