Votingautomaton.eth

About the Voting Automaton

The Voting Automaton address (votingautomaton.eth, 0x9326029b9aF034cc05fdc9af453CeDF249aC7Ed9) is held by Mark Richardson, and is used exclusively for the purpose of voting in Bancor DAO decisions.

The Voting Automaton will vote in every proposal. Any governance incentives received by the Voting Automaton (e.g. ICHI, ZCN) will be used to buy vBNT and increase its voting power.

This thread will be updated regularly with exact plans on how the Voting Automaton will vote on upcoming proposals. However, it’s voting behavior is quasi-predictable.

Whitelisting: Liberal

The Voting Automaton will vote for most whitelisting proposals. In addition to the security and economic requirements for whitelisting, the Voting Automaton’s decisions are influenced by the following considerations:

  • The whitelisting proposal is well-prepared.
  • The token project team has acknowledged the existence of the proposal in a mainstream medium, such as Twitter, and/or has been present in the Bancor telegram channels to discuss their project with the Bancor community.
  • The project with which the token is associated serves a clear purpose.

Liquidity Mining: Conservative

The Voting Automaton will vote to activate liquidity mining incentives on pools where there is a clear and present motivation to do so. The Voting Automaton rules for liquidity mining were updated on 6th August 2021 to reflect the changing culture, and Bancor’s maturing presence in Defi. The following criteria are not stringently applied, but represent the general approach:

  • The Automaton will no longer support liquidity mining proposals for the sole purpose of attracting a higher TVL; this is an important consideration, but insufficient to support a liquidity mining proposal alone.
  • Therefore, proposals that simply ask to grow a pool to competitive levels will no longer be considered a compelling argument. Liquidity providers on Bancor already have the the benefit of substantially improved yields compared to our competitors, and liquidity mining incentives should no longer be considered the default approach to expanding the network. Whitelisting is a strong value offering unto itself, and continuing to apply staking incentives to encourage liquidity provision undermines that value.

The Automaton will vote for any liquidity mining proposal that has established a tangible benefit to the health of the protocol. Liquidity mining incentives will be treated as an expense, and will require a sound financial justification as to how the additional costs can be recuperated, if not entirely, then at least in part. The precedent established by the staking incentives campaign for the $FARM token is an important one. In general, the Voting Automaton will vote against liquidity mining proposals, including extensions, on any pools that aren’t of special strategic importance. The notable exceptions are: $ETH, $LINK, and the USD stable coins, which serve another purpose entirely.

Co-Investment Increases: Liberal

The Voting Automaton will generally support co-investment increases on established pools. Its decisions are highly influenced by, but not contingent on the following:

  • The token project team and/or its community has expressed a sincere desire to establish a deeper source of liquidity.
  • The existing pool has performed better than other pools of a similar size.
  • The proposed co-investment increase is data-based, and of a reasonable magnitude. For example, targeting a depth comparable to that available on a competing platform.
  • The token has not recently dramatically changed in price relative to the market.

Protocol Upgrades: Liberal

The Voting Automaton will generally vote in favor of proposed changes to the Bancor ecosystem, and is heavily influenced by the following considerations:

  • The proposed changes directly benefit BNT holders and liquidity providers.
  • The proposed changes are innovative, interesting, and likely to draw attention from outside communities.
  • The proposal is well-written, thorough, with strong evidence for the anticipated outcomes, ideally backed by experimental observations.
  • The proposed changes are iterative, forming a clear development narrative based on community feedback and known issues.
  • The targets are realistic and can be completed in a reasonable time period with resources that are already available.

Governance Changes: Conservative and Pragmatic

The Voting Automaton will support proposed changes to governance that do not abjectly challenge any of the following:

  • The security and legitimacy of the DAO should be maintained above everything, even if inconvenient.
  • Inclusiveness and broad participation in DAO decisions are never a bad idea.
  • Creation and submission of proposals should be actively facilitated, and additional resources to assist community members to become active in the DAO is generally beneficial.
  • Decentralization is important, and always will be.

However, the Voting Automaton is also in support of restructuring and adapting the DAO as required to maintain smooth operations. Proposals to modify specific elements of the DAO process are considered on a per-case basis. For example:

  • The Voting Automaton would have supported the DAO transition to Snapshot, despite the centralized nature of the system. Decentralization of the decision making is more important than the decentralization of the technology.
  • The Voting Automaton is likely to support concepts such as quadratic voting and voting decay, depending on the implementation.
  • Proposals to reduce the quorum requirement or supermajority rules are unlikely to be supported. However, increasing one of these to help offset a reduction in the other will be carefully considered.
8 Likes

Very interested to see this in action!

2 Likes

Great to know this is the thread to follow to see voting intent/behaviour, thank you.

Delegation allows selling of voter incentive(ie. ICHI, ZCN) for vbnt on our behalf?

Does the delegated wallet receive single incentive or one for each wallet it represents?

2 Likes

I’m pretty sure the delegation wallet will only receive any voter incentives once; the teams that distribute these are likely to simply pull down the voting summary directly from Snapshot. Therefore the votingautomaton.eth address will only receive the same incentives as any other individual voter.

1 Like

I see, so the voter incentive will be less than trivial. How do we see how much vbnt is already delegated?

2 Likes

That is an interesting question. I am not entirely sure - I will reach out to the Snapshot team to see if this can be easily audited.

1 Like

This is how the Voting Automaton will vote on the upcoming proposals:

Proposal: Whitelist Rarible (RARI) Plus 250K BNT Co-Investment Limit

As RARI is already whitelisted, this proposal is redundant. However, the Voting Automaton will vote FOR an increase to the co-investment limit, if and only if the pool is bootstrapped, and the existing 20k BNT investment limit is exhausted prior to the conclusion of the voting period.

Proposal : Whitelist Gitcoin (GTC) / 250K BNT Co-Investment

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the GTC whitelisting if and only if the Gitcoin community and/or team expresses a sincere interest in the opportunity via the standard social media channels, prior to the commencement of the vote.

Proposal: 350k Co-investment / 1% Trading Fee on ICHI Pool

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the increased co-investment on the ICHI pool, and the increase in the pool fee. The ICHI community has issued at least one tweet on the subject and are incentivising governance participation, as they have previously.

Guidelines for Vote Delegation on Snapshot (BIP12 Addendum #2)

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the ability of users with 25k in delegated votes to activate voting on Snapshot.

Proposal: Update whitelisting and co-investment increase quorum and supermajority requirements

This proposal is unfinished. In its present state, the Voting Automaton will vote AGAINST changes to quorum rules and supermajority requirements. As the proposal is updated, the voting plans of the Voting Automaton will be updated here.

Proposal: Whitelist BBS with External IL Protection

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR whitelisting status of BBS, with external IL protection, if and only if the BBS community and/or team raises the profile of the proposal via the standard community channels prior to the commencement of the voting period.

4 Likes

Proposal: Update quorum and supermajority requirements

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the new version of the proposed changes to quorum and supermajority rules.

5 Likes

(BIP) Reallocate 50% of Vortex Burner vBNT for Bancor Brand Awareness Campaigns

The Voting Automaton will vote AGAINST proposed changes to the use of the vortex mechanism.

3 Likes

The GTC team are working with their community to promote Bancor.

3 Likes

Proposal to introduce a new standardized fee structure based on market cap ranking

The Voting Automaton will treat changes to pool fees as ‘protocol upgrades’, and in keeping with its liberal leanings, will vote FOR the proposed updates to pool fee minimums if and only if the ETH pool is excluded. Volume data following the ETH pool fee increase from 0.10% to 0.15% is still inconclusive but suggests a low swap fee on the ETH pool may be critical.

Holo (HOT) - BancorDAO Whitelist Proposal

HOT is a well-established project with a vibrant community and project team. The Voting Automaton will vote FOR whitelisting status if and only if the HOT community and/or team raises the profile of the proposal via the standard community channels prior to, or during the voting period. If the Voting Automaton is chosen to receive the T-shirt (approx. 5% chance), it will relay the prize to one of the delegating addresses.

Proposal : Whitelist Chiliz (CHZ)

Joe Grech from the Chiliz marketing team has already acknowledged the CHZ whitelisting proposal on Twitter. If Joe sends at least one more tweet to raise awareness of the vote and specifically mentions either @Bancor or #BancorDAO with an encouraging message to participate or delegate, the Voting Automaton will vote FOR this proposal.

Rentible (RNB) - BancorDAO Whitelist Proposal

@drorlu, the CEO of Rentible wrote and published the whitelisting proposal on Discourse. The Voting Automaton will vote FOR whitelisting status if and only if the RNB community and/or team raises the profile of the proposal via the standard community channels prior to, or during the voting period. (e.g. tweet).

Proposal to Increase fee on GNO pool to .5%

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the proposed change to the GNO pool fee.

Proposal to Increase Co investment for LRC to 800,000 BNT

This proposal is unfinished. In its current state, the Voting Automaton will vote AGAINST proposed changes to the LRC pool co-investment increase, until the quality of the proposal is improved.

Proposal to Increase co investment on NMR to 750,000 BNT

This proposal is unfinished. In its current state, the Voting Automaton will vote AGAINST proposed changes to the NMR pool co-investment increase, until the quality of the proposal is improved.

2 Likes

Proposal to Increase Co investment for LRC to 300,000 BNT

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the increased co-investment on LRC.

Proposal to Increase co investment on NMR to 500,000 BNT

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the increased co-investment on NMR.

Proposal to Increase fee on GNO pool to .5%

There are several similar proposals in various stages of preparation and community discussion that are related to pool fee optimization and experimentation. With a view to maintaining a relatively predictable behavior, the Voting Automaton will vote for any proposed change to a pool fee according to the following logic:

if pool = ETH and 0.05% < proposedFee < 0.15%:
    vote = FOR
elif pool != ETH and 0.1% < proposedFee < 1.0%:
    vote = FOR
else:
    vote = AGAINST

In other words, the Voting Automaton will vote FOR any proposed change to a pool fee (up or down), within the range 0.1%-1.0%, for any pool except ETH. For the ETH pool, the Voting Automaton will vote FOR any proposed change to its fee (up or down) within the range 0.05%-0.15%. Any proposed pool fee changes outside of this range will be voted AGAINST.

Rentible (RNB) - BancorDAO Whitelist Proposal
Holo (HOT) - BancorDAO Whitelist Proposal
Proposal : Whitelist Chiliz (CHZ)

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the RNB, HOT and CHZ whitelisting proposals if their authors or anyone for those token communities voice their interest on a major social media platform.

2 Likes

I appreciate the full transparency and vote by vote breakdown.

Are these posts automatically generated by the votingautomaton.eth wallet? If so, Skynet appears to be active :eyes:

3 Likes

It’s quasi-manual right now. I am working on improving its automation over time.

2 Likes

RNB Tweet confirmed
Nothing seen on the HOT main accounts yet; however a community member has tweeted.
CHZ tweet confirmed

2 Likes

Proposal to Whitelist NOIA (Syntropy). 150k co-investment and voter incentive (2nd attempt) 1

The NOIA whitelisting proposal is held to the same standards as the other three (CHZ, HOT, RNB). The tweet from the NOIA team has been confirmed. The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the NOIA whitelisting status.
Additional community engagement for NOIA whitelisting proposal are here, here, here, here, here. This list may not be comprehensive.

2 Likes

HOT Tweet confirmed

2 Likes

BancorDao Whitelist Proposal: FARM - Harvest Finance

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR whitelisting status of FARM. The main Harvest.finance Twitter account has publically acknowledged the proposal. Additional twitter activity can be found here, and here.

LM rewards halving on USDC, USDT, DAI

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR reducing the LM rate on stablecoins. This has been a longstanding issue for Bancor. The community has voted in favor of reducing stablecoin LM emissions previously, and together with the positive reception of the proposal during the last community call, the Voting Automaton will assume sufficient community sentiment, and precedent, for supporting the reduction.

BancorDAO Whitelist Proposal : Whitelist LQTY

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR whitelisting status of LQTY. The LQTY team has publically acknowledged the whitelisting propsal both on Twitter (here, and here), and on their Weekly Wrap Up blog (#10).

Proposal: Lower MKR-BNT Fees to 0.1%

As per the previously stated logic:

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR a reduced swap fee on the MKR pool.

BancorDAO Whitelist Proposal for NAOS Finance

Several Twitter accounts have posted nearly identical material, suggesting that NAOS is ‘backed’ by Bancor. This is perhaps a slight obfuscation of the truth at best; however it suggests their community is excited by something involving Bancor. A collection of these strange tweets are viewable here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (and others). This was likely spurred on by some marketing materials that incorrectly identify Bancor as a strategic investor, both on Twitter, and on their blog. It is possible that one or more of the founding members supports NAOS, but founders != Bancor. Importantly, it seems that the whitelisting proposal has not yet been acknowledged publically.

The Voting Automaton will vote AGAINST whitelisting NAOS until this criterion is met.

Proposal: Increase Co-Investment Limit on WOO to 750k BNT

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR increasing the WOO co-investment limit.

Proposal: Whitelist ORBS

The ORBS whitelisting proposal has not been acknowledged by its team, its community, or by anyone, on any social media channels. The Voting Automaton will vote AGAINST whitelisting ORBS until this criterion is met.

3 Likes

NAOS Tweet confirmed.

2 Likes

Proposal. Experiment to assess effect of 0.1% swap fee on USDT stable coin pool

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the proposed decrease in swap fees on USDT.

Whitelist Union Protocol Governance Token (UNN), Default 20,000 BNT Co-Investment

The Union Protocol team have Tweeted about their proposal. It is noteworthy that the project team is purchasing a substantial amount of BNT to bootstrap the pool following its whitelisting. The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the whitelisting status of UNN, provided the co-investment remains at or below the default co-investment (20k BNT).

Proposal : Whitelist ANKR - 100K Co-Invest

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the ANKR whitelisting proposal, if and only if the project team, or its community, acknowledges the proposal via Twitter. The Ankr Twitter account regularly mentions staking for the tokens they support; it stands to reason that they could endorse staking on Bancor.

Proposal : Whitelist NEXO - 250K Co-Invest

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the NEXO whitelisting proposal, if and only if the project team, or its community, acknowledges the proposal via Twitter. The Nexo Finance Twitter account has promoted native staking utility; it is uncertain if they will openly support staking on Bancor. It is noteworthy that the NEXO token earns 12% APY natively, and while staking APY on Bancor could potentially outpace this, the day-to-day APY volatility could present a challenge to drawing in NEXO liquidity providers.

Proposal : Increase ROOK co investment by 300,000 BNT

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR an increase in single-sided staking capacity on the ROOK pool. @tenzent has astutely pointed out that the lack of space is not necessarily attributable to a lack of BNT ownership, but the shifting incentives to stake BNT caused by the current LM program.

Proposal : Whitelist Perpetual Protocol (PERP)

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the PERP whitelisting proposal, if and only if the project team, or its community, acknowledges the proposal via Twitter. The Perpetual Protocol Finance Twitter account has promoted similar collaborations, such as with C.R.E.A.M. Finance, and O3Swap.

Proposal : Migrate AXS 250k Co-Investment to New Axie Infinity (AXS) Contract

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR the inheritance of the previous co-investment limit on the AXS legacy pool, by the new one.

Proposal to reduce fees on MKR/BNT pool and extend LM rewards

As it stands, the Voting Automaton will vote AGAINST re-activation of liquidity mining rewards on the MKR pool. However, if the recently passed change in the pool fee has a dramatic impact on trading volumes, this could change.

Proposal: Whitelist DAPP Network (DAPP) w/ 500k Co-Investment and External IL Protection

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR whitelist status of DAPP, and the proposed external IL compensation plan.

Proposal: Whitelist BBS with External IL Protection

The Voting Automaton will vote FOR whitelist status of BBS, and the proposed external IL compensation plan.

3 Likes