Understanding and Improving the Governance Participation in Curve

Summary

Dealing with voter fatigue and finding the right onboarding incentives are points of struggle for every DAO. The fact that DAOs do not have any information on their non-participating members makes the puzzle harder. DeepDAO believes that it is possible to understand $CRV token holders down to their interest categories and activity patterns to point toward measures to improve voter participation.

We propose conducting a data-based segmentation of $CRV token holders to find out the largest segments of non-voters, voters with decaying participation scores, etc. to point toward the right onboarding steps/incentives for them.

How to address this

Governance activity in different DAOs provides valuable insights into the characteristics and preferences of wallet holders. It serves as a window into their interests, motivations, and potential contributions.

For example, taking a closer look at scottbeale.eth, we observe a strong inclination towards NFTs. This presents an opportunity for the DAO to leverage this interest by introducing governance badges or POAPs. These tangible incentives can not only recognize and reward active participants but also serve as a magnet for NFT enthusiasts, encouraging their engagement and involvement in the DAO’s decision-making processes.

Similarly, we can identify other categories of mass interest and introduce new initiatives to the DAO. For instance, if there is a substantial segment of members expressing interest in data analysis or research, establishing a dedicated research guild could be a strategic move. Having understood that the 100s of $CRV token holders are looking for gig work, the DAO could open more avenues for contribution for these people.

This proposal aims to create interest and activity-based segmentation of $CRV token holders so that the DAO can find methods to retain and onboard new addresses to Curve’s governance. Armed with this knowledge, Curve can optimize its governance processes, create better onboarding flows, prioritize new initiatives, and foster a more vibrant and engaged community.

Note that we aren’t directly incentivizing governance participation but trying to introduce genuine initiatives that make participation more attractive and more useful to a wider audience.

Methodology

A very high-level plan of action for analyzing the 78k+ $CRV token holders:

  1. Get the DAO resumes of all $CRV token holders (granular activity & memberships), as aggregated by DeepDAO
  2. Based on (1): Label each address’s interest (NFTs, DeFi, Investments, Gaming, gig work, etc.) “Interest” is defined as membership or activity in a DAO category over a threshold. Label their activity on Curve (persistent voter, long-term dormant address, non-voter, an address that used to participate, an address that is getting less interested in participating over time, and more.)
  3. Repeat step 2 with different interest/activity categories to optimize the segmentation. We now have a well-segmented view of $CRV token holders with info on how large each segment is.
  4. Label bots & vote miners: recent research by DeepDAO identified voting miners’ activity across the DAO ecosystem. We use this data to check for malicious actors.
  5. Based on DeepDAO’s domain expertise in Web3 and governance, work with Curve to define the right incentives/onboarding steps for each segmented group.

Deliverables

  1. A report with analysis of all governance participants of Curve and non-active $CRV holders. This will answer questions like who are the primary participants, which are the largest segments of active, and inactive participants, which segments have the highest attrition/retention, etc.
  2. A CSV file with all $CRV token holders and their category interests, as reflected by the DAOs they vote in.
  3. Based on (1) & (2), a brainstorming session with Curve to come up with an action plan to onboard inactive segments of voters. One such step could be introducing NFT badges if we discover a large number of people who are interested in NFTs or starting guilds if we discover a segment of users that are looking for gig work.

Milestones

Milestone 1:

DeepDAO dives deeper into $CRV holders and finalizes the optimal labels & interest categories.
Time required: 4 weeks from the start of the project

Milestone 2:

DeepDAO hands over deliverables (1), (2) & (3)
Time required: 2 weeks from Milestone 1 completion

Funding Requested

We request total funding of $15,000 with the following breakdown: 33% ($5,000) after Milestone 1 and the remaining 67% ($10,000) after Milestone 2.

About DeepDAO

DeepDAO is the #1 discovery and analytics engine for the DAO ecosystem. We aggregate, list, and analyze financial and governance data for over 12.5k DAOs and 6.9M governance token holders across different chains and governance platforms. DeepDAO is widely recognized in the ecosystem and media as the go-to source for data about DAOs.

3 Likes

Thank you for your proposal!

Could you please clarify and provide examples of what milestones 1-2 signify? Also, how will the data be maintained after these milestones have been completed?

How will this page look after the grant has been received? Additionally, will all the data be open-sourced?

Could you please clarify and provide examples of what milestones 1-2 signify?

@ON-DeFi , milestone 1 is about coming up with an action plan specific for Curve. As you can imagine, the interest categories of participants differ greatly among DAOs. To factor this in, we’ll sort the set of token holders by their DAO participation scores, take the top 1k & 10k addresses, and analyze their DAO activities. The goal here is to find out 10-15 interest and activity categories of $CRV holders.

Milestone 2 would take the entire $CRV holder set and try to place them into these categories. It also is a chance to optimize the categories if the segmentation is not granular enough.

How will this page look after the grant has been received? Additionally, will all the data be open-sourced?

Yes, the data of this research will be open-sourced. We’ll be adding a link to the analysis and results on Curve’s DeepDAO profile after the research. The DAO can use it to strengthen its community by commissioning new initiatives.

1 Like

I think this is a great idea and I am one of the non active CRV holders who wants to get more involved

3 Likes

Timely and interesting proposal. Could be some very beneficial insights surfaced.

It could make sense to start using the low Tx costs of Arbitrum / Optimism to mint NFTs tied to veCRV holders as a means of further encouraging participation and aligning the long-term interests of the DAO and lockers.

1 Like