I would like that and think itâs a good idea
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You keep saying this, but itâs not true; tokens were not distributed in direct proportion to the number of domains a user holds. The ENS distribution was different, and more targeted towards including active users over people who hold many domains.
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The argument is that users with resolved/set names could vote on a one vote per name basis, and to curb setting 100s of names with different wallets for one user is that 1) that gets costly, 2) having ENS token minimum stake requirement on that resolved name acct gives a slashing mechanism, and 3) some sort of veto and judicial-like process in place as a fail safe for anomalous and malicious behavior.
Active users could also be given metrics based on constructive contributions to the DAO such that their votes weigh more (things like admin tasks, moderation, development, marketing, community management, active in discussions, etc could be tracked and turned into metrics affecting vote weight).
I think the point has been raised by several people that our names are NFT (tokens) themselves and could have been used to govern the DAO with security precautions in place to penalize bad actors, which would involve staking ENS tokens somehow.
Couldnât our resolved names be used for governance and voting in this way?
Yes, you could probably cook up some kind of complicated name-based voting system like you describe. It still wouldnât be resistant to automation to buy and set up names to increase someoneâs voting power, and itâs unclear to me why it would be superior to the current system.
So! just for understand your point. You mean is more difficult to get more voting power âbuying $ENSâ at $20 than buy multiple names at $150 aprox? I think is more easy just buy cheapest $ENS in one click, than create a multiple .eth domain names, addresses and the cost is higher. In that way you preferer to encourage people to buy a token witch loose value every day? under that point what i look is you don´t want to loose that .eth domain names that can´t be replaceable. You guys are taking care like a diamonds to the .eth names because that is the main profit for the devs and protocol, and for me that´s ok, but is necessary to play fair in all ways. Because the .eth names don´t loose value, your team are working with develops, with marketing, etc looking for the value of the protocol, but they are doing the same with $ENS token? I think NO! Because the narrative of non financial token, just governance token, devs don´t care the value, more cheaper more votes, the only thing that can get with that is dump the price.
Nick, you can be active just buying $ENS in the exchanges⌠If you really want active users involved in DAO then the protocol can designe something like rewards $ENS every time that the user write or comment a proposal. Like for example https://zapper.fi/ they everyday give you points if you loging the site. There´s many ways to reward an active member, than airdrop free money to dump the price.
And another question: As you mention that the devs donât added the liquidity to $ENS. Then what was the plan designed to new user get $ENS after the airdrop, to be part of the voting powers? How for example all the new user from November until today get $ENS to vote? In the hypothetical case that $ENS doesn´t have liquidity and wasn´t listed at the exchanges like the original plan to get $ENS?
I think, even at $150 per domain + fees, for some people active in the crypto world thatâs still small change. Maybe to the average customer, but there was already a thread pointing out that at current registration cost + gas fees, itâs inaccessible to many people anyway (India was the example given here on these forums). At the other end of that same scale, there are many people, particularly those early to the web3.0 party + NFTs, to whom $150 per domain is no big deal, if they have a plan to make far more than that back. I just think itâs important to give that context here.
The idea of using $ENS as a ârewardâ for participation has been discussed over a large number of threads and its very clear its one of the most divisive topics right now in this whole project (together with the âairdrop inclusion / exclusionâ threads). We definitely need to define an answer that at least a majority are agreed on quickly, I think.
As a concept, I posted somewhere in one of the threads that I was coming round to the idea that participation = some sort of reward, in most peopleâs interpretation of what web3.0 will look like when its more fully formed. But rewarding $ENS just for logging in⌠Iâm not sure. There is I believe in the code only a finite amount of tokens, so what happens when thereâs no longer enough funds left to fund the public goods because theyâve all been used on login rewards? Also feel like that could be gamed but Iâm not personally smart enough to work out how 
.
I guess the idea to get more people to vote is by actually introducing $ENS into the ecosystem (via exchanges, Public Goods investment, etc) such that they can be traded between people who have them and donât want them, and people who are willing to pay a certain price to obtain a vote in the ecosystem. I think itâs a long term project so Iâm not sure obsessing over the price day-by-day (the tokens havenât even been available that long, and the airdrop was only 3 months~ ago) is meaningful, unless youâre trying to trade the tokens and make a profit.
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What is âtoken costâ? Do you mean, âregistration price + gasâ?
$5 registration fee seems pretty reasonable, even across the world. The issue is the high cost of gas on the Ethereum blockchain.
I meant registration price, apologies. Edited my original post 
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The price of $ENS is directly related to how resistant the DAO is to capture by a single entity. So itâs okay to take steps to maintain the price of $ENS. Perhaps we should come up with a target price for what it would cost to buy half of the $ENS tokens and try to not let the price fall below that.
A distinction between being a public good and financially rewarding community participants is often drawn without any justification. Like it or not a high $ENS token price is good for ENS. Also we dont only want to bias participation towards people who have enough money to be more idealistic with how they spend their time.
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Completely agree that a big issue the DAO faces is that if the price of $ENS continues to drop, it becomes increasingly likely that a single entity will be able to acquire enough tokens to effectively control the DAO. Given the importance of the ENS protocol, this is always a possibility.
However, the problem with a lot of the suggestions in this thread is that they would do nothing to improve the price or create price stability. If you have a macro-event and the price of Bitcoin drops, the price of Ethereum will drop, and the price of all other coins/tokens will also drop.
Even if you had a target price, what could you do to stop the price from falling below that level? All cryptocurrencies move in unison during a drop.
Sure ultimately we are at the mercy of the broader crypto market but there are certain tools available to us such as staking or even buying tokens off the market.
Right, but the question is whether these actions will do anything to affect the price. Youâre obviously on the dev team and understand this better than most, but a lot of people think that if the team releases an update itâs going to increase the price of $ENS tokens. This isnât necessarily true. I guess the point I was trying to make is that the price of the tokens doesnât have a lot to do with the fundamental value of the protocol. If it did, the price would be a lot higher than it is today.
In my opinion, given the number of tokens outstanding and the teamâs locked allocations, staking and buy-backs will do little, if anything, to stabilize the price short-term.
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Iâm sure this isnât a popular opinion, but to me the closest analog for the âutilityâ of $ENS is bitcoin. The value proposition is entirely ideological, and by keeping it way, it seems a pattern emerges over time of those trying to turn a profit getting washed out, and as more and more drop out, only the most passionate believers remain holding, regardless of price. For example, currently over 60% of bitcoin holders havenât moved their tokens in over a year.
There is the possibility of a 51% attack if a nefarious actor wanted to by up the majority of the ENS tokens, but I would like to think that the delegation process and working group structures provide a check against that happening.
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To those who say the $ENS price is irrelevant (itâs just a governance token):
Reductio ad absurdum
Imagine for a second (only a second, please, bear with me) that the value of $ENS reach 0 (zero).
Iâm pretty sure, you will say âin theory, but that would be a problem, yesâ
So, IF 0 is a problem, THEN a value > 0 should be desired to avoid or lessen the problem.
I donât have any clue what is that value, but it is clear that the value of $ENS is NOT irrelevantâŚ
My argument is that it wouldnât be a problem if the price reached zero, in this case tokens would move around based on personality, leadership, merit, constructiveness etc all geared toward governance.
The chance of ENS token reaching zero price is the same as Ethereum or Bitcoin reaching zero.
ENS has financial value and as a governance token some people may feel they have too much or too little and can simply buy or sell it on the market, they can also speculate.
The ENS platform has a revenue and that revenue will likely increase alongside of utility of the platform. Even if the platform had ZERO revenue and ZERO utility then ENS token would probably still have financial value (look at the hundreds of meme coins on the market).
I agree that the value of ENS is not irrelevant. Also, low price doesnât mean good and high doesnât mean bad for the ecosystem, it all depends on how creatively ENS token is used in the ecosystem and clearly there are other possible applications to supplement and mitigate how it is used in governance given that it has financial value.
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I challenge your premise $ENS could ever reach zero, even in theory, because economics would require that there be no demand. The demand for a low price $ENS, even less than 1USD, would be attractive to those who believe in ENSâs future utility, preventing a zero value for $ENS.
Your second premise is that zero would be a problem, but this is faulty, because the airdrop of ENS tokens was done without regard to $ENSâs value. Value was created by the market, not ENS, which distributed tokens for the purpose of having a say in governance. Thus, while speculative value may be relevant to a holder of $ENS, it is not relevant to the tokensâ governance utility.
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please people, I donât think that, thatâs why I myself called it an absurd.
itâs called âDemonstration by Reducing to Absurdâ and sometimes is useful to prove a point.
My point: the $ENS price is NOT irrelevant.
Your second premise is that zero would be a problem, but this is faulty
I donât think you are analyzing all the problems and side effects with a price low enoughâŚ
there could be a LOT of interesting side effects to the governance systemâŚ
I think $ENS derives much of its value in the way you describe, but I donât think it has to be an either/or.
How does delegation prevent against a 51% attack?
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I agree nothing is an either/or. It could prevent a whale from just buying all of their votes if someone else had more votes delegated to them than could be purchased. Of course it could also facilitate a 51% attack. But ideally delegation can counteract plutocracy.
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I understand reductio ad absurdum. But you are conflating the interests of two groups of stakeholders, ENS governance and the speculative market; the formerâs mission is to provide a public good with the latterâs interest of seeking a return on investment, so for them âthe value of $ENS is NOT irrelevant.â But absent the DAO expressing a position on value or selling $ENS in the open market, we canât assume that the DAO feels the same way.