What Is Cosmos (ATOM)?

In a nutshell, Cosmos bills itself as a project that solves some of the “hardest problems” facing the blockchain industry. It aims to offer an antidote to “slow, expensive, unscalable and environmentally harmful” proof-of-work protocols, like those used by Bitcoin, by offering an ecosystem of connected blockchains.

The project’s other goals include making blockchain technology less complex and difficult for developers thanks to a modular framework that demystifies decentralized apps. Last but not least, an Interblockchain Communication protocol makes it easier for blockchain networks to communicate with each other — preventing fragmentation in the industry.

Cosmos’ origins can be dated back to 2014, when Tendermint, a core contributor to the network, was founded. In 2016, a white paper for Cosmos was published — and a token sale was held the following year. ATOM tokens are earned through a hybrid proof-of-stake algorithm, and they help to keep the Cosmos Hub, the project’s flagship blockchain, secure. This cryptocurrency also has a role in the network’s governance [1].

Question

Governance in the Cosmos Hub has gotten spicy, to say the least. Despite gaining the support of some of the most influential names in the space, Prop #82 was rejected after more than 1/3 of voters chose "NoWithVeto".

Take a look at governance behavior surrounding Proposal #82 - specifically first time voters and vote switching. Is it possible to identify any key "swing voters" (ie ATOM whales or influential validators) that really turned the tide of the vote? Were any of them first-time voters?

What is the average wallet size (in ATOM) of the people voting? Of the people who changed their vote? Further, is Prop #82 significantly different than other proposals from an engagement perspective? Analyze voting for Cosmos #82 vs. other recent governance proposals in the Hub. Has overall governance participation increased or decrease since Prop #82?

Finally, have ATOM holders re-delegated their staked ATOM as a result of the vote? Highlight any interesting patterns in re-delegation activity.

Introduction

Governance Votes

The following items summarize the voting options and what it means for this proposal:

• YES - You approve of and wish to ratify the contents of the proposed paper
• NO - You don’t approve of the contents of paper. Please indicate why on the Cosmos Hub forum.
• NO WITH VETO - A ‘NoWithVeto’ vote indicates a proposal either (1) is deemed to be spam, i.e., irrelevant to Cosmos Hub, (2) disproportionately infringes on minority interests, or (3) violates or encourages violation of the rules of engagement as currently set out by Cosmos Hub governance. If the number of ‘NoWithVeto’ votes is greater than a third of total votes, the proposal is rejected and the deposits are burned.
• ABSTAIN - You wish to contribute to quorum but you formally decline to vote either for or against the proposal [3].

Summary of Proposal NO. 82

We propose a new Cosmos Hub vision document, a counterpart to the 2017 paper which focused primarily on the network of IBC-connected chains. With the creation of the Cosmos Stack (Tendermint, IBC, and SDK) and the development of key technologies for secure economic scaling (Interchain Security and Liquid Staking), the original vision of the Hub has been fulfilled. This document marks the transition to the next phase of the Cosmos Hub as an infrastructure service platform, and a renewed role for ATOM as preferred collateral within the Cosmos Network. It describes two pieces of app-specific functionality, the Interchain Scheduler and Interchain Allocator, which together form a flywheel for accelerating interchain growth. The Interchain Scheduler is a cross-chain block space marketplace, which generates revenues from cross-chain MEV. These revenues are used by the Interchain Allocator to capitalize new Cosmos chains, foster interchain collaboration, and thereby expand the total addressable market of the Scheduler. This paper also describes a new issuance regime optimized for Liquid Staking, where after a 36 month transition period, exponential issuance is reduced to a constant amount of ATOM issued per month. To administer the proposed plan, the paper describes the formation of Cosmos Councils, domain-specialized entities that carry out development and operations. Cosmos Councils together form the Cosmos Assembly, a body that is accountable to ATOM holders, responsible for setting yearly goals, resourcing, and administering work undertaken on behalf of Cosmos Hub [2].

Everything about Proposal Number 82

Methodology

I will investigate proposal number 82 on the Cosmos hub that this user cosmos1et60e8cmehzcdhyluk0lnkzzye5jj7zj3a00cn submitted this proposal which was ultimately rejected by the community.

I will be looking at some major criteria, e.g. total number of voters, total number of votes, number of first time voters, daily stats for each voting option, cumulative data from Cosmos and in particular proposal number 82, the activity of the validators on this proposal, comparing proposal number 82 with another proposal and etc.

If you have any questions, you can call me or message me on Discord.

My Discord Handle: Berg#0013

Observations

• in terms of investigating behavior of validators for voting to this proposal, about 75 Validators voted to Yes option after it No With Veto had second place with about 45, Abstain 15 and Finally No with about 5 had the lowest number of Votes from validators. furthermore, about 54% ratio of Validators voted to Yes Option, 32% to No With Veto, 9% to Abstain and only 5% to No Option. it seems big war was between validators which fought for Enact this proposal and another Validators which wanted to prevent from enacting this proposal with Veto Option.

• the highest number of daily votes number was on 1 Nov and ‘Yes’ had the highest number of votes with about 13.9K but overtime number of votes which voted to ‘No With Veto’ option grown particularly after 10 Nov. also, this situation was true about Voters.

• Cumulative Data: Totally, Option “Yes” had the highest number of Votes with about 56.3K after it “No With Veto” had second place with about 10.9K, “No” had 3K and finally “Abstain” had 1.8K.

• in terms of Cumulative Voters Numbers, “Yes” option had about 51.2K voters, “No With Veto” had 10.6K, “No” had 2.9K and finally “Abstain” had 1.8K.

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Key Insights

• in terms of Average Balance of Voters, on Average each Voters had about 270 ATOM on their wallets as Average Balance of Voters while voters who changed their votes had about 520 ATOM in their wallets. so it seems they had more assets in their wallets.
• in terms of classifying voters by their balances, the highest number of voters belonged to group that had between 10 until 100 ATOM in their wallets and this group was about 20.5K voters after it users who had between 1 until 10 ATOM had second place with about 8.9K and the lowest voters were belonged to group that had between 100K until 1M ATOM in their wallets with about 10 wallets. moreover, the group that had between 10 until 100 ATOM in their wallet had 50% ratio of rate of Participation.
• in terms of classifying voters who changed their votes by their balances, the highest number of voters belonged to group that had between 10 until 100 ATOM in their wallets and this group was about 19.7K voters after it users who had between 1 until 10 ATOM had second place with about 8.8K and the lowest voters were belonged to group that had between 100K until 1M ATOM in their wallets with about 10 wallets. moreover, the group that had between 10 until 100 ATOM in their wallet had 50% ratio of rate of voters who changed their votes.
• about 54.8K Voters did not change their Validators after Voting while about 3.5K redelegate their assets to another Validator. also, about 94% ratio of Voters did not redelegate but about 6% redelegate their assets.
• the highest number of daily redelegate transactions was during Proposal Number 82 with about 445 on 8 Nov. it seems this proposal had positive correlation with number of daily redelegate transactions. moreover, the highest volume of Redelegation of Cosmos was on 7 Nov with about 8M ATOM that redelegate to another validator. this amount was incredible and before and after that moment never happened again at least until now.
• Cumulative Data: Totally Cosmos has experienced about 34K as Cumulative Redelegation transactions since inception also about 16.3M ATOM as Cumulative Redelegation volume and finally about 25K as Cumulative Redelegation Users since inception.

Observations

• This proposal received approximately 70.5,000 votes for which 58,400 voters did so. it appears that some voters voted more than one vote, and on average, voters voted about 1.2 votes per voter. moreover, about 4.4,000 voters experienced the first vote on their own and this group had a ratio of about 7.5% of all voters on proposition number 82, while about 54 000 users who voted in proposal number 82 voted at least one vote before this proposal. furthermore, this group had a ratio of approximately 92.5% of all voters.

Observations

• the highest number of Votes per each proposal belonged to Proposal Number 62 that had 12.2K. this Proposal was about Signal Proposal: Migration of Gravity DEX to a Separate Cosmos Chain and after it proposal Number 60 had second place with about 5.7K. Proposal Number 82 had 4 place with about 4.4K and about 7.5% ratio of all proposal votes since inception. moreover, Proposal Number had the highest number of voters with about 12.5K. that was absolutely a spike in number of Voters and Votes. this Proposal also had 21% ratio of all voters of all Cosmos Proposals. \n

Observation

• in terms of changing votes by voters the highest number of changing in attitude of voters belonged to “Yes” to “No With Veto”. it seems about 3.5K votes converted from “Yes” option to “No With Veto” also it seems they regrated from their previous voted and changed it. this changing had about 58% ratio of all changing options and it illustrates more than half votes that changed, changed to this option. moreover, about 3.3K voters also change their “Yes” votes to “No With Veto”. it was also more than 50% ratio of all changing votes. it seems they realized their consequences of their votes and try to vote wisely.