As announced last week, the Orbs Network is introducing upgraded community governance to the project, formalizing aspects of community governance that have until now been behind the scenes.

As the next major step in this process, the first formal governance vote will be going live on Snapshot on Monday, August 22, 2022 at 12:00 UTC.

First Proposal - Reinstating Guardian Minimum Self-Delegation

For the first proposal, the community will be asked to consider whether or not to reinstate the requirement that Guardians have a minimum self-stake.

As background, in V2.5 of the Orbs PoS Universe, a rule was introduced that all Guardians were required to own a personal state of at least 8% of their total delegated stake of ORBS tokens. The purpose of this requirement was to ensure that Guardians had a commitment to an honest and secure operation of the network, as well as to be committed to their communities of Delegators. Requiring a minimum self-stake was intended to align incentives to solidify and strengthen these commitments. The requirement also had the additional benefit of preventing certain types of attack and abuse scenarios.

With the launch of V3 of the Orbs PoS, including multi-chain staking, this requirement was removed. The primary reasoning behind this removal was to reduce operating friction during the launch of multi-chain staking, and avoid a situation where Guardians would be forced to maneuver ORBS between Ethereum and Polygon.

Now that PoS V3 has been launched and solidified, some of these concerns no longer apply. At this stage, it has become possible to reinstate Guardian self-stake.

Accordingly, the network of Orbs stakers is being asked to vote on this question in two separate proposal votes.

First, the network will consider whether or not to reinstitute the Guardian self-stake requirement at all, in a binary yes-no vote. More details to follow soon on the new Orbs space on Snapshot.org.

If this vote passes, a second vote will be held regarding the exact requirement of the minimum self-stake.

The second vote, if required, will be contained in a separate proposal, regarding the exact details of the minimum self-stake. The community will be asked to consider three possible minimum self-staking models. One option is to return to the original requirement from V2.5, where Guardians were required to own a personal stake equal to at least 8% of their total delegated stake.

A second option is to institute a similar requirement, but with a lower percentage requirement, with Guardians required to own a personal stake equal to at least 5% of their total delegated stake.

A third option is to reduce the percentage requirement further, with Guardians required to own a personal stake equal to at least 3% of their total delegated stake.

The model selected will only go into effect if the first proposal passes. For more details on how to vote, see the proposal here:

Voting Details

For purposes of these proposals, the voting power considered for each proposal will be the sum of all staked and delegated Orbs Tokens on both the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains, as recorded at the Snapshot block.

The default option for both votes is that the Guardians are entitled to vote on behalf of their entire delegated stake, unless a delegator opts out. Guardians should select their preferred option and sign the message via their wallet. Note that voting is gasless and occurs off chain, but using signed transactions that can be verified onchain if necessary.

If a Delegator wishes to vote on their own behalf, they are encouraged to do so. Their voting power will then be deducted from their Guardian’s vote and assigned to the option of their choice.

These proposals will be live and open for voting for a period of 7 days, and will be considered final if at least 100M staked ORBS Tokens (approximately 10% of total stake) votes within that period. The option receiving the highest percentage of votes being implemented via protocol upgrade as soon as practicable.

Voting will be held on each proposal separately, so please be sure to participate in both votes if you want your voice to be heard on both issues.

For discussion, please visit the newly opened Governance page at the Orbs Discord or join us on Telegram.

Stay tuned for more enhancements to Orbs network governance and opportunities for community involvement.