Badge Distribution for Second Airdrop

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

SUMMARY

There are two options under consideration for this proposal:

• Replace the current “unique emails seen” scheme for the premium subscriber airdrop of 87M BANK 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 of 87M BANK with an even distribution to 2020 and 2021 Bankless Badge holders as of 5/31/2021 at 11:59pm UTC.

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:

1. 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.

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

3. 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 and accuracy 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)

• BANK not claimed within 90 days of claims going live will be surrendered back to the community treasury.
• The snapshot for 2021 Badge addresses will be taken from here

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)

• BANK not claimed within 90 days of claims going live will be surrendered back to the community treasury.
• The snapshot for 2021 Badge addresses will be taken from here
• The snapshot for 2020 Badge addresses will be taken from here

Distribution Amount

The amount of BANK allocated is set to 29% of the retroactive distribution (87,000,000 BANK) per the announcement post.

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
• The Genesis Squad will 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.

VOTE

• 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.

• AGAINST

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

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.