Core Treasury Team — Scope and Strategy Update

Treasury
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Core Treasury Team — Scope and Strategy Update

Summary

This post summarises two key updates related to CoW DAO’s Treasury framework:

  1. A scope adjustment, transferring certain safes from the Treasury Operations mandate to Protocol Operations; and

  2. A strategy update, outlining the current Treasury management objectives and stablecoin reserve targets.

Both updates are part of the ongoing effort to streamline CoW DAO’s operational structure and ensure clear separation between Treasury management and Protocol-level operations.

Background

Under CIP-62 — Core Treasury Team Mandate and Funding, CoW DAO approved an updated Treasury framework led by the Core Treasury Team (kpk + Core contributors).

This mandate empowered the Treasury Team to manage DAO reserves, liquidity provisioning, and strategic allocations aligned with long-term sustainability and product development funding.

As the DAO matured, certain operational elements, namely protocol fee routing, buyback execution, and solver reward distribution, have become part of the Protocol Operations domain, rather than Treasury management.

Simultaneously, the Treasury strategy has evolved to prioritise runway security and yield optimisation, aligning with the DAO’s funding roadmap and Foundation structure.

Scope Update: Safes Transitioning to Protocol Operations

The following safes will be removed from the Treasury Operations mandate and transitioned to the Protocol Operations scope.

Mainnet

  • CoW Protocol Fee Safe – (0x2A76) – [Link]

  • CoW Buyback Recipient – (0x8200) – [Link]

Gnosis Chain

  • CoW Protocol Fee Safe – (0x2A76) – [Link]

Arbitrum

  • CoW Protocol Fee Safe – (0x2A76) – [Link]

Base

  • CoW Protocol Fee Safe – (0x2A76) – [Link]

Polygon

  • CoW Protocol Fee Safe – (0x2A76) – [Link]

Avalanche

  • CoW Protocol Fee Safe – (0x2A76) – [Link]

Optimism

  • CoW Protocol Fee Safe – (0x2A76) – [Link]

This transition reflects that these safes are meant to facilitate fee flows + buyback execution — not Treasury-level capital management.

Additionally, fee safes on newly launched networks will also fall under this mandate going forward.

Strategy Update: Treasury Objectives

As part of the broader Treasury plan, and to support requests such as CIP Draft: Continued Funding for Development Services (Service Agreement No. 5) — the Treasury’s stablecoin current strategy is to:

  • Target approximately $28 million in stablecoins (“Stablecoin Targets”) across DAO safes to ensure a two-year runway for:

    • Core development and maintenance,

    • Grants programs, and

    • CoW Foundation operational expenses.

  • Deploy those stablecoins into yield strategies to preserve and extend runway.

  • Diversify risk across stablecoins, and underlying Fiat (USD, EUR and FX risk management)

  • As the Stablecoin Targets are hit, the Treasury will diversify into main assets, like ETH and BTC.

This approach prioritises stability and predictability of funding while maintaining conservative exposure across DeFi venues.

Accumulation of treasury assets will be performed from revenue net of buybacks or other distribution mechanisms (“Net Revenue”) as defined by Governance. The Treasury Team will support the Core Team on the ongoing research on the Distribution Mechanism and Buyback design.

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