Reform of the Voting Systems in the ApeCoin DAO

[bigbull]

Below are some ideas based on what other leading DAOs are already doing.

Also, I think we need to think how the DAO wide elected Stewards can play an important role in this process.

Function of Stewards
Suggest a new model of compensation for Stewards that will have a part of compensation in USDT and part in APE that is vested over 1 year, but the voting weight is immediately given via Hedgey Finance, see info Hedgey Vesting.

This will enable Stewards to have sufficient APE voting power to be meet the threshold to be a AIP off-chain proposer (in Model A). Please note some Stewards already have this voting power, but this will mean all Stewards can propose.

Potential New Structure - Model A:

Criteria	AIP - Ops / Temp Check Proposals	Executable Proposals
Type of proposal	Offchain	Onchain
Location	Snapshot	TBC https://www.tally.xyz/gov/apecoin
Function	Changes to process or working groups, Temp Checks	Distribution of Funds
Minimum threshold to propose	$100,000 APE	$1,000,000 APE
Quorum	≥ 10m $APE, 50% Approval for Grants funding, 66% for Constitutional changes	≥ 15m $APE*, 50% Approval (Votes ‘For’ + Abstain count towards quorum)
Voting period	TBC 6 days	TBC 7 days
Subject to time-lock?	No	Yes, 3 day time lock

Who can propose?
Ops proposals can be put forward by any Delegate or individual with at least 100,000 $APE.

Ops Proposals that have a budget?
The Ops proposals can also include funding requests. If they include funding requests and they pass and reach quorum of 1%, they are then moved over to be voted on via Tally as an Executable proposal. The Foundation Administrator will be added as the author if the original author does not have 1,000,000 APE to submit it themselves in the system.

Ops that are Changing DAO fundamentals
Any Ops proposal that is changing the constitution or working group fundamentals will need 1.5% Quorum and 66% vote in favour.

Temperature Checks
Temperature check: This is a preliminary vote that gauges the community’s interest in a proposal before it moves on to the next stage. This is specifically for proposals that will be requiring funding from the DAO and are not for non budget request Off Chain proposals of the Foundation and/or Working Groups. If such proposals have the support of a delegation with over 1,000,00 APE they can be submitted directly via Executable Proposals.

Executable Proposals can be put forward by: any Delegate or individual with at least 1,000,000 $APE; or Off Chain proposals that passed and reached quorum will be submitted by the Foundation.

Tally and Delegating
Please note that Delegating is a requirement in the tally platform. Therefore it would be expected that the amount delegated would significantly increase.

Quorum: In order for a vote to pass, a certain percentage of APE tokens (total supply, Not circulating supply) must vote. The current quorum requirements are:

Type of proposal	Quorum	Abstain included
Constitutional	1.5%	N
Ops - Budget	1%	N
Temperature Check	1%	N
Executable	1.5%	Y

• AIP proposals, if passed, do not automatically execute any on-chain actions.
• Executable proposals, if passed, will execute the specified on-chain actions after the time-lock period

After some discussions with others some questions and answers.

Q1. Will this stop funding for people without funds to build?
A1. No as they will have time to reach out to delegations in advance to get support. They can also reach out to one of the Stewards who will have the necessary APE to put up a proposal.
Also they don’t need the minimum threshold to put up an idea in the forum (here).

Q2. Why would people ask for a grant if they already have enough money to buy $APE?
a) You don’t need the APE, but you do need to convince a delegation, larger holder or a Steward to back your idea going to snapshot. If you can’t convince one of these to support, how likely is your AIP idea to pass?
b) Having funds already doesn’t stop someone asking for funds. The key point is what are they going to deliver that will make the DAO stronger.

Q3. Does this only support the rich?
A3. No, as adding a post in the forum, including an AIP idea would still only need 1 APE. However, to get to bring to vote will require you get buy in. It would actually help people with less APE realise to take the time in advance to gather support before they go to vote.

Q4. Won’t people just buy the APE and dump it after the vote?
A4. Buying the 100,000 APE only gets your idea to vote, no guarantee it will pass. Also there are many avenues for support to get your idea to the temp check phase. I believe it will encourage people to reach certain thresholds of APE holdings or pool their funds together with delegations.

Q5. Should the APE not have to be staked for X amount of time?
A5. This could be a consideration. I need to check how technically it is possible to require someone has staked for X period of time. Also challenges if people are staking on various platforms.

Q6. Should BAYC who are fully staked be allowed to get an AIP proposal number?
A6. This is an interesting idea. Need to see how many BAYC now are fully staked. Can’t be that many as 10k fully staked would equal 10.094x10,000 = 100,940,000 APE
I am open to the idea as it could encourage BAYC holders to buy back APE. It could be a good suggestion.

Q7. What problem are you actually trying to solve here?
A7. I see this can solve various problems at the DAO:
i)Reduce admin overhead of the DAO.
ii) Give benefits to creating delegations.
iii) Give benefits to large holders.
iv) Make AIP authors do necessary groundwork to gain a supporter BEFORE going to vote.
v) If the BAYC fully staked is added it will encourage holders to fully stake.

Before ApeChain can get millions of holders enhancing APE demand, demand must come from larger holders. If new demand is greater the increase in circulating supply the price will rise. Only by having a stable or increasing price can the treasury support grants until returns from the Banana Bill commercial deals are realised.

Q8. How does this not introduce new problems like the centralization of power around whales and delegates?
A8. Don’t forget smaller delegations as well as Stewards would be able to put forward proposals to snapshot. By growing more delegations it will actually enhance decentralization as will reduce the voting weight of a few whale holders.

Q9. How does this not build unnecessary barriers to individuals who cannot afford the $APE to submit on their own, and are not able to navigate the additional power dynamics and politics you’re introducing?
Q9. Stewards will be checking proposals in the forum. They can also join a delegation and get support from their community delegation.

Q10. Does this put too much onus on the stewards in terms of having them to vest their earnings (compensation)?
A.10 There are two options here:

1. Vesting as shown in the idea. USD + APE Vesting
2. Create a delegated wallet with 100,000 APE for each Steward. They get the voting, but they don’t get to own it. They would still remain on USD equivalent compensation.

Q11. How to solve the problem of large holders or delegations extracting funds from aligned parties?
A11. A veto wallet could be added that can only vote no and not yes to a proposal. It is worth noting ens added this more for a governance attack vs a slow draining of the wallet by parties with vested interests.

Here is an example for a veto wallet by ENS.

The veto wallet (veto.ensdao.eth) in the ENS DAO serves as a security measure to protect against potential governance attacks. Its key functions are:

1. It holds 3.8 million delegated ENS tokens that can only vote “Against” proposals[1][4].

2. This increases the total delegated market cap, making it more difficult for an attacker to gain control of the DAO through token purchases[4].

3. It acts as a short-term solution to prevent malicious proposals from draining the DAO’s treasury[2].

4. The veto power is controlled by a multisig of trusted individuals who have pledged to use it only in case of attacks or to protect the DAO’s constitution[1][4].

5. It provides a mechanism to cancel potentially harmful proposals during the 48-hour timelock period before execution[4].

This veto function was implemented in response to research showing that the ENS DAO was vulnerable to attacks due to its low percentage of delegated tokens compared to its treasury value[4]. While it introduces some centralization, it’s designed as a temporary measure until more robust governance mechanisms can be implemented[1][2].

Citations:

[1] Introducing veto.ensdao.eth - General Discussion - ENS DAO Governance Forum

[2] [EP5.7] [Social] Security Council | ENS Docs

[3] Contracts

[4] [Temp Check] Enable CANCEL role on the DAO - 🗳️ Meta-Governance - ENS DAO Governance Forum

[5] 🗳️ Voting Period Bulletin - 🗳️ Meta-Governance - ENS DAO Governance Forum

[bigbull]

reserved for feedback summary

[DavidW]

@bigbull

based on what other leading DAOs are already doing

Would it be possible to expand on which DAOs? I’m just very interested in DAO governance and would love to follow along with some of the research.

@bigbull

Q1. Will this stop funding for people without funds to build?
A1. No as they will have time to reach out to delegations in advance to get support

I was slightly lost on this proposal. Is the point that there would be a temp check from delegations before any AIP could go up for a vote? So if delegations don’t support an idea, it wouldn’t go through the process to getting an AIP number, answering GwG questions, and getting a DAR?

[SmartAPE]

Great that you created a separate topic for this.

I don’t think putting the onus on stewards - who are doing work for the DAO - should be put in this type of position whereby they have to vest their earnings, or else.

Also, it doesn’t solve anything. All it does is create yet another situation that only introduces a new balance of power dynamic in our voting system.

I do get the impetus for your idea, and it’s obviously well thought out and reasoned; but I think the intrinsic issue here is that it doesn’t actually solve the problem at hand. That being: Our voting system is going to lead to the demise of our DAO.

Look at how much money has thus far exited the treasury - with nothing going back in. Sure, it’s a grants DAO, but that was just pretense because nobody actually believed that a DAO with a treasury designed to give away money was never going to actually run out of money.

In fact, I wrote this thread earlier this morning when crypto-twitter degens were losing their marbles over the market drops. In there, I was espousing how the token got to this very moment in time and which was already in the making long before now.

We need to fix the voting. That’s all there is to it.

As I said in the other thread:

So, let me see if I get this straight. Your solution - to a problem not created by stewards - is to use their earnings to solve a problem they had no hand in? Is that it?

In times of economic turmoil, businesses tend to scale back, not only non-essential spending but also staff cuts - but they don’t tend to halt activities that generate income. Obviously we can’t do staff cuts without an AIP. To the extent that my AIP-466: Proposal To Close Non-Essential Working Groups is designed to do just that.

Which is why, for nigh on a year now, I have advocated for voting reform. And I took up that fight again with my AIP-471: Special Council To Propose Voting System Reform and AIP-474: Delegated ApeCoin Community Voting Wallet proposals.

I believe that voting reform is the answer to all our on-going challenges. The problem is whether or not the community is able to band together to pass voting reform even though whales will obviously vote to kill any such proposal.

[bigbull]

You can look at DAOs, such as Arbitrum Foundation and ENS DAO. Their official docs sections are quite comprehensive. They do have slightly diffferent approaches on how they handle Quorums and temp checks.

@DavidW

Is the point that there would be a temp check from delegations before any AIP could go up for a vote? So if delegations don’t support an idea, it wouldn’t go through the process to getting an AIP number, answering GwG questions, and getting a DAR?

Yes. AIP Authors will have to gain the support from the community before the DAO spends funds writing many DAR reports. There is significant costs here, both in terms of writing, but also reviewing such reports. There would still be GWG facilitators answering some questions in the Idea phrase, but the onus on the author of the idea to discuss in the forum and canvas support from a delegation representative, delegation community, large individual holder or corporate holder who have over 100k of APE voting power. This will improve the pass rate of AIPs and make the DAO operations more efficient.

Btw for other delegations such as ENS this is 10k ENS which is now 170k USD, last week over 200k USD.

So 100k APE is only 56k which is less than 30% of what they ask.

[chimperton]

@bigbull

Btw for other delegations such as ENS this is 10k ENS which is now 170k USD, last week over 200k USD.

The thing is DAOs are not a proven, successful concept. Large DAOs at scale basically always implode and go down in flames, unless the scope and purpose of the DAO is incredibly tight and well defined (MakerDAO as an example.) Using examples of other unproven concepts is not a logical defense for this action. It’s simply saying that you’re following the herd. The problem with the ApeCoin DAO is that it was rushed into existence as a grants DAO, and most simply never participated nor cared about it until the value of their coin went to sub 0. At that point they suddenly wanted the DAO to both stop spending any money, and start generating lots of income (which they also wouldn’t want it to spend because number go down.) This identity crisis is the core issue at play here, and ideas like this are a reaction to number go down, even though they in no way solve nor help that problem. I’d argue they continue to add fuel that problem as it simply changes power dynamics further into the hands of big wallets, and they could prevent fantastic ideas from ever seeing the light of day because of the new barriers that are introduced.

So once again I ask, what problem are you actually trying to solve here? Why is this the BEST way to solve that problem? How does this not introduce new problems like the centralization of power around whales and delegates? How does this not build unnecessary barriers to individuals who cannot afford the $APE to submit on their own, and are not able to navigate the additional power dynamics and politics you’re introducing?

[chimperton]

Broadly speaking:

People need to read more. Specifically in this instance, read more about the history of human governance and political systems. From this you can see example after example of how when money begins to be the core differentiating factor over who controls said political and governance systems, that corruption sets in, and slowly but surely (well, sometimes very quickly) they go down in flames.

This is true in what we consider ancient human history, and this is happening right now, at scale, as I type this. One example that I don’t think will ruffle too many feathers would be the rise and fall (and re-rise) of the Russian oligarchs. It didn’t end well for many of those oligarchs (e.g. they’re no longer alive), and it resulted in the ultimate centralization of power. An example that will ruffle feathers is the rise of the super PACs in the US, and how that’s influenced dark campaign contributions, and created incredible leverage on who is chosen to serve on the highest courts.

Then realize that the ApeCoin DAO was systematically designed to give power based on how much money you have. That is, and always has been, the DAOs core issue. It centralizes power around wealth. That is the problem to solve. This voting reform system very actively is driving the bus in the other direction towards more centralization around wealth. History isn’t kind to driving in that direction.

[chimperton]

Food for thought:

I do think introducing some hard requirements / guidelines for submitting an AIP to go to vote could make sense. You’d have to establish rules per category. I’ll give an example:

There was recently an AIP idea submitted asking for $50k in $APE to help grow and market a business that accepts $APE. The benefit they were offering the DAO in return is that people will actively use $APE to buy their products, thus generating awareness and on-chain activity.

The problem was this was a brand new business with no revenue. Thus the actual value they offer back to the DAO is near 0. I think it would make a lot of sense to introduce hard requirements that if you are a business offering “exposure” or on-chain activity as your benefit to the DAO, you need to have a minimum of 10x the gross revenue in the past year compared to the amount you’re asking for. 10x is just a random number, but this would very actively prevent AIPs from having to be reviewed which are obviously very asymmetrical in terms of who they benefit and how they benefit them.

Similar rules and requirements could be introduced across all AIP categories. This way it’s a meritocracy, instead of a plutocracy. A big, big improvement.

[bigbull]

@SmartAPE

I don’t think putting the onus on stewards - who are doing work for the DAO - should be put in this type of position whereby they have to vest their earnings, or else.

There are two options here:

1. Vesting as shown in the idea. USD + APE Vesting
2. Create a delegated wallet with 100,000 APE for each Steward. They get the voting, but they don’t get to own it. They would still remain on USD equivalent compensation.

added as Q10 in the FAQ

[SmartAPE]

@bigbull

Yes. AIP Authors will have to gain the support from the community before the DAO spends funds writing many DAR reports. There is significant costs here, both in terms of writing, but also reviewing such reports.

Agreed. But isn’t that what our 7 day discussions period is for? It seems to me that instead of creating yet another area of friction, that we use the “vote” tab which is visible during the ideas phase, to gauge that level of interest before it goes to draft. e.g. if we look at the avg votes on topics, and then come up with, say, 10, then an idea requires 10 votes before it can advance to draft.

Also, the facilitators are already paid to do this work. So, I don’t see how it’s suddenly a going concern spend.

FYI. Arb DAO - where I am a member - also uses Discourse for discussions, as well as Tally and Snapshot for their voting. e.g. the $400M Games Catalyst Fund first went to a Tally temp check ahead of going to Snapshot. Had it not passed the temp check, it would not have gone to Snapshot. e.g.

GCP Steps:

1. GCP educational thread
2. GCP ideas thread
3. GCP ideas thread update (draft) ahead of Tally vote
4. GCP Tally temp check vote
5. GCP Snapshot vote

Then again, that DAO is full of overly serious people; and so it makes sense that they do things this way - though there were some growing pains and missteps in the early days.

@bigbull

but the onus on the author of the idea to discuss in the forum and canvas support from a delegation representative, delegation community, large individual holder or corporate holder who have over 100k of APE voting power. This will improve the pass rate of AIPs and make the DAO operations more efficient.

I am - and always have been - vehemently opposed to such activities because it’s a burdensome task for authors, aside from the friction. Especially for new authors who have no clue who the players are, who to trust etc. We should stop promoting this activity because it’s not conducive to a welcoming format for new people who dare to come to our corner of the web.

Also, I don’t see how talking to delegates will “improve the pass rate of AIPs” when in fact most delegates historically vote based on feelz rather than the merits of the AIP.

Delegates have a - dare I say “fiduciary” - duty to their voters to do the work. That implies reading the proposal and seeking out the authors. That’s how it should be done; and not the other way around. Authors are here not only to help the DAO grow, but also to build us up. Why then should we have them go through all these hoops? Because we’re giving them money? Yeah, that’s not how that works.

All that said, we must fix our voting system. And if I keep getting friction over that or people being afraid to raise the ire of whales and delegates, I am just going to do the math, buy enough $ape (now that it’s down bad) - and push it through. I tend not to say things that I am not inclined to do, but all these ideas are stop gap measures that solve nothing. We need to fix the voting system. And if my two upcoming proposals fail to achieve this, I will take active measures to fix that when I re-submit it. I have grown sick and tired of our DAO catering to whale wallets and delegates which historically vote against our best interests even as we keep funding grifts and dead end ideas which GIVE NOTHING TO THE DAO.

[SmartAPE]

@chimperton

So once again I ask, what problem are you actually trying to solve here? Why is this the BEST way to solve that problem? How does this not introduce new problems like the centralization of power around whales and delegates? How does this not build unnecessary barriers to individuals who cannot afford the $APE to submit on their own, and are not able to navigate the additional power dynamics and politics you’re introducing?

@chimperton

Then realize that the ApeCoin DAO was systematically designed to give power based on how much money you have. That is, and always has been, the DAOs core issue. It centralizes power around wealth. That is the problem to solve. This voting reform system very actively is driving the bus in the other direction towards more centralization around wealth. History isn’t kind to driving in that direction.

[SmartAPE]

@bigbull

There are two options here:

1. Vesting as shown in the idea. USD + APE Vesting
2. Create a delegated wallet with 100,000 APE for each Steward. They get the voting, but they don’t get to own it. They would still remain on USD equivalent compensation.

added as Q10 in the FAQ

Do you believe that it’s a better idea than this?

AIP-474: Delegated ApeCoin Community Voting Wallet

[bigbull]

Regarding a veto wallet here is more background.

The creation of veto.ensdao.eth was triggered by the discovery of a significant governance vulnerability in the ENS DAO. Specifically:

1. Researchers, including alextnetto.eth, uncovered that for over a year, the DAO’s total delegated market cap had been below the total value of assets it holds[1].

2. This vulnerability meant that a sufficiently large whale could potentially buy about $83M in ENS tokens, delegate them to themselves, and then propose to appropriate $137M in ETH and USDC from the DAO’s treasury[1].

3. The attack was considered feasible because undelegated tokens are ineligible to vote, and the DAO uses a snapshot system, meaning once a proposal is made, it could pass even if all other delegated votes opposed it[1].

4. This type of attack has been successfully executed on other DAOs, including Aragon, Rook, Invictus, Rome, Temple, and Fe[1].

In response to this discovered vulnerability, Nick introduced the veto.ensdao.eth solution on April 12, 2024, as a short-term measure to protect the DAO against such governance attacks[1].

Citations:
[1] [Temp Check] Enable CANCEL role on the DAO - 🗳️ Meta-Governance - ENS DAO Governance Forum
[2] Introducing veto.ensdao.eth - General Discussion - ENS DAO Governance Forum
[3] https://www.tally.xyz/gov/ens/proposal/42329103797433777309488042029679811802172320979541414683300183273376839219133
[4] ENS DAO Journal | ENS DAO Newsletter #59
[5] Contracts

[DavidW]

@SmartAPE

It seems to me that instead of creating yet another area of friction, that we use the “vote” tab which is visible during the ideas phase, to gauge that level of interest before it goes to draft

This is exactly what we used in CityDAO. We required 20 “likes” before any CIP could go to the forum. It was meant to be a temp check so that we wouldn’t waste time publicly discussing ideas that didn’t have a significant level of community support beforehand. Generally, it worked pretty well. It did lead to some backchanneling, so that people tried to gather support before presenting a CIP, but that’s really an inexorable part of political processes. I think it could work well here, too. Otherwise, those “votes” in the forum aren’t being utilized.

[bigbull]

This is worth thinking about. However, we have about 5k users in the forum, but 30k wallets connected on the ApeCoin Snapshot. The forum is a subset of users and 20 votes can easily be made with 20 wallets setup on new accounts (each with 1 APE)

Therefore, 20 votes can mean as little at 20 APE supporting you. It really doesn’t show you have significant support to take your proposal to an AIP.

[DavidW]

In CityDAO we would examine which wallets gave the likes to ensure that they weren’t created within the past month. To your point, it’s true that this may only guarantee that 20 people liked an idea. We tried to focus on the number of interested people rather than the wealth of the interested people. I agree, though, that in ApeCoin this may not be effective.

[SmartAPE]

Indeed. But I think that’s an easy problem to solve. And there are two options that I can see:

1. Exclude the wallets which give likes based on their creation/connection to Discourse

e.g. a wallet/account would have to be +12 months old to be considered.

2. Gauge the likes based on the Trust Level

e.g. a wallet/account would only count if TL2 or higher

Both of the above are easier then setting up Snapshot or Tally for something so simple.

[LiveFast9986]

This isn’t really a reform on voting, but rather a reform on the AIP process.

It is an interesting idea, but it appears that you are taking away a lot of the creativity and power from individuals and transferring it to those who meet the criteria to be able to propose an AIP (delegates and substantive wallet holders). I’m also not confident that the individuals/delegates who will be able to propose want this type of responsibility nor or are they keen on taking a more substantive/active role in the DAO in order to facilitate this type of new responsibility.

Happy to dive deeper into the actual specifics of this idea, but lets first answer this, are we wanting actual voting reform or AIP reform?

[bigbull]

It would be great to have @Special_Council @Stewards_Development @Stewards_Governance @Stewards_Metaverse @Stewards_Marketing view on this important topic.

[SmartAPE]

Pretty sure that discussion is coming soon. AIP-471: Special Council To Propose Voting System Reform

Assuming ofc that they engage - which they tend not to do.