## Why Delegation

In the past MakerDAO has struggled with voter apathy: Executive proposals wouldn't pass. The potential consequences of voter apathy range from being irksome (say, some non-critical payment being slightly delayed) to protocol-threatening (think a patch for a severe vulnerability just not getting applied).

## Requirements for the Role

Delegates can be of two types:

- **Shadow delegates**, who are permisionless, untracked, and uncompensated. They have no code of conduct to abide by.
- **Recognized Delegates**, who must meet a series of requirements to be recognized as such.

These are the requirements for the latter, extracted from [one of the foundational forum posts that kickstarted it all](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/delegation-and-makerdao/9429):

> Recognised Delegates must adhere to a list of requirements managed by the Governance Facilitators of MakerDAO. In exchange for adhering to these requirements, they are integrated directly into the official [voting interface](https://vote.makerdao.com/), [discourse forum](https://forum.makerdao.com/), and [chat platform](https://chat.makerdao.com/) and highlighted to MKR holders that may want to delegate.

> Note that Recognised Delegates can be pseudonymous (but not anonymous), so long as they meet the requirements below. These requirements are not a terribly high bar, and consist of the following:

> - **Sharing contact details.**
> - **Publishing a [delegate platform](https://forum.makerdao.com/tag/delegate-platform) post.**
> - **Appearing on a live call to speak to MKR holders and community members to answer questions about their platform.**
> - **Publicly agreeing to follow a [Code of Conduct](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/recognised-delegate-code-of-conduct/9384).**

> In addition, the Governance Facilitators will track participation and communication metrics for each recognised delegate. These metrics will be displayed on the official voting UI, resulting in a soft requirement for Recognised Delegates to participate in as many votes as possible, and communicate their reasons for voting to the MakerDAO community.

## Incentives

Recognized Delegates are incentivized to participate through monetary compensation. For each Recognized Delegate, compensation varies according to two variables roughly defined as follows:

- **Participation**: How many proposals have they voted on.
- **Communication**: How many of their votes have had their justification publicly stated.

Additionally, compensation is positively correlated with MKR weight. Details on incentives can be found on [MIP61](https://mips.makerdao.com/mips/details/MIP61).

## Stats

Out of a total of 189 delegates, 24 are Recognized Delegates --- that is, compensated delegates whose stats we keep track of. At the moment, Recognized Delegates wield a voting power of 73192.32 MKR, i.e., ~43% of the total delegated MKR. For perspective, the total delegated MKR is ~17.35% of the total MKR supply.

Six Recognized Delegates hold ~38.6% of the MKR delegated to Recognized Delegates.


The reason there's only 21 data points in the above plot is that three Recognized Delegates 0 MKR delegated to them at the moment.

## Tracking

GovAlpha keeps track of two variables just mentioned above.

**Participation** is verified on the [Voting Portal](https://vote.makerdao.com/) for each proposal. **Communication** is verified on the [Recognized Delegate platforms](https://forum.makerdao.com/tag/delegate-platform) in the forum.

Platforms are forum threads where Recognized Delegates initially introduce themselves to the community and later engage with it and share the rationales for their votes. Recognized Delegates are responsible for the maintenance of their platforms.

These two variables are kept track of by using [this public spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E-VBZFN_N7cj60-wMze2yR1fBDWVs_QoPn-aS5Y-1pM/edit).

## Our Assessment

### The Good

1. Since the introduction of the delegate framework, MakerDAO has stopped struggling with executive proposals getting limboed, which has derisked governance and unstuck its dynamics. We have not seen proposals balking in a long time.
2. Delegating, undelegating, and becoming a delegate (either a shadow delegate or a Recognized Delegate) have been designed to be painless experiences. As far as we can tell, everyone has found these to be transparent and easy.

### The Less Good

1. A small number of Recognized Delegates hold a lot of voting power. Ideally it should be more evenly distributed.
2. At the time being, there is not much geographical diversity amongst Recognized Delegates (and presumably neither amongst shadow delegates). This is something we would like to see change in the future and there are efforts in that direction underway (the Ambassador Program is currently working with people from South America who are interested in becoming Recognized Delegates).

## Other Resources

- https://vote.makerdao.com/delegates
- https://forum.makerdao.com/t/delegation-and-makerdao/9429
- https://forum.makerdao.com/t/mkr-holder-s-guide-to-delegation/9602