by 0x87956abc4078a0cc3b89b419928b857b8af826ed (Nacho)
Linked Draft Proposal
Redirect NAME minting fees to the DAO
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.
Impacts
Stop burning MANA on behalf of transferring it to the DAO. There is not associated risk of keeping MANA circulated.
Implementation Pathways
A new DCLController smart contract will be created by the Foundation’s dApps team. The team will also look for audits quote and manage the process. Then, the DAO will refund the Foundation for the cost of the audits.
Once the new DCLController is ready, the SAB will remove the current controller from the DCLRegistrar and add the new DCLController.
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.