In the Cosmos Ecosystem, scammers have been using governance proposals (typically with fake airdrop sites) to steal user seed phrase and tokens. Agoric is no exception.
Currently, Agoric’s proposal deposit is 500 BLD (about $65). This is too low. Here are some benchmarks:
I propose to raise Agoric’s governance proposal deposit from rom 500 BLD ($65) to 5000 BLD ($650)
Feedback welcome. Thanks!
Osmosis has a split system so to speak; 400 initial deposit and a 1600 total deposit. One wallet is required deposit 400 OSMO, but many wallets can contribute towards to fulfill the remaining 1200 OSMO that is needed to initiate voting.
Osmosis Governance Proposal Deposit CommonWealth Discussion: Commonwealth
After scanning through the discussion, it seems like 400/1600 was set because of a technical setting that required a 25% of the total deposit amount to just to upload the proposal, and that because of how most people view prices/costs, a 400 OSMO would likely be more effective at preventing spam proposals than a 375 OSMO.
It has been nearly 10 months since Osmosis has raised the deposit amount. Personally, I believe Osmosis should revisit the issue as a lower deposit amount should be just as effective in preventing spam proposals. A lower deposit would not only help democratize governance more, but lower the cost of participation and reform/change.
The primarily reason I believe a much lower deposit amount would be just effective is that there are chains like EVMOS, Comdex, Omniflix, Regen, and Umee, which have significantly lower deposit requirements (in dollar terms) than Cosmos, Osmosis, and Axelar, and don’t appear to have problems with spam proposals.
Additional Benchmarks:
Evmos (3,500 EVMOS) ~$350
Comdex (3,000 CMDX) ~$105
Umee (100,000 UMEE) ~$440
OmniFlix (1,000 FLIX) ~$150
Regen (2,000 REGEN) ~$140
That being said, I don’t believe raising the amount to 5,000 BLD is necessary, and is rather excessive. Personally, think a 750 BLD (or ~$109), which would be a little more than Comdex’s in dollar terms, would be sufficient to effectively prevent spam proposals.
Increasing the deposit period length from 2 days to 14 days could possibly be effective in preventing spam proposals as well. Cosmos, Osmosis, and Regen all have 14 days deposit periods. Comdex has an 8 day deposit period. I think it would be really interesting to see what effect a 14 day deposit period would have, as I think it would be quite effective. Like everyone else, proposal spammers have a limited amount of resources. If proposal spammers are simply recycling the same 500 BLD over and over again, simply tying the deposit up for a longer period of time should reduce the amount of spam proposals overall.
Perhaps if more voters and validators started voting No with Veto so that proposal spammers loose their deposit, neither the deposit amount nor deposit period needs to be increased. This could be a job for the Polkachu Intern on Twitter and shame validators that aren’t voting No with Veto on spam proposals.
totally agree on increasing deposit amount
i’ve shared such proposal on Feb 21, 2023 on discord
in my opinion 200$ would be a sweet spot to prevent spam proposals
I will try to put a proposal for 2000 BLD on chain. That’s about $250. It it is voted down, we will then try a smaller amount.
This seems like a good plan. Thank you!
I know that support for “separate fees to create and fund a proposal” is in engineering’s Todo list, so that will eventually be an option. This is a good change in the meantime.
And thank you for that!
Ihmo Polkachu’s proposal is reasonable.
5k BLD maybe is too much, but it should be at least 150-200$ to prevent spam proposals. They are really annoying 
Please do it, we will happily vote Yes. I think it will pass easily.
Agree with this proposal!