Compound Votes on Giving Governance Power to Cancel Treasury Operations

Compound is voting on a proposal from delegate Ugur Mersin that would give token-holder governance direct power to cancel pending Treasury Timelock operations and extend treasury waiting periods from two days to ten. The change would give $COMP voters more time to intervene before the Treasury Management Committee (TMC) moves funds.

Proposal 612, submitted Oct. 2, remained active at about 2:25 p.m. ET on Oct. 5, with the governance interface showing approximately 1.75 million $COMP for, 921,000 against and no abstentions. A wallet that governance researcher Blockful links to Humpy cast 1.75 million votes in favor—more than all the opposing votes then recorded and enough to exceed the 400,000-$COMP quorum.

The dispute turns on who can stop treasury spending in time. The current two-day waiting periods are shorter than the roughly week-long governance process, leaving intervention dependent on the Community Multisig, a separate group of signers. Mersin argues that voters need an effective way to overrule treasury operators; the Compound Foundation argues that longer delays would impede operations and empower a concentrated voting position.

More Time to Intervene

Mersin’s forum proposal would grant the Governor Timelock—the contract through which approved governance decisions execute—both executor and canceller roles on the Treasury Timelock. A cancellation would still require a successful governance proposal, not simply a request from one $COMP holder.

The separate Treasury Escrow would get a ten-day withdrawal cooldown, with withdrawals expiring 17 days after initiation. That gives governance more time to use its existing power to reclaim escrowed assets. It does not add a function for governance to cancel an individual escrow withdrawal.

The timing limitation predates this dispute. In its April security assessment, auditor Certora found that governance could not block or cancel individual escrow withdrawals, while the treasury safeguard could reverse a pause. It rated the finding low severity; the customer response described reliance on the faster safeguard as an accepted trust model.

The Foundation’s original treasury framework likewise described the Community Multisig’s commitment to block disbursements during a governance reclaim proposal as an operational norm, rather than a hard contract requirement.

In an Oct. 1 forum statement, the Foundation argued that extending delays would slow treasury operations while it was tasked with accelerating Compound V4. It described the recent proposals as part of an allegedly malicious governance campaign associated with Humpy. That characterization is the Foundation’s, not an established finding about Proposal 612.

Borrowing Without Surrendering Votes

The voting position is supported by dCOMP, an API3-built wrapper that separates borrowing collateral from the exercise of $COMP voting rights. API3’s documentation says users can wrap $COMP, pledge dCOMP as collateral on Morpho and borrow USDC while preserving the underlying $COMP’s voting power.

The wrapper’s code specifies one-for-one wrapping, restricts deposits to whitelisted addresses and lets its owner change the recipient of the aggregated votes. Wrapping preserves votes; it does not itself multiply the number of $COMP tokens carrying them.

Etherscan showed approximately 1.75 million $COMP in the wrapper on Oct. 5. Its initial designated delegate, the address beginning `0x3B64`, is the wallet that cast the 1.75-million-$COMP vote for Proposal 612. Blockful’s research attributes that voting position to Humpy.

Mersin has publicly acknowledged the relationship, writing in an earlier forum discussion, “Humpy is delegating to me.” He defended dCOMP as a governance-enabled borrowing product and argued that preserving voting rights in financial strategies should not be objectionable because of who uses them.

The dispute follows Compound’s 2024 settlement with Humpy over the goldCOMP proposal. The current proposal would leave the Community Multisig’s power to veto governance proposals intact, along with existing payment streams’ cancellation rules.

Even if Proposal 612 passes and executes, the Treasury Timelock’s ten-day delay would require a second execution step after its existing two-day wait. The first proposal only schedules that change; an authorized executor or a follow-up governance proposal would have to complete it.