SIP-90: Transition SIPs/SCCPs to Snapshot Governance

Simple Summary

Transition the current SCCP signaling process to off-chain signatures via snapshot https://github.com/balancer-labs/snapshot.

Abstract

Use snapshot’s gas-less, off-chain governance platform https://snapshot.page that will handle the SCCP/SIP signaling process of the Synthetix Protocol. The platform will enable community members to create SCCP/SIP proposals which will be able to be voted on via IPFS messages/signatures. Proposals created on snapshot will feature quadratic voting and votes will be weighted based on the user’s debt percentage in the last fee period.

Motivation

The current Synthetix Governance signaling process is non-sybil resistant, easy to contest, and not a good indicator of community participation and sentiment.

Since SIPs/SCCPs handle the configuration and improvement of vital aspects of the Synthetix Protocol, it is essential to ensure that the proposals being implemented are in the best interest of the wider community and the process in gauging this interest should be hard to contest and accurate.

Existing SIPs/SCCPs are carried out in the #governance-polls channel in the official Synthetix discord. Discord polls are easy to manipulate via a Sybil attack (creating multiple discord accounts) since the weight of a single vote is directly mapped to the existence of a unique discord account. On top of this, discord polls do not maintain an accurate history of participation and votes, where each vote on a poll is reversible.

Specification

Overview

In order to improve the Sybil-resistance of the Synthetix Governance process, we will use snapshot’s off-chain, gas-less solution to enable an wallet based voting system, where each user's vote will be weighted based on their debt percentage in the previous fee period. The weights calculated in this way will also be quadratically modified to implement a quadratic voting system to increase the equality of votes.

Rationale

The selection of snapshot’s platform for handling the SIP/SCCP governance process was due to factors such as the widespread usage amongst other projects, the gas-less nature of voting and the great usability of the platform. Factors which all supplement the improved Sybil resistance of the Synthetix Governance process.

Technical Specification

Test Cases

Configurable Values (Via SCCP)

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.