The Future of Decentralized Voices — Our Plan to Retune DV

[Zendetta]

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

1. Concentration vs. Co-ordination
   Too much power in too few wallets; too little and DV can’t block bad actors.

2. Transparency & Conflict-of-Interest
   Overlapping memberships, self-funding votes, unclear disclosures.

3. Skin-in-the-Game Without Pay-to-Play
   Bonding enough DOT to feel consequences, but not so much we exclude talent.

4. Voice Diversity
   Six DAOs ≠ the world. Regions and disciplines must expand

5. 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Community engagement and action when spotting overlap or self-dealing. Email dv@web3.foundation. We will try to act within two weeks.

• 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:

• Does DV-Light sound useful?

• 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?

• 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.

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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:

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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)

• 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)

[defisensei]

Thanks for the DV re-tune proposal, Bill! I like DV-Light (3-8 doxxed individuals, retro-funded with a 70% approval threshold).

For DAOs, 200k-300k DOT with a 1,000 DOT bond (refundable at 80% participation) feels balanced.

Add a public review for strikes. Sunset at 25% turnout and rotate delegates to ease fatigue.

[flez]

thanks for the update @Zendetta and for opening this up to public debate before deciding on a final path.

@Zendetta

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?

i’m still concerned that the total amount of delegated dot to DVs in this plan isn’t enough to prevent what we’ve seen happen multiple times recently - a single whale wallet casting ~18M worth of voting power on high-value treasury proposals. even when most DVs vote nay, they often can’t overcome that level of concentrated influence. and that’s just one wallet.

what happens if two or three shadow wallets/whales start voting in unison against what many see as the best interest of polkadot? perhaps it makes sense to consider increasing the dv voting power for DAOs and individuals in this next experiment, rather than reduce. i still think this makes sense:

there’s also very little incentive for individual DVs under this plan. you’re asking highly skilled people, leaders in their fields, to volunteer their time for free, likely face social pushback for voting nay, and only receive tips if they happen to get enough popular support.

but if delegations are too low to counteract bad actors or shadow wallets that simply “dislike” someone, even that support becomes unreliable. the plan doesn’t really protect or empower DVs in those situations.

[Vikk]

Thank you Karam for your post!

I think it’s really great that you’re inviting the community into this important discussion. Please allow me to share my thoughts on this. These are my personal opinions and do not represent the views of the DAO I am part of, which currently is an elected DV.

1. Concentration vs. Coordination

Too much power in too few wallets; too little, and DVs can’t block bad actors.

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 @flez that the overall delegated voting power across DVs should be increased from the current 36M DOT (6 entities * 6M DOT).

2. Transparency & Conflict of Interest

Overlapping memberships, self-funding votes, unclear disclosures.

My thoughts:
The only viable way to reduce the chances of overlapping memberships across multiple DVs is for W3F to delegate voting power strictly to DV candidates who vote on OpenGov exclusively through multisigs (or some other on-chain tool, which unfortunately does not yet exist on the Relay Chain; Maybe @olanod from Virto Team could solve this missing puzzle, with their on-chain DAO management tool, Kreivo)

Multisig-based DVs are inherently more transparent, as the signatories can be verified on-chain. In contrast, Discord or Telegram-based DV groups can be easily manipulated, and there’s no clear way to identify members who may belong to multiple groups.

3. Skin in the Game Without Pay-to-Play

Bonding enough DOT to feel consequences, but not so much that we exclude talent.

My thoughts:
An alternative approach to “skin in the game” could be the introduction of a non-monetary penalty mechanism, essentially a new way to punish bad behaviour, with the retention of some non-monetary benefits.

For example, DVs could be offered a limited number of guaranteed tickets to Polkadot events, along with travel and accommodation reimbursements (e.g., 10 tickets). These benefits, funded by W3F or the Treasury, would be a gesture of recognition and support. If a DV demonstrates poor behavior, these benefits could be withdrawn partially or entirely by W3F. This method provides consequences without penalizing those who may not be financially well-off. After all, 1000 DOT might be a minor amount for some DV candidates but a major hurdle for others.

While not as severe as slashing the bonded DOT, this model could still effectively motivate DVs to act with humility and responsibility. Similar non-monetary incentive systems are widely used in traditional multinational companies to incentives employees and could be adapted to fit our governance culture.

It would be also interesting if we start to gamifying the DV experience, not just through DOT rewards, but also with other forms of recognition like achievements, grants, NFTs, or similar incentives, could significantly boost motivation and passion within DVs.

4. Voice Diversity

Six DAOs ≠ the world. Regions and disciplines must expand.

My thoughts:
Agreed, this is a great point.

5. Governance Fatigue

400+ referenda per cohort is brutal; individuals burn out, DAOs slow down.

My thoughts:
Hundreds of referenda per cohort can be extremely difficult for DVs to evaluate effectively. In the Hungarian Polkadot DAO, we have only 7 members, which is why we explicitly stated in our DV proposal that there will be proposals we do not vote on. This isn’t a sign of weakness (as some argue: “Why give so much voting power to such a small DAO?”), but rather an acknowledgment of our limitations. A 7-member DAO cannot vote on everything. That’s why I believe setting the minimum participation rate at 50% would be a reasonable rule for upcoming cohorts also. I don’t think this number should be raised (even though many are pushing for it), because smaller DVs would become fragmented, the quality of decisions would suffer. We should also consider scenarios where a DV group does not feel confident making informed decisions on certain topics. In such cases, our DAO sometimes chooses not to vote, which may lower our participation rate, but we do this intentionally, to avoid interfering with decisions better left to those with the relevant expertise.

Thoughts on the Proposed Solutions

1. DV-Light (individual guardians/advisors):
   This is a solid approach. If candidates are selected based on professional expertise in specific areas, it could significantly lead to more precise votes.

2. Re-sized DV-DAOs:
   Yes, it’s time to expand the number of DV DAOs. Please also consider implementing retention of non-monetary benefits as a new type of “skin in the game” model. You could even combine it with monetary slashing in proportion to a DV’s financial background. I think that the right mix of incentives and penalties can foster high-quality DV behavior.

3. Community Engagement:
   Absolutely necessary, this must be prioritized.

4. Automatic Sunset:
   This is an important topic. What average on-chain turnout ratio should we target? 15–20% of total supply? Or higher? It might be worth establishing a clear KPI so we can track improvements and know when it’s time to phase things out or evolve the DV program more drastically.

[tom.stakeplus]

If we’re not going to talk about what outcomes we’re looking / hoping for and how the incentives will align to reward DAOs that have those outcome then the entire program is pointless just shut it down.

Nothing in the previous thread, or this one, are beneficial for the DV Program, Polkadot or the growth of the community. These are the wrong topics, wrong conversations, wrong thought processes when it comes to developing a program.

Another example of blind leading the blind.

Whatever – Let’s just argue opinions with 0 evidence and no defined measure of success about who are the best deciders. I mean, clearly everyone is an authority, just look at the other thread.

[0xTaylor]

@Zendetta

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.

The issue I see with this is that those individuals will still need to follow every ref posted to determine if they have applicable domain expertise or not. Or what if their expertise is just 1 component of the ref, where do we/they draw the line? For example, say someone has competence in BD, a lot of proposals may have a BD component but also have marketing, development, whatever. How do they decide at what point, they should vote or not. It will still trend towards a full-time job, IMO. They will also be hit up by every proponent to vote for them regardless of if they have competence in that realm or not.

The amount of time required to watch, review, vote, and comment is immense. In ChaosDAO, we have systems in place and a community full of SME’s to watch over things and I still feel like some things slip between the cracks or don’t get the full attention they might deserve. Combine this with also needing to watch Kusama and the work almost doubles.

I honestly don’t see how an individual can take this task on and give it the proper time it will require. DV tried it in the past and the participation rates were really low and the DV’s were highly susceptible to pressure.

If you do decide to do DV-light I’d suggest an almost self-service kiosk that pre-qualifies an address/individual. They have to submit an address for example, that has maintained a balance for 1-2 yrs, stakes a nomination, has voted in opengov in the recent months, has a verified identity, doesn’t have delegations that total over a certain amount. This is high-level, you could do things to prevent abuse, like they had to have set an identity more than 30 days before. You could even tune how much their delegation is based on these parameters. Someone has been a DOT token holder since 2020, they get a larger delegation than someone who has only been a token holder for 1 yr. This could be fully-automated or act as a pre-screen.

[xiaojie_PolkaWorld]

We believe it’s important to first clarify the goals of the DV program and its role within OpenGov. Our current understanding of DV (not speaking on behalf of Web3foundation or any other DVs) is that it serves to:

1. To balance out large token holders who vote without leaving any feedback.

2. Gradually foster a governance culture within OpenGov.

3. Help proposers improve their proposals and increase their chances of passing.

4. Support the long-term development of the @Polkadot DAO

With those goals in mind, here are our responses to the key questions:

1. Is the DV-Light model valuable?

Yes, it is valuable. Members with domain-specific expertise can offer more accurate and professional assessments on proposals in their respective areas. This contributes to cultivating a healthy governance culture and helps proposers improve their submissions—aligning directly with goals #2 and #3 above.

However, we recommend assigning 2–3 DV-Light members per domain, ideally from different regions, to ensure a broader range of perspectives.

2. What voting power range is appropriate for DV DAOs?

Currently, we’ve noticed a pattern: before submitting proposals on-chain, many proposers reach out to DVs—not in the sense of lobbying for favors, but to seek early feedback that could improve their chances of passing.

If each DV holds less voting power and we increase the number of DVs, proposers will be required to approach more individuals, each with different standards. This could overwhelm them with diverse and potentially conflicting feedback.

In line with goal #3 (supporting proposers), we believe the number of DVs should not be too high. Maintaining six DVs with a total of 6 million DOT in delegated voting power is reasonable for now. Before shared standards are established, having either too many or too few DVs could hinder that effort.

To be clear, this is not to deprioritize decentralization or concerns over power concentration—but rather to emphasize the importance of governance standards and cultural coherence.

3. How should bonding and penalty mechanisms be designed fairly?

Recently, we launched TruthDAO in Asia, which requires at least 5,000 DOT in delegation and a 3x conviction vote to qualify. Similarly, we support having a bonding requirement for DV DAOs.

As for penalties, we recommend sticking with the current system: community-driven complaints, with W3F committing to review and act within two weeks. Most DVs today are highly active and are already working at what amounts to a near full-time capacity—especially given the volume of proposals being processed.

[thewhiterabbitM]

Thank you to for the effort and commitment you’re putting into this program I truly believe it’s essential. Shutting it down would be a waste of W3F’s voting power and ultimately counterproductive.

Are we doing everything right? Maybe.
Can we do better? Always.

Let’s not forget: OpenGov is still a young, unique and evolving tool.

The challenges ahead are significant, and the DV program (in its own way) helps make the whole process a little more decentralized.

[sourabhniyogi]

What is missing — and increasingly critical for 2025–2026 — is a ROADMAP, and a set of competent leaders and managers who can execute against that roadmap. Polkadot has a visionary founder with the next-generation JAM protocol, CoreVM service, and CoreTime product — but we need a ROADMAP for how to get the CoreTime product sold, the CoreVM services used by a new generation of CoreVM developers. Putting this in the hands of less-than-perfect leadership + management will be TRAGIC.

The current DV (Decentralized Voices) program has, at best, assembled people with the skill sets of Directors and VPs rather than founders + investors with experience. The DVs are largely auditors who make sure Nothing Bad Happens.

But Polkadot doesn’t need incrementalism right now — it needs a 10x growth plan and the leadership + management to deliver on it. Now we need leaders capable of bringing Polkadot into MARKET DOMINANCE. Instead of making sure Nothing Bad Happens, we need to make sure the Insanely Great Happens.

We need to aim really really high, like run-the-world’s-democracies high, like run-the-world’s-stablecoins high. The competition is definitely aiming here, right here in the US, and we’re not in “build it and they will come” mode anymore guys – there are “JAM is better than zk-XXX” wars to be fought, “we should power stablecoin” wars to be fought, … and not having a sense of urgency around WINNING is just … dumb.

In any leading tech company, a board of directors has competent founders and experienced VCs, who would demand this 10x growth plan — not as a luxury, but as a requirement for survival

The present DV program doesn’t have the right people guiding resources towards Polkadot’s future.

Between:
(a) W3F selecting a few benevolent dictators who GUARANTEE perfect execution of CoreVM service usage and CoreTime sales growth
or
(b) W3F selecting N DAOs and individuals who continue to do the same thing, acting as auditors (“you got too much money!”), process slaves (“this should be done by XYZ bounty! put it in Kusama!”), doing pointless performative stuff (“we have the highest participation rate!”), treating OpenGov as a big social game, continuing to “grift” (which I’m sure some anon will accuse me of, within a day, lol!).

Obviously, the W3F should pick (a). If you think W3F should pick (b), you probably have no plan because you think the goal of Polkadot is to protect the Treasury. This is not a 10x growth plan, it’s not a growth plan at all.

YES, the kind of people who should lead this should have 1MM DOT or more and be all-in about POLKADOT DOMINATING TRUSTLESS SUPERCOMPUTING and have a plan. If you don’t have 1MM DOT, you aren’t all-in, but you’re welcome to provide valued services like a contractor or an employee.

Your plan should be 100% aligned with the CoreVM + CorePlay future that drives CORETIME SALES.

If you don’t have a plan for this, you shouldn’t be a DV. You are not a leader or manager. You don’t fool me just because you have a Twitter account, a mouth, a camera, a job in the ecosystem. You don’t even fool me if you have been selected as a W3F recipient of anything. All that matters is the 10x growth plan and execution against it.

If you do have a plan, this is not a part-time job where you AYE and NAY things and tweet performative shit. You need to be all-in, care about more than yourself and care about WINNING to achieve the 10x growth — This task is a lot more than about voting; it’s about coordinating insanely great people to make the Insanely Great Happen.

There is a demented idea that DAOs somehow solve problems.

No, they do not.

Only a few insanely great people within each DAO solve problems.

We have a lot of insanely great people in the Polkadot DAO (the only DAO that matters), but we need to coordinate the insanely great people to execute Polkadot’s future roadmap, to make the Insanely Great Happen.

Everyone else should get out of the way.

[tom.stakeplus]

1000% on everything. The thing that concerns me most is that the people in W3F and Parity making a lot of these decisions also seemingly lack competency. I can’t tell if it’s euro work ethic, 9-5 mentality, general apathy, doing things behind closed doors, not being sufficiently competent or all of the above.

Unfortunately the only one who can change that is Gav with a couple others. Otherwise, we have to pretend w3f doesn’t exist and figure out solutions that doesn’t involve them.

Bring Fabi back.

@sourabhniyogi

There is a demented idea that DAOs somehow solve problems.

I think they may actually be better at creating them by increasing tribal mentality. But, if we incentivize the DAOs to get to work on various tasks based on needs / wants that are found in the ecosystem – I believe they can fill some lower level needs and not create problems as long as they stay busy and don’t turn on each other.