We need some UNI whales to vote NO!
I would like to have the threshold be lowered for proposal creation to 3m. Someone should make this a separated/competing proposal to raise attention.
Is there a delegate that supports this view?
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I have a doubt here,
Isnât quorum the minimum required to vote for passing a proposal?, but not necessarily means you have the majority to pass all proposals.
Lowering the quorum from 4% (40 Million Uni) to 3% (30 Million UNI) only works on favor of the majority members when the other minorities abstain or neglect voting. In this case that means that if 97% of the other UNI holders donât vote or donât care about the governance
As of now I think Dharma has 15.5 Million UNI votes, and Gaunlet 13.7 Million UNI. Together they have majority power to pass a proposal at 4% or 3% Quorum regardless;
I guess is more a matter of the remaining (current supply) 156 Million UNI holders actively participating or not.
Am I interpreting how this works correctly?
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No that isnât right, you need 40m votes on âyesâ to reach quorum, not 40m total, as per the UNI blog post.
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Hi all,
Iâm noticing a lot of posts flagged âagainstâ this proposal. Please, this is a discussion forum.
That being said, everyone is entitled to their opinion as long as itâs backed by arguments.
If more false reports happen, then Iâll see to discuss with the moderation team to have this punished. Enable everyone to speak their mind, this is an important proposal. And, donât attack someone sharing their thoughts, provide arguments once again (counts for flags throughout the whole forum).
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Paltry few UNI tokens??? You mean five milion UNI tokens? I second the voices that are against this proposal and I think they have good arguments against it which everybody ignored. Nobody (Dharma and Gauntlet) is willing to discuss any concessions, they just want to shove it down everybody´s throat. There is the reason why everybody thinks its despotic.
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Hmmm, just to be clear: Dharma itself doesnât get UNI from its proposal for retroactive distribution. Itâs the users of multiple wallets (Dharma, Argent, etc.) who will receive the UNI, for trading on Uniswap via meta-transactions. I think this is in alignment with the goals of the initial distribution of token, and itâs not a play by Dharma to get tokens for itself. Itâs also a very fair way of distributing tokens to more people, because we know that there is very likely one single address per real user.
Disclosure: I work at Dharma, but I do think this is true. Nadav and others involved are doing a lot of work on behalf of thousands of people in the community who did use Uniswap before the distribution.
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Whether or not you support airdropping users who didnât visit Uniswap at the expense of the Uniswap community treasury, isnât actually the point @Buckerino is making here.
Itâs the way you decided to pursue your goal that is the point.
Trying to fool users into thinking that it is a good idea to reduce the quorum threshold to the amount you yourself hold, with some smart sounding language and Python calculations is not okay.
This is clearly a takeover attempt. Simple as that. Your goal doesnât even matter at this point, even if it is well-meaning.
If you want a handout from the community fund, maybe you should ask? Instead of stealing it?
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But Dharma doesnât really hold any UNI. Itâs not a âbagholderâ, as Decrypt argued. There are some investors, who are not invested in Dharma, who have delegated to Dharma for this proposal. But this delegation is revokable, and is just a vote of trust. If it looks like Dharma is doing anything that is misaligned with the UNI communityâs best interests, that delegation will be removed, and Dharma will have absolutely no ability to propose or pass anything â regardless of whether the threshold decreases significantly.
I think thereâs a more realistic concern about whether large exchanges may acquire enough UNI to affect proposals - for example, a large exchange like Binance. But I think the current proposal is conservative enough to avoid that scenario.
My argument for passing the proposal is that I think we should prove that UNI governance can work, in the same way that Compound governance has proven to work and be effective. Dharma played a large role in Compoundâs governance so far, which has been positive in terms of showing that it is a decentralized protocol. I believe proving that the token can create effective governance should be a priority for the community, and to show that it isnât just the UNI team, or elite investors, who control the protocol. Dharma is neither of those things, and retroactive distribution brings more people into the community of token holders. So I view it as a perfect opportunity to show how well decentralized governance can work.
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Dharmaâs entire voting pool is created by less than 50 addresses. This is provable, and easily available information over at Dune Analytics. Itâs not a community effort, not even close. There are clearly special interests involved.
What do you have against exchanges exactly? Shouldnât the argument be that no single outside entity should be able to overthrow governance? If so, you fit into this category yourself.
And also⌠Have you seen the release schedule? Binance will probably have over 30m uni quite soon, this change is extremely short-sighted and clearly only made to benefit yourself short-term.
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Well said graeme.
I think that as long as we swirl in the narratives
- âtrying to fool users into thinking that it is a good idea to reduce the quorum thresholdâ
- âThis is clearly a takeover attemptâ
any attempt at rational, objective discourse, is, well, hard to justify
I facilitate large corporate groups all day long, so i have a feel for how this works. The pointless rhetoric that camouflages itself as âdiscussionâ will continue until we ask pointedlyâŚ
- Why do you believe that Dharma is attempting to fool the entire Uniswap community into accepting a lower voting threshold? What proof do you have of this or is it just an âopinionâ? Have you reached out to Dharma directly to ask for an equally direct response to your claim?
- If this is a takeover attempt, what do you believe the goal is? All takeover attempts that require this much investment in time and energy have an ideological foundation. Do you think Dharma is trying to financially benefit? Perhaps they are doing it as a part of an elaborate social experiment? Or maybe there are esoteric plans afoot that we arenât aware of but should guard against? Have you considered that maybe the ideological foundation is quite ethical and interested in benefiting the UNI community? A rational mind would exhaust both possibilities before attempting to put pen to their thoughts.
- Finally, what do you have to gain from filibustering and getting the proposal to fail? Have you been transparent with your motivations in doing so? How would the UNI community gain from a failed proposal? Do you have an alternative to the proposal? Listening to people complain about stuff but doing nothing to offer alternatives leaves a certain distaste that is true of any human social interaction.
Look, the point is that conspiracy theories are fun to elaborate on. It fulfills our inner sense of value and how we perceive the world. However, they rarely have any substance.
Hereâs what i recommend. Create a post and ask your questions directly to @nadav_dharma and @gauntlet. Get it from the horseâs mouth. If you are unwilling to challenge them in person, then they have no choice but to treat your accusations in the same light.
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Sure, happy to answerâŚ
To be able to push their Proxy airdrop proposal through, and anything else they might want to do.
Proof that this is what is happening is all over this thread. It also makes logical sense.
Dharma has a lot to gain from supplying their users with this money. It buys good-will, something very valuable in business as you probably know.
Itâs also a very good look for them in the sense that it creates precedence for multiple proxy airdrops for Dharma users. Dharma is not Uniswap dependent.
⌠Also a takeover attempt of a community treasury is inherently bad, regardless of the goal.
A takeover of a community fund to buy goodwill from your users is not ethical, and I donât believe it benefits the UNI community.
It is impossible to filibuster this? This is just a community discussion.
Having actual governance and not dictatorship is, I believe, a good thing.
Getting to actually have a fair vote on the proxy proposal is a good thing.
Did you read this post? SPLIT IT UP.
I have tagged @nadav_dharma @Tarun several times. Both here and on the main proposal discussion. I hope they show up to explain themselvesâŚ
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Think you are stressing for no reason. It doesnât look like they can get 40 million quorum. Not sure why they proposed it if some of their members arenât voting.
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We answered a lot of these questions on this live stream today. I am posting it here because it is 100% relevant content. Sorry if Iâm breaking any rules. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJrazSFZsdo
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Listened to the discussion. Thanks for adding value to the community through open discourse. Iâll share my thoughts if anyone wants to geek out on philosophy, anthro-complexity, economics, etc.
Be warned TLDR: humans are complex social beings and we are far better served finding ways to achieve working compromise, than to demonize each other simply because our values differ. If Dharma refuses to engage in this dialog, then we have no choice but to assume they are complicit by absence. If however, they choose to collaborate on a solution but we continue to vacillate in our refusal to empathize, we are complicit by choice and have undermined our right to an objective opinion.
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The assumption that a âfor profitâ organization has nothing but self-interest in mind is extremely problematic. The core polarity fallacy that if itâs not black, it must be white, is central here. Just because you are âfor profitâ, does not mean that your corporate value system focuses solely on driving revenue to sate the maniacal appetites of their shareholders. This is a blessedly naĂŻve perspective of the world. Dharma is definitely fighting to establish a viable business model, but can we seriously kangaroo-court them into a âcorporationâ stigma, and by association, assume arbitrarily that their actions should all be examined through the lens of âevil centralized interestsâ? We are acting precisely in the manner with which we are accusing them, but standing behind our value system as justification. Centralized vs decentralized. Representation vs Plutocracy. Polarities are fallacies, because most of life is lived in the middle - a spectrum.
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The romanticism around decentralized permissionless governance is quaint, but they donât address human nature and what we know of behavioural economics. Humans are hierarchical. Even as hunter gatherers we operated within a social hierarchy - if not a power hierarchy. Whether it is a token, or fiat, or social recognition, or kudos, all systems migrate towards autopoietic balance - or centralized control. If i can buy, or take, or trick others into giving me that item of intrinsic value, then i will do whatever is necessary to acquire it. The incentive is far too enticing to avoid for long. Eventually, power consolidates, or social influence consolidates into a systemic balance. Maybe technology can overcome this, but not for a very long time - our cognition is not wired for that degree of critical thought. Dharma is utilizing whatever means they have within the rules to achieve their ânobleâ outcome. Everyoneâs version of nobility differs of course, but we cannot immediately assume that a substantial delegate in the system went through all that trouble only to undermine the same system. If they are truly a âfor-profitâ organization, there are far better and more effective ways to establish your brand presence, than to mount a âtake-overâ campaign like we were trapped in a Sun Tzu essay 1000s of years after it was written. That is soo 90s corporate. Today, boardrooms are grappling with complexity - not the âcompetitionâ.
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The one token - one vote is incredibly short-sighted, which you guys recognized. The ancient greeks made it work in a village town square where the numbers never exceeded 100s, and where decisions had existential consequences. When the Romans capitulated into an Empire, democracy died with it. That was a long time ago. Today, decentralizing decision making on a planet of 6 Billion is riddled with issues. The assumptions that you are forced to adopt includes a knowledgeable, conscientious voter who has the greater interests of the group in mind. If you cannot assure that, then you are left with adopting a delegate model, because like Platoâs philosopher king, the decision making is then given to a trusted person that has earned the right. In our case, delegates have to use social influence to acquire tokens, which renders them as no better than a politician. This is a horribly broken system. The solutions, sadly, are emergent. We simply donât know because humanity has never been here before. I can suggest one thing however. Systems that adapt successfully are those that can change as quickly as the underlying context. This is the basis of Complexity Science and what it has taught us. Experimenting with different forms of governance, and yes, failing forward, will get us closer to an emergent solution that works âbetterâ. Iâm sure political scientists and marcro economists are busy writing papers about this as we speak. If however, we donât have a fast feedback loop in our governance structure, then whether through voter apathy or highly restrictive governance constraints, the absence of a self-healing mechanism will not allow Uniswap to evolve quickly enough to avoid itâs own demise (all systems fight entropy in their own way - eventually most fail - look at the turnover of the fortune 500 for proof of this mechanism). This only leads towards one outcome. I like the idea of autonomous proposals to help solve that!
We are the trail blazers here, but we are fighting the most challenging of all possible challenges - humanity. In some ways, we are inquiring into human psychology and attempting to version it socially. Not an easy task, but who knows, with recent development in epi-genetics, it could work! 
I donât have answers, but I do know one thing. Demonizing people or entities autonomically because of a perceived difference in ideologies, will get us nowhere. We may as well crawl back into that cave and weâll get exactly what we deserve - crypto or otherwise. There are lots of upcoming disruptive technologies that will make crypto seem like solving a rubikâs cube (AGI for example). If however, we enter into open dialog where the intent is to achieve, NOT consensus, but something better as a result of the collaboration. Something unique, perhaps innovative, then we have unlocked the human potential for endless creativity. What I have objected to all along on this thread is not whether Dharma gets or does not get an opportunity to reward their poor idle, and mostly completely oblivious users whoâll never know that they can âclaimâ any UNI. It was always about the knee-jerk reaction that many of us tend towards because of the perceived assault on our value system and our beliefs. The variety in values will always be there, unless we are condoning a 1984-like conditioning campaign. Finding ways to achieve effective compromise is the only way forward. What will happen when the world figures us out and massive fiat starts getting pumped into the system? The lobsters will very quickly sort out their hierarchy. Our biology dictates it. Can we sort out the technology to solve this inevitability? I doubt it, but itâs definitely worth the attempt.
p.s. Iâm still a bit of a crypto neophyte, but why canât we have a 1-wallet address 1-vote system? The address is weighted slightly by tenure of stake and size of stake, but only to incentivize good behaviour. KYC seems to be the only hiccup, because otherwise Iâd just create bots to mount a sybill-like attack. What if KYC established uniqueness of your identity but without centrally hosting those details? Iâm sure there is something like this out there. Anyway, just thinking out loud.
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God damn that intro is too long.
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Dharma are attempting a backdoor take-over.
Uni is for everyone.
Retroactive drops are not the ethos of Cryptocurrency. Vote NO to Dharma scum for trying to ruin the system!
This Magical Unicorn has a long and healthy life ahead of it. 
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Below, words of @strangechances .
"I would emphatically clarify three points about the UNI discussions regarding retroactive distribution and lowering thresholds. Thereâs a lot of misinformation surfacing in the forums and media, and misinformation is bad for governance. So let me share these assertions:
- Dharma itself does not get UNI from its proposal for retroactive distribution. Itâs the users of multiple wallets (Dharma, Argent, etc.) who will receive the UNI, for trading on Uniswap via meta-transactions. This is in alignment with the goals of the initial UNI distribution.
- Dharma is not a UNI âbagholderâ, and there is no chance of Dharma âcontrolling Uniswapâ. This is something that was incorrectly argued by blockchain media company Decrypt. Some investors, who are not invested in Dharma, have delegated to Dharma, and this is a vote of trust.
- If the Uniswap Governance parameters remain the way they are (40m UNI), itâs unlikely that any decentralized UNI governance could happen this year. Either voter participation or share of delegation needs to increase significantly for it to be viable.
Further discussion: I believe UNI community should prioritize proving that decentralized can governance work. The retroactive distribution proposal is fair and lower risk than the initial distribution, since we know there is a 1:1 user:address relationship. Itâs a great step.".
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There doesnt appear to be any benefit for a smallish holder to actually vote no here. My small holdings arent going to make any significant change to the ratio. The proposal will pass or fail on whether it reaches quorum, so rather than persuading people to vote no, its more a case of persuading them to not vote yes (and not delegating to those who may).
Iâm a soft no to this proposal, because as the OP points out, its two different things and should be seperated and its also too soon to start making very significant governance changes proposed by a high level holder which gives them additional power.
I dont see anything necessarily nefarious in it, but Iâm very aware that blockchain governance is in its infancy and my concern is that it may transpire that there is no way to reverse it, as it becomes easier for large holder to shut down reversal routes.
There is a low level awareness among ordinary uni holders (and for many of them, this will be the first time that they have held a governance token) about their responsibilities. Even although I have some familiarity with governance, I dont know how to delegate my votes responsibly, because I dont really have a feel for the ethos and values of those who I may delegate to, and the gas fees for voting directly with such a small holding are an inhibitory factor
Good job, @uni0, on defending the Uniswap governance.
- Fundamentally, there is no reason to lower the quorum threshold.
You already only need 21% of the current supply to vote yes - and it will come down to 4% eventually.
I donât think that many voting decisions need to be passed during the first few months of Uniswap governance. We simply donât have the safety practices in place yet. No teams to develop proposals, no audit teams to verify that the proposals are solid.
- When it comes to the Dharma & Gauntlet group of interest, we can identify a couple of things about them.
The goal: they want to get another UNI airdrop.
a) When it comes to UNI airdrop itself, I see no reason for it to be done. It is somewhat clear now that airdropping UNI is not an efficient way to build the community to govern the protocol. There are a lot of better ways.
Just think about it: 251k addresses received free UNI, and most topics on the governance forum donât reach 1k views.
b) How much UNI do they want to get airdropped on them exactly?
If they already have 30m votes, how much more will they gain from this airdrop?
What percentage of the supply do we find reasonable for this group of interest to have?
Keep in mind that itâs much easier to act as a single entity.
You could view one vote from a single entity as 2 or 3 votes from not mobilized voters.
So, Dharma & Gauntlet group of interest want to:
- Lower the quorum so that they can reach it without community support. Lowering the quorum is harmful to the protocol in its early governance stages.
- Effectively send themselves the UNI from the governance treasury, which in turn means giving themselves more voting rights.
The method: delegates use deceptive tactics.
- The rider problem has been mentioned a lot here already.
- The justification for lowering the quorum threshold is highly speculative. The analysis is made in a way that would fit the desired outcome.
Letâs take a close look at this post. It looks smart. All that code in it makes it look nifty. The code is not understood by most people who read it, but it creates a reputational signal. Thereâs code, graphs, Nansen, PGP signatures. But there is no essence to it.
Creating a model based on the assumption that Binance will always have 25m UNI tokens just doesnât make sense.
And there is no disclosure in this post of how the proposed changes benefit the Dharma & Gauntlet group of interest.
The real analysis of the implications of lowering the quorum threshold would be about how it would feed into Dharma & Gauntleâs ability to distribute the governance treasury towards themselves. That is a much more real and apparent issue.
And make no mistake, by âthemselves,â I mean the whole group of interest and not just its representatives. This group has an interest in getting free UNI. And by getting free UNI, it will get more control over governance decisions in the future.
Iâm not sure why anyone other than people who directly benefit from it would ever get behind this proposal.
I also donât see the value in distributing UNI towards the group that wants to distribute free UNI towards itself.
How exactly can an increase in this groupâs voting power benefit the Uniswap protocolâs development?
If these goals and this method donât qualify this group of interest as a bad actor, what does?
a) They want to have quorum without even a slight support of the rest of the Uniswap community. And it happens in the time when the governance is at its most vulnerable point.
b) They want to distribute UNI from the governance treasury towards themselves for free at the expense of everyone else.
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Just running some numbers here. Looks like the combined total of delegated votes between Dharma and Gauntlet is 29.14 Million.
So far, the tally is 30,655,106 FOR and 633,960 AGAINST.
Now weâll remove 29.14 Million from Gauntlet and Dharma and we haveâŚ
1,515,106 FOR and 633,960 AGAINST
Unless i miscalculated or missed something obvious, we are left with 2 choices:
- We expand the conspiracy to additional delegates to extend our confirmation bias around the âtake-over Uniswapâ narrative/meme
- We acknowledge that the majority of Uniswap is voting FOR this proposal
#2 is the most likely outcome, because like most conspiracies, #1 takes a ridiculous amount of effort to pull off, and we canât even credibly articulate âwhyâ they would even bother doing so.
In any case, it seems to highlight that the Uniswap governance structure is broken in its current form. If we canât establish the quorum threshold of 40 Million across all votes (for and against), then what are we arguing about? The case against Dharma is secondary to a more pressing issue, which irrespective of the source, this proposal attempts to solve. Are we convinced that we can reach quorum easily for beneficial proposals that have unilateral support? To abstain is to say ânoâ minus the gas fee? Not sure that is a safe assumption to make.
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