Welcome back to the “Meet the Delegates'' series! This series helps the dYdX community to get to know their delegates. AndyGG and NTInc, both endorsed delegates for the dYdX community, were featured in this episode.

Before going into their individual profiles, it is important to note that both AndyGG and NTInc have applied to work on a research grant on various governance topics like:

• Liquid Democracy,
• Meta-delegation,
• Token Delegation Lockups,
• Governance Incentives and Participation,
• Tokenomics, and
• SubDAO Internal Structure, compensation, and the legal implications of all the above governance models

They have now shifted focus towards overhauling the governance model on Cosmos, while focusing heavily on researching many different variations of governance for comparative analysis.

The community will be consistently updated along the way and participate in their research through forum discussions. The ultimate aim is getting to a best-in-class governance model for dYdX by finding the strengths of many current iterations and synergizing them.

What is delegation?

As the dYdX protocol moves towards full decentralization (read the V4 announcement here and the announcement of the dYdX Chain here), delegates are needed to help ensure community-led growth, development, and the self-sustainability of the dYdX protocol.

Delegation provides an opportunity for more community members to get involved with governance, and when you delegate the voting power of your tokens, you retain 100% ownership of the token itself. There are no changes to the way you use or hold the token. You can choose anyone who you believe will participate in dYdX governance and can represent what you want this ecosystem to become.

Currently, $DYDX holders have control over market listings, capital allocations to market makers, allocation of the community treasury, and much more (see the full list of governance parameters here). Community-controlled governance parameters will increase in the future, and competent delegates are essential to push the dYdX protocol forward.

If you hold $DYDX but have no time to review proposals, or you don't have enough information about potential delegates, consider delegating the proposing power and/or voting power of your tokens to an Endorsed Delegate to support decentralization and better decision-making on the dYdX protocol. You can review the Endorsed Delegate's profiles and pitches here and delegate voting power and proposing power here.

AndyGG

• Commonwealth name: AndyGG
• Discord ID: @AndyGG#1484
• Twitter handle: @andygglens

Since winning a Hedgie Poker Tournament, Andy decided to participate more actively in the dYdX community, and his first contribution to dYdX was a thread on the forums discussing the potential listing of PAXG (tokenized gold). Thereafter, he joined the Ambassador Program in the Governance Burrow, and as an ambassador, he helped launch:

• Meet the delegate series,
• DRC: Framework for New Asset Requests,
• DRC: Hedgies - Lens Protocol Collaboration, building the Hedgies account on Lens Protocol, kickstarting the Hedgies Community Treasury,
• The Wonderverse implementation for bounties management, and
• The research work on MakerDAO Governance Model & Delegation Incentives, Curve’s Venomics and Sushi’s xModel.

Apart from the grant application and staying active on governance as an endorsed delegate, Andy is looking forward to developing the Hedgies and dYdX brand in the Lens Protocol ecosystem. Quotes from Andy's endorsed delegate profile:

• "I am strongly committed to the dYdX protocol and its governance. I use dYdX as my primary derivatives exchange, I hold $DYDX tokens and Hedgies NFTs. I would benefit from dYdX growth as we would enjoy deeper liquidity, less spread as well as $DYDX token and Hedgies NFTs appreciation in value."
• "I have true decentralization as my priority number one as I believe that this is the main feature that is going to make dYdX the biggest exchange in the world, thus benefiting dYdX users and token holders in the long run."
• "I will always provide my reasoning for any proposal, vote, or decision that I make based on true decentralization as my top priority but taking into account that some trade-offs must be made to have a working protocol, especially at the beginning."

NTInc

• Commonwealth name: NTinc
• Discord ID: @NTinc#8631
• Twitter handle: @wenhedgies

Nick (NTInc) has been a long-time follower of dYdX since back in the days of layer 1. With the announcement of dYdX launching on a Layer 2 back in the midst of DeFi summer, Nick was encouraged to get involved in the dYdX community and wanted to help popularize the narrative of building on Layer 2's on top of Ethereum. The launch of the Hedgies NFT project was a key part of Nick's greater involvement with dYdX, as geographically being from the US, Hedgies allowed him to acquire a vested interest in the protocol. The Hedgies community quickly grew and he was connecting with people from all over the world thus becoming more active in Discord and governance.

Nick worked in the Ambassador program with the Governance Burrow previously, and although it was a short-lived tenure as the program was discontinued, Nick learned a great deal and was sure that he was staying with the dYdX community in some form.

Quotes from Nick's endorsed delegate profile:

• "We've seen protocols struggle with their efforts to decentralize because the lower echelon of users not being empowered. Being a governance ambassador and endorsed delegate, I'm already aware of a lot of problems that we will face on this journey. My main goals are as follows based on the importance of user growth initiatives, fostering the growth of governance, and educating the community."
• "One thing about DAOs and governance is after full decentralization the delegates carry a lot of the leg work contributing to the protocol. It's important to me to be the change I want to see and onboard myself. I'm always available on Discord or Commonwealth for the community to reach me."