Is Soulbound Token the potential of decentralized governance?

Decentralized Finance vs. Decentralized government

From the notion of decentralized finance (Decentralized Finance – DeFi) Once born, we normally recognize it with “decentralized” finance, then its governance mechanism is also “decentralized”. But it can be accurate?

Decentralized governance (Decentralized Governance – DeGov) employed to describe how governance is not centered on an person or little group of men and women, but rather empowers determination producing to the local community, the real end users of that protocol / organization. For instance from DeFi, DeFi protocols have normally decentralized governance in the kind of DAO, providing end users the proper to vote on essential protocol challenges, not just following the intentions of the protocol creator group.

Thanks to this DAO mechanism, DeFi in unique and the cryptocurrency market place in standard have aimed for a “higher goal”, building a new revolution with the suitable of changing the method of classic monetary institutions – wherever the “big hands” and the authorities hold the energy to “kill”.

While not truly attaining these excellent ideals, decentralized governance in the kind of DAO in DeFi is assisting to generate a new working model, assisting to notice daring suggestions, providing birth to cryptocurrency in the direction of excellent growth.

From the “DeFi Summer” 2020 quite a few protocols with governance DAO had been born, driving the primary trends of the section this kind of as Uniswap DAO, AAVE DAO, Curve DAO or Synthetix DAO.

Is decentralized governance truly “decentralized”?

Ideally, on the other hand, there is no model without having its weaknesses. But DeGov’s weakness stems from his very own phrase “decentralization”. A excellent instance is the latest Terra two. proposal. Although quite a few little end users do not want to fork the new chain, the determination is in the hands of the validator, who owns the vast majority of LUNA.

So the query is:

Is decentralized governance truly as “decentralized” as we imagine?

To response this query, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin wrote a lengthy short article outlining the non-decentralized aspects of how DAO will work.

The part of governance tokens

In essence, in the DeGov mechanism, end users can vote for essential protocol selections by “voting” or simply just “voting”. Of program, the additional votes, the additional “the voice has weight”. In the finish, the alternative that will get the most votes wins.

And this vote is the use you see the capital it is the most essential of the governance tokens (government text) of that protocol.

Let’s get a appear at how to vote in the Uniswap DAO with the UNI governance token:

• A Uniswap consumer who needs to recommend one thing for the protocol should to start with have UNI. When submitting a proposal to Uniswap DAO, it should acquire at least 25,000 UNI SI votes in advance of staying capable to enter the 2nd round of assessment, otherwise, if there are not adequate votes, the proposal will be disqualified immediately from the parking round.
• By the 2nd round, the proposal should acquire at least 50,000 UNI votes to advance to the 3rd round.
• …
• In the up coming rounds of assessment, the variety of UNI required to vote increases.

With other DAOs this kind of as AAVE DAO or Curve DAO, the governance token is employed in a equivalent way: the protocol involves staking and blocking a sure variety of CRVs or AAVEs to participate in the voting rounds.

Obstacles of decentralized governance

At this stage, readers are likely beginning to notice that “something is wrong” with DeGov and governance tokens. That’s what:

A man or woman or group of people today who holds a ample volume of governance tokens will have the proper to govern the total protocol.

one. Barriers to entry for person end users

Firstly, if you are a single consumer, it is challenging to very own a substantial variety of UNIs to participate in the vote. And not absolutely everyone is ready to block quite a few AAVEs or CRVs to participate in governance, alternatively of working with them for trading or lending, and so forth.

Obviously, this difficulty is fairly evident and there have extended been a whole lot of options this kind of as end users staking their tokens in substantial token pools. This is equivalent to citizens who elect “deputies” to vote on their behalf.

However, with the increasing attraction of tokens by little end users, governance continues to be in the hands of these substantial pools.

two. The interests of the rulers

If the political institution has “Interest Groups”, DeGov also has curiosity groups that govern the identical protocol. In buy for the proposal in its favor to be authorized, Pool A can do quite a few techniques to entice tokens into its pool, this kind of as raising the staking curiosity fee, supplying higher rewards to participants. This is no various from the “buy votes” we see normally.

And this practice is so frequent in DeFi that a sentence focused to it was born – Liquidity war. The origin and most renowned is Curve Wars, the battle to entice liquidity to Curve. To obtain out additional about this occasion, pay attention to: DeFi Discussion ep. 27: Curve Wars – the mysterious key phrase behind CRV’s selling price hike.

Another downside to voting with governance tokens is that:

It does not matter who you are, as extended as you have adequate tokens to get element in the voting.

The reality that staking pools and validators hold a substantial volume of tokens to govern the protocol is not as hazardous as the reality that amid the determination makers there are people today who are “evil wolves” – they never want the protocol to create but just want to assault the public and get away everyone’s residence.

Coinlive has an short article discussing DAO’s present barriers, read through additional about: DAO is the potential? What barriers have to have to be conquer to assist DAO organizations explode?

Is Soulbound Token the option?

Vitalik Buterin proposes many choice options to make voting additional decentralized, a single of which is the Soulbound Token.

What is the Soulbound Token?

Soulbound Token, also recognized as Soulbound NFT, is inspired by the “Soulbound” characteristic of World of Warcraft in-game objects.

In WoW, objects with the Soulbound perform are no longer tradable, tied to the proprietor. In other phrases, end users in possession of soulbound tokens will not be capable to trade, transfer that token to other people. From there, this token acts as an identifier, affirms ownership, and is evidence that the holder obtained this token by means of a acknowledged company, “practically” not obtaining from an individual else.

Decentralized governance option

From there, Vitalik proposed working with soulbound tokens alternatively of the present governance tokens.

Instead of a DAO model favoring substantial governance token holders, we ought to use soulbound tokens to vote. This can protect against staking pools from collecting tokens from other end users, mainly because soulbound tokens are not tradable.

And lastly, Vitalik supports Optimism’s present governance model – the Layer2 undertaking that stands out with OP’s latest significant airdrop.

An instance: optimism

As explained in the Important Things to Know short article on Optimism Collective, this undertaking utilizes a “bicameral” governance model manufactured up of two separate departments, “Token House” and “Citizens House”.

• House of tokens: OP token holders can participate in the governance vote on challenges like protocol updates, incentives for a different undertaking on optimism … Token House is equivalent to how the present Uniswap DAO operates: the favor predicts the variety of votes under kind of governance token.
• Citizen’s House: participate in governance on challenges this kind of as capital allocation to protocol, retroactive, and so forth., together with holders of a soulbound token referred to as Citizenship. This evidence of governance is non-transferable, in buy to protect against the difficulty of whales collecting tokens.

However, as stated at the starting of the short article, no option is ideal. Although the Soulbound token gives higher rewards in governance than the present governance token model, this token also has it defect. Imagine if the wallet containing the soul token has been hacked, then this “identity card” should also transform hands.

Additionally, as there are not quite a few useful applications of the soulbound token however, some likely downsides may possibly not however be found.

And you, do you imagine Soulbound Token is the potential of decentralized governance?

Giovanna

Maybe you are interested: