# Nouns to fund a MEV relay that saved Ethereum from OFAC censorship dystopia (for now)

## TL;DR

* The [ultra sound relay](https://relay.ultrasound.money/) is the largest MEV-boost relay by market share and importantly a non-censoring credibly neutral relay playing a pivotal role in maintaining Ethereum's censorship resistant properties.
* The relay has operated as a public good funded by donations since inception and would very much welcome Nouns' contribution (according to [Justin Drake](https://twitter.com/drakefjustin), one of the team members).
* This proposal suggests making a substantial 100 ETH donation to recognize the incredible feat, express our Ethereum-aligned values, and reach prospective DAO members who share our values.

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## Context

Last year post-Merge, there was a meaningful public concern around the rising level of censorship in Ethereum due to the (then dominant) Flashbots relay censoring OFAC transactions. At its peak, [block censorship reached ~80%](https://www.mevwatch.info/).

In response to the public concern, the Flashbots team accelerated [open sourcing their relay code](https://writings.flashbots.net/Flashbots-Relay-open-sourcing) and many teams sprinted towards building non-censoring relay alternatives.

Two such relays succeeded in gaining meaningful traction—the [ultra sound relay](https://relay.ultrasound.money/) and the [Agnostic relay](https://www.gnosis.io/blog/agnostic-relay-a-credibly-neutral-tool) by the Gnosis team—resulting in the dramatic reduction of censored blocks earlier this year.

![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJo0cF7I2.png)
(screenshot from [mevboost.pics](https://mevboost.pics/))

It's worth noting that such gains in relay market share was not attained simply by launching a copy-paste non-censoring fork of the Flashbots relay. The ultra sound relay team had to actually build a lower latency relay through innovations of their own such as [optimistic](https://github.com/michaelneuder/optimistic-relay-documentation/blob/main/proposal.md) [relaying](https://github.com/ultrasoundmoney/mev-boost-relay/blob/prod-optimistic-relaying/docs/optimistic/an-optimistic-weekend.md) and various devops optimizations.

ultra sound relay's market share has been capped around 33% lately because the team is committed to self-cap its dominance to 1/3 of Ethereum blocks to foster relay diversity. They are also working closely with [Mike Neuder](https://twitter.com/mikeneuder) from the EF to help accelerate R&D for [enshrined PBS](https://ethresear.ch/t/why-enshrine-proposer-builder-separation-a-viable-path-to-epbs/15710) that would eliminate the need for relays entirely.

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## Why should Nouns fund the ultra sound relay?

**1. To continue to express our alignment with Ethereum and its values.**

Nouns is a [headless brand](https://otherinter.net/research/headless-brands/). There is no PR head that builds coherent brand identities. Instead, we are what we do.

So far our track record is strong:
* We've always held our treasury entirely in ETH or stETH.
* We've always focused on decentralization and onchain governance.
* We've always insisted on open sourcing wherever possible, including our own brand IP.
* We've always cared deeply about public goods.

It's important to continue these things. To have an identity. To be who we are.

Ethereum-aligned public goods we've funded so far in our history:
* [Prop 21](https://nouns.wtf/vote/21) — donating 169 ETH to Gitcoin grants.
* [Prop 108](https://nouns.wtf/vote/108) — donating 500 ETH to Ethereum protocol development via the Protocol Guild.
* [Prop 184](https://nouns.wtf/vote/184) — donating 100 ETH to ZachXBT.
* [Prop 249](https://nouns.wtf/vote/249) — giving out 30 ETH to Ethereum solo stakers.
* [Prop 278](https://nouns.wtf/vote/278) — donating 55 ETH to the Gitcoin crypto advocacy round.

We should be proud of what we've done so far but we must continue. Ethereum-aligned public goods are the substrates of our onchain world and funding them is an important expression of who we are and what we stand for.

**2. To reach prospective DAO members that also care about Ethereum and the onchain world.**

Charismatic giving towards public goods creates [news](https://www.theblock.co/post/193256/nouns-dao-donates-to-zachxbt) and generates [viral attention](https://twitter.com/noun40__/status/1598084457596325888) like anything else we might fund in an attempt to proliferate our brand and attract the attention of prospective DAO members.

Funding Ethereum public goods is particularly useful in this regard since ETH holders and onchain world enthusiasts who care about Ethereum public goods are also (at least currently) our primary prospective DAO member demographic.

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# Other details

**Who is on the ultra sound relay team?**
[AlphaMonad](https://twitter.com/AlphaMonad) leads the dev effort, with support from [alex](https://twitter.com/alextes) and [Justin Drake](https://twitter.com/drakefjustin).

**Does the ultra sound money team need the funding?**
This proposal is meant to recognize what has been accomplished (more like an award) not necessarily fund future work so the proposal does not focus on this aspect. However, the team communicated that funding is currently very tight, cloud bills alone costing ~$15k per month, so the funding would be very welcome.

**What other funding sources does ultra sound relay team have?**
A 10 ETH per month no-strings-attached donation from a top MEV-boost builder is the primary funding source according to the team.

**Any conflict of interest?**
The proposer ([Noun 40](https://twitter.com/noun40__)) has no prior (or planned future) personal or business relationship with anyone on the ultra sound relay team.  Reaching out to ask for permission to make this proposal was the first and only connection.

**Why not also fund the Agnostic relay by the Gnosis team as well?**
The ETH prize felt a bit superflous given that the Gnosis DAO has a [$260M treasury](https://zapper.xyz/daos/gnosis-dao) of their own but they definitely deserve high praise for stepping up and maintaining a successful non-censoring public good relay as well!

Outcome: EXECUTED