[VeBetterDAO Proposal] Activating Governance - From Lazy Votes to Curated Stewardship

VeBetterDAO
1

Activating Governance - From Lazy Votes to Curated Stewardship

Current governance dynamics favor convenience over conviction, resulting in stagnant allocations and low-signal decision outcomes.

This proposal introduces a phased upgrade: Phase 1 rewards active participation and intent, while Phase 2 enables transparent, staked Navigators to improve allocation quality through voluntary delegation.

Together, these changes aim to unlock smarter capital allocation, faster dApp discovery, and a more resilient governance framework at scale.

Phase 1: Introducing Freshness & Governance Intent Multipliers

Objective

This first phase introduces two incentive mechanisms - Freshness Multiplier and Governance Intent Multiplier - designed to improve voting quality, enhance governance signal integrity, and ensure that reward distribution better reflects genuine engagement, responsibility, and ecosystem contribution.

The overarching goal is to align incentives with meaningful participation, without increasing complexity or friction for users.

Problem 1: Lazy Votes in Weekly Voting

Problem Statement

Weekly allocation voting has gradually become highly reward-driven, resulting in widespread “lazy voting” behavior. Many users leave their voting configuration unchanged for long periods, leading to:

  1. Allocation outcomes that do not accurately reflect the real quality, innovation, or performance of dApps.

  2. Structural disadvantages for new or emerging dApps, which struggle to attract attention or capital allocation.

  3. Underutilisation and misallocation of voting power, weakening the overall governance signal of the ecosystem.

Analysis

  • Incentive Misalignment: A significant portion of voters are primarily motivated by weekly voting rewards rather than thoughtful allocation.

  • Convenience Bias: Auto-voting and unchanged configurations reduce user effort, but also significantly diminish the effectiveness and responsiveness of voting power.

  • Stagnant Outcomes: When votes rarely change, weekly voting loses its purpose as a discovery and signaling mechanism.

In short, convenience has overtaken responsibility, and voting power is no longer being exercised as intended.

Solution: Make Updating Votes Strictly Better

We propose maintaining the simplicity of weekly voting, while making active participation economically superior to passive behavior.

The system should explicitly reward voters who:

  • Regularly reassess and update their voting configuration.

  • Explore and support a broader range of dApps.

  • Actively and responsibly manage their voting power over time.

Definition: “Update”

An Update is defined as any intentional modification to a user’s weekly voting configuration, including:

  • Adding or removing one or more dApps.

  • Changing allocation weights.

  • Rebalancing percentages across existing dApps.

Any of the above actions qualifies as a valid update.

Freshness Multiplier

A voter’s weekly voting power is multiplied by a Freshness Multiplier, determined by how recently they updated their voting configuration.

This mechanism directly incentivises ongoing evaluation and engagement, without forcing complexity:

  • Updates every week → 3.00Ă— multiplier;

  • Updates once every 2 weeks → 2.00Ă— multiplier;

  • No update for 3 or more consecutive rounds → 1.00Ă— multiplier.

Expected Outcomes

  • Encourages voters to regularly reassess dApp performance and relevance.

  • Increases exposure and opportunity for new and high-quality dApps.

  • Transforms weekly voting from a passive yield activity into an active governance signal.

  • Improves capital efficiency and ecosystem adaptability over time.

Problem 2: Ineffective Governance Proposal Voting

Problem Statement

Current governance proposal voting exhibits extremely high abstention rates:

  • 50-60% of votes are Abstain, often coming from over 10,000 wallets.

  • For/Against votes typically come from fewer than 2,000 wallets in recent proposals.

At this stage of ecosystem maturity:

  • Abstain votes contribute minimal informational or governance value.

  • High abstention artificially inflates participation optics without improving decision quality.

  • Proposal outcomes are effectively determined by a small subset of voters, despite large nominal participation.

Solution: Reward Governance Intent, Not Passivity

Abstain should remain a legitimate governance option, preserving freedom of choice. However, earning proposal voting rewards should require expressed intent.

To achieve this, we propose a Governance Intent Multiplier that differentiates between active decision-making and passive abstention.

Governance Intent Multiplier

  • For/Against → 1.00x;

  • Abstain → 0.30x.

Rationale

  • For/Against votes represent clear governance intent and signal conviction.

  • Abstain remains available for uncertainty or neutrality, but with proportionally reduced rewards.

  • Incentivises voters to read, understand, and take a position on proposals.

  • Improves the signal-to-noise ratio in governance outcomes.

Summary of Benefits

By introducing Freshness and Governance Intent multipliers, Phase 1 delivers:

  • Stronger alignment between rewards and meaningful participation.

  • More dynamic, responsive, and fair weekly allocation outcomes.

  • Increased visibility and opportunity for new and high-quality dApps.

  • More accurate and actionable governance signals.

  • A healthier long-term foundation for decentralised decision-making.

This phase focuses on incentive refinement, not complexity, ensuring adoption remains frictionless while governance quality materially improves.

Phase 2: Introduction of the Navigator Role

Overview

Phase 2 introduces a Navigator system, enabling users to delegate their weekly voting decisions to trusted, transparent, and accountable Navigators who vote on their behalf.

This mechanism is designed to professionalise voting behavior without centralising power, improving vote quality and ecosystem adaptability while preserving user sovereignty.

Objectives

The Navigator system aims to:

  • Improve weekly vote quality and freshness through active, accountable voting agents.

  • Enhance discoverability of new and high-quality dApps, reducing inertia-driven allocation.

  • Further reduce lazy voting behavior, while improving convenience for regular users.

  • Enable professionalised curation without compromising decentralisation or permissionlessness.

  • Align incentives through staking, fees, and slashing, ensuring Navigator accountability.

System Roles

Navigators (Senators)

Navigators are public voting agents who manage delegated voting power on behalf of users, operating under strict transparency, staking, and accountability requirements.

Navigator Requirements

Each Navigator must:

  • Maintain a public profile including but not limited to:

    • Voting philosophy and strategy (e.g., retention-first, growth-first, impact-first);

    • Historical voting behavior.

  • Provide full conflict-of-interest disclosures, including:

    • Compensation, token allocations, or advisory relationships with any dApp.

  • Maintain a minimum stake in the Navigator Pool.

  • Vote weekly on behalf of users (citizens).

  • Monitor, audit, and publish a Navigator Report at least once every two rounds, covering, e.g.:

    • Allocation rationale;

    • Strategy changes;

    • dApp performance insights;

    • Recommendations for high-quality or newly emerging dApps;

    • And more.

Users (Citizens)

Users are individual wallet addresses that may choose to delegate their voting power.

User rights and guarantees:

  • One wallet may delegate voting power to one Navigator at a time;

  • Delegation can be withdrawn at any time;

  • Users retain full ownership of VOT3;

  • Users receive normal voting rewards based on their VOT3 and the Phase 1 multipliers;

  • Navigator fees are automatically deducted from users’ weekly rewards.

Navigator Onboarding & Activation Pipeline

Step 1: Application

Prospective Navigators must submit an application via a Navigator Portal, including:

  • Public profile;

  • Voting strategy and principles;

  • Conflict-of-interest disclosures;

  • Wallet address;

  • Fixed Navigator Fee Rate - 20%;

  • Social Media links…

Step 2: Stake Deposit

To activate, Navigators must deposit a stake into the Navigator Pool.

Staking Requirements

The required stake is defined as 10% of total delegated VOT3, subject to the following bounds:

  • Minimum Stake:

    • 50,000 VOT3;

    • Corresponding to delegations up to 500,000 delegated VOT3.

  • Maximum Stake:

    • 1% of total circulating VOT3;

    • Corresponds to a maximum delegation of 10% of circulating VOT3.

Dynamic Stake Enforcement

  • If a Navigator’s stake falls below the 10% requirement (due to slashing or increased delegation), the Navigator must top up.

  • If delegated VOT3 exceeds the Navigator’s allowed cap:

    • Excess delegation is accepted first-come, first-served;

    • Later delegations beyond the cap become ineffective until stake is increased.

    • E.g. If a Navigator with 50,000 VOT3 has reached the 500,000 VOT3 delegation cap, new delegations must wait, choose another Navigator, or the Navigator must increase their stake.

Auto-Removal Condition

  • If stake remains below the minimum threshold (50,000 VOT3) for 7 consecutive days, the Navigator is automatically removed.

  • All delegations immediately become ineffective.

Fee Locking

  • Navigator fees are locked in the Navigator Pool for 4 rounds.

  • Fees become claimable only after the lock period expires.

Voting Power

Base Voting Power

Navigator voting power = sum of delegated VOT3, subject to user-level multipliers.

* No additional base voting power is granted by default.

Multiplier Inheritance

Delegated voting power inherits:

  • Freshness Multiplier, based on Navigator rotation behavior;

  • Governance Intent Multiplier, based on Navigator proposal voting behavior;

Example

  • If a Navigator rotates allocations every week and casts For or Against votes on proposals (if applicable), then delegated voting power receives:

    • 3.00Ă— Freshness Multiplier;

    • 1.00Ă— Governance Intent Multiplier.

Rewards Structure

Navigators (Senators)

  • Earn a Navigator Fee - 20% of users’ rewards.

  • Fees are automatically calculated and locked.

  • Long-term performance and trust drive delegation growth.

Users (Citizens)

  • Receive standard voting rewards based on:

    • VOT3;

    • Freshness Multiplier;

    • Governance Intent Multiplier.

  • No reduction in base rewards beyond Navigator fee.

Slashing Framework

Stake Rules

  • Navigators must maintain the minimum required stake at all times.

  • All slashed funds are burned.

  • Falling below minimum stake for 7 days triggers automatic removal.

  • Re-entry requires full reapplication.

Resignation & Exit Rules

  • A Navigator must publicly announce their resignation at least one week before casting their final vote on behalf of delegators.

  • The Navigator may withdraw the staked funds only after the final vote.

  • Example: If the Navigator announces resignation in Round N, they may cast their final vote in Round N+1 (7 days later) and withdraw the stake thereafter.

Slashing Events & Penalties

Minor Slashes (Slash 10% of Stake)

Automatically executed by protocol rules, e.g.:

  • Missed weekly votes & proposal votes;

  • Failure to publish required reports twice within 4 rounds.

Major Slashes (Slash up to 100% of Stake & Locked Fees + Removal)

Applied in cases of severe misconduct, e.g.:

  • Governance manipulation or bribery;

  • Vote buying;

  • Undisclosed paid relationships with dApps;

  • System attacks…

Major Slashing Process

  1. Community Monitoring;

  2. Investigation Trigger: An investigation shall be initiated only when a minimum of five Navigators have agreed to lock their stakes.

  3. Investigation Period: Findings shall be made public upon the conclusion of the investigation within 4 rounds.

  4. Governance Vote:

  • A formal proposal determines the final slashing outcome.

  • Locked stake and fees are burned upon approval.

Summary

The Navigator system introduces a market-driven, accountable layer of governance expertise, while preserving decentralisation and user sovereignty.

It:

  • Reduces voting inertia;

  • Improves allocation quality;

  • Creates a reputation economy around governance;

  • Aligns incentives through staking, fees, and slashing.

Phase 2 builds directly on Phase 1, transforming governance from passive participation into active, professional stewardship, without introducing custodial risk or centralised control.

3 Likes
VeBetterDAO Proposal] Merit-Based DBA Adjustment & Max Allocation Reduction
2

Phase 1 looks good. Phase 2 needs a lot more discussion over it.

Do you plan to publish these as 2 separate proposals?

4 Likes
3

I both agree for phase 1 and phase 2. However, to be honest, I NEVER UNDERSTOOD the meaning of ABSTAINING. I would suggest to delete this option. Either you agree or disagree with a proposal. If you do not want to participate you should get zero rewards with the same way when you don’t vote at all. For me x0,30 it’s too much For a neutrality.

1 Like
4

For Phase1/Problem1:

Doesnt this go against people finding and voting for their favourite apps - the incentive now is to find new apps and vary your vote each week. I think this goes against app creators who want to create a “sticky” app to retain users and retain their weekly votes.

I think lazy votes really come from auto-voting platforms (vedelegate/governance apps). How will this technically distinguish someone who really likes say 3 apps and just votes on them week by week? Perhaps this should be analysed more imho

My personal thoughts are that if you vote for an app you must be a “users” of that app. If your voting on an app and your not a user of that app, personally i think you should receive less rewards, and the app receives a lower vot3 from you. Where if you are a frequent user of the apps your voting on, you get the full rewards and the app gets your full votes

Phase 1 / Problem 2:
Fully agree with this… abstain to me provides no value at all and should receive lower rewards.

Overall Phase 1 & Phase 2 are they 2 proposals not 1?

1 Like
5

Thank you for raising this important issue around governance signal quality.

In short, my suggestion is to redefine Abstain as non-participation, while separating intentional neutrality and alternative proposals to improve governance signal clarity.

I’ll follow up with a separate comment to address the specific details from my perspective.

1 Like
6

Personally, I feel that the current “Abstain” option may be a bit too broad.

At the moment, “Abstain” appears to cover several different contexts, such as:

  • the proposal being difficult to evaluate,
  • not having fully understood the details yet,
  • intentionally choosing a neutral position,
  • or agreeing with the overall direction but feeling some discomfort with the final outcome.

If “Abstain” were positioned more clearly as “not participating in this vote”, and intention-based options such as

  • expressing a neutral stance, and
  • expressing an intent to suggest improvements or alternatives
    were separated, it could allow each intention to be communicated more accurately and make governance signals clearer overall.

From a behavioral perspective, even non-participation can be seen as a form of intent when it is clearly defined.

Simply clarifying that Abstain / indifference = non-participation could already reduce a significant amount of ambiguity.

At the same time, for intention-based choices, a light requirement could help ensure meaningful participation.

For example:

  • a short explanation (e.g. 50+ characters) when selecting a neutral stance, and
  • a slightly longer explanation (e.g. 100+ characters) when suggesting an alternative or improvement.

This structure may keep the system simple, while making governance signals more intentional and easier to interpret.

Of course, clearly meaningless or spam-like inputs should still be subject to penalties.

There are multiple ways such cases could be identified — for instance, through Navigator review (including minority opinions), or through community flagging mechanisms, potentially supported by small reporting incentives.

While these approaches may increase development complexity and cost, they are implementation details that can be explored over time.

Overall, I agree with Sunny’s perspective on the need to improve governance signal quality.

At the same time, as some community members have noted, it may be worth reconsidering how “Abstain” is defined and expressed so that different intentions are more clearly distinguished.

As an additional consideration, this approach could also work naturally when governance voting is conducted automatically.

For example, when governance voting is set to be handled automatically, a configuration that remains unchanged could simply be treated as Abstain / non-participation.

If the user makes any change — such as selecting an option or submitting a comment — their status would switch to active participation.

In this sense, submitting a comment could serve as a clear signal of intentional engagement and confirm participation.

With this structure, concerns that a large number of wallets (e.g. 10,000+) might be unfairly penalised could also be addressed,

since only clearly passive, unchanged automated governance votes would be treated as abstention, while any form of intentional interaction would be recognised.

2 Likes
7

Round n
App 1 33%
App 2 33%
App 3 34%

Round n+1
App 1 34%
App 2 33%
App 3 33%

8

to me this needs expanding on…

1 Like
9

@DaveL
I personally change my voting behavior on weekly basis.

2 Likes
10

Is there any analytics to see how many votes (not through vedelegate) are similar each week. As i said above this is a disaster for x2earn apps, they want to attract and retain users and their votes, with above the DAO is rewarding them to NOT vote for their favourites

1 Like
11

Broski, read one reply above yours. ;D

2 Likes
12

Personally, I understand and share some of the concerns around the treatment of abstention. In certain cases, users may choose to abstain not out of disinterest, but because they feel they lack the technical expertise or sufficient information to vote responsibly. Preserving space for this kind of cautious participation seems important for healthy governance.

With regard to the Freshness Multiplier, I would welcome some additional clarification. Well-performing dApps naturally benefit from long-term user support, and it would be unfortunate if this mechanism unintentionally discouraged that stability. My concern is that, depending on its implementation, it could encourage frequent vote changes for incentive reasons rather than genuine reassessment, potentially creating friction for consistently high-quality dApps.

Concerning Phase 2, I believe it may benefit from further evaluation. Existing delegation mechanisms already play a significant role in shaping participation quality within VeBetterDAO. Introducing Navigators could improve accessibility and convenience, but it may also mean that delegators are further removed from the decision-making process. Careful design will be important to ensure this does not reintroduce the same challenges Phase 1 seeks to address, particularly around passive participation and governance signal strength.

1 Like
13

It depends.

I will try to get involved in discussions and clarify some concerns or questions.

If it’s clear enough by then, we could put those two together into one proposal.

Also, I need to check about the technical complexity as well.

At least, to whoever read this, those two have to be put together to consider.

14

abstain is still viable option for users in DAO - I think diminishing rewards is the way to encourage people to vote Yes or No.

2 Likes
15

You still can vote for your favorite apps but also, the new rule will encourage everyone to explore new apps and give a chance to the others even just slight 1% allocation. Meanwhile, the benefits of this change is greater to address “lazy votes” problems which is majority right now - maybe a little sacrifice on your point (like from 100% to 99%) could address big problem - I believe ROI is great.

1 proposal or 2 proposals - it depends. Check my replies to Morb.

16

I think the scenarios you described could be classified into two kinds:

  • internationally vote for abstain - Yes, that should be kept - that’s why I don’t intend to remove this option but just low the rewards
  • Don’t know what to do for whatever reasons - IMO, then you should vote for NO because any changes cost - human effort, treasury, time and uncertainty from the change. Then it’s better to vote for NO to take more discussion and deep analysis.

And, plus, as BB mentioned, if there are users doing random casting whatever Yes or No just to maximize rewards:

  • the Odds will balance results - theoretically, 50-50 on Yes or NO will not impact the results.
  • That’s why the two proposals need to be put together to think - once the Navigator role is alive, Navigators will represent most of people to cast the responsible votes.
  • last but not least, the benefits is so obvious to address “lazy votes” issues as mentioned in the proposals.
17

Good example - you are candidate of Navigator - help more people and earn your fees.

1 Like
18

Concern 1: about abstain, please check my answer to [YuichiHosomi]

Concern 2: Delegators can make change in any rounds, it means if you don’t have time, expertise, or willingness whatever the reason - then choose someone you trust. And whenever you feel you like somebody else, then switch or just to vote for yourself. We will not remove individual voter but just add new role as Navigator to represent and help the majorities.

20

I very much welcome the proposal. The “dead votes,” especially on vedelegate, have long been a thorn in my side. But I would go even further.

  1. A distinction MUST be made between manual and auto voters. In my opinion, no manual voter should be labeled a lazy voter, even if they vote for the same DApps for eight weeks in a row.

Manual voters actively participate in the DAO every week and should not be penalized with lower voting rewards if they do not change their selected DApps or their voting percentage.

  1. Lower voting rewards for auto voters are all well and good, but in my opinion, they do not solve the biggest problem. Dead wallets. Wallets whose owners have died, whose seed phrase has been forgotten, or whose users have completely withdrawn. These wallets are no longer active users of the DAO and their voting power should be completely revoked.

This can be achieved by performing a hard reset of the auto-vote settings every 4, 6, or 8 weeks. It is not too much to ask to reset your voting preferences once every 4 weeks. First, there will certainly be people who, after 4 weeks, think, “Oh yes, this DApp has convinced me lately, I’ll include it in my voting.” On the other hand, this removes dead wallets from the voting.

  1. In my opinion, abstentions in proposals should also be completely abolished. For or against should be enough. If I actively participate in the DAO, the proposals should also be important to me. We are currently seeing a huge abstention bar from vedelagte at the end of the week.

In order to get people more involved in the DAO and its interests, I think it is right to only vote for or against.

2 Likes
21

To be able to vote (also in VeDelegate) a user must have completed atleast 3 actions the past 12 weeks, so there shouldn’t be dead wallets voting. Unless they have an upgraded GM NFT. Maybe better to make these rules a bit more strict, and have more action needed over fewer weeks?

1 Like