Badge-Based Distribution for Subscriber Airdrop (FINAL)

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NOTE: If you are concerned about people missing the initial badge claim, please go here: Airdrop for Badges Claimed Between May 4 - 31

Authors: @lambda @EliteViking
Collaborators: @0x_Lucas @0xHouston
Read the Discord discussion: Discord
Date: 5/7/2021

SUMMARY

There are two proposals under consideration:

  • Replace the current “unique emails seen” scheme for the premium subscriber airdrop with an even distribution to 2021 Bankless Badge holders as of 5/31/2021 at 11:59pm UTC.

  • Replace the current “unique emails seen” scheme for the premium subscriber airdrop with an even distribution to 2020 and 2021 Bankless Badge holders as of 5/31/2021 at 11:59pm UTC. Under this proposal, 2020 badge holders would receive 2x more.

BACKGROUND

While the initial airdrop was meant to reward those who took the initiative to claim their badges, we still want to recognize people who subscribed to Bankless, even if they forgot to claim. This is why the original email-based distribution scheme was proposed (pro rata amount based on “unique emails seen” per Substack).

Unfortunately, the above approach has several shortcomings:

Some of our community members utilize privacy software that blocks Substack’s ability to track newsletter engagement. This means their newsletter activity wouldn’t have been recorded and thus they would receive a disproportionately low/no allocation in the airdrop.

Additionally, many Bankless fans prefer to listen to podcasts on YouTube, etc. and therefore their engagement wouldn’t be reflected in the airdrop.

Lastly, Bankless DAO is currently looking for community members to perform outreach in order to collect ETH addresses for the second airdrop. In terms of privacy, this is inferior to badges in which the association of claim URL to ETH address is obfuscated by POAP, which doesn’t display the claim address for a particular link. The inferior privacy of email-based distribution leads to an inconvenient experience if users wish to return BANK to their primary wallet while preserving pseudonymity. Collecting addresses needlessly expends the labor of DAO participants that could go toward more productive activities.

MOTIVATION

A badge-based scheme achieves a more equitable distribution of tokens since it doesn’t rely on inaccurate proxies for engagement. This aids in the credibility of the DAO in the eyes of its members and the general public. Given the Bankless ethos, we shouldn’t penalize users who take extra steps to protect their privacy online.

Moreover, our DAO should be equally inclusive of those who have auditory learning styles instead of biasing toward those who prefer to read.

Due to the superior privacy of the badge-based distribution mechanism, it is inherently credibly neutral and decentralized. It’s not enough to evangelize the virtues of decentralization as a DAO; we must embody them as well.

SPECIFICATION

2021-Only Distribution

  • On 5/31/2021 at 11:59pm UTC, a snapshot will be taken of all addresses on ETH and xDAI that hold the 2021 Bankless Badge POAP.
  • For each address, a count of the total number of badges held by that address will be computed.
  • The total number of badges held across all addresses will be summed.
  • The share of BANK to be allocated in the airdrop will be divided equally amongst all addresses according to the following formula:

BANK claim = (87M BANK / Total # of badges) * (# of 2021 badges held by address)

  • BANK not claimed within 90 days of claims going live will be surrendered back to the community treasury.

Rationale behind switching to 2021-only:
After we locked the original thread, it came to our attention that it’s no longer practical to obtain 2020 badges. Due to technical difficulties, not everyone was or ever will be able to claim their badge. Details here: Discord

There are also some in the community who have expressed that 2020 badge holders have already received quite a generous airdrop, and going with 2021 only will allow the DAO to be more decentralized by making it viable for those folks to access the discord. As such, we believe the best path forward is a “true even” split among all subscribers based on the 2021 badge. I also recognize that the original naming of the “even distribution” proposal was somewhat confusing. This proposal is intended to resolve any ambiguities.

2020+2021 Distribution

  • On 5/31/2021 at 11:59pm UTC, a snapshot will be taken of all addresses on ETH and xDAI that hold the following POAPs:
    • 2020 Bankless Badge
    • 2021 Bankless Badge
  • For each address, a count of the total number of badges held by that address will be computed.
  • The total number of badges held across all addresses will be summed.
  • The share of BANK to be allocated in the airdrop will be divided equally amongst all addresses according to the following formula:

BANK claim = (87M BANK / Total # of badges) * (# of badges held by address)

  • BANK not claimed within 90 days of claims going live will be surrendered back to the community treasury.

Distribution Amount

The amount of BANK allocated is set to 29% of the retroactive distribution (87,000,000 BANK) per the following graphic:

distribution
distribution1200×742 59.9 KB

NEXT STEPS

  • Bankless DAO shall announce the new distribution scheme on its public social media properties:
    • Medium
    • Twitter
    • Substack
  • Bankless LLC, Ryan Sean Adams and David Hoffman are strongly encouraged to announce the new distribution scheme as well:
    • Podcasts
    • Discord
    • Medium
    • Twitter
    • Substack
  • A DAO member shall be appointed by the Genesis Squad to oversee the computation and distribution of BANK.
  • Once the computation is complete, the airdrop should be available within the next seven days.
  • Ninety days after the claim site goes live, claims will be deactivated and remaining funds surrendered to the community treasury.

CONCLUSION

Fair genesis is critical for the perception and longevity of any DAO, so it’s important that we get it right. The current proposed subscriber airdrop is flawed in several ways. This proposal more closely aligns the distribution scheme with Bankless values while addressing the concerns of our community members. Vote “For” to help assure the future we all want.

POLL

FOR (2021-only)

Abandon the “unique emails seen” distribution scheme in favor of the 2021-only scheme described above.

FOR (2020+2021)

Abandon the “unique emails seen” distribution scheme in favor of the 2020+2021 scheme described above.

FOR (Either one)

You would be OK with either of the badge-based proposals passing.

AGAINST

Nothing changes; preserve the status quo of using “unique emails seen” and manual collection of ETH addresses by DAO members.

New Poll

  • FOR (2021-only)
  • FOR (2020+2021)
  • FOR (Either one)
  • AGAINST

0 voters

Old Poll (closed)

  • FOR
  • AGAINST

0 voters

FAQs

Doesn’t this mean that people who already received BANK will get a second airdrop?
Yes, however, that would be the case under the current genesis proposal as well. This proposal is only concerned with the distribution mechanism, not the target audience of the second airdrop.

Won’t this cause a rush of new subscribers who are only interested in claiming BANK to dump?
No. This is known as a Sybil attack and is impossible under this proposal. Anyone who subscribed in May or later would only be eligible to claim their badge on June 1st or later, which is after the deadline.

Shouldn’t we be providing extra compensation to those who forgot to claim their badge? People who already claimed are double dipping.
This is a controversial topic and a distraction from the main purpose of this proposal, which is to get away from the email-based allocation scheme. If the DAO wants to provide additional compensation for those who forgot to claim their badge, that should be a separate proposal.

What happened to the duration-based option?
Forum polling indicated that this was relatively unpopular compared to the “even” proposal, trailing with around half the votes. Given that the “even” proposal has a simple majority, we consider this sufficient to move forward with a formal vote. It’s impossible to have a solution that satisfies everyone and the “even” proposal has the broadest support. In the original poll with no duration-based option, it achieved >80% approval.

Does this mean that users who bought badges on the secondary market would receive more BANK?
Yes, however, this is believed to be quite rare. There’s no practical way to exclude such cases, so the only way around this would be to issue a new NFT, which has its own set of issues (an extra step for many people to claim). Even if we went this route, people could still choose to speculate on the value of their new badge on the secondary market. As a result, we believe using the 2021 badge is our best option.

AUTHOR BACKGROUND

In my day job, I am a backend software engineer in growth at a FANG company. I am deeply passionate about crypto and its ability to manifest financial liberation for humanity, which is why I am so excited about Bankless DAO. Crypto has instilled in me a sense of purpose and contribution that little else has, and I pledge to strive for the advancement of Bankless values.

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I disagree with the decision to drop 2020 badge holders. While I agree that 2020 holders have already received a generous airdrop, so too did 2021 badge holders. The original email-based approach was aimed at providing $BANK to engaged community members. I think, given the current badge-based approach, multiple badges represents greater engagement. Airdropping only 2021 badge holders simply creates inflation - in other words, it accomplishes the same outcome for DAO members, in terms of voting influence, as canceling the Premium airdrop; except that the treasury has fewer resources.
I suggest that we reconsider this approach. We want more $BANK in strong, engaged hands.
…just my humble opinion.

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I AM FOR this agreement. The E-Mail based proposal was flawed from the start.
While you can discuss the necessity of a second drop, I find this gives everyone who was a premium subscriber a fair second chance at their slice. It also encourages Bankless behaviour (Wallets), as people who were more engaged get additional claims, as they had claimed their 2020 Badges too.
If you are not able to claim your token, even with all the guidance of the provided materials, I doubt you should be holding Bank tokens. No excuses, there are many good souls who help with all kinds of things on the Bankless Discord.

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Valid point, but if we are going down this road we can also make a case/point for those who were issued a badge in 2020 but did not claim it, yet were engaged and/or attentive to the cause. I think this proposal will encourage and engage more talent to further progress the movement.

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My belief is that if you were engaged, then you claimed your badge. Period.

To be clear, my belief is that if we’re not going to make a distinction based on tenure, then we should just eliminate the additional subscriber airdrop. An equal distribution to all existing $BANK holders just creates inflation… and it costs money to implement. Why not keep the $BANK in the treasury to be used for compensation for actual contributions? Otherwise, reward multiyear engagement.

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I am AGAINST airdropping myself more tokens.

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This keeps coming up, so to clarify: you’ll be airdropped more tokens regardless, per the genesis proposal that passed with >99% support. This proposal is strictly concerned with the mechanism by which that will happen.

If you disagree that the second airdrop should happen at all, please make another proposal to cancel it.

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I’m against excluding 2020 badge holders. I think there needs to be some sort of weighting system here. The original intent was emails opened - longer subscriptions means more emails. I am AGAINST this proposal if it doesn’t include a weighting of BOTH 2020 and 2021 badges

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If the main argument to not use email “seen” is of privacy then; as OxHouston said, we need 2020 badge holders to be rewarded for being early. I have likely read and consumed way more Bankless content in 2020 than I am now. It will not be fair to drop 2020 badge. I also find it a bit odd those who are privacy conscious for not using aliases emails/generic emails rather than using their main email for everything. I don’t mind email snapshots :slight_smile:

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@0xHouston @0xBorderless @0xOxus - This is a controversial topic and several folks, including @0x_Lucas (genesis squad), davoice321 (discord) and @Ap0ll0517 prefer the current solution over one that includes 2020 badges.

Personally, I am in favor if it since it will allow more new people to enter the DAO and participate. Given the difficulty related to claiming the 2020 badge, I feel this is more in the spirit of the original proposal, even though there is now no relation to engagement or tenure.

Given we’re at roughly 80% support I believe this is a “good enough” solution that satisfies the most people.

I’d be inclined to move forward with a snapshot vote soon.

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Understood, @lambda. I would categorize my opinion on this matters as “high conviction, loosely, held.” It certainly is “good enough” and the real redistribution of $BANK will come from future community involvement, no doubt! Thank you for moderating this discourse!

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Very Well done, agree.

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Is there a recap of why people don’t want to include the 2020 badges? I haven’t been able to track down the argument to exclude them.

I understand sticking to badges vs emails for privacy reasons, but don’t understand why 2020 should be excluded entirely.

Looking at a few of the cases from my perspective:

  • If you hold both a 2020 and 2021 badge, then you would receive more BANK if they were both included, which seems in line with the original spirit of reflecting engagement.
  • If you held a 2020 badge but didn’t claim your 2021 badge, you’re somehow cut out of this second airdrop which makes no sense to me. What’s the reason this is better or fair?
  • If you only subscribed in 2021 and have a 2021 badge, the only thing including 2020 badges does is reduce the amount of BANK you would receive, but presumably not by a massive amount since there simply aren’t that many 2020 badges out there (I’m assuming this is the case, but presumably we can get an actual number?)

Without more clarity as to why it makes sense to exclude 2020, I would vote AGAINST this particular version of the proposal. I thought the version I read before included both, which I am supportive of.

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One of the key reasons for this is that due to technical difficulties, not everyone was able to claim the 2020 badge. @0x_Lucas therefore suggested that we transition to this new scheme. More details here: Discord

In general, I agree with you, which is why the original proposal was structured the way it was. I think the technical issues throw a wrench in that, unfortunately.

This isn’t accurate - you still have time to claim your badge :slight_smile: As long as you claim before May 31, you’ll be fine.

This is highly dependent on the number of subscribers and how many badges we’ll have when the snapshot is taken. I remember @0x_Lucas expressing it would be just shy of 35k, but I’d lean on him for a better estimate.

Apologies for the confusion. We’re still working through the best way to announce these changes. I did call it out on discord, but probably could have made a more explicit warning in the proposal itself. I’ve added a disclaimer to the top to avoid further confusion.

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@lambda, @0x_Lucas, @0xBorderless, @0xOxus , et. al.,

Perhaps the best way to proceed would be to give the community a vote for 2021 ONLY vs. 2020 and 2021 distribution.? We seemed to skip over that in the lead-up to this vote.

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I think this is true. people who were with us from the begining need some more weight. I think the badges are a perfect representation of ENGANGED viewership.

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I am kinda on the fence about this one. If someone was not able to claim their badge, why are they just now popping up? Seems like their mistake and now they don’t want others to claim theirs ^^
I don’t want to put you guys on the spot, but if you subbed since 2019 i believe you should get more than myself if i subbed from march 2020.

Keep up the work, but this one could have gone better.

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I guess I’ll put a proposal out there… getting clarity on the preference.

@acolytex3 @unknownunknowns @0xOxus @0xBorderless - if I draft a competing proposal would y’all like to collab on it?

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From what I heard, he went back and forth with support quite a bit on this in early 2021 and wasn’t able to get it resolved. We don’t have hard numbers atm of how many people fell into this camp. It’s not a case of negligence, nor did they just pop up recently.

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Thanks for your efforts in this whole ordeal. looking forward to more streamlined processes. ha ha ha

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