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Governance

State of the Foundation 2024

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As 2023 winds to a close, reported volumes from Hummingbot clients have reached an all-time high of $140M per day. Widespread usage of Hummingbot across 114 exchange venues spanning both official releases and unofficial forks shows that Hummingbot is becoming the industry standard for market maker connectivity.

Since it has been two eventful years have passed since the inception of the Hummingbot Foundation and the issuance of the HBOT token, we wanted to update the original Hummingbot Foundation whitepaper. Specifically, this post has three objectives:

  1. Provide a retrospective on the Foundation’s journey over the past two years,
  2. Propose changes to the Hummingbot governance system, and;
  3. Offer a preliminary HBOT allocation budget for 2024.

Epoch 6 Polls Recap

Every quarter, Hummingbot Foundation organizes Polls, a quarterly process that lets HBOT holders vote on how the Foundation distributes its maintenance resources and bounty budgets across the 50+ CEX, DEX, and blockchain network connectors in the Hummingbot codebase.

This week, we completed the Epoch 6 polls which decide which connectors will be included in the Hummingbot codebase for the October, November, and December 2023 releases.

Read on to learn about which connectors made the cut!

FAQ on HBOT and Hummingbot Governance

Ever since the birth of the Hummingbot ecosystem, we've strived to ensure a decentralized approach to governance and maintenance of the Hummingbot codebase. Let's take a brief journey through some key milestones:

  • Oct 2021: Launch of the Hummingbot Foundation
  • Jan 2022: Introduction of the HBOT Token
  • Dec 2022: Introduction of Polls for CEX and DEX Connector Voting
  • Sep 2023: Addition of Chain Connector Voting and Bounty Budgets

HBOT holders are now empowered to dictate how the Foundation distributes its maintenance resources and bounty budgets across the 50+ CEX, DEX, and chain connectors in the codebase. This post updates HBOT holders on how the governance system works.

Proposed Epoch 6 Governance Changes

Since inception in early 2022, Hummingbot Foundation has continually improved and iterated on its governance system. Each quarterly Epoch has introduced voting format changes that are designed to align the choices and decisions that HBOT holders make with changes to the Hummingbot codebase that users want.

Since the end of the Epoch 5 polls, we have engaged in comprehensive internal discussions aimed at enhancing the governance process for the next epoch. Please see below for the proposed improvements. We cordially extend an invitation to our community to thoroughly examine these proposed changes below and provide feedback!

Epoch 5 Polls Recap

Every quarter, Hummingbot Foundation organizes Polls, an on-going initiative that lets HBOT holders decide how the Foundation allocates its engineering bandwidth and developer bounties across the components in the Hummingbot codebase.

This week, we completed the Epoch 5 polls, which prioritize exchanges and strategies, in the Hummingbot codebase for the July, August, and September releases.

Epoch 5 HBOT Voter's Guide

Hummingbot Foundation's quarterly Polls have successfully driven greater participation in Hummingbot governance. Last quarter, each poll received 30+ votes and 20+ million HBOT voting power allocated!

But more importantly, polls have also allowed our community to decide which exchange connectors should be included in the Hummingbot codebase and how they should be prioritized. There are now 44 CEX and DEX connectors in the Hummingbot codebase, and each new connector requires maintenance, testing, and documentation time that imposes a cost on the overall Hummingbot user base.

Epoch 4 Polls Recap

Every quarter, Hummingbot Foundation organizes Polls, an on-going initiative that lets HBOT holders decide how the Foundation allocates its engineering bandwidth and developer bounties across the components in the Hummingbot codebase.

This week, we completed the Epoch 4 polls, which prioritizes exchanges and strategies, and issues in the Hummingbot codebase for the April, May, and June releases.

End of HBOT delegation

Per HGP-24, we have ended the HBOT delegation system

In Hummingbot Governance proposal HGP-24, Hummingbot Foundation proposed to terminate the HBOT delegation system that was initially created to allow locked-up token holders to be able to vote their tokens. Since the lockup period has expired and these token holders are able to release the tokens into their wallets, the delegation system is no longer needed to enable voting participation.

FAQ on Hummingbot Polls for Exchanges

What are Polls?

Hummingbot Foundation started conducting quarterly Polls to give HBOT holders a say in the allocation of the Foundation's engineering bandwidth and HBOT developer bounties across the various components of the Hummingbot codebase especially, which exchanges are included in the codebase, and how much maintenance effort we apply to each exchange.

Epoch 3 Polls Recap

Epoch 3 polls prioritizes maintenance of exchanges, strategies, and issues in the Hummingbot codebase

Recently, we finished the first set of Polls, a new initiative that lets HBOT holders decide how the Foundation allocates its engineering bandwidth and developer bounties across the components in the Hummingbot codebase. We believe regular Polls will ensure that we can continually improve the aspects of Hummingbot that are the most important to the community.

Below, we summarize the results of the Epoch 3 Polls and outline the changes we'll make over the next quarter.