(DEPRECATED) BIP12: Gasless Voting via Snapshot

TL;DR

  1. Participating in the BancorDAO governance system is expensive - voting in recent proposals has averaged around $50 in gas.
  2. The Snapshot system is an off-chain solution that can achieve effectively gas-free voting.
  3. This proposal asks that the DAO consider moving its decision making process to Snapshot to alleviate the financial burden of voting, and support a more inclusive governance environment.

Voting Instructions

Vote FOR to adopt Snapshot for BancorDAO governance, and allow gas-free participation.

Vote AGAINST to keep the voting system unchanged.

Discussion

Gasless voting and governance participation incentives may be necessary for maintaining the health of the BancorDAO. Community participation in governance decisions has been a little discouraging, as small bag holders are effectively priced out of exercising their agency through exorbitant gas fees on Ethereum. This is a serious security issue; frequent voting and high participation rates is critical to protecting the protocol against nefarious influences. Moreover, the current setup inadvertently creates an oligarchy of elites that are effectively over-represented in DAO decisions. It is clear from recent discussions in our channels that community members are mindful of the developing power imbalance and want a more fruitful and supportive method for their voice to be rightfully heard.

Increased voter participation is inherently beneficial. Important proposals are less likely to fail due to lack of quorum. We are not the first DAO to have struggled with voting problems on Ethereum, and Snapshot is quickly becoming an industry standard. Therefore, the existing precedent helps to alleviate doubts about the system performance, and substantiates its utility in serving token communities and their DAOs.

Increased voter participation is equivalent to decentralized decision making. Low participation rates expose the protocol to potential nefarious influences. There is no evidence that any abuse has occured to date; however, the threat is there, and it is worth addressing. Most importantly, improving accessibility to voting is crucial to ensure everyone’s right to a voice in government is observed.

The Snapshot System

This proposal specifically seeks to implement snapshot (or ‘signature-only’) voting, which is not settled on-chain (Soft-voting). Messages are signed using ‘eth_sign’ and stored on IPFS, then made available for users through an application interface. Servers can be created to upload user signed messages to IPFS, as well as store an index of IPFS hashes for all the proposals per token and voters per proposal on a database. It would be unprecedented to decentralise these servers so that anybody could run them. Therefore, to begin, it may be necessary for Bancor or a trusted third party to operate them. The advantages of Snapshot voting are:

  1. Cost efficiency.
  2. Increased voter participation.
  3. Increased security from oligarchic DAO elitism.
  4. Improved government legitimacy and trust.

Addendum:

The team and I have spoken to Fabien from Snapshot and have agreed on a process for implementation. We have also noted the issue of centralisation and the team is considering a layered governance process whereby the on-chain system takes precedence over snapshot. This would avoid issues if any servers were ever compromised, and the on-chain network can over-ride any decisions.

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Awesome work, @Crypto_Joe!

I will bring this to the team’s attention - we have been looking at Snapshot for a couple of weeks. Looking forward to seeing this on-chain soon.

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This BIP is an example of how proposals should be posted. Well written and with strong arguments.

I fully support gasless voting via snapshot of vBNT holdings. I believe this can be easily implemented.

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I support this proposal. I’ve been blocked from voting on several BIPs due to the high gas fees so this would give voices to smaller guys like me.

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delegation could also be worth looking into but yes fully support it

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Hey man,
We are looking into delegation - I agree this is an important future development. For now, I think Snapshot is a significant step in the right direction; vote delegation can further add to the strengthening of our governance system, whenever we decide to implement it.

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Just an update here - we are actively investigating this with regards to security concerns and minor technical issues. So far, we haven’t detected anything that would prohibit this going forward. However, I ask that you be patient with us while we perform our due diligence.

I will be inviting the developer of the Snapshot system to this board, and to our Discord page to answer any community questions.

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Here is a new section that @Crypto_Joe has been collaborating on with the core team:

Snapshot is an Elected Delegate Only

Snapshot is currently a completely centralized solution, designed to serve DAO operations. The risk of highly centralized systems is well-understood in our community. The threat is that the system could be corrupted by an antagonist, effectively giving over control of the DAO to a nefarious influence. Therefore, reasonable precautions need to be in place to ensure that the BNT holders can seize back control at any time. Therefore, the on-chain system will be treated as the supreme authority, which delegates authority to Snapshot for defined periods. Moreover, the on-chain system can be used to withdraw the authority of Snapshot at any time.

To achieve this, the following delegation scheme is proposed:

  1. The DAO can delegate voting to Snapshot for a period of 1 year.
  2. At the conclusion of the 1 year term, the DAO may renew the delegation.
  3. At any time, an on-chain vote to withdraw authority from Snapshot can be executed, with a 66.7% supermajority and 40% quorum requirement. This contingency plan is intended for an emergency situation only; the supermajority and quorum requirements are set high to avoid spam disruptions to DAO operations.
  4. Unless Snapshot is deposed, all DAO decisions are handled on Snapshot. The only on-chain decision that can be made while the Snapshot term is active is to depose it.
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when is the vote? new here

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I suspect it will be pushed on-chain by the end of today. Keep up to date with gov.bancor and vote subsection, will be up soon!

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i just wanted my addy on the vote i see it as historic moment for our team good job