Proposal: Votable Supply Adjustment

Governance Iterations
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42

Hey all, my thoughts on this proposal:

Why I Support This Proposal

I’m in favor of Scroll DAO’s votable supply increase, as it tackles a key issue: our governance relies too much on a few big delegates. By delegating 1.5 million SCR to 46 active delegates, we can spread voting power more evenly. This means even if top delegates miss a vote, we can still meet quorum and keep decisions moving. It’s like giving more voices a chance to speak, which feels fairer and more inclusive.

Reducing Big Delegate Influence

This proposal helps “mitigate” big delegates by reducing their outsized control. Right now, the top two delegates hold nearly 40% of the voting power, which is risky if they’re unavailable. By boosting smaller, active delegates, we ensure no single group can dominate, making our DAO more decentralised and resilient.

Encouraging More Delegates

Delegating tokens to more people encourages broader participation. It’s a temporary move, lasting until October 2025, so we can test it without long-term changes. This could inspire more community members to get involved, strengthening our governance.

Addressing Concerns

Some might worry this centralises power in the 46 delegates, but they’re already active and chosen based on past participation. The tokens stay DAO assets, just delegated, and we can adjust if needed. It’s a smart use of treasury to keep governance running smoothly. Additionally, I’m sure we all hope that we increase the delegate set as DAO Delegate Accelerator kicks in and Scroll presence grows across the space.

1 Like
43

Sharing a revised version of the proposal. Based on the results from the poll we did, there was a token weighted preference for creating a new wallet that auto-abstains.

The main open question that remains is how much SCR should this wallet have? This proposal suggests 500,000 SCR.

Please give feedback and endorse the proposal if you are comfortable with it as is

Proposal Title: Votable Supply Adjustment - Auto-Abstaining Wallet

Proposal Type: Governance

TLDR

This proposal suggests creating a new wallet that would receive 500,000 SCR from the DAO treasury and would auto-abstain on all votes. The delegation, managed via a Foundation multisig, would run until October 2025. The goal is to ensure proposals can pass even if top delegates are unavailable.

Summary

Especially after the most recent voting cycle and seeing the fluctuations in the votable supply, there is a clear need to ensure that we are able to have proposals hit quorum.

This proposal is meant to provide a temporary solution for a voting supply related adjustment to make sure that governance votes don’t fail purely due to not hitting quorum. Following the discussions over the last month, we are proposing to create a new wallet that wil receive 500,000 SCR from the DAO and will auto-abstain for each onchain proposal through the October voting cycle.

While the initial proposed centered around a votable supply adjustment and distribution of voting power from the DAO treasury, it is likely that proposal would not pass. As a result, we have adjusted this proposal to center around the auto-abstaining wallet idea.

Motivation

We need to raise the active votable supply.

  • Votable supply = the proporation of the total supply that is currently able to vote (delegated)
  • Active votable supply = the portion of the votable supply that votes a majority of the time and is active in at least one other way (calls or forum)

As the April voting cycle, the following data give a sense of the distribution of active voting power:

  • Total voting power (vp) amongst those who have voted at least on 1/3 proposals (68 delegates): 2,676,700
  • Total vp amongst those who have voted on at least 2/3 proposals (56 delegates): 2,419,471
  • Total vp amongst those who have voted on 3/3 proposals (38 delegates): 2,165,731
  • Quorum: 2,100,000
  • The top two delegates have a voting power of 887,149 between the two of them.

We are in a position where if a few delegates, especially the top ones, end up having to miss a vote for any unforeseen circumstances, votes are likely to not hit quorum. This can act as an unnecessary bottleneck for the DAO and may result in increased apathy if not addressed.

With this in mind, we are proposing to create a wallet that will auto-abstain it’s delegation of 500,000, effectively lowering the quorum to 1.6m SCR without lowering the threashold itself.

There are no clear conflicts of interest for this proposal as we see it.

Execution

Operational

The operational process will be as follows:

  • If approved, the governance team will set up a new multisig that will receive the 500k SCR
  • The gov team will use that wallet to auto-abstain by the end of each voting cycle

There are no new tools introduced here. We will provide all updates in this post.

Personnel & Resources

The Foundation governance team will set up the multisig and vote on a monthly basis. Eugene and Jamilya will own the project, with support from others as needed.

Anyone in the community will be welcome to provide feedback and hold the program accountable on the forum.

Financial

The overall budget for this proposal is 500,000 SCR to be used for delegation to a single multisig controlled by the Foundation. The funds would be sent back to the treasury by the end of October.

There is technically is no cost to run the program for the DAO, as no DAO funds will be needed to pay personnel or for tools. The Foundation will cover nominal costs that arise (e.g. setup of a new multisig, etc.).

Evaluation

The primary metric for this proposal will center around whether or not proposals are hitting quorum. Specifically, the percent of proposals that are clearing quorum while this wallet is being used. Additionally, we will track by how much quorum is being cleared (or the amount by which a proposal fails).

Conclusion

This proposal outlines a temporary delegation of 500k SCR to a new wallet managed by the Foundation that would auto-abstain on all votes.

If you believe you qualify but weren’t included, please reach out to the gov team.

3 Likes
44

Thanks for the revised proposal, Eugene. As a Scroll delegate, we’re happy to endorse the proposal as-is with 500K SCR.

45

Thank you for sharing the revised proposal.

I appreciate the thoughtful approach to solving the quorum issue while maintaining neutrality through an auto-abstaining wallet. This feels like a practical and low-friction solution that aligns with the broader goal of improving governance participation without shifting influence or introducing bias.

The proposed allocation of 500,000 SCR seems reasonable, especially given the analysis of delegate activity and the potential risk of proposals failing due to delegate unavailability. Creating a buffer to ensure quorum is consistently met is important, and I support this as a temporary and transparent measure.

One suggestion: it might be helpful to include a mid-cycle check-in before October to evaluate if the approach is working as intended or if further adjustment is needed.

That said, I’m comfortable endorsing this proposal in its current form.

Looking forward to the next steps.

46

Thanks @eugene for the revised version.

Given we have discussed this topic for several weeks and there was a rather clear preference for the distributing voting power on the community calls and forum, settling for the auto-abstain version is a bit of a sharp turn. The outcome of the poll is more or less rational, after all.

Maybe for the future, we can find a way to better coordinate with the top voters and avoid additional work for the gov team and delegates.

Nonetheless, the auto-abstain option doesn’t hurt, and 500k SCR seems like a reasonable amount.

2 Likes
47

We think this proposal should be adequate in order to adress the very specific problem originally outlined, allowing some operational safeguard up until October and acknowledging the upcoming discussions for the next CCC and ongoing initiatives.

Therefore, as verified delegates we endorse this proposal to go up for a vote.

2 Likes
48

Thank you, @eugene for your work on revising this proposal.

We’ve dedicated considerable time to exploring ways to adjust the votable supply. While the “equal distribution” approach initially garnered strong support, the conversation evolved with new methods emerging, making a unified path forward challenging.

The recent poll shows “Auto-Abstain” with the highest voting power. It’s important to note this outcome doesn’t fully align with delegate numbers: 17 delegates (representing 355,343 voting power) voted for “Equal Distribution,” while only 4 delegates (representing 841,300 voting power) chose “Abstain.” Despite this divergence, we believe “Auto-Abstain” serves as a pragmatic interim solution to break the current deadlock, allowing us to progress. Consequently, we see little benefit in delaying this proposal for further debate on this specific aspect at this time.

To solidify the chosen direction and enhance its legitimacy, we still suggest having a formal on-chain proposal vote. This would provide a more definitive mandate, address any lingering ambiguities from the poll, and be a valuable addition to our governance practices, fostering greater transparency.

Lastly, We completely agree with you @bitblondy This experience really highlights how important it is to find a better way to coordinate with top voters in advance and avoid unnecessary back-and-forth that creates extra work for both the gov team and delegates. It would be great if we could improve the process so proposals don’t get held up or require as much manual effort. Thanks for raising this, it’s definitely something we should keep in mind for the future.

3 Likes
49

In the near term, do you think we should do some kind of consistent snapshot? Or have other suggestions? In the long term, we are exploring tools such as Negation Game and others to see if we can just find a fundamentally different discussion / decision flow, but that exploration and the development of those tools and practices will take time. 100% acknowledging the issues and very open to ideas in both the short and long term.

Agreed. As mentioned above, please let us know if you have any ideas in the short or long term. At the very least, the gov team will try to be more proactive about proposals to try and get larger delegate feedback earlier in the process as possible.

We hope putting in a more permanent version of GCR, along with creating councils, will help minimize how much of an issue this is.

50

Hey all, the proposed allocation coincides with what we have shared in the form feedback as well. We still believe that quorum would be a much simpler approach to all of this, as well as easier to manage moving forward. However, we specified an auto abstain wallet as a second preferred choice, so we are ok with moving forward with this option.

As a verified delegate we endorse this proposal to go up for a vote.

1 Like
51

As a verified delegate I endorse this proposal to go up for a vote.

1 Like
52

This version looks good to go. As a verified delegate, I endorse this proposal to go up for vote.

1 Like
53

Thanks for revising this proposal, Eugene. It looks much easier to say yes to.

I quickly made a rationale for this, please anyone feel free to fork it and express it in your own way. Broadly, I don’t see major concerns with the proposal as is, apart from the way in which it fails to address power concentration, especially as is seen crowding out smaller delegates with valuable contributions, but let’s try to address that later

Also, here’s a video of how I constructed this rationale skeleton. I’ll probably return to this for a more in-depth review later on before I vote in case I’m really missing something

3 Likes
54

We vote in favor of this proposal. We’re aware of the concerns regarding quorum and votable supply, and we believe this is a reasonable solution given the DAO’s current context

55

voting in FAVOUR

seeing the negation game rationale and the low cost and simplicity of the mechanism, I think it’s a viable stop-gap system.

1 Like
56

As a verified delegate, we are voting FOR the proposal.

The problem of a low quorum in the DAO is worrying for the implementation of the proposals put forward in governance. The solution solves this problem for now, replicating something already successful at Optimism (ACC).

However, we need to think about mechanisms to encourage greater participation in governance - and not just rely on an ACC. We’re not talking about financial incentives for delegates, but designing a way to attract delegates from the ecosystem to the DAO.

2 Likes
57

I voted FOR.

My rationale is expressed elsewhere in this thread but I want to reiterate a few points.

This proposal should be thought of as an emergency precaution. The aim of this initiative is to make sure the DAO does not grind to a halt. All other concerns take a backseat to this concern. That said, I am cautious of normalizing what should be thought of as the “nuclear option.”

If we get in the habit of continually adjusting down the threshold for quorum, quorum slowly loses its function as a security measure. We are far from this being a real concern, a token unlocks will hopefully make this less of an issue, but this mentality played out over time will lead to everyone worse off. Should this trend continue, quorum will end up becoming something akin to a “debt ceiling” which gets continuously put off while leaving everyone slightly worse off from an expected value perspective.

We need to ask ourselves the underlying cause behind low votable supply. This temporary measure does nothing to address the underlying issue and even with vesting and token unlocks, the general process of votable supply going increasingly dormant will remain. As such we need to spend more time thinking about longer term solutions for boosting the votable supply.

1 Like
58

We (Unicircle) would have liked to see this used as an opportunity to incentive new delegates joining the ecosystem thus we are voting AGAINST this proposal delegation

1 Like
60

Old rationale:

New Rationale:

I’ll be voting “FOR” this proposal.

The risk of governance grinding to a halt because a few key delegates miss a vote is a serious concern. This auto-abstaining wallet directly tackles that by ensuring quorum can be met. Effectively, it makes the threshold for active decision-making around 1.6M SCR, which influences vote dynamics by allowing a simple majority among fewer active voters to pass proposals once quorum is hit. Given current participation challenges, that’s a practical path to keep things moving.

Yes, I recognize the trade-offs:

  • The 500k SCR is an ‘artificial’ contribution to quorum and doesn’t represent genuine engagement on specific proposals.
  • It’s a mechanical fix that masks, rather than solves, deeper issues of voter apathy.
  • Management of this abstaining block falls to a Foundation multisig, which involves a degree of centralization for this function

However, considering this is a temporary measure (until October 2025), low-cost, and operationally simple, these downsides are acceptable to prevent immediate DAO stagnation. It’s a sensible stop-gap solution, and for these pragmatic reasons, it has my support.

1 Like
61

Thanks for addressing this. I guess introducing a Snapshot or temperature check for every proposal would rather add another layer of complexity to the gov system. Hence, I think the poll system is a good (short and mid-term) solution.

Maybe we can introduce these polls before this kind of proposals, where the chosen mechanism determines proposal design. The long-term goal would be, that the voting power is diversified more, which I guess, is already in line with the quorum discussion.

1 Like
62

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

We are voting FOR the proposal.

From our perspective, the 500k SCR “auto-abstain” wallet is a straightforward and low-risk approach to prevent proposals from failing due to governance apathy. It offers a decent buffer while avoiding the overhead that alternative approaches would create. Assigning the multisig to the Foundation and returning the tokens in October seems like a reasonable interim solution while the DAO works on organically growing governance activity and participation.

We would like to emphasize that we view this as a temporary solution. Ideally, governance proposals will start meeting and surpassing quorum long before we have to discuss returning the tokens to the treasury or extending this initiative.

1 Like