I think its a double-edged sword. The more value the token has, the more protected the DAO is from any type of hostile takeover - Though price action typically prevents this as well since as a single entity begins hoarding more and more, the value goes up and it costs said entity more and more to accumulate enough for takeover.
In my opinion, this isnt exactly the same as āsecuringā the DAO. For that you actually want more diversified participation. Bring in more smart people, more discussion, more action. This is what will make the DAO better, and thus secure its place as a successful DAO. By increasing the price of each token, you are making it more and more difficult for small-fry to enter the game, and thus increasing the odds that the DAO is simply managed by whales. This is why it is important for projects such as this to initially distribute to key users! Which, again my opinion, ENS Core team did VERY well!! Now we have tons of small fish, key early users who truly believe in ENS and the concept, who have a voice in the system where they may not have been able to afford one in any other scenario.
So my tl;dr here is: āYes and Noā.
Many people misunderstand this as a direct ENS Core action. I dont believe it is. ENS is a token, it is a token which gives a vote toward DAO proposals. Essentially this is all it does. Now the beauty of decentralized web3 is that one cannot restrict what someone else does. And because it is a token, users are free to move said token at will as they wish. They are also free to pair that token up with another token and provide liquidity to any decentralized exchange, such as Uniswap. Really, there is no way to stop it, nor should anyone try. This, however, is not the purpose of $ENS, it simply has value because there are people who wish to have said voice in proposals to ENS DAO and are willing to trade other tokens of value for it.
Stable coins are not something easy to come by, nor are they guaranteed. DAI is my favorite decentralized stable coin, and the principals behind it are very complex and require constant adjusting by the MakerDAO group - its essentially a full time job! Other stable tokens require a centralized entity to act as custodian and demonstrate they maintain a backing for that stable coin such as USDC.
None of this is the desire of ENS Core team to maintain. Their desire was to create a token which gives a voice (vote) to control the DAO. This it does. Mission accomplished.
There have been lots of posts attempting to have $ENS do more than what it was designed and dedicated to do. Nobody in the real world is attempting to turn Peopleās voters registration cards into currency, or into collateral, or anything like that.
So my suggestion is consider $ENS a voter registration card. Just as in the real world, you could likely sell yours (on the black market, for sure, and illegal, for sure, but you could) you can sell you ENS voter registration card.
Now the beauty of web3 is that it is neither illegal, nor necessarily frowned upon for you to sell the voter registration card you were given, or to buy someone elseās who doesnt want it! In the end, however, attempting to give that voter registration card more capabilities than it wants/needs/deserves is not the correct move.
This is also a bit of a difficult position. I agree that we should give incentives to participants. Not necessarily ārentā but that may just be a poor choice of wording or English as a 2nd language and not exactly what was meant. The problem with saying the DAO will be in danger if we dont, is that it insinuates the DAO will not be in danger if we do. It will, just the danger will be that we invite users who dont care about ENS and just want the income. Theyād only be here to vote on proposals which do more for THEM, regardless of the repurcussions to ENS itself.
So we must be careful, and do the best we can to avoid unintended consequences - which really are unavoidable.
Here is where I really agree! A DAO is web3 mechanism to reimagine collaboration. Todayās collaborations are typically companies. So if we user our imagination hereā¦
ENS DAO is a company:
- it has a product: ENS names and everything that comes with it
- it has income: from ārentā of said product
- it has Organization: ENS DAO
So what is it missing? Leadership. Currently ENS Core is the leadership, and they will have that sway for some time to come, as they have already demonstrated an amazing ability to create and guide, or lead, this project forward.
So lets imagine ENS was a traditional company, it would have a CEO, board members, VPs, etc. All of whom get paid. Why? Because they need to focus their time and effort on their company. They need to ensure their product remains the best product available. They need to ensure projects are going as planned and moving forward. They need to ensure their employees are cared for and receiving compensation. It is a job!
So lets get back to ENS DAO as a decentralized organization. It needs leadership, it needs guidance, it needs contributors, and they need compensation. Otherwise the project stagnates and eventually becomes suprassed by a different solution which continued to innovate and surpassed ENS in utility and ingenuity.
I think with the proper incentives we can reach a point where the DAO hits an equilibrium that there are users who receive the compensation to afford to spend a majority of their time focused on ENS!
I linked a post earlier that has more details of a skeleton of an idea I proposed that would hopefully lead to an organized organization based on incentives! its here.
Let me know what you think!