Proxy Module

Allowing Users to interact with the Maker Protocol more easily

1. Introduction (Summary)

The Proxy module was created in order to make it more convenient for users/developers to interact with the Maker Protocol. It contains contract interfaces, proxies, and aliases to functions necessary for both DSR and Vault management and Maker governance.

2. Module Details

Proxy Module Components Documentation

3. Key Mechanism and Concepts

Why are these components important to the Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) System?

DSR Manager

The DsrManager provides an easy to use smart contract that allows service providers to deposit/withdraw dai into the contract pot, to start earning the Dai Saving Rate on a pool of dai in a single function call without the need of a ds-proxy contract. This is useful for smart contracts integrating DSR functionality.

CDP Manager

The DssCdpManager (aka manager) was created to enable a formalized process for Vaults to be transferred between owners. In short, the manager works by having a dss wrapper that allows users to interact with their Vaults in an easy way, treating them as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Vote Proxy

The VoteProxy facilitates online voting with offline MKR storage. By having a VoteProxy, this allows users to have a linked hot wallet that can pull and push MKR from the proxy’s corresponding cold wallet and to DS-Chief, where voting can take place with the online hot wallet.

There are two main reasons to have/use this contract:

  1. To support two different voting mechanisms

  2. To minimize the time that MKR owners need to have their wallet online.

Proxy Actions

The dss-proxy-actions was designed to be used by the Ds-Proxy, which is owned individually by users to interact more easily with the Maker Protocol. Note that it is not intended to be used directly (this will be covered later). The dss-proxy-actions contract was developed to serve as a library for user's ds-proxies.

In general, the ds proxy receives two parameters:

  • Proxy library address

    • In this case, the dss proxy actions library.

  • Call data

    • Functions and parameters you want to execute.

4. Gotchas (Potential sources of user error)

  • DSR Manager

    • For developers who want to integrate with DsrManager, it is important to realize that user balances in the pot will be owned by the DsrManager, which has an internal mapping to determine user balances. Consequently the deposited Dai in DSR might not show up in solutions that are based on ds-proxy (such as oasis.app/save)

    • Read more here.

  • CDP Manager

    • For the developers who want to integrate with the manager, they will need to understand that the Vault actions are still in the urn environment. Regardless of this, the manager tries to abstract the urn usage by a CDPId. This means that developers will need to get the urn (urn = manager.urns(cdpId)) to allow the joining of collateral to that Vault.

    • Read more here.

  • Vote Proxy

    • One-time proxy setup cost: As a new proxy contract user, you will need to set it up before you can use it for future voting. The price of the setup will depend on the current Ethereum gas price but will ultimately make voting easier and safer for users.

    • Read more here.

  • Proxy Actions

    • Using dss-proxy-actions directly can result in the loss of control over your Vault: If you open a new Vault via the dss proxy actions (centralized) without a ds proxy you would be creating a Vault that is owned by the dss proxy actions that anyone could call publicly. It would be owned by the dss proxy actions contact and anyone could execute actions on your Vault. Therefore, if you use the dss proxy actions directly it can be quite risky.

    • Read more here.

5. Failure Modes (Bounds on Operating Conditions & External Risk Factors)

  • CDP Manager

    • Potential Issues around Chain Reorganization

      • When open is executed, a new urn is created and a cdpId is assigned to it for a specific owner. If the user uses join to add collateral to the urn immediately after the transaction is mined, there is a chance that a reorganization of the chain occurs. This would result in the user losing the ownership of that cdpId/urn pair, therefore losing their collateral. However, this issue can only arise when avoiding the use of the proxy functions via a profile proxy as the user will open the cdp and join collateral in the same transaction.

    • Read more here.

  • Vote Proxy

    • The loss of private keys for both the hot and cold wallet will prevent you from voting.

  • Proxy Actions

    • Ds proxy is a general purpose proxy / there is always a risk when using a proxy

      • In terms of failure modes, this means you can execute a malicious proxy action as well as a direct action that could potentially send your ETH to a random address. To be extra cautious, you should check your wallets call data and/or audit what your wallet does as they could potentially present users with some unwanted random call data and execute unwanted actions.

    • Read more here (link)

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