REDRESSING THE BALANCE - APE FOUNDATION will delegate 6.3million $APE to a community VOTING wallet

General
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Hi @furiousanger principally I am not worried about the impact of the voting power if there are parties that want to present more tokens they are free to. I would also point out that the Mocaverse is not the largest delegate if you see https://delegate.apecoin.com/ there are two other wallets that have approx. the same range of tokens as mocaverse

I would also want to clearly point out that Mocaverse is also decentralized and I do not agree that Mocaverse holders always vote in the interest of Animoca, the voting history clearly suggests otherwise when you look at the complete history as supposed to pick and choose certain events that suit a particular agenda-based and biased narrative. This is something that others have pointed out before.

I am more concerned around the principle of who gets to vote if it is not “one token one vote” which I can agree may be overly simplistic but is also an easily understood principle.

By offering other users the ability to vote with more power without having to pay for it you are not only reducing Mocaverses influence but every other token holder who paid for their token which is the vast majority of holders of apecoin today. This is the bigger issueI think we need to address.

The circulating supply of apecoin is about 20x the actual tokens used to vote at this moment in time. I would aim to try to bring more people who are not voting their tokens today and bring them in to vote and either grow existing delegates or create new ones.

I think an underlying principle should be discussed and agreed on because if you can create a new token pool from the DAO that is community governed with your particular rule set what stops someone else from proposing a similar idea to have a similar number of tokens with a slightly different rule set and why would anyone want to purchase tokens when they can ask the DAO for “free” voting tokens in the future to address one perceived balance or another?

That would be my initial reaction and I do think it is sensible to give it some more deeper thought of course. I understand and appreciate the sentiment I just think it needs to be thought out more thoroughly where a rule can be more universally applied.

Best,

Yat

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I agree with this. I think the primary problem is the core voting mechanism of 1 $APE = 1 vote. So long as that exists as-is, the wealthy will continue to have immense power. It’s a very easy system to “game” if you have enough money to do so. The ApeChain votes were a shining example of that. And to be clear, they were all 100% playing within the rules, I’m not judging them for doing so. That’s how the system was designed and from my POV it’s technically working as intended.

What concerns me is that the foundation shot down an AIP that aimed to cap voting power at 1 million ape per wallet (a soft cap as it’s beyond easy to split across wallets.) They said it broke the 1 APE = 1 APE foundational principle. So I’m not sure if they’d ever let concepts like quadratic voting through.

This is a complicated one. I do consider the current balance of voting power to be an issue. I also think trying to eliminate the influence of the whales / super large delegations who have fairly purchased that power also doesn’t seem “fair.” There’s probably a happy compromise somewhere. I think an ideal solution would likely be changing the way voting power was calculated, but that really is still just a compromise. Since even proof of humanity can be gamed, I can’t think of any “ideal” end states to aim for.

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29

“why would anyone want to purchase tokens when they can ask the DAO for “free” voting tokens in the future to address one perceived balance or another?”

Thanks for the reply.

What I quoted above is one of the many reasons for this idea - animoca did this when they gifted the apecoin to mocaverse holders, now we have a 6.3m vote from holders who have no incentive to buy apecoin (so own none), and most have never entered the apecoin DAOs forum or discord or spaces ever - yet a minority of them (3 wallets afaik) control one of our largest votes. And it’s even worse if we dissect horizenlabs imo.

True story - I spoke to a fellow mocaverse holder today (who votes regularly) and they said they will comment on my forum post but they couldn’t right away as they need to buy 1 apecoin and send it to their wallet. I do not think this is an exceptional case but more the norm.

I just want to give a comparable voice to the active DAO members at voting time and add some balance.

Thanks for the reply. :handshake:

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Hi,

So I tried to figure out a way to return the DAO to a community led organisation. Currently it is controlled by the few, often with very specific agendas (see apechain and horizenlabs).

The criteria to join is the lowest possible bar I could set, you literally will have to have made a post and read for a few minutes OR have voted a few times OR have ‘X’ amount of $ape for a period of time (maybe I will add other options). I expect anywhere from 500-1000+ people to be eligible, or maybe will be much more. How could 500+ active apecoin DAO members voices not be as valid as horizenlabs or mocaverse?

I don’t want to do away with whales, I just want to add some balance by giving a similar voice to the people of the DAO when it comes to voting.

Thanks.

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Hi,

100%. If we have 500 people join and only 10 people vote then it’s a failure. We’d set a threshold and unless that’s met the vote doesn’t get posted to snapshot. If this goes on for let’s say for example 10 voting periods we’ll close it down.

Certainly the challenge will be to get people in. But then again free stuff always does help. :joy::handshake:

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Really good point. The Mocaverse votes are EXTREMELY top heavy.

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34

I like the fact that you brought up this subject cause this is a huge problem in many other projects and they are stil yet to have a valueble solutions just like the one’s you made mension of.

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This approach seems like a great way to democratize the DAO and ensure broader community representation in decision-making. It’s a step towards achieving balance and fairness in the voting process.

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So this is why I’m saying this is not a 0 cost AIP. Just because you aren’t receiving any apecoin and apecoin isn’t “leaving the treasury” doesn’t mean that this isn’t 0 cost. Asking to delegate 6.3M $APE is effectively asking for 6.3M $APE to not be used for any other purpose except for the purpose of voting. Which means that this proposal is asking for 6.3M $ape to be set aside and used strictly for voting. Yes you aren’t receiving any ape, but, in the event this passes, its likely that the $ape will be transferred to a separate wallet from one or more of the treasury listed wallets in order to be delegated and taken out of circulation from the treasury to prevent it from being spent. Thus it would be construed as a cost.

If you delegated your voting power to me, but you spent your ape, I have less voting power because you spent your ape. I only have as much voting power as the wallet or amount you delegated towards me. Should either of those change, my voting power changes accordingly.

Does this make better sense of how I’m seeing this?

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37

I would like to bring to people’s attention an AIP which has already been in Administrative Review for weeks from the GWG.

Btw, one needs to define what you think is community. In the last six months we have gone from approx. 18,000 wallets connected on snapshot to 23,000 wallets. Anyone who owns at least 1 APE (ApeCoin) is a community member.

I 100% agree with this and would love to get your support on what we are doing here.

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38

Great idea and agree the community needs a voting voice. I would suggest a larger amount like 10 million so we can have a solid foundation to stand on, other communities are vested and we should have a greater say in the end.

Fully support this initiative :clap:

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39

Hi,

Thanks. At first I didn’t understand the question and I thought there might have been more to your statement. So let my address the above.

If the multi million dollar DAO gets to a stage where it is down to its last 6.3m apecoin we would have closed shop already imo.

I will write in a specification - if we get to below 10 million apecoin in the treasury the community delegated wallet will be dissolved.

Would that satisfy you?

For your information - it is a zero cost AIP as we require no payment of apecoin. How the foundation execute the order is down to them; but I hope the above stipulation will convert your NO vote to a YES as the money therefore will only be ring-fenced until needed. :pray::pray::handshake::handshake:

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40

Hi,

So I took the approx average of the top three wallets. Horizen 6.7m, polygon 6m and moca 6.3m.

Polygon have notified us they are selling but we also have bayc china with 6m that I wasn’t familiar with to replace polygon in my calculations.

I did think to ask for more, but I’ve also got to be realistic and try and get large voters to come in our side to get this passed.

Issue is is moca going to vote for this? Will horizen? Will jrnycrypto? Will they be happy to give the community a valid seat at the table? Or will every single one of them vote this down? So I thought keep it comparable to what others have and at least they will then need to justify themselves more.

If down the line we see new entities enter the ring with massive votes (basically buying the DAO) then 100% we will reapply for extra funding.

Thanks.

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41

Hi,

What your talking about is basically what NFTGerry mentioned - going out and finding all these apecoin holders and getting them to devote their time and effort and create and participate in delegations - most don’t care and we see this everyday by the absolutely criminally low numbers who partake in the DAO. (Actually I will add in TA rewards have added many repetitive farming posts last few days on forum and discord - winning!)

I wish you well with your endeavour, and I’m sure one day you may very well succeed. But I can assure you will not do this as fast as this AIP will if it passes - I’m trying to address the now, redress the balance today - not in five years time.

How about this - I’ll put in a stipulation that states as soon as GWG has created 6.3m cumulative total in new delegation wallets (that actually vote each period) the community wallet will close?

Would that change your NO to a YES vote?

I think we are pretty much on the same page and agree there is cause for concern and there must be a better way to do things. :handshake::handshake::handshake:

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FYI, What we are doing is a follow up from this accepted AIP, which never got implemented and expired after 3 months from passing.

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That’s fine. You will have your approach and I will have mine.

Remember uniswap will be leading the way, but they also can give rewards endlessly. So attracting new voters when you exhaust finding holders who don’t vote - you’ll be competing with the linked idea below (I know which one makes more financial sense to investors):

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Anyway, GL with what you are doing. I have offered up stipulations to calm you and @LiveFast9986 down (maybe comment on BB proposal how it is not zero cost), hopefully you will accept them and can both get behind this idea? :handshake:

The other problem with your approach is you are once again disregarding the people already here, in favour of finding new voters, who you will need to educate and integrate - this will all take more time, more money and more manpower to do right. All the time the status quo continues on, for years possibly - controlled by the few with large amounts of cash who really don’t get involved much here. Also there is a cost.

Another issue with what you’ve linked is you propose to start paying out $ape it seems - TA results again possibly? Depleting our treasury as you go; rewarding farmers who split wallets no doubt.

My idea not only fixes the divide/gulf today, it rewards the hundreds of people who have made the DAO what it is - your approach does not.

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45

The two can coexist.

You want to reward new entrants really, and I want to reward people who have made us what we are today.

But together we will be delivering a more diverse vote that’s for sure.

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46

I think there are some misunderstandings around how Mocaverse operates, it is not 3 wallets, they are delegated but they do not control the DAO (as in there is more than 3 wallets) of course they have influence but that does not mean they control it. Also anecdotally there are quite a number of Mocaverse holders who also own BAYC and who also own Apecoin.

I think there is also one principle here which I feel we have not addressed, which is how do we address the differentiation of owned Apecoin which is I would say is the majority of the tokens in circulation today vs. Apecoin that is given from the DAO. I think it becomes a violation of an important principle of ownership if there is a mechanism where voting power can inflate without contributing to the stake.

The incentive for an institution be it Polygon, ourselves or even Machi as an individual and any others is to acquire more tokens on market which creates an overall benefit for the Apecoin community to have a stake and the fact that this is paid for, that is what gives it a baseline of an operating rule.

Imagine if an unrelated 3rd party started acquiring 6 or say even 10m tokens and started to influence the DAO? Would this justify a “redressing” of the balance to give the same sub community 10m tokens now?

There are currently 3 delegates that hold in aggregate 18m tokens (give or take). Would a sub-dao of 6m be “enough” to redress your suggested balance or should it not be 18m? Btw I am not suggesting this, I am just trying to illustrate a scenario because what is “balance” and who gets to decide this “balance”.

I think it would be different if a group of people bought Apecoin and then delegated it to your proposed structure because there was an acquired stake, a commitment that took place that played under the same rules as everyone else.

Getting “free tokens” from the DAO feels to me like a slippery slope because I think it creates a disincentive especially around institutions to own tokens when voting rights can become diluted when the amount of delegated tokens could increase.

There was a separate discussion around governance and I shared that I think there can be an argument for a kind of “labor” or in-kind vote which we can define but this is perhaps for another thread.

150 million APE was airdropped to BAYC, MAYC, BAKC holders and I propose that we try to get them and those who hold APE to come back in and perhaps they can delegate their tokens to the subcommunity that you are proposing.

I may have some separate administrative questions around this but I think the principle around token as digital property is perhaps the most salient one for this discussion.

Best,

Yat

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What is the reason this never saw the light of day? Step 2 was never implemented?

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