Should privacy be protected from token voting?

Ecosystem & Strategy
1

wanted to bring up something important after reading Vitalik’s comment about token voting and privacy.

sharing the link here: https://x.com/vitalikbuterin/status/1995063062165135675?s=46

the point he makes feels very relevant for namada. token-weighted governance usually pushes the ecosystem toward whatever gives a fast price boost, even if it undermines privacy or long-term values. markets are plutocracies, and they’re not great at protecting civil liberties. if removing some privacy guarantees pumped the token 20%, the median holder would probably vote “yes” tomorrow.

right now namada uses 1 NAM = 1 vote. that’s fine for many things, but it raises the question of how we protect core privacy properties and masp guarantees from decisions made purely through short-term token incentives.

i’m just wondering if there’s a plan or at least ongoing thinking around this. things like: some privacy rules being constitutional and not up for a simple vote, or having a values layer / safeguard above token voting, or defining which parts of the protocol should not be changeable by stake-weighted majorities.

feels like now is the right moment to discuss it, while the network is still young and flexible. curious what the community and core contributors think.

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2

Hey, just off the top of my head:

Interesting point, and well worth discussion. Perhaps even more so the general point about short-term focused voting in other areas than the core privacy offered. Imo that aspect (privacy) is more difficult to change by governance vote, since it’s embedded into the protocol codebase fortunately.

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