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.
yup, I just wanted to point out that this two groups have something in common on the floorâŚ
$ENS at a sufficiently low price, can have consequences for both groups.
(not just the speculative market group)
the mission to provide a public good can be jeopardized with a low enough $ENS price.
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in others words:
-
a low enough $ENS price, makes governance power easily transferable
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Vitalikâs words:
"there are very bad things that can easily happen to governance mechanisms if governance power is easily transferable"
source:
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That problem is already solved, the ones paying 100x as much (for 3-letter names) get that equivalent of voting power.
The using existing .eth name I think works great. You could argue that a whale could buy up a whole bunch of names for this reason, but theyâre also constantly paying for their right to do so. Plus itâs way harder to manager that than buying fungible $ENS tokens.
All pure governance tokens are under attack for being susceptible to attacks.
Vitalik is openly saying it is a pure failure.
It is time to think seriously about adding utility to $ENS tokens. It is inevitable. âMark my wordâ
@nick.eth
Because as we predicted, the general public is now aware how flawed and contradictory are tradeable Governance tokens.
I donât understand why this is not being taken seriously⌠Vitalik is saying it out loud now it is contradictory.
Pure governance tokens are as scammy as any ponzi scheme. It is time to act and add utility.
I like Parallelâs idea of using the square root of a voterâs tokens to determine how many votes they get.
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Unfortunately without a robust identity system, this is trivial to game.