# Whales vs Shrimps Time and $ spend on voting **URL:** \ **Category:** Governance\ **Created:** [November 26, 2023, 7:23pm UTC](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/whales-vs-shrimps-time-and-spend-on-voting/4914 "2023-11-26T19:23:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Omiuxcy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aca169/32.png) [@Omiuxcy](https://forum.polkadot.network/u/Omiuxcy)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 7:23pm UTC](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/whales-vs-shrimps-time-and-spend-on-voting/4914/1 "2023-11-26T19:23:46Z")
**Voting for shrimps is much and much more expensive and time consuming** Lets say you have holders with 100 DOT vs A 10.000.000 Whale\* A factor of 100.000 difference. Lets say they cast a vote on a subject the Whale likes (AYE) and the 100 DOT holders all dislike (NAY) . Voting takes 1 minute and it costs 0.0145702 DOT Around 0.07 cent (24-11) The whale spends 1 minute and 7 cents. The shrimps spend 100.000 minutes 1666 hours (69 days) and 1457 DOT ($7500) just on voting to get to 10 million votes. **After 6864 Times of Voting.** The 100.000 shrimps did spend 10 Million DOT ($52 Million ) on voting and 1345 years The 10 Million Wale did spend 100 DOT ($520) and 114 hours or 4.75 Days When conviction (and reading/understanding the proposals) comes into play it gets even worse. Voting for small DOT holders makes no sense. It takes so much more time and money. While The whale contributes hardly anything. So I consider the Opengov voting mechanism to be broken from a Shrimp voting standpoint. It truly makes no sense to vote for me anymore. I do hope the voting becomes a bit fairer (And the proposals themselves/knock out criteria become better/stricter, but that is another point) \*I did not look into the exact polkadot wallet holder distribution. The 10 million whale is however a real number. A more precise measurement would be the 10 Million whale VS bottom holders to get to 10 Million. ---
**Author:** ![sodazone](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/forum.polkadot.network/sodazone/32/7216_2.png) [@sodazone](https://forum.polkadot.network/u/sodazone)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/whales-vs-shrimps-time-and-spend-on-voting/4914/2 "2023-11-26T20:56:27Z")
We posted some numbers some days ago: [📈 Polkadot OpenGov Data Insights](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/polkadot-opengov-data-insights/4827) ---
**Author:** ![bill\_w3f](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/forum.polkadot.network/bill_w3f/32/910_2.png) [@bill\_w3f](https://forum.polkadot.network/u/bill_w3f)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2023, 7:46am UTC](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/whales-vs-shrimps-time-and-spend-on-voting/4914/3 "2023-11-27T07:46:00Z")
> So I consider the Opengov voting mechanism to be broken from a Shrimp voting standpoint. It truly makes no sense to vote for me anymore. I do hope the voting becomes a bit fairer (And the proposals themselves/knock out criteria become better/stricter, but that is another point) Do you have a proposal to make it fairer? ---
**Author:** ![Omiuxcy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aca169/32.png) [@Omiuxcy](https://forum.polkadot.network/u/Omiuxcy)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2023, 10:28am UTC](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/whales-vs-shrimps-time-and-spend-on-voting/4914/4 "2023-11-27T10:28:52Z")
Thank you for that. I did not see that. Your True numbers give an indication of what I guesstimated. Too much concentration of voting power (for now). ---
**Author:** ![Omiuxcy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aca169/32.png) [@Omiuxcy](https://forum.polkadot.network/u/Omiuxcy)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2023, 11:10am UTC](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/whales-vs-shrimps-time-and-spend-on-voting/4914/5 "2023-11-27T11:10:12Z")
The reply from sodazone indicated with numbers what I did think (too much concentration of voting power). A deeper research would also take into account the costs and time for each proposal by the voters (like my example). Identifying and acknowledging that there are issues (voting costs/time for smaller voters), is the first step. If It is not considered an issue by who?, then it is what it is. I do think considering the amount of proposals and a lot of them being subpar (jokes/memes/wrong info/mistakes./no kpi), There should be hard knock out criteria. Some sort of objective #AI Gate warden. What the most democratic or best working mechanism in #crypto is, is not something I could answer. I do applaud the intention of the OPEngov mechanism. Voting should be fun, fast , rewarding, impactful. You will never get to engage 100% of the wallets. It would be also a waste of time and money. I do think you will see more clusters or pools of voters. Modelling that could be part of understanding the possible outcomes On a funded proposal to do more (scientific/real world) research about it, I would vote (Aye). Maybe something for Sodazone, Alice und Bob, CHatGPT or any other AI resource and a phd student, who knows more about voting systems. The only thing I do know it will always be sub optimal, but we can always try to make it better (yes this is a non measurable term 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![mister\_cole](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/forum.polkadot.network/mister_cole/32/537_2.png) [@mister\_cole](https://forum.polkadot.network/u/mister_cole)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2023, 1:17am UTC](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/whales-vs-shrimps-time-and-spend-on-voting/4914/6 "2023-11-28T01:17:11Z")
> [@Omiuxcy](#): > > I do think you will see more clusters or pools of voters. Vote delegation is a powerful and still underutilized lever, and I think over time it will continue to emerge as _the_ model for smaller holders to exert their collective will in OpenGov. A few important developments that will facilitate this include allowing holders to vote with DOT staked in pools, lowering the cost to delegate & undelegate, and making it possible for delegators to vote their own way in an ad hoc basis when they disagree with their delegate on a referendum. I hope these functions are enabled in the near future. ---
**Author:** ![jim\_jam](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/forum.polkadot.network/jim_jam/32/2798_2.png) [@jim\_jam](https://forum.polkadot.network/u/jim_jam)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2023, 4:16am UTC](https://forum.polkadot.network/t/whales-vs-shrimps-time-and-spend-on-voting/4914/7 "2023-11-28T04:16:15Z")
> [@bill\_w3f](#): > > Do you have a proposal to make it fairer? Maybe building a reputation system. It relies on KYC, but KYC is validated by token voting (Schelling Game/Kleros). Even if 10-20% of KYCs are wrong, I think it is still likely to work. One can try different permutations and combinations by giving different weights based on reputation, amount of tokens, time locking, seq pragmen democracy etc. to get optimum results. > Polkadot also seems to be working on it. > **[GitHub - polkadot-fellows/manifesto: Manifesto and rulebook for the Polkadot...](https://github.com/polkadot-fellows/manifesto)** > > Manifesto and rulebook for the Polkadot Fellowship - GitHub - polkadot-fellows/manifesto: Manifesto and rulebook for the Polkadot Fellowship