[DAO:469f6c6] Redirect NAME minting fees to the DAO

Governance
1

by 0xd11a019a70986bd607cbc1c1f9ae221c78581f49 (Yemel)

Linked Pre-Proposal

Should we stop burning MANA when a NAME is minted?

Summary

Stop burning MANA when a new NAME is claimed and redirect the proceeds to the DAO.

Abstract

Decentraland NAMEs are a key piece of the Decentraland identity system, they represent an avatar’s name and also function as links to your LAND in Genesis City or to your personal world.

Decentraland NAMEs are implemented as subdomains of dcl.eth, thanks to ENS protocol. Any wallet can spend 100 MANA to mint a unique NAME. At the moment, the MANA collected in registration fees is being burned. So far, 36,785 Decentraland Names have been claimed equating to 3,678,500 MANA burned ~ ($1,410,000 USD at current market price).

This proposal aims to redirect those fees to the DAO in order to continue funding the long-term operations of the DAO.

Motivation

The MANA burning mechanism was originally designed to add value to other holders, giving support to the MANA price and making it more scarce every time a NAME is minted.

However, this article claims that redirecting such fees to the DAO and reinvesting them into improving the platform is more beneficial in the long term. The marketplace fees when through the same decision in the past, moving from burning to redirecting them to the DAO. This proposal would be another step in the same direction and remove the last burning mechanism of the DAO.

For the long-term stability of the DAO is good to generate income streams. They are essential to do budgeting and they enable the DAO to redirect the stream as they see fit. For example, funding grants or creating a pool of VP to fund a delegate system.

This change brings an important question regarding the 100 VP assigned to every minted NAME. Nowadays when a name is minted the user burns 100 MANA in exchange for the NAME, so the total VP stays constant. If these fees are redirected to the DAO it will generate subtle inflation of VP, because the original MANA will still exist (while controlled by the DAO).

This proposal argues that an inflationary policy of VP is not particularly bad for the project. In particular, this is a safe case because the newly minted VP is tight to an on-chain action that can not be faked and it requires the user to spend MANA to do it.

Specification

The ENS implementation has two contracts , the Controller and the Registrar. In order to make this change, a new version of the Controller needs to be developed, audited, and deployed.

This new version of the controller should stop burning and redirect the MANA to the DAO address. The new implementation of the controller should have a function to change the beneficiary address.

To make this change effective the Security Advisory Board needs to call the Registrar contract to make use of the new implementation of the Controller.

Conclusion

The recent release of Worlds has brought an increased value add to NAMEs, the Decentraland native identity system. An increase in NAME registrations might be expected over the next few years and it’s important for the DAO to have the capacity to decide what to do with such proceeds.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

2

Stable and permanent income flows are so vital for DAO future. Thanks @yemel for such an active participation and productive proposals.

1 Like
3

Which elements of that article do you think directly apply to DCL and MANA?
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4

Without being able to predict level of interest in the greater community to purchase Mana to offset the DAOs selling of it, to fund any budgets, I don’t think you can suggest that any Mana based “income” is a great “income stream.”

This idea would also cause VP inflation, which should be considered, since Voting in the DAO is the primary utility of a DAO token, so by inflating VP you are reducing the value of the token.

4 Likes
5

I think what you meant to say is it will remove deflation which will result in market changes that will reflect movement along the supply curve. It is not inflationary, because there are no tokens being created. The value of the token will find a new equilibrium at a lower value due to removing the deflation.

However deflation can kill a currency as well as extremely low currency flow volumes which turn it to a store of value. This is why most government fiat currency, they choose a steady inflation of around 2% to keep the flow of money moving to compensate for the money being taken out of circulation. We do need to work on increasing the volume of MANA with different use cases.

6

No.

Names are worth 100VP.

You burn 100 mana to make one.

So now, instead of VP remaining the same, there will be 100 more available VP for every name minted.

7

Yes you would be correct. Actually this Mechanism is good to increase VP because names are a low cost of entry for newcomers. If there is a whale that does not invest anymore money into Decentraland, they will slowly lose their ratio of power. This inflationary VP will be helpful in having a more VP being passed around amongst all of us. Like I said in order for a whale to maintain their same voting power ratio, they will have to hold MANA, buy names, buy land, etc. in order to maintain their level of power.

8

UPDATED : 38,326 Decentraland Names have been claimed equating to 3,832,600 MANA burned ~($2,716,000 at current market price). :rocket:

9

Where else does MANA get burned? Anywhere? At this time I am voting invalid. I also suggest a percentage. 50/50. Half is burned the other half is sent to DAO. or 80/20. I agree DAO needs funding but burning some adds value to the token.

10

Sending tokens to the DAO, if it’s hard to take them out, has the same effect as burning.

2 Likes
11

Redirect NAME minting fees to the DAO

This proposal is now in status: PASSED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 91% 2,346,481 VP (180 votes)
  • No 9% 245,130 VP (8 votes)