This proposal is expected to appear on Snapshot for voting on 2021-09-12T12:00:00Z. Make sure to stake your vBNT for voting before this date and time to participate in the DAO decision.
TL;DR
- Gas fees for voting on Ethereum can be volatile and expensive; this issue gave rise to the highly successful integration of gasless voting via Snapshot to Bancor earlier this year.
- More must be done to ensure BancorDAO’s resilience to a hypothetical instance of vote tampering on Snapshot.
a) Extend the use of gasless voting via Snapshot indefinitely, whilst preserving the BancorDAO’s right to suspend its use at any time, and for any reason.
b) In an suspected instance of vote tampering on Snapshot, revert to on-chain voting on Ethereum (with gas fees) as the ultimate source of truth when determining the outcome of the governance proposal(s) in question.
Voting Instructions
Vote FOR to implement the proposed changes to the organization of Snapshot for BancorDAO governance.
Vote AGAINST to keep the voting system unchanged.
The proposal
Whereas high gas fees were previously hindering activity in the BancorDAO governance, gasless voting via Snapshot has drastically improved voter turnout in recent months, such that reaching quorum on whitelisting and LM proposals has seldom since been an issue.
So crucial is Snapshot to Bancor’s infrastructue that BancorDAO has consistently ranked as one of the most active DAOs in recent months. Moreover, in addition to bolstering protection against double-voting, a crucial anti-spam measure was introduced as per BIP12 ADDENDUM requiring a 7-day lockup of vBNT staked in governance for voting, preventing against the risk of nefarious actors buying and staking vBNT specifically to influence the outcome of one particular proposal.
That said, more measures must be implemented to ensure that BancorDAO is able to promptly and justly resolve a suspected instance of vote tampering involving Snapshot in the future. As such, this post consists of the following proposals:
1. To extend the use of gasless voting via Snapshot indefinitely, whilst preserving the BancorDAO’s right to suspend its use by vote at any time, and for any reason.
2. In a suspected instance of vote tampering on Snapshot, revert to on-chain voting on Ethereum (with gas fees) as the ultimate source of truth when determining the outcome of the governance proposal(s) in question.
How would we know if tampering has occurred on Snapshot?
One example of this could be an unusually high voter turnout compared to previous votes, clearly not reflecting the true number of vBNT staked. This would obviously indicate that hackers have compromised the Snapshot system, allowing them to create governance proposals to their own benefit at the expense of the protocol’s health.
Taking an extreme hypothetical scenario, this could manifest itself in a proposal to whitelist a unknown token with an immediate LM program at 1000000% APY indefinitely. This proposal could then receive 100,000,000 vBNT votes in favor with a quorum of 100% and a 100% majority.
Another scenario that would indicate Snapshot having been hacked is failure to register votes in favor of/against a given proposal, generating an outcome that is not reflective of voters’ wishes.
Guidelines are proposed below on how community members should escalate a response to such occurrences where they suspect them.
Does the DAO need to have a vote on Ethereum to determine if Snapshot results should be ignored?
Yes. The security of the governance process is paramount. As such, any vote to nullify the result of a vote on Snapshot would require a 66.7% majority and 25% quorum. This is a lower quorum threshold than for whitelisting proposals so as to reduce friction should swift action be required. Meanwhile, it is not too low as to encourage proposals to nullify the outcome of a vote on Snapshot without apparent good reason.
Who can initiate a vote to ignore the result(s) of Snapshot votes, and via what mechanism? Would this require front end support?
Anybody with 25,000 vBNT staked in Governance may initiate such a vote. However, in order for the voting community to be fully informed of the facts before voting, any community member wishing to submit such a proposal would be required to firstly create a forum post outlining their proposal on gov.bancor.network and await feedback from other community members before pushing the proposal to a vote. This forum post must include evidence of suspected voter tampering. Any vote initiated on Ethereum to nullify a vote on Snapshot without presenting evidence of suspected voter fraud and receiving feedback from other community members, will not be considered legitimate even if receives a 66.7% majority and 25% quorum, and will thus be ignored.
Does a vote on Ethereum to nullify one vote on Snapshot cause Snapshot voting to be suspended altogether?
Yes. Should one vote be nullified on Snapshot due to suspected voter fraud, voting on Snapshot will be suspended altogether. The BancorDAO would then request a written update on security measures from the Snapshot team before considering a new vote on Ethereum to re-instate Snapshot voting.
