[PROPOSAL #87][ACCEPTED] Increase Deposit Amount for Cosmos Hub Governance

Proposal Deposit Concept: • For governance proposals to enter voting, a proposal must be submitted with a deposit of the amount defined by the min_deposit param in the governance module before the deposit end time. • A proposal minimum deposit can be contributed to and submitted by multiple different accounts, not just a single, and it does not have to be fully submitted by the proposer account. • The proposer account is only required to deposit ~1 ATOM . Deposit Refund and Burn Concept: • If the proposal is approved or rejected but not vetoed, each deposit will be automatically refunded to its respective depositor, transferred from the governance ModuleAccount. • If the proposal is vetoed with greater than 1/3 (33.4%) of voting power, deposit(s) will be burned from the governance ModuleAccount and the proposal information along with its deposit information will be removed from state. Proposal to Increase Deposit Amount: By the time of writing and at the current token price value, the minimum deposit costs 64 ATOM or approximately 750 in USD equivalent, which currently appears to be inadequate at preventing spam proposals and marketing proposals. With the…

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Makes sense. Price is too low now.

Is this an issue at this point in time? Cosmos governance looking at the proposals on chain looks kinda clean to me. The latest bunch of proposals comes from people who can spend both the 64 or the 400 ATOM deposit, so that won’t stop it…

And if we want to do it; Osmosis and Juno require both approx $2000-$2500. So maybe 200 ATOM is then more in line with the rest of the ecosystem? Lowers the barrier for community led proposals at the same time.

Wasn’t the original idea to make it more accessible? =)

I am in favor of raising the deposit amount on the Hub, but I would lean towards something like @LeonoorsCryptoman 's suggestion closer in line with the other zones.

Unfortunately, this will prevent some but not all spam proposals. I hate to say it, but the only effective way to prevent spam is a combination of higher deposits and Vetos. But we also don’t want to start a Veto war.

As we raise the deposit amount, we need to make sure community members are aware of crowdsourcing deposits through easy interfaces like Ping.Pub.

We could also think about something more drastic by raising the deposits much higher, which would then encourage multiple depositors and ensure that proposals going on chain have support from more than just one party. Almost is like a version control mechanism, as it wont receive enough funding until there is enough support to raise the deposit. On chain governance is HARD. It shouldn’t have an impossibly high barrier to entry, but it also shouldn’t be easy to throw low quality material on chain.

Do we have guides how people can work together for community deposits on a governance proposal?

This isn’t a great idea. Community literally has bigger things to worry about now. Putting it that high does nothing but restrict the pool of those that can put up proposals

But is spam really that much of an issue?!

I don’t know that there’s an easily accessible source for this. Great idea on something to have.

Ideally, someone should build a fill in box interface that does all the editing and formatting. Allows form pooling of deposits and is as easy as using osmosis to put up a prop.

You safeguard the ease of use with the proper deposit. This can also serve as a version control/proposal lifecycle as it needs to get support from X tokens before being able to going fully on chain.

Did you see some of the proposals that went on chain for the hub?

Governance should be easy & open, but the actual props that make it all the way on chain should be worth everyone’s time.

It’s certainly been an issue in times of contention. The main point is for people to make thoughtful proposals that don’t detract from important topics - regardless of what their views are.

Having a higher fee reduces the instances of shotgun governance and front-running and spam.

Totally agree with you though - having something more in alignment with Osmosis / Juno makes sense (though ATOM does have a significantly larger Market Cap and proposals live on-chain much longer)

200-300 ATOM might be the sweet spot.

isnt NWV to address spam? what is next, KYC to vote?

As a point of clarification - the mechanism by which NWV is intended to address spam is by burning the deposit.

I believe the author is saying that the deposit is small enough right now that people are not deterred by having their deposit burned - it could be viewed as simply the cost of advertising to lose 64 ATOM (750 USD). If the deposit is increased, NWV would probably become even more effective since the depositor would lose more money by getting vetoed.

a proposal to limit the voice of community participants feels like spam to me. Atom isnt Terra yet. why should the pretentious be the only ones with a voice?

Yes some of the votes that went on chain were pretty silly - but honestly this is like fixing drapes while the house is burning. Its literally not even in the top 10 of issues right now. Out of 86 props there been what, 4 “spam-like” props? This vote itself is basically spam

How is it we are saying the deposit is too low, meanwhile prop 82 just burned the proposer’s deposit when the proposer had the most votes? Shouldn’t we fix the issues with no with veto first?

And note that the spam props did not get NWV. So their deposit is safe, while prop 82, which had a majority Yes vote was NWV and their deposit burned…

yoda:

Yes some of the votes that went on chain were pretty silly - but honestly this is like fixing drapes while the house is burning. Its literally not even in the top 10 of issues right now. Out of 86 props there been what, 4 “spam-like” props? This vote itself is basically spam

We need to fix no with veto before we increase the deposit…

I consider the current “payment for attention” acceptable. There is no need to raise the “tariff”!

I see your point in trying to ensure that any proposals going up for voting are carefully thought-out and worked through, 400 ATOM is a lot to risk being burnt.

And yes, I can see how campaigning/crowdsourcing funds is actually preferrable over low-cost (i.e., 64 ATOM) individually-funded proposals, as the former approach is more likely to encourage collaboration and discussion right of the bat. That’s pretty much how it should be anyway. At the same time, you don’t want to make this effort too substantial.

What I would say is that jumping from 64 to 400 ATOM per deposit is perhaps a tad too much? Could go, say, halfway and see what impact it might have. From what I can tell, proposal spam isn’t a massive issue anyway.

Citizen Cosmos had voted NO on this. The idea is to make governance accessible. Im all in for sacrificing spam VS accessibility and simplicity. There is (almost) nothing worse than the inability to say what you want.