by 0xd11a019a70986bd607cbc1c1f9ae221c78581f49 (Yemel)
Whale voting has been a hot topic of discussion for a long time. The conversation happens privately between community members and in public forums such as the #whales-vote channel at DAO Discord and comments on any VP-related governance proposal.
There are two major concerns about limiting VP in a vote:
Preventing sybil attacks such as splitting assets into many accounts to remove the limitations.
A roll-out strategy that enables the DAO and members to experiment, learn, and iterate. Since the VP strategy is a cornerstone of the DAO, changes to it should be gradual.
Of all the alternatives I heard about, this is the one that I have more confidence in as a first step toward limiting whale power:
Limit the maximum VP accounted from an address to XX% of the threshold of a vote. XX% should be 50% for grant proposals and 80% for any other proposal type.
Set up a simple framework to limit the VP threshold on each proposal type.
Level the ground between small and big holders on low threshold votes.
Strong impact on Grant proposals, requiring at least two whales to approve the funding.
Low impact on governance proposals (that can approve/update these limits).
Sybil Attacks
The proposed VP limit scheme doesn’t prevent an individual to split their assets into many accounts to overcome such limits. However, the risk is mitigated because the splitting operation is operationally expensive for MANA and LAND holders, and impossible for ESTATE and Delegated VP holders. If the DAO recognizes this behavior in the wild, a new proposal should be formulated to address the matter.
Roll Out Strategy
Start now with a basic framework and test a strong limit on Grant Proposals since they are the most vulnerable to single-whale voting. Let’s keep these systems working for a year and then target to lower the limits based on the results and learnings (e.g. 20% grant vp limit and 50% as a general vp limit).
I like this idea, it would be great to adjust these numbers and pair this proposal with a proposal to revert to the old voting thresholds for acceptance , I am definitely FOR limiting the max VP accounting in a vote . It is important we find a balance between max VP accounted in a vote and acceptance thresholds so that this DAO is not so centralized. At the current state of our DAO, all proposals are at the mercy of about 5 wallets. In my opinion this is a joke. We may as well just change the name to the “Centraland DAO”.
I like the idea and the rollout plan but i think for these type of props we should have a rollback plan in place as well in case things dont go as expected.
I think in general we need some sort of protocol or framework for experimenting with new governance structures or reverting back.
I’m a little confused as to what will happen here since there is one proposals and one poll - in either case, @Seanny, @nwiz, @esteban please consider supporting both
haha yes, we overlap with @HPrivakos based on a conversation we have yesterday morning.
The proposals are very similar, with the only difference of applying a different % VP limit to each proposal type. This way we can test lower limits (20%) on some proposals such as grants and be more conservative on Governance proposals (80%).
We could agree on a plan to reduce those numbers and target 20% VP Limit across all proposals in the long-term. We should include some checkpoints every 6 months, move forward with the plan, keep it as is for another 6 months or roll it back.
I guess that @HPrivakos proposes to go directly to 20% VP Limit now. Based on the results of the vote we might send another poll to decide if we should go directly or roll it out in stages. We should combine all polls into one Draft Proposal with the agreed plan.
I think @SinfulMeatStick brought up a very valid point. There needs to be a balance back into the community.
How can we support the creators, daily active users and builders with more VP?
This is what I am worried about. If we limit big wallets and don’t funnel VP into small wallets, what did we change? In the end nothing gets passed. There needs to be a balance. Sinful addressed this very clearly but no one acknowledged his message.
DCL is a great platform and we need to empower all people with the same opportunity and not just worry about the big wallets. I hope we can find a solution for the creators and daily active users as well.
I want to keep on record that Metatrekkers and RobL voted no for the vast majority of this proposal and only changed their votes to yes at the very end when they saw the proposal would pass anyways.
Then I changed my vote after our dialogue in discord and alerted you. That’s correct. Let provide context when you write or else people might be confused. Thanks buddy.
Although the spirit of the proposal seems right, I think it could also be seen as undermining the rights of actual holders of MANA, LAND and NAME. I agree that every user, regardless of how much MANA or LAND they own, should be recognized as a member of the community entitled to express their opinions and vote. However, establishing limits to voting power of large MANA or LAND holders does not guarantee true democracy, but rather violates the rights of large holders. The greater voting power of large holders is due to their greater economic commitment to the platform, so it should not be considered unfair.
