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OpenGov Delegated Voting Power
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Automatic Delegated Voting Power + Direct Staking to Validators Directly
- DOT holders that delegate stake with a minimum active bond of ~300 DOT directly on-chain by nominating validators must wait for the bonding period of 28 days before they receiving staking rewards, and must wait for that same bonding period to unlock/withdraw. They can concurrently use the staked tokens to participate in governance, for example with a vote with 3x voting balance would have a lock period of 4x duration (28 days).
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Signalling Delegated Voting Power + Delegating Stake to Validators through Nomination Pools
- DOT holders that delegate stake of at least 1 DOT in an active and sufficiently bonded on-chain non-custodial nominator pool may receive rewards, and they are also subject to unbonding period of 28 days. Those delegating stake to the pool cannot concurrently use their staked tokens for participation in governance. The nominator pool account operator that is being delegated stake gains the ability to stake the funds as a direct nominator. However, “Staked tokens cannot be used for participation in Governance.” [1].
- In future, it may be possible that a “pool can signal at the time of creation whether the pool funds will be used for governance.”, but that “delegators can’t independently vote on a referenda” [2].
- Delegators to staking pools need to monitor the pool operator to ensure they act in their best interest in their choice of validators nominated by the pool.
- Similarly in future the pool may signal at the time of creation that the pool funds won’t be used for governance, and the delegators to the staking pool may need to monitor the pool operator to ensure that doesn’t change without their consent. Ideally it would not occur without their prior give their consent and acknowledgement that they know comprehensively and precisely, without any ambiguity, how the pool intends to vote on their behalf, which could be based on a proposal being prepared and ratified by the pool operator similar to the proposals like this that are provided to the DV Program.
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Signalling Delegated Voting Power from W3F in Decentralized Voices (DV) Program + No Delegated Stake Requirement
- Allows a DOT holder of at least the existential deposit (without any known delegated stake bonded to receive any rewards for helping to secure the network) to be delegated votes from the W3F (if considered a trusted community member that shares W3F values and vision for the ecosystem), possibly as an effective way for the W3F to participate in Polkadot OpenGov decision making by empowering them to represent the W3F and vote on their behalf, where their OpenGov voting strategy would be based on their DV proposal.
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Definitions
- Representative Democracy
- Indirect democracy where sovereignty is held by the people’s representatives.
- Liberal Democracy
- Political equality amongst voters (ensuring that all voices and all votes count equally)
- “Representative Democracy with protection for individual liberty and property by rule of law”
- OpenGov
- Current political inequality amongst voters:
- Each voter does not have a level of voting power that is equal to other voters
- Voting power of each voter is measured and affected by:
- Own balance of DOT
- Delegated voting power issued to them
- Conviction used with their voting balance
- Accessible DOT borrowing power of each voter and current loan-to-value ratios that apply to them
- Excludes their own balance of DOT delegated to a nomination pool to secure the Polkadot network since those DOT tokens may not be used for voting in governance
- Excludes their own balance of DOT inaccessible to them (lost keys, stolen, etc)
- Excludes their own balance of DOT held in a custodial provider that does not support on-chain voting
- Voting power of each voter is measured and affected by:
- Each voter does not have a level of voting power that is equal to other voters
- Current political inequality amongst voters:
- Representative Democracy
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Proposed Solution:
- Delegated voting power from the W3F is to be used for voting in accordance with the contents of a DV Proposal (including Philosophical Statement)
- Initially voting would be based on a Philosophical Statement that would preserve OpenGov’s current Representative Democracy approach, since sovereignty may initially be held by the the DV Program recipient or associated multisig (limited to between 2 and 100 members) representing the W3F delegated voting power obtained by them through the DV Program.
- Later it would be transformed into one or more Polkadot Collectives (that may each have a maximum membership size) if approved by governance DOT stakeholders, and that may provide more flexibility and transparency than using a multisig, having their own Treasury (managed by its collective origins) that may even use a bulk fundings request to obtain funding from DOT inflation and transaction fees to fund each of the collectives [5]. These independent collectives would focus on using their delegated voting power to voting on referendums, and multiple collectives may vote differently since they may propose to the W3F and obtain approval to vote based on a “fork” of the contents of the orignal DV Proposal (including Philosophical Statement).
- Each collective “fork” could define multiple privilege levels, that could be changed through on-chain voting based on established rules of each the collective that may be based on a standard, where members that have proven to be more experienced in their “fork” may be granted approval to vote with a larger amount of the W3F delegated voting power.
- Some collectives that “fork” may wish to vote significantly differently, and no longer in accordance with the contents of a DV Proposal (including Philosophical Statement). In that case they would be required to first obtain approval from the W3F.
- Each collective may specify in their rules that only members that have an on-chain identity judged by a reputable registrar may hold higher privilege levels.
- Some collectives that “fork” may be humans or machines that may define Speciesism in different ways, and wish to vote in certain ways on behalf of living beings on the planet, other than humans, or even those living beings themselves, that may also have “rights” [9] [10] and may deserve “kindness over petty politics” [11] and “equality over exclusion” [11].
- Delegated voting power from the W3F is to be used for voting in accordance with the contents of a DV Proposal (including Philosophical Statement)
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Benefits and thoughts:
- Toward satisfying the principle of “equal consideration of interests” (ECOI) [8], even though “ECOI does not provide plausible grounds to presume that the interests of diverse individuals are actually equal” [8], through political voting activity and consideration, where “Equal consideration of the preferences and needs of all citizens is fostered by equal political activity among citizens; not only equal voting turnout across” [6], since any voter may join one of these collectives, increasing the consideration given to their preferences and needs, and they would be funded by the Treasury of the respective collective.
- Toward “political equality builds community” [6].
- Toward “political participation creates legitimacy” [6].
- Toward “political participation is educative” [6].
- Toward “equal protection of interests” [6] where they may maintain control of and tailor their political voices through collectives that may even extend cross-chains, since that “is the key to that equal consideration” [6], since it gives them the ability to inform the ecosystem of their “needs and preferences” to pressure the ecosystem “to pay attention”.
- Toward “doing the most in terms of satisfying preferences” with our limited resources [7], given the “relation between equality and the principle of proportionality” [8].
- Toward “equality of moral status” [8].
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References:
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