Acknowledgment
Referendum 627 concluded with rejection: approximately 28% Aye, 72% Nay.
I want to thank everyone who engaged with this proposal—supporters, critics, and those who asked difficult questions. The four weeks of discussion produced genuine refinement: the original v1.0 was corrected, split into complementary pieces with @olanod’s validator work, and stress-tested against real objections. That process worked as intended, even if the outcome wasn’t what I hoped for.
The Structural Gap
The primary blocker was W3F’s requirement for “broader stakeholder and economist engagement.” I addressed the timing and process concerns in in a previous message—I won’t rehash them here.
What’s worth emphasizing is the structural point: no public pathway exists for the kind of review W3F has indicated is necessary. If formal economic analysis is now a prerequisite for tokenomics changes, that’s a new standard—and Kusama governance currently has no infrastructure to satisfy it. The only path offered was private (email), which doesn’t work for participants who operate exclusively in public channels.
This isn’t an attack on W3F. It’s an observation that the gap isn’t in the proposal—it’s in the process.
Responding to Feedback
@Onepebble raised a fair point: usage drives value, and changing the economic engine doesn’t substitute for adoption. This is correct as far as it goes, but it frames a false choice.
Usage requires users. Users—particularly those evaluating where to build—assess the economic environment alongside technical capabilities. A network bleeding 7.82% annual inflation into a validator set sized for ten times its current activity sends a signal. That signal affects adoption decisions.
The argument isn’t “fix tokenomics instead of building usage.” It’s “fix tokenomics so that usage, when it comes, compounds into sustainable economics rather than continuous dilution.”
Ethereum didn’t wait for maximum adoption before implementing EIP-1559. The burn mechanism was deployed as infrastructure for growth, not a reward after growth arrived.
The Path Forward
I’m not resubmitting immediately. What’s needed isn’t another revision—it’s clarity on process.
A concrete ask for W3F: If formal economic review is a prerequisite for supporting tokenomics changes, what does a public pathway to request one look like? A forum thread? A treasury proposal to fund external review? Something else? The process needs to be visible and accessible.
In the meantime:
- I’ll support @olanod’s upcoming proposal on validator and core reduction. The supply-side and cost-side reforms are complementary; progress on either advances the broader goal.
- The analysis in this thread remains valid. If W3F or others commission economic review, the data and projections here are available as input.
- Clarifying Kusama's Governance Direction: Independence or Integration? remains open, asking for clarity on Kusama’s governance direction. The answer to that question affects whether Kusama-specific economic proposals make sense at all.
Closing
Rejection in Kusama governance is iterative, not terminal. Proposals get refined and resubmitted. That’s the design.
What this process surfaced is that the gap isn’t in the proposal—it’s in the infrastructure for evaluating proposals of this type. Filling that gap is now the work.
Thanks again to everyone who participated. The discussion was worth having.