Governance Security

[Patrick]

It appears that governance security will continue to become exponentially an important topic. Without transparent governance security I do not believe that true deregulated networks will exist since they will be managed by centrist invisible levers of control. Unless governance security is recognized and implemented and actively championed, it can be theorized that a true deregulated future will not continue to manifest.

To discuss governance security we should define the importance of unique users. Unique users are users that represent a 1:1 embodiment of a unique consciousness output of creative thought energy writing onto a network. Governance security aims to maintain a network of unique users expressing the secure network ratio of a 1:1 creative thought embodiment of input. Governance security embodies the actual general consensus of unique users.

Investopedia defines “the network effect is a phenomenon whereby increased numbers of people or participants improve the value of a good or service.”

“According to the online course Economics for Managers, the term network effect refers to any situation in which the value of a product, service, or platform depends on the number of buyers, sellers, or users who leverage it. Typically, the greater the number of buyers, sellers, or users, the greater the network effect—and the greater the value created by the offering.”

Wikipedia continues to explain “network effects are typically positive, resulting in a given user deriving more value from a product as more users join the same network.”

Some examples of network effects:

E-Commerce: Amazon, eBay, Nike.com, NFT.Coinbase.com, Groupon

Delivery: Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash

Social Media: Facebook, Instagram,

Rideshare: Uber, Lyft

All of these examples are examples where unique users define the value of the network. What the definitions of network effect fail to point out but most likely assumed as a constant is the importance of unique users versus the absence of synthetic representations of unique users within a healthy network. A true network of value cannot be represented by false representations of unique users and be ultimately sustainable long term. When a network is flooded by a false representation of unique users like bots flooding a social media network, the network eventually suffers a large-scale devaluation. It can be deduced that unique users define the true value of any network and are prejudiced towards synthetic representations of unique users and the misleading consensus of interest that they may represent.

Ultimately governance security aims to preserve network value and the growth of its value while protecting against network devaluation and the constructs that help lead to it. What governance security aims to defeat are the formations of illicit poolings of entities often described and labeled as a cartel. Cartels have been seen to be a primary point of toxicity in true value network growth, see the current FTX debacle produced by their organization’s network of unique users managing their operational system. A cartel historically has been defined as “a coalition or cooperative arrangement between political parties intended to promote a mutual interest”. Within the advent of digitization the ability to form “bot” armies to represent false unique users has brought on new challenges in maintaining the secure network ratio of a 1:1 creative thought embodiment of energy input within a network.

It does not need to be argued in depth how a false portrayal of unique users and or a false general consensus within a governance model to be proven problematic and therefore a massive catalyst towards a road of devaluation. Therefore it should not need to be aggressively championed that governance security needs to be an important focus for general consensus adoption to take place. Our society is riddled by issues formed through the divisive nature of cartels.

Governance security begins with the underlying understanding of the importance in protecting the existence of the unique user within a governance model. A unique user is protected by ensuring that a unique user’s energy cannot be replicated and its efforts multiplied by a synthetic factor. A synthetic factor is the action to replicate one’s 1:1 embodiment of unique creative energy input on a network by creating a false representation of unique users often accomplished by creating “bot” armies.

On the discord forum within the governance section it was once brought up to create a governance NFT vetting mechanism. Many months later Vitalik Buterin released a paper on Soulbound tokens. Such identifier NFT’s and or Soulbound tokens will be used to identify users and their skill sets, reputations, histories and preserve the existence of verifiable unique users on networks. Through the use of non-transferable identifier NFT’s we can ensure that the governance vote is a 1:1 embodiment of expressive creativity input within the governance voting model.

At the present time many governance models are based around the principle that the most amount of staked tokens from the most unique wallets will decide ultimate general consensus. In the future it will be shown to be important to define the general consensus basis deriving from the amount of unique users formulating the general consensus vote.

Currently nothing stops a user from creating a bot wallet army which initiates a false group ultimate consensus representation within a governance vote. To remedy this problem a governance NFT token vetting process can be proposed. A NFT token vetting process is one of which a NFT is minted which encapsulates necessary information to verify that a unique user is participating within a governance vote. By staking a NFT identification governance token a user is allowed to vote within a certain voting epoch for a particular ZEIP.

Depending on particular ZEIP’s, the attainment of a NFT identification governance token may exhibit varying levels of security protocols. Future ZEIP’s will vary in importance and the skill set requirements that the ZEIP may require to cast a meaningful vote. It cannot be expected that all unique users can and should understand the context depth of every future ZEIP. Therefore meaningful votes are secured through the use of a NFT identification governance token.

A NFT identification governance token can store identifier information about unique users such as:

• ZRX amount a unique user holds
• Proficiency exam scores
• Reputation
• Skill sets credentials
• Personal identification information

Unanimity towards identity exposure and or the degree of anonymity that successful future governance models will allow will be exploritive with time. It does appear that the use of NFT governance identifier tokens with a certain combination of encoded information will allow degrees of anonymity to exist while preserving the necessary transparency to ensure unique user patterned activity void of cartel manipulations. This being the ultimate goal of governance security.

[ericwong]

@Patrick I agree with you in the general sentiment that governance security should be and is one of the most important aspects to design for to create a sustainable ecosystem that can help 0x protocol continue to create enduring value.

There are certainly a lot of different approaches to security including the one that you mention (NFT based), each with their own sets of pros and cons. I don’t believe that there is a silver bullet to governance security and what will work best is bespoke to each project - 0x protocol’s value, user base, types of expertise required, etc. is unique from any other project; that is to say that the right solution might not have been explored yet.

But taking the step back, completely agree that a transparent and secure governance system is one of the guiding requirements!

[Patrick]

@ericwong It is great that you are expressing interest in this very important topic of governance security. I agree that at this time there isn’t a clear solution. However, there are some good possibilities of direction that we can explore to begin to whittle away towards the apex solution. In order for us to be able to reach a conclusive consensus on the direction that governance security will take we need to begin to define some consensus truths that may be able to help guide us towards the right path of solution realization and implementation.

Our first consensus truth that we as a community can agree on is that governance security is an important variable that needs to be capitalized on in order to preserve the true deregulated nature of governance and its sustainment of possible future success. Please if anyone can make a case for the lacking need of governance security then please do so so that we can revisit the discussion of this adopted consensus truth through deductive reasoning.

The next probable consensus truth that we can debate is the state of anonymity among the unique users within a network that promotes governance security. Does anonymity have a place among a secure network being managed through a deregulated governance model free of cartel controls and manipulations? I believe that anonymity is an important condition to resolve before being able to explore further the ideas of how to erect a successful governance security framework. The condition of the anonymous unique user if approved as a consensus trait among unique users of a secure network will be an important keystone that will help guide the development of the governance security framework.

I believe to answer this question we need to understand how currently most societies function to create trusting interactive relationships among the interacting individuals of a society. The key identifying label that stands out among individuals is their name. A person’s name is the hallmark identifier of the attributes that make up the characteristics of interactivity with an individual person among a functioning society of unique users. When you hear a person’s name you immediately index a variety of attributes within your mind about that person which help you decide whether there is enough “trust” for you to engage with this person within certain levels of varying interactivity. If a person’s name does not produce enough attributes for you to validate “trust” within a person then the strong likelihood exists that you will not engage in interactivity with this person(s).

Should a governance model allow any user to vote without validation? Without validation how does a governance model protect itself from the manipulations of cartel like behaviors?

The prominent attributes that come to mind that help develop trust within an individual which guides you towards conclusive affirmation to interact with a person on varying levels are appearances, skill sets, reputation, accolades, and… What other types of key important attributes come to mind that help resolve an individual’s will to interact with another person?

If a secure governance deregulated model is going to utilize the validation of unique users by other than their name label and the attributes that each name preserves to validate unique users. Then some type of marker will need to exist that will capture the attributes of a unique user that will help validate a unique user towards achieving voting rights for a certain governance vote epoch.

Based on deductive reasoning logic it does not seem plausible to preserve a secure deregulated governance state without the validation of key attributes of each unique user participating within the governance of a deregulated governance system network framework. Based on this direction it is apparent that some type of container needs to exist that can encapsulate the necessary attributes per each unique participating user that will assist the network governance system in validation of unique users for specific governance voting epochs.

What types of containers come to mind that can encapsulate certain attributes and meanings that would help in validation. Historically some societies would provide special tokens to their participants which would grant specific privileges observed by the society. Tokens were often unique and contained certain security designs to prevent replication and manipulation of these tokens. Tokens given were cherished and carried great personal value.

At this time it is the ERC-1155 token standard that comes to mind which can possibly support the encapsulating of attributes needed for a governance security framework to help in assisting the validation of unique users towards governance voting epochs. It may be discovered after further debate that the ERC-1155 token standard is lacking and may need to be expanded upon with feature sets that best help support the encapsulation of a unique users attributes towards validation, the updating of these attributes, and the implementation of security features that help track against cartel like patterned behavior.

At this time further deductive logic points towards the use of a tokenized system that would encapsulate validation attributes of each unique user participating within the secure governance framework proposed model. This seems to be the only way to move forward if anonymity would be persevere. I do believe that based on the logic presented that it is entirely possible and preferable to preserve unique user anonymity through the use of “tokenizing validation attributes” among unique users.

With the community’s consensus agreement that a tokenized validation model could be the most efficient way towards developing a secure governance framework we can begin to discuss ways that tokens such as the ERC-1155 token standard can be used to validate unique users towards specific governance epochs. I am interested to here more feedback.