I’ve been thinking about our current voting threshold of 100 SSV Tokens to vote on DIPs (DAO Improvement Proposals) and I’m curious about what you all think.
Is the current minimum requirement of 100 SSV Tokens for voting optimal? I would like to have the opinion from the community.
Let’s take a look at the impact of both lower and higher thresholds:
Low Voting Threshold
Pros:
Reducing the voting threshold boosts community engagement, allowing more members to vote, democratizes decision-making, and diversifies ideas and perspectives.
Cons:
Lowering the threshold increases participation but risks populism, where popularity affects decision quality. It also raises the chance of Sybil attacks, with individuals potentially creating multiple accounts to sway outcomes, risking centralization and undermining governance trust and legitimacy.
High Voting Threshold
Pros:
A higher voting threshold ensures that participants are significantly invested in the network, promoting more informed and deliberate decision-making. It also serves as a substantial barrier to entry, minimizing the presence of trivial or malicious proposals.
Cons:
High voting thresholds can prevent smaller token holders from participating, potentially centralizing power among larger stakeholders. This concentration of decision-making authority contradicts the principles of decentralization, as it restricts broader community involvement in governance processes.
Community Poll
Weigh in on the voting threshold
To better gauge community sentiment, I’ve set up a poll below.
What do you believe should be the optimal voting threshold for SSV Network DAO?
I’m unsure reducing the voting thresholds will increase community engagement. I agree that a higher voting threshold concentrates powers with those who have the means to gain tokens.
How big is voting apathy at SSV? What is the incentive for small token holders to participate in governance?
I consider context into SSV, its technology and history, a more important criteria than number of tokens. However, admittedly, this is harder to measure and take snapshots off.
Limiting it tho those who hold more than 100 SSV token seems to exclude many accounts.
If the threshold is reduced, would small token holders really change the outcome of a decision? Doubtful about it. But they might be become more emotionally invested in SSV leading to a stronger community.
I’ll say what’s more important is to be transparent about the effort people need to spent to gain SSV tokens (bare buying them).
To answer your question about how I feel about it. As a small token holder who has been sort of active on the forum, annoyed about it.
Hey kbc, thanks for responding to my first post here! Loved the great charts with data.
Voting apathy among small token holders at SSV could decrease as the network evolves. For example, initiatives like jFactory’s new staking pool, funded by an SSV Network grant, plan to expand into cross-chain operations and multiple Proof of Stake blockchains. This could open up more opportunities for small token holders, boosting both their financial incentives and their emotional investment in the network’s governance.
The chart “SSV Holders - groups” shows that 69.6% of SSV holders can’t vote unless they delegate. This high percentage makes a strong case for rethinking the voting threshold.
Once again, the second chart “SSV Holders - days holding” visually underscores that the 100 SSV token voting threshold might exclude a significant number of stakeholders from the governance process.
P.S. I was wondering if you had a chance to vote on the poll in my post?
I voted now, picking a higher threshold than the other two votes.
People need to have skin in the game to care enough to read proposals and vote. It’s up to the DAO to make it clear how people can gain those tokens. That means information should be up-to-date, easy to find, understandable to the target audience, and leave the right people with the feeling “yes I can do this”
Thanks for your input and for voting! I agree that having ‘skin in the game’ encourages thoughtful participation. Your suggestion about making information clear and accessible is great!
I appreciate the discussion and the detailed analysis by @kbc . However to clarify, the 100 SSV threshold is only for submitting proposals, correct? Or is it for voting as well? It seems that the last vote had voters with as little as 1 SSV.
Regarding proposal submissions, I believe that a minimum token amount should be required since the likelihood of malicious and spam proposals seems high. The actual “risk” probably isn’t that high, mainly because the multi-sig and foundation can serve as a second line of defense that can refuse to execute an action. But such proposals can certainly be annoyances and wastes of time, especially since the DAO has struggled to muster a strong voting base that would normally serve as a first line of defense. I remember at least one proposal that was along the lines of “give me SSV”, so it does happen: Snapshot
I also believe that if someone had a good idea and wanted to create a proposal but didn’t have 100 SSV, it’s not hard to convince someone else in the community to create it for them. I feel like as a community, we’re fairly open to hearing ideas, and if there’s obvious value or strong interest, we would help them push it forward. All users have access to this forum and our Discord to start a discussion and gather support.
Regarding simply voting, I believe that the votes of all SSV users should matter. Now that SSV has launched to mainnet, there are many users with a vested interest in the protocol beyond those that hold a large amount of SSV. For example, stakers might only hold a small amount for paying fees. Since our voting isn’t weighted (1 token = 1 vote, always), I don’t see any risk of Sybil attacks, etc.
So I would favor keeping the proposal submission requirement at 100 SSV and having no requirement for voting.
Thank you @fod for your participation in the discussion.
You and @ivancorovic from Discord made me realize, and I verified it (see screenshot here), that someone with as little as 1 SSV can vote on the DIPs. Therefore, the statement “A minimum of 100 SSV Tokens is required to participate in votes” is incorrect according to the SSV Network DAO Guidelines [Rev. 1].
In the Ethereum ecosystem, there is no fixed token threshold required to submit Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). Given that SSV Network adheres to the Ethereum ethos, I’m curious about the rationale behind the 100 SSV voting threshold.
Requiring permission or needing to convince someone to add a proposal contradicts the permissionless approach that the SSV Network DAO promotes.
Ultimately, the voters will decide, and as you mentioned, the multi-sig committee and the SSV DAO Foundation can serve as a secondary line of defense.
Considering the current price of SSV token at $40.34 (May 17, 2024), requiring 100 SSV to propose an improvement implies that only those with significant financial resources can actively participate in the DAO’s progression. Lowering this threshold to around 5 SSV would make participation more accessible and inclusive for most network participants.
thanks for clarifying. I did not verify the statement before posting my comment. I should have, because it contradicts my own experience in SSV as I have been voting but do not hold 100 SSV token.
Regarding the new discussion thread by @AXBLOX, I disagree with lowering the threshold without any further evidence that it hampers SSV. While I’m all for decentralization, it shouldn’t be pursued at all costs. Comparison should be made to DAOs that are in a similar state of maturity.
@kbc, you make a valid point about the need for evidence before lowering the threshold for submitting proposals. While decentralization is a core value, we must balance it with effective governance.
That being said, based on the participation from the poll, I judged that there’s not enough interest or requests to move forward with reducing the SSV token requirement to submit a new proposal.
