Delegate to a public access, public good citizen enfranchisement pool through Event Horizon

Proposals
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OpenZeppelin’s final ARDC report is now available to review here.

In the report, we’ve provided several important security recommendations that we’ve encouraged the Event Horizon team to implement in their system to enhance the system’s transparency and security before deploying any contracts to be used for ARB delegations. We have also highlighted several risks and concerns that Arbitrum delegators should consider in their decisions regarding the Event Horizon proposal as well as highlighting the importance of the Oversight Committee selection. We are happy to engage in further discussion and questions in the forum.

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63

As a follow-up to our prior proposal review, OpenZeppelin has conducted an audit of the the Franchiser contracts provided by Event Horizon on behalf of the ARDC. These contracts will allow the Arbitrum DAO to transfer a token through the FranchiserFactory to a Franchiser contract which will delegate its voting power to Event Horizon, allowing them to vote on proposals.

In short, we found no security issues with the contracts and our notes contain only recommendations for coding practices as well as a consideration for removing an unnecessary feature for additional token subdelegation. We invite the community review the full details of our audit and conclusion here:

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64

With so many small retail investors entrusted to you, I’m curious to understand how to ensure that it’s going to cost so much money for you to get this right, and what the real core strengths are.

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Hey! The benefits of Event Horizon’s Voter Enfranchisement Pools and the rationale for the grant size are all listed in the proposal. And, remember the 7m ARB is a delegation, not a grant.

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After further discussion with the Foundation and the MSS Committee, we have secured MSS support for the Voter Enfranchisement Pool Proposal.

The MSS will replace the Oversight Committee entirely for all related capacities and responsibilities. The MSS will…

  1. custody the 7M ARB and delegate the voting power to the community voting pool.
  2. maintain the ability to push the community pool into an ‘abstain’ position
  3. maintain the ability to undelegate and return the 7M ARB to the treasury upon the request of the Arbitrum DAO which can be conducted via a Snapshot vote.

To make this improvement possible, the current Oversight Committee and Event Horizon are committed to, and will carry out, the following the closure of the current state proposal:

  1. The OC will transfer 7M ARB to the MSS custody wallet
  2. The OC will transfer the 200K direct grant to Event Horizon
  3. The OC will return the 125K ARB initially allocated for OC member compensation back to the Arbitrum DAO Treasury

This will be further ratified via a snapshot vote.

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67

This is a very interesting proposal. I see a lot of arguments. In fact, I think this proposal can be implemented without much cost after it is passed, so it is possible to conduct an experiment, continue if the effect is good, and stop if the effect is not good. I will support it.

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68

Voting against this. I think every delegate should receive his/her vorting power by individuals and not by getting token from a treasury or another DAO controlled source.

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69

Echoing some active delegates here, we’re voting AGAINST this proposal, reversing our precedent stance on this matter. While the intent to increase retail participation is commendable, granting a large voting block to a single entity undermines the core principle of decentralized governance. It creates an artificial power imbalance, potentially marginalizing individual delegates who’ve earned their influence through dedicated participation. This approach risks centralizing decision-making and could lead to unintended consequences in the ecosystem’s governance structure. Instead, we should focus on improving existing mechanisms to naturally encourage broader retail engagement without compromising the integrity of the current delegate system.

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Hey @EventHorizonDAO , thanks for providing the latest updates. I have a few comments:

  • The initial forum post mentions that “Event Horizon Automatically copies proposals published on the Snapshot of included DAOs, in this case Arbitrum, into its simplified UI meta-governance dashboard”. This does not explicitly mention that the Voter Enfranchisement Pool will be able to vote on Tally proposals. So to confirm, will the Voter Enfranchisement Pool be able to vote on on-chain Tally proposals too?

  • Could you provide more insight into what the ‘Snapshot subscription’ will be used for?

  • The Tally proposal states that “Per the recommendation of the Arbitrum Foundation, the proposal will forego the Franchiser contract approach in favor of a multi-signature wallet structure”. I don’t think that’s entirely true - The Foundation provided objective feedback that it would not be possible for the Franchiser contract to have approval to directly spend ARB from the DAO treasury (as initially proposed), because the treasury ARB is held in FixedDelegateErc20Wallet which doesn’t support calling the approve method. Accordingly, we suggested that there would either need to be a multi-sig or a custom contract sitting between the treasury and the Franchiser contract, in order to move the ARB out of the treasury and into a separate contract or multi-sig that could also do the approval operation.

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@EzR3aL We understand you’ve done quite well as a solo delegate in AAVE. We commend your success, and understand it was likely a difficult achievement. However, we would implore you to explore the idea that while there has historically been a large barrier to entry for the average person to enter governance (yourself being an exception) that doesnt mean it should always be difficult.

Event Horizon isn’t a delegate in the relevant sense here. In actuality, the voting power that is delegated to Event Horizon is moved by small retail holders. This is all with the ultimate aim of bringing in more voices off the sideline via a non-monetary incentive (a vote multiple) to cut their teeth on voting in a DAO. It would not afford any individual a truly large delegation but it would provide a path by which retail voters can gain exposure and perhaps use their experience as a springboard to track their voting records, have their voice heard, and begin to establish their own personally accrued delegation base, as you have.

The crux here is whether one thinks the DAO should use treasury-owned delegation authority to help empower small Arbitrum DAO citizens ( all while retaining ownership of those funds via revocability). We think the answer to that question is ‘yes’. This is also a rapidly adopted precedent set by several DAOs including Compound and Uniswap which have both conducted treasury-supported underrepresent delegate programs.

@mcfly We would highlight that the delegation is not made to a single entity. The pool is a public-access resource available to everyone in the community. There is no imbalance, as marginalized individual delegates have equal access to the community pool as larger delegates. To give you an example:

If 100 people vote, each voter effectively mobilizes 70,000 ARB. This increase of 70,000 ARB for a small delegate previously wielding 700 ARB (100x multiple on voting power) is substantially more meaningful than for a delegate wielding 7,000,000 ARB (1% increase in VP). So anyone can access, but low capital means voters benefit the most.

By most definitions, this process is decentralized. While the total community vote is represented by a single wallet, the outcome of that single wallet’s vote is determined by many participants in a meta-level vote. We would content that one wallet representing 1,000 voices (each voting independently at the meta-level) is a greater state of decentralization than 10 wallets each representing one person.

Hey @raam

  1. Yes, we can confirm that the pool will also (and currently does) vote on Tally proposals as well!

  2. The Snapshot subscription increases the total number of concurrent proposals we can host on Snapshot at any given moment and on a monthly basis. This is important so that high proposal volume doesn’t prevent the public pool from participating in any votes during high volume days / weeks. Reliability under heavy load is critical.

  3. This seems semantic, but the Foundation noted (perhaps we could call it a suggestion as you stated vs recommendation) to have a contract or multi-sig in-between the franchiser and treasury. We accepted the Foundation’s suggestion via a MS.

However, a MS would effectively directly control the franchiser, making the franchiser redundant. Therefore the natural landing point is MS alone. Which we agree is a good path forward and should be the MSS.

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72

The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.

We’re voting FOR this change to the original proposal in the Snapshot temperature check.

We have discussed this change extensively with the Event Horizon team, and we argued for using the MSS for the oversight committee after Event Horizon received some pushback for using the franchiser contract. Therefore we are fully supportive of this move and think this change will benefit the DAO.

We would like to note though that this is not yet a support for the main proposal in question, we will consider our vote on that one separately and will provide our rationale here as well.

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73

I will be voting in favor of this proposal because it empowers smaller voters and because Implicit Delegation has already proven to be effective in other DAOs. The cost of this proposal is minimal compared to the significant benefits it offers. I’m eager to see how this experiment unfolds, and I’m confident that the Gitcoin Passport requirements will help maintain the public voter block as a genuine and decentralized force.

Edit: I’m also voting ‘FOR’ replacing the OC with the MSS for all capacities and responsibilities mainly because this avoids redundancy.

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  1. confirming the Tally vote here. I think this is a very cool experiment, to have a distributed delegated. We will see the frequency of votes and the alignment of votes. I think is worth seeing the results, and I think it would help addressing the rising quorum since my expectation is a 100% presence in all votings, both in snapshot and tally.
  2. voting in favour for the addition to the MSS to the program in the snapshot vote. As part of the MSS i am glad projects are getting onboarded, the more the better, to save costs and increase security.
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76

1.We have decided to support the Event Horizon proposal on tally due to its potential to enhance inclusivity within the ArbitrumDAO.

Although our concerns align with those expressed by 404DAO, we wanted to focus particularly on the participation rate within the voter pool. It is crucial to ensure the engagement level is high and based on informed decision rather than noise for the purpose of incentives. The decision-making processes of these voter pass holders should as well align with Arbitrum’s core values. Hence, we believe it is important to closely monitoring how this initiative evolves and impacts our ecosystem.

Overall we are excited about the idea of empowering underrepresented voices within the DAO. With the new adjustment on benchmark thresholds that would have to be met before the vesting of a given ARB allotment, we believe that this is a good starting point for the initiative.

2.We support the proposal to replace the Oversight Committee with the MSS, as it will enhance security, and avoid redundancy, leading to a more streamlined and efficient governance process.

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77

Seems really straight forward - Voted FOR as the MSS set up makes sense to onboard the Event Horizon initiative.

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What prevents beginner voters from establishing their own delegation base through the current system? Anyone can demonstrate their governance skills as a delegate, even starting with just 100 ARB voting power. Our disagreement likely stems from differing views on meritocracy versus artificially inflating voting power for unidentified marginalized voters. If someone wants to gain influence in the DAO, they should invest the time, energy, and resources to earn that power, rather than having it given to them. This approach aligns more closely with a meritocratic mindset.

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I think this Snapshot vote is premature.

Yes, the very fact of this proposal has a positive result, but in order to change something, you need to either recall the current vote, or wait until it ends and act on the results of the vote.

Therefore, it is completely unimportant how everyone votes for this part with the transfer of multisig to MSS.

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@mcfly writes:

What prevents beginner voters from establishing their own delegation base through the current system? … If someone wants to gain influence in the DAO, they should invest the time, energy, and resources to earn that power

The general notion is that even by your preference for meritocracy (which you’re defining as willingness to spend hours/days lobbying without any true voice), arbitrary barriers to entry do not enforce better meritocracy (such as an inability to have any effective voice what so ever). They add friction to the vast majority and disincentive participation altogether.

Making it easier for someone to start their journey in governance with some form of initial voice does not change the structure that in order to grow as a delegate, continued work is necessary.

But, the goal of the DAO should not be to push away new entrants and create a walled garden ecosystem with difficulties to entry. It should be easy, and incentivized for new delegates to begin their involvement

Event Horizon doesn’t prevent delegates from voting with their 100 ARB and posting in the forum. However, Event Horizon does provide people an additional non-monetary incentive to those who are unmotivated by their drop in the bucket vote of 100 ARB to begin participating in the first place.

And, we would refrain from conflating quality of contribution and blind willingness and time to grind. Just because one person with 100 ARB has the time and compunction to spend months lobbying without any meaningful say, that does not mean that necessarily have better ideas to contribute than someone who was discouraged from participating due to their lack of voice (or vice versa). So you’re creating a filter based on time and willingness to grind and are certainly filtering out many otherwise great contributors in the process.

@cp0x
It’s an amendment to an active proposal. We discussed this approach with many delegates and this was their suggestion, not ours. Again, Cp0x as mentioned previously we believe you have several conflicts of interest which we would rather you disclose along side your opinions in the interest of responsible governance. To reiterate:

It’s worth noting that cp0x is a signer for SpiralDAO, which has historically referenced metagovernance (albeit through very different , non-public good, practices). One might view this as a potential conflict of interests.

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We are in favor of a proposal like this as it provides a possible onboarding pathway to new users in the Arbitrum ecosystem. DAOs typically have users that bootstrap their own voting power over time, but we need to ask ourselves how sustainable of a process this is/if it truly contributes to decentralization. While Arbitrum DAO is certainly one of the most active DAOs with the most participants, it also suffers from an onboarding problem. Our only question for this proposal is if this will affect delegate incentives in some manner/will these individuals in the voter enfranchisement pool be eligible for delegate incentives.

On a side note, we are curious to know if Event Horizon has thought of a future with Ranked Choice Delegations. During SBC, there was talk in the meta-governance community about having a pool of tokens or a wallet that delegates their votes to an ordered list of candidates, where if a candidate does not use their delegated voting power, then their power is redistributed across the delegation list to keep participation high.

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We appreciate the support!

If the Arbitrum DAO would like, and votes to run, a delegate incentive campaign similar to Uniswap’s delegate rewards program to encourage greater retail participation, EH would be willing to facilitate this in the future. Similarly if the community pool meets the requirements of a future incentive program, we would seek a community approved model of distribution to the retail voters.

The EH team is very interested in working with Blockworks Research to continue innovation in governance. At present we use our novel construct, Implicit Delegation which has similar functionalities to ranked choice with regards to ensuring constant productivity of tokens. Rather than a sorted list it delegates back to the community itself though. We’ll reach out to chat with you all on future collaboration.