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In a recent post, I explained the idea (and the technology) behind the Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS). This Web3 protocol aims to provide a missing piece of the decentralized web’s infrastructure: a dedicated communications layer. If you want to learn more about how exactly EPNS works, check out that post, because this time we’re focusing on a crucial component EPNS’ (and every DAO’s) roadmap…

Progressive Decentralized Governance

If you’re familiar with the world of Web3, you’ve probably heard of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). In simplest terms, a DAO is like a digital cooperative, though the structure may also resemble a traditional corporation in some ways. Most notably, DAOs use tokens in more or less the same way corporations use shares.

Tokens indicate an ownership stake in the organization, granting access to voting rights that guide decision-making on anything from treasury management to protocol tweaks to inter-DAO partnerships. In some DAOs, the token holders may even be able to earn a share of revenue generated by the protocol but not always.

The process for launching a new DeFi or Web3 protocol typically follows a similar path of progressive decentralization, that looks like this:

• Launch the protocol (funded by VC, startup incubator, or grants)

• Establish a user-base

• Introduce a token and airdrop it to power users, active community members, investors, and developers (usually with a vesting/unlocking schedule)

• Continue to distribute the token to those aligned with the protocol to further decentralize ownership

• Begin to implement token voting for some aspects of protocol governance

• Transition most/all decision making to token-holders

• Dissolve the original company or fund its operation through DAO-controlled treasury allocations

This is a fairly straightforward approach that makes a lot of sense, and it’s worked well for a number of important protocols like Aave, Compound, and MakerDAO. This too is more or less the approach EPNS intends to take. Let’s take a deeper look at the EPNS governance roadmap.

EPNS Governance Roadmap

In April 2021, EPNS launched the PUSH token through the Token Generation Event which allotted over half of all the tokens towards community distribution efforts. A detailed breakdown of all of the allocations can be found in this post.

On September 16th, 2021, EPNS took the first steps towards progressive decentralization with what they call EPNS Governance Phase Zero. This phase introduces Snapshot voting, and allows community members to participate in three ways:

Grants Program:

Though it did not launch officially until January of 2022, the PUSH Grants program was intended from its conception as a way to guide community funds towards projects that push — no pun intended — the protocol forward. Grants applications are submitted to the community and discussed in the forum before being taken to a vote.

If you’d like to learn more about how to submit a grant proposal, check out this post.

Rockstars of EPNS:

Each week (for 52 weeks starting April 19th, 2021), the biggest contributors amongst the community were eligible to win the title of Rockstar of EPNS. Along with the title, they received a special NFT from a limited collection of 100, and a prize of 2400 PUSH tokens. Recipients of this NFT are also eligible to join the Rockstars of EPNS token-gated channel on Discord and get access to exclusive content before anyone else.

To be named Rockstar of EPNS for the week, one first had to be nominated, with the winner being chosen from amongst the nominees by Snapshot vote.

Meta-Governance:

PUSH token holders vote on and pass measures affecting how the protocol evolves in Phase Zero and beyond. In order to understand the governance process, we’ll need to take a look at two key components: roles and process.

Governance Roles

There are 4 key roles that make up EPNS governance:

PUSH Nominee: Active community members who strongly support the vision of EPNS can nominate themselves to be a PUSH Nominee. PUSH token holders can then choose to delegate their voting rights to any nominee, who can then vote on governance proposals through Snapshot. To nominate yourself, or find a nominee to delegate to, check out this post on the EPNS Forum.

PUSH Delegatee: PUSH Delegatees are active members of the community who have at least 75,000 PUSH delegated to them. They are able to create proposals on Snapshot from drafts that have been approved on the forum. To delegate your voting power to a PUSH Delegatee, to another person, or to yourself, go to the EPNS app dashboard, and click Governance.

PUSH Holders: PUSH holders can delegate their voting power to anyone, including themselves. If they prefer a hands-off role, they can delegate to a PUSH Delegatee to represent their interests. The PUSH Delegatee can be changed at any time.

PUSH Champions: PUSH Champions are active community members that provide support to the EPNS meta governance in various ways. There are 3 categories of PUSH Champions: Community Champions, Team Champions, and Elected Champions. In all three cases, these are individuals or groups that educate and empower other members of the community and help implement a fair governance procedure. Elected Champions are community-voted stewards who will receive some form of compensation for their efforts and the trust they’ve built within the community.

Governance Process

Now that we know who is involved in the governance process, and in what capacity, let’s take a look at the process itself. All proposals go through three phases:

The Proposal Phase

Proposals begin life as a draft proposal on the EPNS Governance Forum. Using the draft proposal template, community members must submit their draft in the Governance Proposals forum. PUSH Champions review the draft proposals to ensure it follows the governance rules.

Once the proposal has been live for at least 5 days on the Governance Proposals forum and has received at least 5 likes, PUSH Champions will move it to the Governance Discussion forum. At this point, we move on to the next phase of the process.

The Discussion Phase

Once PUSH Champions have promoted a proposal to the Governance Discussion forum, the process of public debate can begin and all members of the community are encouraged to participate in discussion.

During this phase, proposals must meet certain criteria before they can become formal proposals on Snapshot. The criteria for consideration are that a post must be live for at least 5 days on the Governance Discussion forum, must receive at least 10 likes, and must have at least 3 replies.

Once these criteria are met, only a PUSH Delegatee (someone with 75k votes or more) can initiate the formal proposal on Snapshot. If the proposer doesn’t have the votes, they will need to find a Delagatee or request a Champion to find one for them. Then the process moves to the final phase.

The Governance Phase

Once a PUSH Delegatee initiates a formal proposal on Snapshot, it can be voted upon and ultimately accepted or defeated. Any proposal submitted to Snapshot must be given at least 7 days for the community to vote on the proposal, however if a quorum of 4% of the circulating supply of PUSH is not achieved in 7 days, the proposal is considered defeated.

Assuming quorum is met, then the decision is based upon the total votes, with the majority decision at the end of the voting period being the accepted result.

Conclusion

If you’ve never participated in decentralized protocol governance, then I’m happy to have pulled back the curtain for you. The process described above is very similar to how other DAO governance processes function. Of course there will always be subtle differences such as the quorum, the length of each phase, and the specific roles and their duties, but for those actively involved in Web3 communities this will likely feel familiar.

Where EPNS stands out is with their community-heavy token distribution, various avenues for participation and compensation, and the transparency with which they operate. If you read my post explaining EPNS and have wanted to get involved, now you know what you need to do to get started. PUSH tokens can be purchased on Uniswap or earned through community involvement and you can always begin by simply joining the Discord and asking questions.

Protocols like EPNS are trying to push web3 forward, but they know from the moment of inception that in order to practice what they preach they need to decentralize. It’s no small task and in order to be successful, it requires a well designed progressive decentralization strategy and a growing community of active participants involved with protocol governance.

If decentralization is the goal, it must also be the focus. With EPNS, it’s clear that this is front of mind at all times and I’m excited to see how things progress.

Until next time,

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This post is brought to you thanks to a grant from EPNS’ Push Grants program 🤝 As always the opinions expressed are my own, I do not work with projects I don’t believe in, and I implore you to do your own research before investing.

To learn more about the Ethereum Push Notification Service, visit epns.io

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