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Hooon

Astar Admin

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Astar Network

TL;DR
The discussion outlines the scope of a strategic collaboration between Townhall (Polka Labs Pte. Ltd.) and Astar Network Treasury to research and develop the governance infrastructure and supporting products for the Astar Network ecosystem. The document highlights the details of work done and makes a retroactive funding request to the Astar community as the first decentralized treasury proposal in Astar ecosystem.
Objective
The discussion aims to highlight the work done to create a robust governance infrastructure and develop supporting platform called Townhall for the Astar Network based on the vision that was outlined by &lsquo;<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/18Uv76q0SoO5iCA5C7fBo_pAwUQgmXtZv/view">Astar Governance Whitepaper</a>.&rsquo; It focuses on enhancing decentralised decision-making and propelling growth by refining the network voting power, building governance resilience through worst-case scenario analyses, and defining roles within a bicameral governance setup.
The scope of the proposal includes development of AstarGov - An off-chain &amp; on-chain voting platform tailored to meet the needs of Astar Network&rsquo;s vibrant governance and to research and build a novel new governance mechanism with govASTR as a governance token.
The scope of work with govASTR includes but is not limited to, simulating govASTR locking periods' impacts, analysing staking and slashing rates, and fostering dApps' involvement in governance to prioritise voting power based on their contribution to the network rather than a simple token of value based voting mechanism.
Increasing need of decentralization
Governance has emerged as a pivotal element, especially for projects with a native token. The increasing regulatory scrutiny and lawsuits across various jurisdictions necessitate a robust governance framework. Such a framework not only ensures compliance with diverse legal standards but also fortifies the project against potential legal challenges. By investing in decentralization and governance infrastructure tooling, Astar Network will be able to cultivate a more transparent, participatory, and resilient ecosystem.This is crucial not only for regulatory alignment but also for fostering community trust and engagement, which are essential in the token-centric economy where governance rights have been promised to token holders. This proactive approach towards governance can significantly mitigate legal risks and bolster Astar&rsquo;s long-term viability in a rapidly evolving regulatory environment. As Astar Network is using a multi-signature sudo account that is held exclusively by the Astar Foundation members, both the foundation and the network are taking a high risk which will only increase as the network ecosystem increases. Furthermore, most, if not all development around the Astar Network protocol is managed and pushed from the Foundation&rsquo;s internal workflow, rather than having the community directly be involved in it, which increases the resource burden for the foundation. Therefore, we see the network decentralization and enabling direct community participation as one of the highest priority for Astar Network&rsquo;s long-term success.
The Value Proposition - Why invest in Governance
While the direct value accrued to a network can not be quantified or attributed directly to governance, there are some clear trends we have observed across the industry. Let&rsquo;s start with discussing what will governance really bring -
Enhanced Network Decentralization and Community Engagement: With ever increasing number of projects and ecosystems in web3, governance and distributed ownership has proven to be an effective way to capture user attention and make them involved with the network. Treasury and community engagement via governance is important to keep the community and token holder engaged. For instance, Polkassembly is the most used dApp with 75k+ MAU in the Polkadot ecosystem.
The added community engagement often comes from core contributors and developers as with a robust decentralised governance, the community is often interested to participate in contributing to the network. Ethereum has proven to be the most effective example here with multiple people contributing with EIPs and Uniswap, Gitcoin have attracted novel innovative ideas from the community.
Increased Attractiveness to Developers and Projects:
A sophisticated governance framework can attract more developers and projects. This is evident in networks like Polkadot and Solana, where strong governance structures have led to diverse and innovative ecosystems. An increased focus on governance will lead to an increase in the number of high-quality projects on Astar, enhancing the network's overall value and appeal.
Driving Token Value Through Active Participation:
By involving token holders in governance, their stake in the network becomes more valuable and active. This was observed in Optimism and Arbitrum, where governance participation correlates with increased token value and network activity. Arbitrum and Optimism ecosystems have set a strong precedent in showcasing how active focus on governance can lead to increased activity across the network with more transactions, TVL and engagement, eventually translating to increase in token value.
Attracting Institutional Investment: Robust governance structures can attract institutional investors who seek platforms with clear, transparent, and effective governance models. Institutions have been taking allocation into BTC &amp; ETH due to their true decentralised nature. Astar&rsquo;s investment in governance will position it as a preferred choice for such investors. It takes time to build such conviction and enabling active governance early could be a huge catalyst here.
Considering all these points, the need for Astar to focus on governance infrastructure is clear and urgent; and we at Townhall are working hard to enable Astar in achieving this mission.
Proposal Outline and structuring
The Townhall team has been engaging with the Astar community, foundation and ecosystem for over a year and has been working to build and launch AstarGov while proposing an alternate governance mechanism after extensive research, simulations and analysis. This discussion intends to retroactively discuss and seek community review for all the work that has been done on the development of AstarGov, research, and the immediate product requirements related to the deployment of the 1st version of on-chain governance in Astar, as proposed by the Astar foundation and approved by the community.
This discussion will also delve into the milestones for the next version which covers further research and development of the new governance model as proposed by Hoon on Astar Forum
discussions here - <a href="https://forum.astar.network/t/astar-townhall-offchain-governance/6950">https://forum.astar.network/t/astar-townhall-offchain-governance/6950</a>
Townhall testing proposal : <a href="0x90b5460ac155b7a3f52cd1fd79a7a3bc0695eabe0cb350af7dc97c711156c565">https://astargov.com/astar/post/0x90b5460ac155b7a3f52cd1fd79a7a3bc0695eabe0cb350af7dc97c711156c565</a>
Milestone 1:
Completed Research and Development :
Conducted detailed research on governance models to maximize network participation and impact. Developed an off-chain governance platform- AstarGov with multiple features for the platform to facilitate voting with custom strategies
Incorporated community feedback and collaborated with external researchers and experts along with Hoon Kim to design a novel governance model and then discuss with the community. GovASTR modeling
Modeling and Defining govASTR functions with the following objective:
Research and Development:
Conducted detailed research on governance models to enhance network participation and impact. Developed off-chain governance platform, AstarGov, with features for custom voting strategies.
Governance Model Design: Incorporated community feedback and collaborated with experts, including Hoon Kim, to design a new governance model (GovASTR). Evaluated the link between ASTR token price, voting rights, and governance power with govASTR. Analyzed worst-case scenarios including maximum and minimum delegation and potential collusion among dApps. Assessed risks and vulnerabilities of the governance system under various scenarios. Defined roles and responsibilities of the council and govASTR delegates and established the governance framework for the bicameral setup. Articulated functions and decision-making processes to ensure effective governance.
GovASTR Simulation and Analysis:
Simulated impacts of different locking periods (one-third, one-half, full burning) on governance votes. Evaluated how govASTR minting periods and staking locking periods affect voting outcomes and ASTR token price. Analyzed parameters such as slashing rates, bonding rates, and trade-offs to ensure effective governance and proposal management. Engaged with governance players to understand intentions regarding voting power delegation.
dApp Stakeholder Engagement:
Assessed how dApps listed in dApp staking plan to distribute govASTR tokens among stakers and themselves. Identified mechanisms for dApps to increase their stake and voting power, including partnerships and collaborations.
Treasury Management:
Developed a model for treasury spend and budgeting for subTreasury, outlining fund allocation based on needs and priorities. Utilized Game Theory to predict behavior of governance participants (govASTR holders and dApps) regarding vote delegation and treasury proposals.
<img src="https://i.ibb.co/rcCMJsK/Screenshot-2024-08-09-at-12-19-19-AM.png" alt="" width="284" height="161" /> &nbsp;<img src="https://i.ibb.co/P9DSMSQ/Screenshot-2024-08-09-at-12-19-10-AM.png" alt="" width="284" height="161" /> &nbsp;<img src="https://i.ibb.co/GHw6vj8/Screenshot-2024-08-09-at-12-19-50-AM.png" alt="" width="285" height="162" />
Technical Implementation:
Established a Snapshot database and created a snapshot service to maintain off-chain voting data, token balances, and voting power. Created an in-built discussion forum to facilitate DAO discussions and map out community feeling via sentiment commenting Integrated forum functionalities to boost user engagement and interoperability between Townhall and Astar forum.
Milestone 2:
Completed Communication and Engagement Enhancements:
Two-way communication tools for syncing discussions and integrating technical proposals via GitHub. Enabled linking of discussions to proposals to provide community a wider overview on what&rsquo;s happening AI-assisted summaries to streamline discussion overview. Developed interactive social feeds, notifications, and voting reminders. Support to scale Astar ecosystem and create sub-channel for ecosystem projects and communities Notification support and preference setting dashboard for users Access control on platform Current Features: Enhanced dashboard with social feed and comprehensive admin controls. Social elements to boost adoption Off-chain council elections, detailed user profiles, and wallet integrations.
Future Work -
Outside the scope of this proposal&rsquo;s budget:
Below are the details of the parallely ongoing research and development phase of the new AstarGovernance as proposed in the forums. We&rsquo;d be highlighting the work along with expected timelines below(to be built with community and requested funding for through a Bounty, established via a separate proposal based on community inputs)
<ul>
<li>Future development plan on the proposed novel on-chain governance mechanism for Astar Research &amp; Technical analysis + Feedback from community and on-chain experimentation on Shiden - Timeline(2 months)</li>
<li>Product, design &amp; Tech development -&gt; Leading to deployment on Shiden, followed by a complete deployment on Astar Network after technical &amp; community feedback - Timeline(3-5 months)</li>
<li>Detailed documentation highlighting the planned scope of work will be shared later with the Astar Community.</li>
<li>Please note that the upcoming work will be done based on community feedback and alignment on the future direction of Astar&rsquo;s on-chain governance.</li>
</ul>
Why Us?
The Townhall team in collaboration with Hoon &amp; other Astar team members, has been working together over the past 6 months to research and develop a novel governance mechanism for the Astar Network, and we, the Townhall team, have a good understanding of how the network and the community interacts with each other.
We are excited to partner with the Astar community to create an effective &amp; decentralized governance mechanism that leads Astar into one of the top blockchains in the entire ecosystem.
The proposed budget requests funds retroactively for research and product development work done for AstarGov for both Shibuya and Astar network.
Amount Requested : $263,000
Astar Price: 0.06 (calculated based on 7 Day EMA on 20 August 2024)
Total Astar Requested: 4,383,333.33 ASTR
Details regarding the budget split and allocation can be found <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/11YMmLO7sjQ4jwKgNg0td_y1wBOreZGZaH6NU36ABOKA/edit">here</a>&nbsp;
Beneficiary Address :&nbsp;aqdJh84TvrkFmDnp1Mh89WhBXFXVAg3ggFuvA4vxL6k9uBn

- **Problem Statement & Audience:** 
  - Problem: Lack of robust governance infrastructure and community engagement in the Astar Network ecosystem.
  - Audience: Astar Network community, stakeholders, and developers.

- **Significance:**
  - Enhancing decentralization and governance infrastructure is crucial for regulatory compliance, community trust, and long-term viability.
  - Active governance can attract developers, projects, institutional investors, and increase token value.

- **Proposed Solution:**
  - Develop AstarGov platform for on-chain/off-chain voting, research new governance mechanisms with govASTR token, and engage dApps in governance.

- **Expected Outcomes & Value proposition:**
  - Increased network decentralization, community engagement, developer attraction, token value, and institutional investment.
  - Budget request of $263,000 for research, development, and deployment of governance infrastructure.