HOPR DAO v0.1 — Rules
The first of the HOPR DAO monthly governance experiments is almost ready to begin! We’re just putting the finishing touches to the forum incentives and making sure every HOPR token holder can vote in the final stage, regardless of where their tokens are located (something which most crypto governance just ignore).
The first topic for discussion and vote will be published next week, and it’s one we know the community is already deeply invested in. You can read more about the philosophy behind these experiments here. As soon as the topic is published, the discussion phase, along with up to 50,000 HOPR in incentives will launch on the forum. Please sign up if you haven’t already. The first vote will begin a little under two weeks later, and will take place on Snapshot.
The rest of this post will provide a rundown of the timeline, mechanisms and rules for these experiments. These will also be available on the forum, and will be updated after each vote with any adjustments and improvements.
Timeline
The entire process from announcement of the vote topic to the final vote will take place in three phases over two weeks. Future experiments will hopefully reduce this, but for now we want to be cautious.
All phases will begin and end at 2pm CEST
Topic Announced
The subject of the vote will be announced on the HOPR blog, forum, and social media channels. As soon as the announcement is made, the discussion will begin.
PHASE 1: Discussion (1 Week)
A discussion will take place on the HOPR forum to determine proposals for how to address the topic at hand.
Proposal Gathering (24hrs)
There will be a 24hr pause, during which time the moderators will collect all the valid proposals and make them available for signing.
PHASE 2: Referendum (48hrs)
Forum members will have 48hrs to signal their support for the proposals generated in Phase 1.
Vote Preparation (24–48hrs)
There will be a short pause, during which time the proposals which gathered sufficient support during Phase 2 will be transferred to Snapshot.
PHASE 3: Vote (48hrs)
HOPR token holders will be able to vote on the proposals on Snapshot, regardless of where their tokens are held. After 48hrs, the vote will close.
The votes will then be counted and the winning proposal will be enacted. The incentives for the discussion phases will be calculated and paid out.
The rest of this post explains what to expect from each phase.
Phase 1: Discussion
The discussion phase will take place in a dedicated DAO subcategory on the HOPR forum. Only discussion within this subcategory will be eligible to receive incentives.
The goal of the discussion phase is to constructively discuss the vote topic and create and iterate on proposals. The discussion will be actively moderated.
Making Proposals
At any point during discussion, any user may make a proposal. The post with the proposal will be marked as a pending proposal. A moderator will then read it and assess whether the proposal is valid, invalid, or incomplete. Users who create incomplete proposals will be given the opportunity to make them valid.
A valid proposal must:
- Fully address the topic of the vote
- Be unambiguous in its implementation
- Not contravene any laws or regulations
- Be in accordance with the HOPR values and manifesto
Moderation
The discussion will be actively moderated, but we’re trying to be as hands-off with moderation as possible. It’s particularly important that the moderation doesn’t sway the direction of the discussion and the outcome of the vote. The moderators’ job is solely to keep discussion clear and productive, and help with the transition between phases.
Moderators will be able to delete posts and mark proposals as valid, invalid, or incomplete. They will also be able to issue warnings and, as a last resort, remove users entirely.
The DAO section of the forum will have slightly stricter rules than the rest of the forum to prevent spam and disruption.
Phase 2: Referendum
After a week of discussion, it will no longer be possible to make new proposals. All valid proposals will be highlighted by the moderators and put to the community in the referendum stage. You can signal your support for a proposal by signing it. You can sign as many proposals as you like, but you can only sign each individual proposal once.
After 48 hours, every proposal which has received signatures from 20% of DAO forum participants will move forward to the vote stage. If fewer than three proposals receive 20% support, the top three will move forward to the vote stage. All other proposals will be rejected.
Phase 3: Vote
The winning proposals from the referendum phase will be put on Snapshot for 48 hours. Every HOPR token holder will be able to signal their support for their preferred proposal. Token holders can vote no matter where their tokens are held. This means HOPR tokens locked in the HOPR farm will also be able to participate. However, if your tokens are on a centralized exchange, you WON’T be able to vote with them while they’re there. This is because, for centralized exchanges, the exchange is technically the holder, not you.
Votes will initially be allocated on a one token, one vote basis, but later rounds will experiment with different allocation mechanisms. The HOPR Association treasury will not vote, neither will locked investor and team tokens.
At the end of the voting period, the proposal with the most votes will be accepted and enacted as soon as possible.
Incentivization
The governance process is incentivized. The goal of this is to incentivize active, constructive discussion. Spam or bot messages will be ruthlessly moderated and their accounts will be removed without receiving any rewards. To keep people focused on the actual business of governance, rather than simply trying to game the incentive system, the method for distributing the incentives will not be disclosed until after the vote.
However, to ensure the system is fair, the algorithm for distributing incentives has been pre-written and cryptographically signed. In this way, we can guarantee that the incentivization system is not altered or retroactively created based on the outcome of the discussion.
These rules will all be analysed and iterated upon after each experiment. The goal is to run experiments monthly, sometimes with several topics, with the ultimate goal of opening up the ability to propose vote topics to the community.
Sebastian Bürgel & Rik Krieger
HOPR Founding Team
Website: https://www.hoprnet.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hoprnet
Telegram: https://t.me/hoprnet
Forum: https://forum.hoprnet.org
