Increase the Proposal Threshold for Snapshot

Description

tl;dr This proposal seeks to increase the Snapshot proposal threshold to 5,000 ~ 15,000 LDO to prevent spam and encourage higher-quality submissions.

Introduction

Lido DAO uses Snapshot to gather initial community consensus and serves as the source of truth for proposals that do not require on-chain execution. Given the relatively low stakes of Snapshot proposals, the platform currently has a lower threshold for proposal submission than on-chain governance.

Over time, Lido DAO has adjusted its proposal threshold 2 to adapt to changing circumstances. However, the current low threshold invites a high volume of low-quality and potentially harmful proposals.

Current Proposal threshold.

Based on current market conditions, Lido DAO’s Snapshot threshold stands at 1,000 LDO, equivalent to approximately $1,138.37.

Comparatively:

ENS DAO requires 10,000 ENS tokens (≈ USD 186,785.40) Uniswap DAO requires 10,000 UNI tokens. (≈ USD 68,647.89 ) Aave DAO - 1,600 AAVE (≈ USD 269,315.90) 1inch DAO - 100,000 1INCH (≈USD 29,584.84) Therefore, Lido DAO has one of the lowest proposal thresholds in decentralised governance, making it vulnerable to spammy proposals that could disrupt governance and distract the community.

Specifications

To mitigate the risks associated with spam and low-quality proposals, we propose increasing the Snapshot proposal threshold to 10,000 LDO. This increase will offer several key benefits:

Reduce Spam: Raising the threshold increases the financial stake required to submit proposals, discouraging spam and malicious actors from flooding the system with poor-quality proposals. Encourage Higher-Quality Proposals: A higher threshold will encourage those submitting proposals to consider their impact carefully, fostering more severe and thoughtful discussions within the community. By setting the threshold at 5,000 ~ 15,000 LDO, the DAO will balance maintaining broad community participation and ensuring that only serious proposals are considered.

The increased threshold might initially exclude a very extreme minority of stakeholders and delegates from posting proposals. However, the DAO operations workstream has a process in place to carefully vet and support minority authors. This process ensures that all serious proposals are considered regardless of the author’s financial stake.

Alternative Considerations

In our review, no alternative solutions fully aligned with the ethos of decentralisation without introducing potential censorship. However, the following alternatives were considered:

Increased Snapshot Admin Rights: This would grant the DAO operations workstream more direct administrative control over Snapshot, allowing them to remove spammy proposals. Currently, only one address holds ‘Admin’ rights on the platform. Expanding this access could allow for more effective proposal moderation. Whitelisted Authorship: A more centralised approach, allowing only a whitelisted group of trusted authors to submit proposals. While this ensures higher-quality proposals, it also restricts broader community participation. However, Lido DAO already follows voting seasons where mature proposals are bundled and voted on together, which may reduce concerns about exclusion.

Voting Options

Increase threshold to 5,000 LDO Increase threshold to 10,000 LDO Increase threshold to 15,000 LDO Do nothing Abstain