You were very specific in some terms you used in your response. Could you elaborate on the usage/foundation on these: “Singular Claim” - “Reclassifies Them” - “Muddy Waters” - “Compromising Governance” and “Farmed”. Ty sir. Your clarity is needed to help push the conversation forward. I appreciate it.
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I support using the unclaimed tokens from airdrop in a way that supports outreach campaigns for newcomers. I do not support the concept of a 2nd airdrop because it would stimulate greed, inauthentic behavior and we would be forever be asked about the 3rd or 4th airdrop.
YES: Use the 5.4M to give away in hackathons, scholarships, grants, conferences etc, for newcomers whose identity and contribution is verifiable. These would be recurring programs in small scale with the purpose of onboarding members of the community.
NO: create a second airdrop with similar terms of the first.
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There was a single claim period. That claim window is closed following a vote.
Unclaimed tokens are now dao treasury. They are no longer unclaimed. Unclaimed is their past tense state.
To conduct another airdrop after governance structure was set is not straightforward without consequences and may have implications by regulatory bodies.
Implications which may impact a young dao which is governing per design and whereby its token is then operating as free money.
Users carrying out a tactic which replicates their chances of gaining extra in the airdrop.
Lastly,
Governance comprises multiple levels. Its available through participation on dao forum. Social environments like twitter are communication channels with delegates, others, ideas creation, etc. ENS tokens are available for further participation in governance.
Community has multiple touch points and entry options.
Private industry remains its own blue ocean.
These are my views.
I see your points. But in short, I’d rather the 5.4 million fund the relaunch of the Community Working Group. These funds could easily be budgeted over a 5 year plan to identify community builders and creators (spaces, youtube content, social posts i.e. threads or other ENS related content). The final definition of the working group could be discussed further.
Aside from that, words like greed and inauthentic behavior are broad. Have you ever engaged with the community to explore some of the things being explored and built? I think the term “builder” has been minimized to a specific group and not looked at in a broader perspective.
A 2nd airdrop to many in this community isn’t about greed, but more about funding personal projects that include the very spirit of ENS, ownership and decentralization. I never want to be lumped into a single group labeled “ GREEDY”, because that is not how I have ever represented this protocol.
Thanks for engaging in this Temp Check.
Sorry for the long post.
I’m neither for nor against this idea. But gun to my head if I had to choose I’d lean towards doing the second airdrop for some reasons but primarily because it attracted a lot of smart people to the ecosystem.
Before I start I have to say – I participated in quite a few spaces recently where people have expressed their negative feelings towards the ENS DAO. Mostly feel left behind, out of touch with ENS even though they think they are the ones responsible for ENS’s success, lack of communication from the DAO, etc. Most of this is a lack of knowledge about how to navigate the entire ENS space since it requires some time to figure out all aspects of how everything works + bear market feelings. And after I provide answers they still feel like it’s a mountain to climb before having the opportunity to be heard and even after they think their voice has no influence whatsoever. This is only what I observed recently.
Back to the airdrop – I, unfortunately, cannot afford to buy a lot of ENS tokens yet so my vote can matter. But I do consider myself still a very small and yet somewhat significant part of the ecosystem given I participate in all ecosystem calls, discussions, and Twitter spaces (hosted by new communities looking to get into ENS) AND I’m building something that literally depends on the ENS. And I’m sure there are others like me. Therefore, it’s obvious I would like to increase my governing position, and prob will as time goes by. Hence a little tilt towards doing the airdrop. But I’m aware and transparent about my biases because I don’t care at the end of the day. I’m here to build and stay.
More importantly, beside the superiority in tech of this protocol, its reputation and development plans, the amazing governance structure and DAO processes around it, as our strong foundation, a new pillar of stability was born last year and that is the strength of the community of buyers, traders, owners, collectors, etc. Therefore, I know it’s not much of an argument to say we’re due someone something for their support but it feels like that sometimes.
I also believe the airdrop can be done in a way that only positively benefits the DAO but that is a discussion that deserves a new private discussion. Because publicly discussing it would only put us at mercy of airdrop farmers who live off of stuff like this. So, I’d trust the ENS Labs to do a good job here as they did in the past. But I would focus on builders, NameWrapper Goerli testers/users, Name owners, Subname issuers, regular Name owners, traders, and volume of trades, etc., combined with governance voting participation on Tally and Snapshot and overall participation, etc., and work out the precise criteria for the airdrop to maximize efficiency and incentives to encourage DAO participation instead of selling for profit.
So prior to the airdrop, I would focus on providing the educational materials of governance, the value of the tokens people will receive (outside of selling them for quick cash), and easy to use interface for them to immediately after a claim they could either delegate to themselves or someone else.
Alisha is always saying how Delegate attention/participation is the most scarce resource in web3. And there is probably the loudest and most active community out there advocating, talking, educating, hyping, and screaming about all things ENS literally every day in different Twitter spaces and beyond that is looking to direct their attention somewhere who at the moment feels like they are not heard.
ENS will maintain its superiority and market dominance due to its tech stack and people associated with it and its strategy of building for builders, I have 0 concerns there. But cementing the market dominance with the strongest community would be an additional benefit I believe. Again, I’m neither for nor against the idea of the second airdrop, but I just haven’t seen any concrete argument against the airdrop that is unsolvable that will make me go Ohh, ok, I get it. Open to being wrong.
Just my 2 cents.
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Thank you for your feedback and participation. This was well thought out.
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@thenftverse.eth, thanks for shepherding the discussion here.
I’ve thought about your idea through a few different lenses and wanted to share a thought.
An 81 Million Dollar Perspective
Note: This is just a thought exercise, the $ENS token is a governance token and was not intended to be a store of value. That said, because it is currently redeemable on the open market, we could look at this proposal in the following light:
This proposal asks the ENS DAO to distribute 5.4 million $ENS tokens from the treasury to individual ENS users. Because an ENS token can be traded on the open market for $15, this proposal effectively asks the DAO to invest $81 million worth of resources into your proposal.
From what I see in the thread, the ROI on the $81 million would be in two categories:
- Retroactive - An award to ENS users for using ENS names, growing the ecosystem, encouraging usage, etc.
- Strategic - An investment in the community that would strengthen protocol governance.
Our constitution dictates the treasury is to be used to support the protocol and other public goods. Does this $81 million fit into those defined constraints and help us deliver on the DAOs mission? Or, are there better ways the DAO could invest these resources to more efficiently achieve the goals?
*The data from the first airdrop shows that less than 20% of the distributed tokens are delegated to governance.
Avsa pointed out some great ways the DAO could use these resources in his comment above, and for perspective, this amount you’re asking for could fund ENS Labs for 20 years.
Personally, I struggle to see a positive outcome commensurate with the size of the investment you’re asking the DAO to make. I can’t see how two ENS tokens dropped into a couple of million individual wallets would get us to the goals you listed above.
I’m open to the conversation though, and I’d really like specific examples of downstream effects that justify the investment.
Could you help me to see it your way?
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Wow! Now could you imagine if that level of detail was communicated to the entire community regarding ALL things voted on 
(slight sarcasm)? I will keep this short. To answer your first question, the answer is “Yes it Does”. The goal is mass adoption for the ENS protocol and becoming the largest Web3 community in the world with UTILITY. We would not be where we are today if it wasn’t for a consolidated community effort. We all know that, no matter how bad we want to gloss over it, the community created the value you see on every ENS marketplace. A marketplace does work with out users. ENS can’t succeed with out community. Prove me wrong.
For the 2nd question, I have presented the best option which is the 2nd airdrop. You are acting as if the DAO would be bankrupt if they distribute the 5.4 million tokens to the community. I seriously doubt that would happen. The higher possibility is that most of it would be reinvested back into ENS. That is MY opinion.
Let take another approach. What if half of the 5.4 million was airdropped and the other half was dedicated to expanded a TRUE community GROWTH fund. This would be strictly for building a Community Outreach Team (Dedicated Weekly Spaces Team, Local Community Organizers to Onboard Normies, Local Charity Outreach). That smells like a successful plan towards building a world ecosystem to takeover Web3 by empowering those in the community everywhere. This adoption can move like a snail or we can be a locomotive and never look back. But thats just my aggressive strategic vision, but I’m a just a community member who wants to be #1 in this Web3 game.
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Governance tokens shouldn’t be the carrot dangled to get people to set their records… On principle that the governance token wasn’t intended to drive adoption, and there’s already inherent value/utility to the avatar and text records. I noticed yours aren’t set. I’d be happy to walk you through it.
Even if this did spur some activity, I agree with @spencecoin that it would be largely inauthentic.
My conclusion is that this is the wrong approach for the stated goals, unsustainable problem solving, and the discussion for a 2nd airdrop is pre-mature.
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As it stands now, the distribution of the air drop versus the tokens awarded to ENS team members and contributors is no longer balanced. The token distribution was initially planned for it to become balanced so that there would be decentralisation and minimise agency capture from any single group of people. The community does not view the current delegate and token distribution to be balanced.
For example: the top 16 delegates minus delegates which are largely dormant in voting control more than 50% of the vote.
Another example: Eventually 25 million tokens will be distributed to team members and contributors but only 19.6 will ever be in the hands of the larger community.
If the DAO is serious about fair balance, then these issue must be addressed.
My data points are run from a snap survey where more than 80% of respondents believe the delegate structure is not decentralised or balanced.
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You know I always respect your thoughts 184, however, it is clear that community and DAO relations are at an all time low.
There are way too few community members on this forum; which IMO they feel as separate, unfamiliar and perhaps without justification, that ENS discussion forums are not friendly ground.
More outreach is better rather than just perpetuating a fortress mentality. It will help with understanding, participation, engagement, and adoption.
There are serious misgivings, whether founded or unfounded that the token distribution is now unbalanced and will continue to increase in skew over time.
Agree we shouldn’t use governance tokens to reward people for adoption. However, as it stands, the governance token structure is skewed towards team members and contributors.
Approximately 55:45.
Holding the tokens in treasury essentially guarantee this skew will get worse with time.
Hence;
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engaging community members either on twitter is highly recommended and even perhaps making it the natural arena for conversation and debate. It would go a long way towards alleviating community anxiety and angst.
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intentional efforts to educate the community on the DAO process and also ensure that “controversial” proposals are not “flown in under the radar” (or at least to make sure that perception is not there).
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thinking long term of how to further decentralise votes amongst delegates and to further distribute token share to community members.
I don’t see how the above can hurt. Probably will only help.
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From what I know, this does not impact the DAO from a cost perspective; because as you have pointed out, the ENS token is meant to be a governance token, not a token for speculation. Secondly, the DAO would presumably not sell these tokens to fund any DAO or ENS activities or expansion. Hence, I don’t see how this is an opportunity cost to ENS labs.
On the point of token value:
I would say that if the 5.4 million tokens were to be distributed, it would be dilutive to the undiluted market cap of ENS from the token price. Meaning, theoretically, the price of the ENS tokens would drop to account for the dilution.
This would of course NOT happen, if the market viewed this positively for the LT future of ENS or because the increased distribution increased liquidity for trading of the tokens.
But my view is that the market cap would not move but the spot token price would move downwards to account for the dilution.
I think the main issue here is, is the current structure and distribution fair as it stands right now? What will the structure and distribution be going forward and will it be centralised or decentralised? Will it be resilient to agency capture or will it be a robust governance structure which will be functional not dysfunctional?
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Hi! FYI I have two other ENS domains with the content set pointing to .limo landing pages I had assistance building with one of the amazing community members in the ecosystem. So, No, I don’t need help setting anything on my main one. Just like I said before I am exploring the options
of development with several of my domains.
But Thanks my guy! 
Again, those surface level keywords being thrown out “inauthentic and unsustainable” with no true depth of clarity.
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Yep. Absolutely correct. I was trying to somehow frame the size of the ask against the uncertainty of the results. The goals are good. More distribution of governance and more participation will be good, but I’m questioning if this is the best way to get there.
It’s not a binary decision. There are lots of other strategies we could use that could be spread out and explored iteratively to make sure we’re getting the best results possible. Being against this strategy doesn’t mean I’m against distributing governance.
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Let me just start by saying that the participation and dialogue in here has been very collaborative and passionate. I appreciate every person’s opinion in here. The next goal is to gather the Top 3 options from this Temp Check in order to move forward to receiving delegate support.
FYI - There will be 3 final options to choose from. There will not be a “none of the above” option. That is purposely done in order to move things forward.
Thanks,
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I just want to say that if we somehow end up doing this, I would want the sole focus of the airdrop to be designed in a way that increases governance participation and delegate voting.
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I am going to abstract from the rest of this conversation and focus on this. A Token aidrop isn’t the only way to improve this, I value your opinion, so, if you have time next week, I can hear your concern regarding the “separate, unfamiliar and unfriendly” aspects.
For this time being, I would say that this conversation is a interesting temperature check of things that we assume are being proposed to be solved through an Airdrop, but we can abstract this information and try to come out with other non-economically driven solutions, that they exists and are more lasting.
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Thank you for your feedback. Your “long-lasting” non-economic methods would be greatly appreciated if you could post it here as I am going to be gathering the ideas from this temp check. Thanks.
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Hello Vegayp,
Agree we should focus on the proposal on hand rather than segway in to new distraction. However as a buttress to that claim; here’s a screenshot from one such opinion holder.
Fundamentally, there is a structural issue with distribution right now, the tokens will now be 55:45 in favour of team contributors and the original DAO members, due to the fact that 5.4 million have been unclaimed.
This is 25 million to DAO members/contributors and 19.6 million to the original token air drop claimants.
Without intervention or a change in distribution dynamics, that skew will only increase with time.
Not sure how fair distribution and a zero probability outcome of captured voting can happen over time with the current token distribution structure.
Seems like the fundamental objections to such an exercise is that it would be economic and gratuitous in nature by:
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Rewarding non interested (with respects to governance) parties, with second order consequences like tax & legal implications, or expectations of further airdrops.
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Incurring opportunity cost of token value.
For point 1, I believe such concerns can be allayed as it was already modelled by the first airdrop. Also, ensuring distribution of left over tokens is a clear and finite exercise, which can be communicated clearly in terms of finality and clear intent: to distribute remaining tokens from the first air drop.
For point 2: These are governance (non security) tokens and legally cannot be used as value on the DAO balance sheet or treasury, they do not drain the treasury and present no economic cost or opportunity cost for the DAO as they would not be sold to fund DAO activities.
My thoughts are that the DAO should focus on the core usage for the tokens which is for distributed governance.
Optimising for any other use case (from outside parties of the DAO) would create sub optimal outcomes IMO.
https://twitter.com/Melvininho/status/1620526062198493184?s=20&t=SMOzoeXUld7D0K9LpvxOTw
Uploading: Screenshot 2023-02-06 at 10.19.19 AM.png…
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Thank you for this response. It captured many valid points.
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