A token in a protocol with coin voting is a bundle of two rights that are combined into a single asset: (i) some kind of economic interest in the protocol's revenue and (ii) the right to participate in governance. This combination is deliberate: the goal is to align power and responsibility. But in fact, these two rights are very easy to unbundle... See more

Decentralized governance in some contexts is both necessary and dangerous, for reasons that I will get into in this post. How can we get the benefits of DeGov while minimizing the risks? I will argue for one key part of the answer: we need to move beyond coin voting as it exists in its present form.

Coin voting governance empowers coin holders and coin holder interests at the expense of other parts of the community

Coin voting fails because while voters are collectively accountable for their decisions (if everyone votes for a terrible decision, everyone's coins drop to zero), each voter is not individually accountable (if a terrible decision happens, those who supported it suffer no more than those who opposed it). Can we make a voting system that changes... See more

The most important thing that can be done today is moving away from the idea that coin voting is the only legitimate form of governance decentralization.

Small groups of wealthy participants ("whales") are better at successfully executing decisions than large groups of small-holders.

There are two primary types of issues with coin voting that I worry about: (i) inequalities and incentive misalignments even in the absence of attackers, and (ii) outright attacks through various forms of (often obfuscated) vote buying.