Why Voting Tokens Are F**king Horrible, And 4 Ways to Fix Them

Coin Voting allows token holders to participate in decision-making, but most token holders are not well-known (a result of attracting high-APY token holders). Decentralizing governance was delayed rather than building community. Despite the desire for decentralization (for regulatory, idealistic, or scaleable reasons), new alternatives have emerged... See more

Token Governance is onerous. It often is subject to voter apathy as underinformed token holders are encouraged to participate in frequent, complex proposals.

---------SIGNAL VS NOISE Social governance in DeFi applications is usually coordinated through online forums and Discord channels. Snapshot applications conduct "off-chain" voting before protocol changes are encoded on the blockchain. DeFi governance evolved organically but created a lot of noise because proposals, discussions, and votes spread acr... See more

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 thi... See more

However, token ownership also keeps out those who may be affected but don’t have the capital for buying tokens—a paradigm that becomes increasingly unjust as decisions made become increasingly consequential. It also creates opportunities for vote buying through unbundling economic interest and governance power, where those who are not personally in... See more

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.