We dug through forum replies & posts, spreadsheets, and private DMs; the pattern is clear. Most folks like what DV did for culture, more scrutiny, more voices, but they’re uneasy about power clumps, fuzzy conflict rules, and the perception that there is an absence of skin in the game.
The goal of this post is to share what we believe will keep DV’s ruthless spam-filter intact without turning it into a self-anoited priesthood. Below you will find the unvarnished takeaways the community shared over the past weeks and months, insights, anonymous quotes, and the knots we still need to untie before the next iteration lands.
What we heard
Over the last 3 weeks the community laid bare its hopes and misgivings about the DV program:
| Big-picture insight | Quotes (anonymous but accurate) |
|---|---|
| DV helped yet concentrated power. | “Net positive… but 42 M DOT in six hands is still a warp.” |
| Accountability gaps worry voters. | “No automatic penalty when a delegate misfires.” |
| Double-dipping erodes trust. | “Same humans showing up in several DV orgs defeats the point.” |
| Skin-in-the-game matters but wealth tests feel plutocratic. | “Bond something, yes just don’t turn DV into an Assemblée des Notables.” |
| Representation has widened. | “Asia, Africa, LatAm, have a seat.” |
| DV should sunset eventually but not without a softer landing. | “Don’t ditch the umbrella mid-storm; fix the roof first.” |
Problems we must solve
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Concentration vs. Co-ordination
Too much power in too few wallets; too little and DV can’t block bad actors. -
Transparency & Conflict-of-Interest
Overlapping memberships, self-funding votes, unclear disclosures. -
Skin-in-the-Game Without Pay-to-Play
Bonding enough DOT to feel consequences, but not so much we exclude talent. -
Voice Diversity
Six DAOs ≠ the world. Regions and disciplines must expand -
Governance Fatigue
400+ referenda per cohort is brutal; individuals burn out, DAOs slow down.
The Solution We Are Currently Working On
So here’s a sketch, offered for critique before we wrap it into a program re-design. Think of it as “DV-Light” plus a slimmed-down DAO layer.
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DV-Light (individual guardians/advisors). Three to eight doxxed individuals, about one-tenth the voting power of a full DAO delegate. They vote when they have domain knowledge and skip when they don’t. No upfront pay; if the community finds their work valuable, anyone can propose to retro-fund them via the Treasury.
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Re-sized DV-DAOs. Up to ten DAOs, each holding a much smaller amount of DOT voting power instead of one million DOT delegated now at 6x conviction. One-DAO-per-human, mandatory abstention on conflicts of interests, two strikes and the delegation is gone. We’re still debating a modest bond, something that stings if you disappear but doesn’t gate-keep by wealth.
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Community engagement and action when spotting overlap or self-dealing. Email dv@web3.foundation. We will try to act within two weeks.
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Automatic sunset when the time is right. As on-chain turnout climbs, W3F delegation decays. DV disappears when the crowd shows up.
Is any of this 100% perfect? Obviously not. Diluting power risks dampening DV’s protective effect; bonding risks excluding talent; shorter/longer terms risk churn. But every lever has a counter-weight and the only honest path is to lay the trade-offs bare and let the community push back.
Over the next one to two weeks we’d love blunt feedback on this, and especially the main three fronts:
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Does DV-Light sound useful?
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As we scale down each DAO’s voting weight, what DOT voting power range feels balanced to you; small enough to avoid clumping, but big enough to stay effective?
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Better numbers or better mechanisms > for the bond and strike rules?
After we collect that feedback, we will package what we can into Cohort #5. And we’ll keep iterating.
Governance never lands on a single perfect design; it lives in the space where we keep sanding rough edges off the last idea. Consider this the next edge offered up for sanding. We are listening.
Notable Quotes from the Community
Throughout the discussion, certain quotes struck me as especially insightful or emblematic of the community’s mindset. Here I’ve gathered a few that reflect on DV’s current state and its future direction, in the participants’ own words:
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On DV’s Successes and Centralization Risk: “DV has been a valuable tool to establish a community-centric governance body to counteract well-funded central actors… In this regard it has been successful. Abandoning the program seems like a disaster waiting to happen… [But] the option to reduce delegation amounts and increase the number of DV entities sounds most promising.” – NukeMe3
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On the Need for Sunsetting: “The main consequence… is that the DV program is much more centralized than it should be. People/DAOs without any skin in the game are having strong influence… I always claimed that the minimum required from DV participants is to have some skin in the game… but now I think this program needs to be fully sunset. We should find better ways to encourage Polkadot holders to participate in OpenGov, and giving such power to a few isn’t the way.” – Legend
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On Fearless Voting vs. Whales: “Many people are scared to vote and make their decisions known because they fear retribution. As representatives of the community, DVs have a reason to take on that burden, to surface opinions… Before DVs, it was very hard to even reach voters and have a discussion. You have a chance to have a dialogue with voters with weight and flip votes, which was never possible with anonymous whales. That is very valuable to the community and to proposers.” – replghost
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On Not Pricing Out Contributors: “In my view, real ‘skin in the game’ should be a hybrid of active involvement, reputation, and the ability to make well-reasoned decisions… otherwise we risk ending up in a system where whales dominate, and that’s not healthy for a decentralized network. I completely agree – setting a threshold of owning X DOT to participate in the DV program excludes many potential candidates… We should avoid creating any form of an Assemblée des notables. Access to the DV program should be as broad and inclusive as possible (including individuals).” – thewhiterabbit & Wabkebab
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On the Original Impetus & Real Problem: “We need to keep in mind the original impetus behind the creation of the DV program… it was introduced to counterbalance the influence a few whale accounts were wielding in OpenGov. DV would likely not have been created if the average DOT holder participation rate was higher, which is the real issue I think we should be focusing on… The real problem is low voter turnout and how it can be increased. Maybe link staking rewards to OpenGov participation?” – CJ13th
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On Phased Strategy: “Let’s start with our conclusion: Before clear ‘standards’ and ‘culture’ are established, we recommend maintaining the current DV setup with 6 positions to ensure high voting power… In the second stage, we can gradually expand the number of DV positions from 6 to 10, or even 20, while introducing a rotation period… In the third stage, once overall participation reaches a certain percentage, we can fully retire the DV program and transition to complete democracy… The true purpose of the DV program is to help establish a better OpenGov governance culture and environment, not merely to decentralize the Web3 Foundation’s voting power.” – PolkaWorld (Xiaojie)
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On Frustrations with the DV program: “Bit rambly… but basically I would like to get governed by either people with skin in the game (vote with their own token) or people with a clue and self-awareness to know their own limits and the ecosystem’s best in mind. Both isn’t happening right now and it’s frustrating.” – XXXX retraced (in a private commentary)
My thoughts: Yes, I agree that it would be beneficial to increase the number of DV recipients while reducing their individual voting power. However, I also agree with 
– Well if it’s a choice between getting DV and having my investments fail, I’ll go with the investments not failing