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The Creation of an Eden Voter Proxy

Much discussion has taken place recently on methods by which “Eden on EOS” can become independently self-funded. Two of the most discussed (from what I have seen) are an Eden Proxy and an Eden Block Producer.

This is an attempt to formalize the conversation around an Eden proxy so that others who are looking for something to represent during future elections (e.g. the next trial Eden election on July 17th) can reference. Hopefully some will comment below to improve upon the suggestions I’ll make here as I am admittedly far from an expert on these matters.

Mohamed, an Eden member and owner of the EOS GOV Telegram channel, is one of those incredibly well spoken and thoughtful individuals that helps to make Eden’s case on it aggregating great people who want to see EOS thrive. He had the following comments on an Eden proxy:

What he’s suggested here might be the best-case scenario with B1 supporting the proxy and if a 3% APR is in fact what can be received with this.

Let’s consider a less ideal, but still worthwhile outcome. The following is from Tim with GenerEOS, another trusted and valued member of Eden:

This suggestion seems to be a much more reasonable goal to accomplish and doesn’t depend on a singular entity (B1) and instead would depend on the community itself to proxy their stake with the Eden Proxy.

Lastly Stephane from EOS Nation, yet again another great dude who is an Eden member, pointed out the following regarding the EOS Nation proxy:

Here we can see some confirmation on the APY from proxy rewards of 1.85%.

How to Make This Happen

In a perfect world the Eden proxy would be created by a member of Eden who was given this mandate through an election. I would propose that the next trial election on July 17th would count in this regard. Even though this is a trial election and won’t be exclusive to Eden members, it will still be heavily participated by current Eden membership and therefore should be somewhat representative of their views and the views of the general EOS community.

So first step is some of the Eden member participants of the upcoming trial election announce they will run for this initiative. Part of that proposal should include if funds are needed to accomplish this and how the proxy will select the BP’s it votes for.

How to Select BPs

There are many ways that BPs can be selected from personal preferences to something more algorithmic. Personally, I like the algorithmic method that isn’t dependant on the whims of the individuals charged with choosing the BPs. This algorithm would collect and aggregate various metrics and kpi that could be used to rank the BPs to be voted on. Part of this kpi set would include aspects around community interactions, engagement, and what are the BPs doing to give back to the community besides just stacking blocks. Some of course would prefer that BPs only stack blocks, while others would like to see more transparency and availability towards the community.

If an algorithmic approach, the algorithm would need to be written and hosted for public viewing. Additionally, someone would need to take the time to attempt to collect the “social” or “community centric” metrics. These are of course going to be subjective metrics so are much more challenging to settle on. With these points considered I don’t think the algorithmic approach is the lowest hanging fruit from this proposal to manifest into action.

The next best option is to have knowledgeable members of the Eden community select what BPs the Eden proxy should vote for. This can be done in a few ways, but perhaps the best would be to have some sort of on-chain vote that is tied to Eden membership. Easier still would be to have an Eden vote to delegate the decision of what BPs to vote for to a single Eden member or council of members who are given the mandate to choose.

Whatever the method to select BPs is, it would be the responsibility of the elected Eden member (from the July 17th election) to propose their solution and get voted into a position with a mandate to execute it. It will then be up to them to fulfill their promise of establishing the Proxy, selecting the BPs and engaging the community to move their stake to it.

How to Utilize Funds

In terms of the funding part. If the elected Eden member moving forward with this initiative has only received 10 EOS, then there’s really very little that can be practically done.

If they receive more funding (either through aggregation of some of these smaller 10 EOS recipients or moving to a higher level) there are a couple ways funds could be used:

  • Put out a bounty for someone to create and host an algorithmic method to rank BPs.
  • Commission someone from the Clarion team (or someone else) to produce an on-chain method for Eden members to vote for BPs or those to be on the Eden council to select BPs.
  • Commission someone from the Clarion team (or someone else IE Ray from EnergEOS) to put up their own site or add a page to the current Eden on EOS website to list the BPs being selected by the Eden proxy and some details about why each BP is being selected. This would need to be updated in some sort of predefined period to adjust the BP votes based on real-time consideration of performance and community interactions.
  • Commission the Eden members themselves who are expected to put in time to comb through and pick BPs to vote on.
  • Help to subsidize the time of the individual putting all of this together. This will include trying to get an Eden account that the proxy can be set up under, either through the EOS Alliance or maybe just trusting Dan himself with this wallet or an msig on this account. Also it will take time to organize how the BPs are selected and so could be used to incentivize this work vs 100% volunteered.

At a minimum I hope this post starts a more formal conversation where those can comment below if this is a good or bad idea, how BPs could be selected, and what metrics/kpi should be considered.

Bottom line, those in Eden will all surely agree that the closer Eden on EOS gets to being self-funded the more likely it will succeed. Lets collaborate to see if we can make an Eden proxy a reality.

Go EOS!!!

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Excellent summary discussion, Chris. There is so much work to be done around this initiative. We must never stop building – I am confident we CAN revive the Community back to full strength!

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Unique id has long been considered the holy grail for block chain governance. Given that this is one of the things that Eden provides I really believe that an Eden proxy should leverage it. This is the experiment that the broader blockchain community has been waiting for and would provide a more concrete example of the power of Eden.

I suggest funding a smart contract that periodically

  1. for each Eos account tied to an active Eden member that is not voting via a proxy
    Selects up to n top BPs that the account is voting for (where n is scaled to the rational ignorance factor of the Eden community :slight_smile: and award 1 vote for each BP
  2. Sum all of the bp votes attained, select top 30 BPS in the proxy

Such a scheme incentivizes participation in Eden. It also gives some insight into the consensus values of Eden at large. Of course in the above scheme the Eden members themselves would not be voting for the Eden proxy. If it was desirable that they should (not sure why though) the smart contract might be enhanced to collect the Eden members votes directly - but this would be more work, need a UI etc and so could be done down the track. Eden members, being keenly interested in Eos governance, will be able to research and select some number of block producers.

As far as the metrics go a page could be provided directing voters to available resources highlghting block producer information like below (benchmarks, referendum participation, project affiliations etc). Also a telegram channel could to take the discussion further, maybe even a fourth estate type blog to report on undesirable bp behaviours, but now I am getting carried away…

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footnote I am not really a fan of using the Eden proxy for fund raising. Ultimately that is pay for votes even if it is with principles. I would rather just use the proxy to improve BP selection/culture. If BPs are earning enough to invest in projects, then vote for the ones that are building value. It is also a nice additional layer further decentralising fund allocation - then the BPs might become again, as they once were, both competitors and collaborators in growing the ecosystem. Having Eden and the original BP culture working together would be truly amazing.

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I don’t think fixed 3% APY is good idea…

When the economic alignment changed, the vote would change too. The BPs will rise the APY to buy vote. Then the economic alignment lose again.

I think it should be 40% to vote that don’t vote, 40% to BPs, and 20% to eden.

And eden proxy can only send the negative vote to BPs to punish BPs who abusing.

And I think people have freedom to send the votes to eden or not is also important. So, the system should have a selection that get earnings neither vote to BPs, nor vote to eden. Got earnings just staked eos to the system!

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Of course, I think the system should not give earnings to the eos that voted to BPs. BPs have already paid them, directly or undirectly.

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Great feedback Martin!

Thanks for taking the time to put in a detailed and very helpful response like this. You raise a really good point on whether a proxy should even be a revenue generating construct. This is certainly a bigger topic that is well worth more discussion. At a minimum however the proxy will do as you suggest and “improve BP selection/culture.”

Thanks for commenting Josh-Chung!

If I’m understanding this correctly, are you suggesting a rework of the token inflation to pay for staking rewards vs the current method where BPs are paying for votes?

Yeah, like the new economic alignment Block.one proposed. But, have a bit change.

I think it’s a good way EDEN get the power to govern EOS blockchain. BPs do the work, EDEN supervise BPs. And all things start from the vote.

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I think this is a good proposal and I’ll likely help promote it during the next trial election. If it’s funded then I could do some dev work to help automate some aspects.

There is potential here to align the standby BPs using strong voting power from an Eden proxy with integrity. I think the scale of this proposal is small enough that we could actually deliver it using funds from the trial run.

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