[Temp Check] ENS Token 2nd Airdrop

DAO-Wide Temp Check
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The ENS community knows of the first ENS airdrop that took place on 11/2021. It ignited a plethora of curious crypto/nft enthusiasts worldwide. This was only the beginning, prior to the airdrop, ENS saw over 137k addresses be eligible for the airdrop. Post airdrop we have seen the number of addresses increase almost 5x.

This has not only triggered the organic ecosystem to awaken. It awakened a sleeping giant, dwarfing all other Web3 naming protocols.

But there is something many people are not aware of. Once the ENS airdrop claim period ended, it left an unclaimed balance of 5.4 million ENS tokens that went back to the ENS DAO treasury. I have heard many state that a 2nd airdrop is not going to happen. My question is; Why not? The 5.4 million ENS tokens could easily facilitate this. The community has grown exponentially with builders from all walks of life contributing to the registrations, onboarding and in-house marketing for ENS. This type of effort should not go unnoticed, which is why I believe a 2nd airdrop is warranted.

Proposal: Distribution of Unclaimed ENS Tokens from the First Airdrop to the Community

Background:

  • The first ENS token airdrop occurred in 11/2021 and distributed ENS tokens to holders of Ethereum (ETH) in their private wallets.
  • A portion of these tokens went unclaimed and were returned to the DAO treasury.

Proposed Action:

  • Distribute the 5.4 million unclaimed ENS tokens from the first airdrop to the community, based on some of the similar requirements at the first.
  • To be eligible for the distribution, users must have set an ENS record for their Ethereum address by a agreed upon date. Some other factors may come into play.

Benefits:

  • The distribution of unclaimed ENS tokens to the community will increase the distribution of the ENS token and encourage more existing and new users to set and maintain their ENS records.
  • By rewarding users who set and maintain their ENS records, this proposal will also encourage the adoption and use of ENS, which will ultimately benefit the entire Ethereum ecosystem. We have seen the effects of this strategy from the first airdrop. Airdrop 2 could potential 2x the reach.

Implementation:

  • The specific details of the distribution, such as the date by which users must have set their ENS records and the period of time for which they must maintain their records, will be determined by a vote of the ENS DAO members.
  • The distribution will be executed by the ENS DAO, with the assistance of a smart contract that will automatically distribute the tokens based on the specified criteria.

This is one possible proposal, but it’s important to mention that these type of proposals need to be discussed with the community, and there are different ways to distribute the unclaimed tokens from the airdrop. The best way is to evaluate the impact of the proposal on the community and the ENS ecosystem, and then decide which is the best way to distribute them.

64 Likes
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I dont support a second airdrop.
And in the past I shared i would be vocal in objection.

The Governance (aka Responsibility) token was a one time airdrop and has since traded freely on the open market. The inception of the DAO certainly created attention, which has transitioned into participants observing the utility and landscape.

There is unnecessary risk for a young DAO to carry out more airdrops which may result in Responsibility Token being classified as something different by various regulatory jurisdictions & bodies - and resulting in legal headwinds against adoption.

Whilst they were unclaimed tokens, they had singular claim purpose, and any new airdrop reclassifies them into the muddy waters, perhaps leading to compromising governance. Any public proposal & action that’s readily replicable is also easily farmed.

6 Likes
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Very well formulated proposal. Well done for all of detail that went into this idea.

While I remain neither for nor against the idea of a second air drop at this stage, I do have a couple of ideas for potential metrics in which holders could be rewarded and or selected to receive some form of airdrop…

  1. Identify the wallets from the 1st airdrop (excluding any DAO members) who held onto the tokens once claimed vs the wallets that straight away listed them on the market/swapped them. This could be used to reward those who believed in the power of holding onto “responsibility” over those who prefer to trade…?

  2. identify wallets and domains that have been proactively built upon, from as simple as setting a reverse record to adding in text records, IPFS websites and/or creation of pre offical wrapper subdomains. Etc.

  3. instead of direct $ / ENS token airdrop, perhaps reward the selected holders with automated domain extensions. This could be done discreetly and then made public once the Airdrop went live…obviously the exact metrics of how long and how many domains to extend would need to be voted on.

  4. Possibly offer discounts for future domain maintenance in the form of vouchers / coupons that could be redeemed only via ENS.domains and only on completion of a set of opt-in governance related topics, such as joining this forum, and answering a simple questionnaire for much needed accurate customer feedback for example.

Anyway, just a few ideas that I feel could be valuable and not thought of yet.

Interesting times indeed ! 🫶🏽💫

Meta8.eth

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I’ve thought for many hours about a way a second airdrop could be done that appeases all parties involved.

This is the latest specification I have settled on, from my Steward Platform

Every wallet that held at least one .eth name throughout the entire period of 1 January 2022 - 31 December 2022 is eligible to claim 1 $ENS token.

Addresses that were set as a primary name throughout this entire period are eligible to claim an additional 1 $ENS.

The original airdrop interface and mechanism should be able to be repurposed to facilitate this at claim.ens.domains.

This can also be used as an opportunity to push for redelegation.

I personally would like to see further brainstorming on this idea. Many are against it as a principle, but I feel there is a solution that everyone can agree on, we just haven’t reached it yet.

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I would like to first limit the scope of my response to the following problem statement

“Voting in ENS DAO Affairs should have significant votes outside of Core Team so that a diverse options are considered”

This problem could also be solved in several other ways

  1. Asking interested parties to engage more in ENS forums rather than twitter
  2. Getting people to buy $ENS
  3. Getting people to actively delegate
  4. Giving .eth address voting power (Second Voting Class).
  5. Issuing $ENS as part of registration
  6. Quadratic voting as outline by Daylon.eth

Why I am in favour of the proposal above as a first step

  • It solves the problem now as most new users of ENS came AFTER the airdrop
  • The funds that the DAO has is paid by 80% of the addresses that did not get an airdrop and thus has no voting power.
  • The 5 million $ENS tokens, if evenly distributed to all addresses is about 7 Tokens per address. I acknowledge that many people might sell the token instantly but at least this choice is given to the 80% of the addresses. I do hope that enough education and awareness is done before Airdrop so that most people hold and delegate the $ENS
  • Reviewing the possible suggestion above, I still think the core problem is representation and a airdrop to the MAJORITY new comers should be done.
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2nd airdrop is unnecessary and will only contribute to greed. It would result in an influx of activity for sure, but that activity would largely be inauthentic and not sticky. Having a second airdrop would also open up people to begging for a third airdrop.

I would probably never support this.

3 Likes
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Same.

The reason for an airdrop is not to give people free money, but to create some initial distribution of the tokens, otherwise, they would all be in the hands of ENS Labs, so there’s no decentralization.

Once this initial distribution is in place, you let the market forces to take care of the decentralization. If they succeed – good. If they fail - it’s not something that a second airdrop can fix.

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One important thing to remember here is: The 2nd airdrop is not pulling from “newly” created DAO funds. The 5.4 million ENS tokens are UNCLAIMED community ALLOTTED funds. No need to tap into new capital. The funds already exist. This would finalize the original goal of the first airdrop. At that point, no “leftovers” exists. Therefore a 3rd airdrop easily be a moot point.

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Doesn’t change my opinion. Just another opportunity for greed to prevail. The DAO doesn’t need to do it.

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TY. This is why a “Temp Check” is here. All feedback and opinions are welcomed. Appreciate you for engaging. :+1:

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No problem and thanks for bringing it up! I’m opinionated for sure, but never hurts to ask these things.

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What do you think of the specification I proposed? One token each would hardly be considered an appeal to greed, while still allowing for new participants. Recipients would have to pay the gas to claim it, and if they wanted to just immediately dump it, that would cost gas too. So that would only make a few dollars. Alternatively they could hold it and actually use it to vote, or delegate to someone.

5 Likes
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Also, especially if this was “Retroactive”, for “EOY 2022”.
Then, those users have 1+ ENS to vote & experiment with.

(*Generally speaking, I am against the idea, *
*…but it could be possible to do this, *
if w/ “greed-minimized” strategies.)

5 Likes
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How about utilising subdomains for voting ?

Not even an ENS token air drop.

But introduce a new way of doing this whole thing.

What if only wallets with a reverse record set to a domain were airdropped a couple of subdomains in which allows them 1 vote, for example it might be:

meta8.:white_check_mark:Vote.eth
meta8.:x:Vote.eth

These subs would be set to have special permissions within the wrapper such as non transferable or non sellable. Almost a soul bound token that can only be used to connect into a dapp that needs community votes

All we would need to do is click connect wallet and sign the smart contract to register a vote for or against.

It would be avoid of Gas and a much more decentralised method of gaining actual community votes, rather than giving all the “squatters” more reason to become more “greedy” (not my words!)

Further more, we could even use a scale system of 1-10 whereby it’s a sliding scale of how much we agree or disagree with a particular proposal. For example the subdomains issues would be:

meta8.:green_square::heart_eyes::one:.vote.eth
up to
meta8.:red_square::angry::keycap_ten:.vote.eth

(Yes I love emojis) :blush::sweat_smile:

The community at large has so much to offer and we have so much potential waiting to be put to good work, if there was only a better way of communicating and educating existing and new members.

Perhaps only reward a certain percentage of wallets and run this method as a beta test for those who actively want it. This wouldn’t be for everybody because essentially not everybody knows or sadly even cares about how things are done…but it’s obvious that there are plenty of incredible smart talented and passionate ENSers j who have done the research and the time in the space who rightly need and deserve a chance to vote and be actively engaged.

Please have faith in the wider community, this is web3 after all - we should be celebrating all types of people here! Squatters, Fudders, Builders, Degens, Investors, Coders, Influencers…anybody!

For if we continue to age old mistakes of calling out certain people, canceling or blocking people, infighting, Twitter threads, keyboard bashing whatever the case may be…how does that make “us” all look to the masses beyond!?

I have faith in anybody that believes in ENS. One of the most powerful things the DAO can do is to believe in their community…lift us up and know that it will come back.

“The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is.” - Jim Carrey

Cheers :v:t5:🫶🏽

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Will all due respect, my guy Meta8. Your idea definitely deserves its own “temp check”. Sounds like you want to approach a alternative voting system. This is not on topic for 2nd airdrop. Thank you my guy!

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The way @thenftverse.eth framed this temp check maybe it’s more palatable to reframe the idea from a 2nd airdrop to fulfilling the originally intended ENS DAO tokenomics by distributing the unclaimed ~20% of the 1st airdrop. So not an 2nd airdrop but reopening of the 1st airdrop with new eligibility.

If the concern is legitimately greed, then what if the 5M $ENS tokens were wrapped and the voting power were collectively voted by the holders of ENS names. A sort of community subDAO of the actual ENS holders. No actual distribution of $ENS tokens that could be sold, which seems to be a large concern of $ENS holders whenever a 2nd airdrop is mentioned. Also there is no actual added value to ENS names for purposes of the secondary market because if someone wanted exposure to the community subDAO 5M $ENS voting block they could just mint an ENS name to gain access without need to buy off someone from secondary.

Right now this would equal a little less than 2 $ENS per name registered and that would continually dilute as registrations increase but always give ENS holders a voice in governance/voting without the need to buy $ENS tokens which seems pointless for normal users in light of the initial distribution. I won’t kid myself and pretend this would stop or slowdown speculative registrations but the more registrations the more diluted an individual’s power within the subDAO, so there would be no benefit to registrations just to gain voting power.

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I like this option too. This “eliminates” the blanket labeling of “GREED” in the community (sad). But…now two options have been provided in this “Temp Check”. Let’s continue to move forward with making ONE of these a official proposal.

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I might be a lil’ cynical but I feel we might see a marginal increase of activity in the DAO but I mostly feel it won’t impact anything. In fact, giving a large amount of attention with something like this could actively produce negative PR for the DAO if everyone gets mad they’re not getting another actual airdrop.

However, I could also see a world where positive PR is generated for the DAO because we’re making a second effort to invite people to contribute more. But then the go-to response to that might be “why would we participate in the DAO without incentive, give us money blah blah” idk

Some random thoughts above, mostly, but I’m not wholly against the idea.

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I have yet to get a response from someone that wants a second airdrop saying that my idea wouldn’t be an “actual airdrop” but I get where you’re coming from. Thanks for sharing your views.

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The beautiful thing about discussions like this is the ability to look at the situation from various angles, not just one. I respect the fact you are willing to explore it. Thank you for not be so reactive. Instead, you took a step back and said to yourself “hmmm :thinking:” maybe this could be a good thing.

4 Likes