LunaNova are in favour of proposal B: Validators vote & Delegators can override. It strikes the right balance between inclusivity and practicality.
We don’t think proposal C makes sense, as if any other stakeholders want to have a say they can obtain tokens and stake them. Proposal B could also be safer than Proposal A from a legal perspective, as no staked tokenholders are disenfranchised.
We don’t think it makes sense to leave it up to individual validators to provide bespoke ways for their delegators to have a say, this will just lead to a load of duplicated effort that would be better spent elsewhere.
Leapfrog voted for Option 2 - Validators vote and token holders can vote to override.
Our main reasoning is to give investors in Solana a real sense of ownership of the chain. And so leading to larger investments.
As we can see few validators take the time to engage with governance but if some of their delegators are interested in a particular proposal they can ensure that their views are represented.
The stakers don’t necessarily know which way their validator will vote on an issue that is important to them so “choosing a validator that aligns with their view” isn’t that simple as one validator won’t align on all their concerns and diversifying stake won’t help here as this will just dilute their vote weight. Where if they can override and have a strong view on an issue that is important to them - they can then align all stake across all validators to vote that way.
Finally - validators (with no real investment but lots of stake) may vote for something that is more in their interest and not in the interest of the system - from my view, kind of like what is happening in this proposal…
For me, being a long-term token holder, the objective is to maximize the long-term value of the token. From this perspective long-term token holders should vote. Voting should be based on tokens un-moved for certain period (one year at least). This will eliminate influence of short-term traders and retail investors emotionally jumping on various short-term fads.
Limiting the voting only to validators would be a negative influence on my willingness to hold SOL long-term because it would represents a risk: The direction of Solana development would be aligned with the interest of validators and not necessarily with my interest. In financial markets, companies where management holds > 50% of the company are valued significantly less than similar companies where the ownership is more decentralized. The validators are not an exact equivalent of “management” but there is similarity in the sense that they are limited group that does not necessarily represent the majority of the token-holders. Management controlling 50% of company can vote for high salaries. Validators will on average inevitably vote for changes that increase their share of the value derived from the blockchain. At this stage not many people pay attention to this because the blockchains are in early stage where the value is purely speculative based on visions and dreams of (hopefully near) future. The fees currently charged by the protocol do not by any stretch of imagination justify the value of the SOL token. However, there may come time when blockchains reach more mature stage and will be valued based on the fees that can be obtained from users and paid as rewards to validators and token holders. And at that point it will be important from the perspective of long-term token-holders to be able to ensure that the value is distributed in a fair way between them and the validators.
As for other stake-holders … to me, being a long-term token holder, their view matters to the extent to which it affects long-term price of SOL token. So it is important to solicit public opinion and have public discussions on key changes open to everybody, but when it comes to voting
long-term token holders decide.
How the blockchain works is like a democracy. It is of the people, for the people, and by the people. Trust me, I’m not talking politics, just trying to draw out the point of the inclusive nature of decentralization, which is the a core feature of the blockchain. I second to validators voting and being part of governance
Makes sense — option 1 feels like the right call for now. Keeping it simple gives validators space to figure out their own approach and lets the process evolve as the ecosystem matures.