HODLX Guest Post Send your post
Many non -decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOS) are struggling with low voters participation and participation, although they manage millions of dollars of treasures.
A promising solution emerged DAO incentive programs in which members receive financial or coin -based prizes to actively participate in the management.
From the monthly attitudes of UNISWAP to delegates, DAOS aims to combat the voter’s indifference and to professionalization structures.
But do these incentives make DAOs more democratic or transforming their governance into a concert economy?
Source: Deepdao
Indifference problem Low participation and high bets
Voter participation in many DAOS is usually a single -digit.
Even important protocols such as Maker and UNISWAP are struggling to participate in critical offers more than 10% voters.
This indifference weakens decentralization, as decisions are dominated by several active whales rather than a really decentralized community.
Enter the concept of ‘governance mining’ It clearly rewards users for their participation in governance activities.
DAOS hopes to transform passive coin owners into active stakeholders by paying to the participants.
Let’s explore the latest case studies and effects.
Uniswap’s delegate awards 6,000 dollars per month for active voting
The main example is the UNISWAP delegate award attempt that DAO extended six months in March 2025 and committed $ 540,000 from its treasury.
Delegates can earn up to 6,000 dollars per month in Uni tokens if they meet strict criteria, including at least 80% vote participation and an active contribution to governance debates.
The Community Supported this program in a striking way to 99% In favor of more than 47 million uni.
According to UNISWAP Governance forums, past cycles increased and participated, which shows that incentives really participate.
A delegate summarized the justification and said:
“This initiative will improve the quality of UNISWAP governance by encouraging informed voting.”
Early data show that more Uni owners actively transfer their coins to the leading delegates, and increase the quality of governance and courtesy consistency.
Gnosisdao Voting power as a non -monetary incentive
Gnosisdao has adopted a different but equally interesting approach by allocating unacceptable voting power rather than direct payments.
In February 2025, DAO chose 10 community delegates, each of which received 500 GNO voting weights (about five percent of supply), depending on their active participation.
Delegates who do not vote constantly lose their privileged positions.
This strategy aims to increase the participation of sufficient voters by 35-50%by considering the problem of centralization of the historical voter of Gnosis.
Unlike the financial incentives taken from UNISWAP’s treasury funds, Gnosis was essentially published in order to increase decentralization. A different but complementary solution to voter indifference.
Makerdao and others PAYMENTS AND PERFORMANCE Based grants
In the Defi governance, the pioneer Makerdao has been compensating for delegates for more than a year.
Using a performance -based formula, Maker only distributed approximately 102,000 DAI to six best delegates in January 2025.
This example emphasizes that even well -established DAOs see the merit of financial rewarding governance participation.
Meanwhile, smaller or medium -sized DAOs explored KPI -oriented reward mechanisms or platforms to bestow and encourage active governance participants, which proposed that the industry’s governance incentives be accepted.
Results and concerns Does it improve payment results for governance
Early results from incentive programs are promising.
For example, UNISWAP now comes together with proposals receiving solid discussions from rationalists and encouraged delegates regularly.
Similarly, Gnosis predicts advanced participation rates.
However, several critical concerns continue.
Moral Danger and Mercenary Soldiers
Critics argue that financial incentives can withdraw short -term participants with financial gain rather than long -term project alignment.
However, supporters say that these awards are relatively modest compared to the enormous protocol value and that they position them as fair compensation for effort rather than direct bribery.
Centralization risk
The continuous rewarding of several selected delegates limits the potentially diversity of sound in governance by creating settled ‘DAO politicians’.
Excessive dependence on familiar delegates can accidentally centralize power and decision -making.
Cost and community emotion
Although UNISWAP’s overwhelming the encouragement program overwhelming, small opposition sounds expressed concerns about long -term sustainability and potential abuse of DAO funds.
However, expenditure of $ 540,000 remains relatively small with a treasure with billions of values.
I believe that sustainable incentives go beyond paying only to the participants. This creates what we call ‘programmable economy’ by placing the incentives directly in DAO’s economic design.
This approach enables members to appoint voting rights to experts who focus on reliable experts or fields such as research or marketing, while submissions include an automatic reward system for actions such as sending, voting and transfer.
Experts also receive prizes for governance contributions.
This creates a cycle that strengthens themselves by community members, expert contributions and DAO itself. Helps to convert participation from process to structure.
Solution DAO Management Professionalization or Creating Part Benefits
The tendency to encourage governance participation through financial or coin -based prizes has clearly gained traction between leading DAOs.
The first results show that there are significant developments in voter participation, quality of participation and decentralization efforts.
However, these benefits have nuance risks, including potential centralization and moral dangers.
The final test remains: Are these incentives widely scaled in the DAO communities without centralizing power or forming a paid governance soldiers?
The upcoming governance cycles in UNİSWAP, Maker and Gnosis will provide important information by determining whether encouraged governance can balance the solid participation of real decentralization with real decentralization. An experiment that continues with high bets for the future of decentralized communities.
Roman Melnyk, Dexe.
Follow us Twitter Facebook Telegram
Waiver: The opinions expressed in daily HODL are not investment advice. Investors should make status determinations before making high -risk investments in Bitcoin, crypto currency or digital assets. Please your transfers and transactions are in your own responsibility and any loss you may be exposed to is your responsibility. Daily Hodl does not recommend that any crypto currency or digital assets be purchased or sold or that Daily Hodl be an investment consultant. Please note that daily HODL has participated in affiliate marketing.
Picture Produced: Midjourney
