As outlined in the CoGov announcement post, Weeks 7-9 of the ongoing collaborative governance redesign process will focus on outlining the foundational infrastructure and mechanisms of GoodDollar governance and GoodDAO. This will be the third and final phase of CoGov.
The priorities for this area are:
- Governance mechanisms, including the future of the GOOD token
- Participation incentives and funding flows
- Onboarding and communication infrastructure
- Platforms and tools that fit our needs
Similar to Weeks 1-3 and Weeks 4-6, the purpose of this post is to provide guided discussion questions and propose ideas that will: 1) help us address these priorities, 2) deliberate during the upcoming community call, and 3) collaboratively work towards a new governance system for GoodDAO.
I. How do we promote a more inclusive, capture-resistant governance process?
- Proposal: We replace GoodDollar’s token-weighted voting (governed by the GOOD token) with one-person-one-vote (governed by verified accounts).
- What this means: Instead of assigning governance power by an account’s amount of staked G$, leverage GoodDollar’s identity verification to distribute GoodDAO membership badges that carry equal weight in governance (one per account).
- Follow-up question: Should we meet somewhere in the middle with a mechanism such as quadratic voting with staked tokens?
II. How do we ensure execution efficiency alongside a decentralized governance structure?
- Proposal: Move to an optimistic approval process that is led by committees and remains accountable to primary stakeholders.
- What this means: High-context committees or groups of experts pre-screen and approve proposals relating to their area—decisions which are then subject to veto by the wider community of governance participants.
- Follow-up question: What additional risks or vulnerabilities does this governance process introduce, and how can we mitigate them?
III. How do we build a structure that incentivizes participation and maximizes shared value?
- Proposal: We build a “network alignment system” between projects with shared values and a shared exposure instrument.
- What this means: Have a select group of projects aligned with the GoodDollar mission stake G$ in exchange for “community UBI” distributions and governance power.
- Follow-up question: How should projects use these financial flows in order to promote the mission and growth of the GoodDollar ecosystem?
I hope these ideas will represent the start of a productive conversation among all members of the community. Feel free to reply async to this post with initial feedback and make sure to join the community call on January 29th where we will discuss further.
See you all on the call!
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Interesting, however notice that it seems to me that at least one person or group in Bangladesh has gained control of hundreds or thousands of GoodDollar verified accounts. That group/person could put all the controlled accounts to vote for one choice, gaming the expected goals of the mechanism.
I say this after observing a possible Sybil attack by a group in Bangladesh using GoodDollar verified accounts. When learn.tg launched a new UBI requiring GoodDollar or self.xyz verification on January 9 2026. We saw suspicious user growth: 11 new users on the 10th, 91 on the 11th, and 192 on the 12th (see the graph User Growth Timeline). I reported privately 40 suspicious addresses to GoodDollar on the 11th.
After implementing IP logging, I identified and blocked 8 IPs from Bangladesh on January 16th (reported them in the learn.tg Telegram group). However, attacks from other Bangladeshi IPs continued (reported also in the learn.tg Telegram group). As a result, learn.tg has since January 18th switched to using self.xyz exclusively for Sybil resistance, while GoodDollar implements something to prevent this situation.
A possible scenario for how an attacker could collect many GoodDollar verified addresses is by paying a small amount to people in need to perform the facial verification on the attacker’s phone, creating new wallets controlled by the attacker. Afterward, the attacker could transfer these wallets to a laptop and program a script that use them for automated collection or voting.
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GOVERNANCE PROPOSAL: COMMITMENT THROUGH BURN & VOTE PROTECTION
​1. CORE PHILOSOPHY
The goal is to enable the free circulation of GOOD (buying, selling, and transferring) while ensuring that decision-making power remains with those who demonstrate genuine commitment. This is achieved through two key mechanisms: a Commitment Cost (burning tokens to vote) and a Seniority Filter (preventing whales from purchasing immediate influence).
​2. GENERAL BURNING RULES
Burning is mandatory every time a user exercises their right to vote, whether per individual proposal or per voting period (monthly/annually). Burned tokens are permanently destroyed, reducing the total supply and increasing ecosystem scarcity.
​3. VOTER CATEGORIES
​A. Legacy GOOD Holders (Current Holders)
For those who already hold the token at the time of implementation:
- ​Burn Rate: 3% per voting action.
- ​Example: If you vote with 1,000 GOOD, 30 GOOD are burned. Your effective voting power is 970.
​B. New GOOD Holders (Staking, Purchase, or Transfer)
New users choose between two paths:
- ​Fast-Track Option (Immediate): No time requirement. Burn rate is 5% (2 points higher than legacy). Voting power is limited to 20%–30% of their total balance. (Example: With 1,000 new GOOD, you can vote with 250, burning 12.5 tokens to exert a 237.5 vote weight).
- ​Standard Option (Maturation): Requires 12 months of continuous holding or staking. After this period, users gain Legacy status: 3% burn rate and no percentage limit on their voting power.
​4. KEY BENEFITS
- ​Sustainable Deflation: Higher participation leads to a lower token supply.
- ​Anti-Whale Protection: Discourages last-minute manipulation by making immediate voting more expensive and volume-restricted.
- ​Incentivized Loyalty: Rewards long-term holders with lower costs and full voting weight.
Below is a summary of the third and final CoGov community call, in which we discussed design considerations for the infrastructure and mechanisms of GoodDollar governance and GoodDAO. Here is a recording of the session.
Agenda
Key Components of GoodDAO 2.0
- Execution Layer:
- Governance Committee, Treasury Committee, & GoodLabs
- Accountability Layer:
- House of Alignment & House of Citizenship
- Community UBI distributed to member projects in House of Alignment
- Optimistic proposal approval process (including veto power for both Houses)
- One-person-one-vote for UBI allocation, committee selection, and vetos
- A Governance Transition Program to be implemented in the coming weeks
Key Discussion Topics
-
One-Person-One-Vote
- Strength: greater alignment with GoodDollar’s values of inclusivity & equality
- Weaknesses: limiting available mechanisms for decision-making, dissatisfaction of long time contributors who feel that they don’t have enough voting power
- Opportunity: momentum in localized identity & UBI tooling
- Threat: identity farming
-
Network Alignment System
- Strength: clear path to scale UBI in a way that can reach its ultimate goal while being immediately impactful
- Opportunities: Supporting the localism movement with G$ distributions, bring in partners from multilateral organizations (e.g. Unesco) searching for innovation on UBI
- Threat: funds received by member projects not used to drive value back to GoodDollar
-
Governance Structure
- Strengths: Multicameral governance helps balance diversity of opinion/background, simplicity & transparency
- Weaknesses: too Web3-native that may alienate people from outside the industry, participants afraid to challenge proposals for social reasons, lack of clear division between bureaucracy (rules that automatically apply) and human deliberation
- Opportunity:
- Threats: malicious governance practices (e.g. proposal & veto spamming), governance apathy / burnout
Next Steps
- Sam to draft a CoGov Retrospective, detailing the discussions and takeaways from the collaborative governance redesign process
- Sam to publish a formal GoodDAO 2.0 document and roadmap and make available for further community input
- Community to continue providing feedback on the new governance structure and GoodDAO 2.0 either in the forum or the Telegram governance group chat!