Proposal summary
This proposal envisions further democratization of the ssv.network DAO (hereinafter: “DAO”) as well as deadlock safeguards through several mechanisms outlined below:
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Delegation: The DAO will delegate 200,000 SSV across four distinct cohorts (Community Contributors, Verified Operators, Professionals, and Grant Recipients).
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Quorum Reduction: The quorum necessary for the passing of DAO proposals will be lowered to 1.75%.
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Deadlock Resolution Mechanisms: If the DAO were to meet a deadlock despite the reduced quorum, this proposal outlines mechanisms to mitigate and resolve such situations.
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Karma Grant: A grant will be provided to Karma’s platform for continued maintenance and services as an important tool in the DAO’s governance.
Motivation
Ever since [DIP-3] Quorum Proposal, the DAO has desired to achieve a high level of community engagement and to reach the required quorum consistently, i.e., token holders using their voting rights to affect change in the DAO. It is further aimed at avoiding the potential situation where the DAO will face a deadlock with no way of passing any proposal. The DAO wants to have its own delegation program, irrespective of what certain SSV DAO contributors might do, such as the SSV Labs Voting Policy and Community Empowerment Program, considering that SSV DAO contributors can always amend or remove their policies at any time.
Every DAO out there struggles to consistently reach the quorum. This is usually not because of a lack of decentralization of governance rights but rather due to a lack of initiative and incentives from the common forum, which is the DAO, for the token holders to make use of their voting rights so their voice might be heard as well. Also, one of the reasons for the lack of interest in DAO governance by token holders or prospective token holders is the perceived insignificance of their vote in the face of often hundreds of thousands or millions of tokens required to reach a decision as is the case in regular elections around the world. Despite the fact that DAOs have perceived “low” quorums ranging between 0.5 to 5% of the total token supply, this often means that millions of US dollars in value need to be active consistently, which has proven to be a tall order for all DAOs. With that, the DAO proposes to utilize the flexibility of its governance and propose is an initiative some incentives for existing and new tokenholders, coupled with a reduction in the overall quorum required to reach a DAO decision, so that voter apathy would be lessened in the face of overwhelming quorum requirements for the current state of the DAO.
Finally, the DAO is proposed to continue its work with the Karma Delegate platform as the central tool to facilitate delegation and track activity across the DAO. For this, this proposal suggests a grant to maintain the platform for another two years and tweak its scoring mechanisms to reflect the DAO’s reality better.
Proposal Particulars
- Delegation Policy
- Cohort 1: Community Contributors
- Cohort 2: Verified Operators
- Cohort 3: Professional Delegation
- Cohort 4: Grants Recipients
- Common Delegation Policy Provisions
- Quorum Reduction
- Delegation Enhancement Mechanism
- Deadlock Resolution Mechanism
- Karma Grant
- Revamp Karma Weights
- Quorum Tracker
Delegation Policy
The DAO will delegate a total of 200.000 SSV tokens (hereinafter: “Delegatable Tokens”). These tokens will be held in dedicated wallets so as not to be spent for any other purpose. The Delegatable Tokens are split across four cohorts of participants every 30 days:
| Cohort | Number of delegated tokens | Number of delegates | Number delegated Tokens per Member | Selection criteria |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community | 50.000 | 10 | 5000 | The top 10 highest ranking community members. |
| Verified Operators | 50.000 | 5 | 10000 | Top 5 verified operators by validator count across all verified nodes. |
| Professional | At least 50.000 | 1 | All | Selected by the SSV Foundation |
| Grant Recipients | 50.000 | 5 | 10000 | Selected by the Grants Committee |
(hereinafter: “Cohorts”).
Cohort 1: Community Contributors
The ssv.network DAO Multi-Sig Committee (hereinafter: “MC”) will check the Karma Dashboard for the 10 highest-ranking community members (hereinafter: “Delegate(s)”). After checking the Karma Dashboard, the MC will delegate to each of the 10 top-ranked community members 5000 SSV tokens.
Cohort 2: Verified Operators
The DAO will delegate a total of 50.000 SSV to operators verified (hereinafter: “VO”) by the Verified Operators Committee (hereinafter: “VOC”).
The VOC is required to submit to the MC a list of 5 VOs with the most validators across their verified nodes. This list will contain one wallet address from each VO that has completed their profile on the Karma Dashboard. Each of these VOs will receive 10.000 SSV as delegated tokens.
Cohort 3: Professional Delegation
The DAO will delegate at least 50.000 SSV to a professional delegate as defined below. For a professional delegate the DAO is free to utilize the Immunify Bug Bounty Vault, as defined in [DIP-5] Grant Program and Committee (hereinafter: “DIP-5”) , only to the extent that it does not dispose of or affect the bug bounty program instituted by [DIP-5]. By design, this vault is a testament to the dedication of the DAO to the security of the protocol. With this proposal, the DAO would like to leverage the tokens deposited in this vault while not affecting the already deposited tokens, thanks to the unique nature of Karma delegation.
With that said, the DAO will allocate the remaining SSV tokens found in the Immunify Bug Bounty Vault to a professional service provider selected by the SSV Foundation. If the remaining SSV tokens found in the Immunify Bug Bounty Vault were to drop below 50.000, the DAO will make up the shortfall so that 50.000 is always delegated. For this, the SSV Foundation is tasked to find a single suitable professional among the following categories:
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Universities, including any faculties, schools, institutions, or academic bodies;
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NGOs, such as forums or think tanks;
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Law firms;
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Security & Audit firms;
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Professional service providers that support DAO governance;
The SSV Foundation will not be able to use this allocation for anything else other than professional delegation. To accomplish the task of finding the most suitable professional delegate, the SSV Foundation will have at its disposal 10.000 USD to incentivize the professional cohort as part of its delegation effort. The SSV Foundation will have the sole discretion as to who will be the beneficiaries as well as what the commercial terms of such delegation will be.
A professional delegate, while not common in most other DAOs (Arbitrum) these days, is a welcome addition to a growing DAO. They usually possess both the expertise and unique perspectives on DAO governance and the inclination to participate, both things being crucial to a growing DAO.
Cohort 4: Grants Recipients
The SSV Grants Committee (hereinafter: “GC”) will choose up to 5 grant recipients of a minimum of US $50k, to delegate 10.000 SSV. The GC will have the sole discretion as to who will be the delegate and what the commercial terms of such delegation will be.
Common Delegation Policy Provisions
The following criteria must be met by any Cohort Member:
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Retain access to or control over the delegated tokens at all times;
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Not be designated by a competent authority, in any relevant jurisdiction or under applicable law, to be limited or forbidden to interact with.
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Successfully pass KYC or KYB requirements if requested by the MC, GC, VOC or SSV Foundation (hereinafter: “Delegation Authority”).
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If a Delegate qualifies to become a part of two or more Cohorts, it will be entitled to be delegated the allocated amount for only one Cohort, the higher among them, and if equal, the first to which it qualified.
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Voting on more than 80% of DAO proposals during the Delegation Term.
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Willing to engage with the community.
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Be independent, reputable, and act solely in the best interest of the protocol, without representing or acting on behalf of any third party.
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Must not work for, represent, promote, or directly support the activities or goals of any competing projects.
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Have a verified and completed Karma Profile.
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Not be a member of the VOC, GC, or the Foundation or a member of the companies associated with these members.
If any of these criteria are not met at any time, the relevant entity delegating tokens to a Cohort member will undelegate tokens from such a Cohort member and delegate it to the next in line or to another entity/person depending on the Cohort member that is undelegated.
Timeline and Schedule: The Delegation Term will be 30 days. The MC will execute a transaction for delegating to Delegates during the scheduled batches as outlined in the DAO Contributor: Proposal for Engagement as the DAO’s Master of Coin on a monthly basis. All Delegation Authorities are required to submit to the MC a list of their proposed delegates a week before the next delegation transaction Term. If none has been submitted, the previous delegation will be seen as resubmitted.
The DAO would like to note that the Delegation Policy and any Cohort or Cohort member that may be delegated to does not gain or assert any right, claim, or privilege to the underlying assets, keys, access, or otherwise. By becoming a Cohort member, the Cohort member agrees and consents to the terms and conditions outlined in this Delegation Policy. The Delegation Authority has the sole discretion to determine whether an individual or entity meets or does not meet the conditions listed in the Common Delegation Policy Provisions. In so doing, they are free to request the SSV Foundation to assist in the verification of their suspicion. The Cohort member agrees that If, for whatever reason, the Delegation Authority decides to undelegate, the Delegate will have no claim to the voting rights he has been delegated.
Quorum Reduction
The required quorum for passing DAO decisions is hereby reduced to 1.75% (from 2.5%) of the total supply. The reason for this reduction is three-fold:
The first and second are already explained in the sections above, detailing a potential deadlock the ssv.network DAO might experience and incentivize smaller holders or active community members to participate in the governance of the DAO.
The third is the increasing of the total supply due to mints that happened since [DIP-3] Quorum Proposal and any mints that may take place in the future, leading to the increase of the threshold in absolute numbers.
Deadlock Resolution Mechanism
Once a DAO Proposal has failed to reach the quorum for three consecutive times (hereinafter: “Failed DAO Proposal”), anyone will be able to post a proposal titled the “Deadlock Resolution Proposal”.
A Failed DAO Proposal must satisfy the following criteria:
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Posted to the ssv.network snapshot and remained there for at least 7 consecutive days after at least 7 consecutive days on the ssv.network forum.
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The proposal had more votes approving the proposal than rejecting the proposal. However, at least one of the choices in the vote must be a rejection of whatever was proposed.
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No other DAO proposal has passed in the interim.
The Deadlock Resolution Proposal will specify solely that:
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The quorum is canceled; and
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No future proposals will require a quorum until such a time that a quorum is reinstated by a DAO proposal.
The Deadlock Resolution Proposal does not require any time on the ssv.network forum and can be posted directly to the ssv.network snapshot. The proposal voting period can last anywhere between 1 and 7 days and will have only the following options for voting: Yes and No. If a DeadLock Resolution Proposal is submitted and the No vote prevails, it can be resubmitted after the same number of days it has remained on snapshot previously with no limitation on the number of times it can be submitted.
Anyone can post the Deadlock Resolution Proposal to the ssv.network snapshot. However, the owner of the ssv.network snapshot, currently the MC, will remove all Deadlock Resolution Proposals submitted while there is already a pending Deadlock Resolution Proposal in order for the DAO to easily determine the outcome of the Deadlock Resolution Mechanism. A second Deadlock Resolution Proposal can be posted to the ssv.network snapshot only after the first one expires, as defined above.
Karma Grant
The DAO and GC will be providing another grant to Karma for the ongoing hosting and maintenance of https://delegate.ssv.network. This grant aims to improve the integration of the platform into the efforts of the DAO and to adjust the Karma scoring mechanisms to better reflect the reality of the DAO’s activities and participation. The exact terms of such a grant shall follow the typical grant process. The necessary budget shall come from the Grants budget and the GC, together with the SSV Foundation, has full discretion to define the terms and conditions of such an agreement in line with the general rules of the grants program.
Revamp Karma Weights
The DAO currently has three platforms it depends on for its governance and community discussion and engagement. These platforms are the ssv.network DAO snapshot, forum and discord. Currently, the Karma dashboard ranks people based on their activity on these platforms with a specific weight per action on each platform. This proposal proposes that these weights be rebalanced to reflect the desire of the DAO to focus its discussion in an optimal way between these three platforms. This proposal suggests that the weights for each platform be altered so that the weights for:
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Snapshot are 10 points
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Forum messages 3 points.
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Discord messages 0.33 points.
Quorum Tracker
To make it easier for the community to judge if a proposal reached its quorum, the Master of Coin, with support from the SSV Foundation, will implement a quorum tracker plugin to show the progress of reaching the quorum during the vote and once it is finished.
