Increase the Proposal Threshold for Snapshot

Proposals
1

Tl;dr

This proposal seeks to increase the Snapshot proposal threshold to 5,000 ~ 15,000 LDO to prevent spam and encourage higher-quality submissions.

Introduction

Lido DAO uses Snapshot to gather initial community consensus and serves as the source of truth for proposals that do not require on-chain execution. Given the relatively low stakes of Snapshot proposals, the platform currently has a lower threshold for proposal submission than on-chain governance.

Over time, Lido DAO has adjusted its proposal threshold to adapt to changing circumstances. However, the current low threshold invites a high volume of low-quality and potentially harmful proposals.

Current Proposal threshold.

Based on current market conditions, Lido DAO’s Snapshot threshold stands at 1,000 LDO, equivalent to approximately $1,138.37.

Comparatively:

  • ENS DAO requires 10,000 ENS tokens (≈ USD 186,785.40)
  • Uniswap DAO requires 10,000 UNI tokens. (≈ USD 68,647.89 )
  • Aave DAO - 1,600 AAVE (≈ USD 269,315.90)
  • 1inch DAO - 100,000 1INCH (≈USD 29,584.84)

Therefore, Lido DAO has one of the lowest proposal thresholds in decentralised governance, making it vulnerable to spammy proposals that could disrupt governance and distract the community.

Specifications

To mitigate the risks associated with spam and low-quality proposals, we propose increasing the Snapshot proposal threshold to 10,000 LDO. This increase will offer several key benefits:

  • Reduce Spam: Raising the threshold increases the financial stake required to submit proposals, discouraging spam and malicious actors from flooding the system with poor-quality proposals.
  • Encourage Higher-Quality Proposals: A higher threshold will encourage those submitting proposals to consider their impact carefully, fostering more severe and thoughtful discussions within the community.

By setting the threshold at 5,000 ~ 15,000 LDO, the DAO will balance maintaining broad community participation and ensuring that only serious proposals are considered.

The increased threshold might initially exclude a very extreme minority of stakeholders and delegates from posting proposals. However, the DAO operations workstream has a process in place to carefully vet and support minority authors. This process ensures that all serious proposals are considered regardless of the author’s financial stake.

Alternative Considerations

In our review, no alternative solutions fully aligned with the ethos of decentralisation without introducing potential censorship. However, the following alternatives were considered:

  1. Increased Snapshot Admin Rights: This would grant the DAO operations workstream more direct administrative control over Snapshot, allowing them to remove spammy proposals. Currently, only one address holds ‘Admin’ rights on the platform. Expanding this access could allow for more effective proposal moderation.
  2. Whitelisted Authorship: A more centralised approach, allowing only a whitelisted group of trusted authors to submit proposals. While this ensures higher-quality proposals, it also restricts broader community participation. However, Lido DAO already follows voting seasons where mature proposals are bundled and voted on together, which may reduce concerns about exclusion.

Voting Options

  • Increase threshold to 5,000 LDO
  • Increase threshold to 10,000 LDO
  • Increase threshold to 15,000 LDO
  • Do nothing
  • Abstain
3 Likes
2

Gm!

Is there currently a problem with spam proposals on Lido’s Snapshot? Would you be able to share any statistics indicating this is a problem or may become a problem?

Thank you!
Anthony

5 Likes
3

Gm gm! Keeping the threshold low-ish seems like a good way to prevent gatekeeping (even potential one). Currently to fight spam (which historically had been a real issue) there’s an arrangement with the Snapshot team, outlined on forum: Proposal for governance services by Snapshot

4 Likes
4

Thanks for the question @Leuts Here are (1,2,3,4,5) examples of the same spam post being posted in the last 2 weeks.

gm @kadmil , Thanks for your comment! While the current monitoring system with Snapshot is helpful, it still requires resources to manage and could let some proposals slip through. I doubt that the snapshot team even breaks even on their cost of operations on the agreement highlighted earlier, so I believe this is a temporary arrangement. By increasing the threshold, the goal is to further encourage only serious, well-considered submissions without over-relying on moderation tools. We are happy to consider other threshold options if you think the ones suggested here are too high

5

Snapshot vote started

The Increase the Proposal Threshold for Snapshot Snapshot has started! Please cast your votes before Thu, 10 Oct 2024 13:27:00 GMT :pray:

6

Last time we checked, the address pushing spam proposals had easy 10x tokens (overall) in the same address, so raising 10x wouldn’t in fact block spam but would def make the DAO more of a walled garden.

1 Like
7

I mean, chances are you just brought up views on those with the note here:

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Truth to be told, I can’t see the situation as being urgent nor the remedy proposed being actually helpful, having pros and cons considered

2 Likes
8

I just want to say that your proposal, without addressing the objections raised in this thread, feels like an attempt to prove that Lido DAO can be spammed. The main concern was: why does Lido DAO need to take a step toward moderation without real need?
Sure, it’s possible if that’s the goal, but there are no problems with spam and confusion in Lido DAO Snapshot space as I know.

I won’t be voting on this, and here’s why:

  1. No consensus: It seems pointless to vote on something that hasn’t even come close to reaching any kind of agreement here on the forum.
  2. Problem doesn’t exist: The issue feels blown out of proportion and doesn’t really justify the proposal.
  3. Voting won’t reach quorum: With so many options this vote is unlikely to even hit quorum, based on past participation levels.

I think it’s important to take a more thoughtful approach before pushing things to a vote in the future.

2 Likes
9

Thank you for the feedback @Jenya_K @kadmil We have followed the appropriate governance procedure before proceeding to snapshot vote. I agree that there is a lack of engagement from delegates on this post and hence this is yet another reason why initiatives such as the one kickstarted by @Tane

can make a difference in incentivizing a broad group of delegates to participate actively in the comment stage to drive engagement.

1 Like
10

Yes, I can’t argue that you’ve made the proposal in accordance with formal criteria. Except for the fact that there were no comments beyond the pushback to have any reason to do so, and to me, this discussion doesn’t seem either completed or brought to a logical conclusion.
However, in this case, I believe the lack of reaction is mainly due to the fact that the problem you’re trying to solve is unclear. It seems like having hidden spam proposals doesn’t hinder governance or the community in any way. As a contributor to the DAO operations workstream, I haven’t received a single inquiry or concern about spam snapshots not on the forum, not in the community chats since Lido began working with Snapshot.

Delegates are people too, with limited time to focus on their work, and I believe there are many other aspects of Lido DAO that require far more urgent attention from engaged contributors, delegates, community.

I’m not claiming to have the absolute truth, but this is my opinion. This is precisely what I mean when I mention “governance for the sake of governance” in the discussion initiated by @Tane that you referenced.

As a contributor, I don’t aim to create a lot of unnecessary discussions on things that don’t need attention. My goal is for important initiatives—like the current proposal on CSM—to receive the attention they deserve from the community and delegates.

9 Likes
11

I have noticed the spam proposals and I think the spirit of this proposal is adequate and positive. They are kind of annoying.

That said, I’ve taken a look at the behaviour of the wallets that did the proposal:
0x5eee
 seems funded exclusively to spam on both GnosisDAO and Lido

Screenshot 2024-10-07 at 14.40.01
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Its funder, in turn, is this wallet: 0x3B44, which holds at the time of writing more than 45k USD in several tokens, and is funded from OKX.

Considering that it would be trivial to swap any amount of that to LDO, submit the proposal, and re-swap back to the original token or ETH, I think an increase of the raise would be ineffective.

Considering that DAO Ops is taking care of the issue with an already approved LEGO proposal, I am inclined to press the standby button here and not move with what could potentially be an ineffective measure against a problem that is being tackled elsewhere:

6 Likes
12

@DAOplomats.eth, hello! Could you please share your motivation in “Abstain” for your own proposal?

DAOplomats tentatively abstain from our own proposals.

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2 Likes
13

thanks for the question @irina_everstake We want to avoid any conflict of interest and to encourage the community to participate more independently in decision making. By abstaining, want to signal that the decision should be made by the broader DAO, rather than influenced by the proposal creators themselves.

3 Likes
14

Snapshot vote ended

The Increase the Proposal Threshold for Snapshot Snapshot hadn’t reached a quorum. :pensive:
The results are:
Increase threshold to 5,000 LDO: 489 LDO
Increase threshold to 10,000 LDO: 7.5M LDO
Increase threshold to 15,000 LDO: 28.0k LDO
Do nothing: 48.2M LDO