xGov-24 VoteCoin - GitHub tools

Governance xGov Proposals
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Author Ludovit Scholtz (@scholtz)

Category Community

Focus Deployment

Open-Source Yes

ALGO Requested 100000

Abstract

This grant request outlines our proposal to develop innovative GitHub tools that leverage decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) principles and the Algorand blockchain to manage source code through onchain voting decisions. The project aims to empower developers and communities by providing a transparent and efficient platform for collaborative decision-making and consensus-building.

The proposed solution centers around the utilization of Vote Coin standard on the Algorand blockchain to facilitate onchain voting processes. By integrating Vote Coin standard into GitHub’s existing infrastructure, we aim to create a seamless experience for developers, allowing them to propose, discuss, and vote on various aspects of source code management directly within the GitHub platform.

The key objectives of this project are:

Integration with GitHub: We will build a set of tools and interfaces that seamlessly integrate with GitHub’s existing functionality. These tools will enable start of DAO vote on each Pull Request, and after end of the voting session with positive DAO result, the merge of the pull request.

The successful implementation of this project will revolutionize source code management by introducing a transparent and democratic decision-making process within the GitHub ecosystem and all Algorand onchain communities. By leveraging the power of Vote Coin and the Algorand blockchain, developers and communities will have a platform to collectively shape the evolution of software projects. We believe that this project has the potential to foster collaboration, innovation, and consensus-building within the software development community, leading to enhanced quality and inclusivity in code development.

We kindly request your support in the form of a grant to bring this project to fruition and contribute to the advancement of decentralized governance within the software development ecosystem.

Link for details

1 Like
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I’m somewhat confused by this proposal. I know MakerX is releasing the xGov voting UX, which ostensibly would be fed from the GitHub ARC 34 Repo. This sounds to me like it would be redundant besides the voting encryption from VOTE coin (if I understand correctly). Hopefully @scholtz can describe the intended workflow in a step-by-step manner so we can more thoroughly evaluate this proposal.

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MakerX is company built/financed by Adri to provide xGov platform? I have not seen any product from them yet.

In opossition, i have tried to propose transparent voting 2 years ago… See this thread on this very forum for example. From this i have created the first version of the vote coin project and deployed to mainnet in summer of 2021 (one of the winner projects at encode hack). Algorand foundation ignored this as a whole and implemented the governance platform later that year with simple model (only vote casts are stored to the blockchain). No questions onchain, no delegation of voting power,… In Dec 2021 i was lucky to be in the encode accelerator with with the vote coin project, and i created basically platform for daos to manage their own daos with their tokens. I have started the VoteCoin DAO and the vote coin token.

I was lucky to receive a grant for the vote coin project to implement encrypted voting. The requested grant amount was cut in half by the foundation because start of the bear market, and real money received was like 80% of invoiced amount because algorand has the moving average price calculation and do not pay according to the invoices. But the project was delivered and now anyone can cast votes onchain in encrypted form.

At the start of this year I was asked to provide “Request for proposal”, where they wanted to do the NFT council onchain. I did not win that competition even though my proposal would not have any price impact on algorand (i offered them to buy vote coins, and vote coin/algo price went up like 50% since than) and i have the product basically ready for them. However MakerX won that competition. I have still not seen their product (the RFP has strict deadline end of february). Anybody can share some technical specs how they do it? I have asked them to publish the winning RFP, but i was not lucky with it. My conspiracy theory is that the Adri/AF has selected them even before the competition and they tried to do RFP just to feel more compliant…

Right now the vote coin token is in top 10 tokens at vestige (currently 7th between Bank token and Vestige token). There has been over 1000000 transactions with vote coin token, because it is perfect for arbitrage opportunities… There are low LP fee pools of Vote/Algo, Vote/USDC, Vote/GoBTC… We are distributing Vote coin to Vote coin holders (10% APY), and vote coin AMM LP holders 10% - 50% APY according to the LP fee (1% = 10%, 0,01% = 50%)… With this we try to help algorand DeFi ecosystem to grow.

I recomend going to the original proposal… There is more information. Adri copies here only the abstract.

Milestones:

  1. GitHub tool to start onchain voting question.

  2. Github tool to track the result of the question and approve or deny Pull Request

This technically means that when someone creates a Pull Request to DAO managed codebase on github, the DAO question will be put to the blockchain and DAO members can vote on it.

When the voting session is finished, the pull request can me merged to the codebase.

Benefits for the community

  • Transparent Decision-Making: The integration of onchain voting tools using Vote Coin standard on Algorand will bring transparency to the decision-making process within the GitHub community. Developers will have visibility into proposed changes, discussions, and voting outcomes, fostering trust and accountability. This transparency will enhance community collaboration, enabling stakeholders to contribute meaningfully and have a say in the direction of software projects.
  • Inclusive Participation: The onchain voting tools will promote inclusive participation by giving developers of all levels of experience an equal opportunity to contribute to decision-making processes. By providing a user-friendly interface and educational resources, the tools will empower individuals to actively engage in shaping the development of software projects, regardless of their technical background or previous governance experience.
  • Efficient Consensus-Building: The decentralized nature of the onchain voting system will facilitate efficient consensus-building among community members. Rather than relying on traditional off-chain discussions and consensus mechanisms, the tools will enable real-time voting and decision-making, accelerating the feedback loop and reducing the time required to reach agreements. This efficiency will result in faster iterations and smoother project progression.
  • Community Empowerment: The introduction of onchain voting tools will empower the algorand community by decentralizing decision-making processes. Developers and stakeholders will no longer need to rely solely on project maintainers or centralized authorities to make crucial decisions. Instead, the tools will enable collective decision-making, allowing the community to shape the project’s direction and prioritize features or improvements based on the majority’s consensus.
  • Enhanced Project Governance: By integrating Vote Coin and utilizing Algorand’s blockchain capabilities, the onchain voting tools will provide a robust and tamper-proof governance framework. The immutability and security offered by blockchain technology will ensure the integrity of voting results, preventing manipulation or fraudulent activities. This enhanced project governance will instill confidence in the community, attracting more contributors and fostering long-term project sustainability.
  • Ecosystem Growth: The introduction of innovative GitHub tools that leverage blockchain technology and decentralized governance will position the GitHub ecosystem at the forefront of cutting-edge software development practices. This advancement will attract developers and communities seeking transparent and democratic decision-making processes, thereby expanding the GitHub user base and fostering a vibrant and thriving ecosystem.
  • Additionally, the integration of onchain voting tools using Vote Coin on Algorand will contribute to the growth and recognition of the Algorand ecosystem as a whole. Leveraging the advanced features of Vote Coin, such as delegation of voting power and encrypted voting, will showcase the robustness and versatility of the Algorand blockchain technology.
  • Furthermore, as the GitHub community embraces the onchain voting tools and experiences the benefits of decentralized decision-making, it will create a positive feedback loop for Algorand. Increased adoption and usage of Algorand’s blockchain for governance purposes will foster network effects, attracting more developers, organizations, and stakeholders to explore and utilize Algorand’s technology stack. This, in turn, will contribute to the growth and expansion of the Algorand ecosystem, establishing it as a leading blockchain platform for decentralized applications and governance solutions.
  • Vote Coin project boost: Marketing from grant application from the Foundation will lead to more awareness of the Vote Coin standard for onchain voting and DAO management. This will have positive impact on all algorand onchain communities, the vote coin project, and the Algorand ecosystem as a whole.

Overall, the implementation of onchain voting tools using Vote Coin on Algorand will bring numerous benefits to the community, including transparency, inclusivity, efficiency, empowerment, enhanced project governance, and ecosystem growth. By embracing decentralized governance principles, the GitHub community can tap into the collective intelligence and creativity of its members, leading to better software projects and a more engaged and fulfilled developer community.

Additional information

It is ok for us to be paid after the project is developed and working.

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Algoanna was invited to test the platform (cant find the link right now unfortunately) by using it for a DAO vote. and afaik the platform is supposed to be open source when its ready

XBallot by headline is live on testnet (https://demo.xballot.net/), tried it out and works really well.

and your platform is already live on mainnet (whithout github integration). i wonder why we as a community need sth that integrates github as its main focus? especially after xGovs voted against using it as a place to discuss xGov proposals. for devs github would be great but why for the normal DAO member?

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I was also invited to review the MakerX xGov platform. I can say the UX appears to be good and expect it to be even better before launch.

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it is about having DAO voting solution which is efficient. Vote coin allows creating delegation wisdom tree where every account can reference its voting power to other account in categorized manner. You do not want in every vote DAO makes for every member to get to know the proposal. This would die quite fast as people does not have time to study everything.

Another cool feature of the vote coin is encrypted voting. Do you think there is reason why government elections are not public?

If DAO is efficient it can handle decision making on daily basis. We need to change the codebase? Lets have a vote. People who are delegated with IT category can vote with wisdom and vote on this with fully backed support from whole community.

Allowing to manage git repositories with onchain voting enables many new usecases for DAOs and token creators. For example you can create token and with the token manage the trust of other tokens. Currently the trust verification is centralized in RandLabs and Pera… If you would say that you accept the pull requests for example with AlgoFam token and community would vote on which tokens are legit and which are scams, and the data would be stored on github accessible by anyone, it would be good for community… Right?

To enable such usecases we need onchain git management.

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For the record I just found the reddit post with xGov info.

https://www.reddit.com/r/xGov/comments/142hezk/xgov24_votecoin_github_tools_scholtz_co/

Anybody knows about any other location where discussion may be going on?

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I know this is off-topic here, but this is the first place I see the analogue between encrypted voting and government elections.

I’m wondering what problem does encrypted voting solves in reality:

  • encryption makes it impossible for public to read the votes vs. in elections all the votes can be read
  • encryption makes it impossible for anyone (except the one holding the keys) to verify the counts vs. in elections the votes can be counted by anyone
  • encryption does not hide the fact that someone voted or what the vote was vs. in elections the vote cast is disassociated from the person who cast it

So, all in all, the problem with the encryption is that you have to actually disclose your vote to someone who you don’t want it to be disclosed.

@scholtz Ludo, have you though about solving the problem of anonymous voting with zero knowledge proofs instead of encryption?

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Hi Mark,

Encrypted voting solves the issue of affecting decision making while voting session is live.

There are two use cases:

  1. if person A votes in favor, and person B votes against, at the end of the voting session person C can come in and decide and this decision making power gives him extra incentive to change the result of the vote
    In government election imagine that there is election Trump vs Biden, and in your state if the votes were calculated live would be that only 10 votes will decide. It is much easier to bribe 11 people to make decision in one favor during the election date if this would be going this way.
    In short those who vote last has higher decision power than those who vote first.

  2. imagine that there is big algo whale who controls high portion of the voting power. If he votes first, it reduces will to participate in the decisions for other governors because they would feel that even if they do some decision they will not change the direction. People want to follow majority and feel that their decision has won, so affecting the decision in early stages may bring more power to the will of the whale.
    In short the early voting may break the decision power and influence others.

The encrypted voting at the vote coin standard is meant primarily to hide live voting results during the voting session. After the voting session the encryption key should be published with the results message. If done this way, anyone can see how each account has voted. The should is there for reason for governmental elections because they may for example decided that only very closed group can be able to verify the electronic results.

For governmental elections I assume there must be anonymization process in place where there are generated accounts for each person and noone will know which account is held by which person. There will be just information that this account is legit for this elections. The closed group with access to algorithms for account generations must be different than closed group who can read the results and this way i believe can be done governmental elections in secure and auditable way.

ZKP will not solve the issue for example if person A has voting power 1, person B has voting power 2, person C voting power 4, and person D voting power 8. When you know the results that the sum of votes in favor is 10 and against is 5 you can always target who voted how. Also I believe that any type of encryption will be broken in some time. This is the reason why I am not trying to hide information “how person voted”, but only protect the influence of people during the voting session.

1 Like