# Hack For Freedom Submission

## Name of Project
Liquid Democracy: Vote Delegation on Aragon

## Project Description
We've created a new organization template for Aragon that enables users to easily deploy and manage Liquid Democracy DAOs + a platform for engaging with and managing these DAOs. Our implementation of Liquid Democracy on Aragon offers meaningful improvements over current voting implementations:
1. Scale voter participation by quickly setting up a new **Liquid Democracy Organization** containing a **Delegable Voting** app which allows voters to delegate their votes to representatives who can vote on their behalf.
2. Optionally, separate areas of concern and improve voter representation by easily enabling multiple **Departments** (delegable voting apps) to enforce different governance rules - allowing for progressive decentralization and voter/delegate specialization

#### Vote Delegation Grows Governance Participation Rates
Direct democracy does not scale. Voters with little voting power often believe that their votes do not matter or that each vote is not worth the cost to cast. Liquid Democracy, on the other hand, scales participation through representation. Delegable voting is time and resource efficient.

Voters have the option to vote directly on issues or delegate their voting power to someone they trust to vote in their interests. Our implementation of Liquid Democracy allows small token holders to meaningfully participate in governance by delegating their votes to a representative.

#### Fluid Delegation Incentivizes Diligent Representation
Representative democracies were started in ancient Greece and the systems are still in use today. Election days are infrequent, expensive and inflexible compared to the possibilities that exist if democracy were fully digital. Liquid Democracy on Aragon offers a key advantage to voters: if the quality of your representation changes, make your voice heard right away.

Liquid Democracy voters do not have to wait for the next election day to improve their representation. Instead, Liquid Democracy voters can undelegate their votes at any time. Delegates are constantly incentivized to represent their constituents well or they will lose their delegated voting power. Naturally, voters can verify that a delegate is acting in their interests with on-chain voting records.

#### Focus Specialists with Separate Areas of Concerns

While a voter may feel strongly represented by a delegate on one topic (e.g. changing the interest rate model of a DeFi lending platform), the voter may be uncomfortable delegating their voting power for the purpose of other areas of concern (e.g. determining which ERC-20 tokens to support on a DeFi lending platform).

Liquid Democracy allows DAOs to fully separate areas of concern with Departments. Departments are separate apps with distinct governance rules, members, and permissions. This is an especially useful tool for progressive decentralization or making decisions that require very specific, but separate sets of domain knowledge.

Voters who are only knowledgeable or care about particular areas may choose to delegate to more knowledgeable users in one Department, while participating directly in another.

## Project Team
Chris Piatt - smart contract + subgraph developer
* Github: https://github.com/pyython
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/chpiatt

Caleb Sheridan - front-end developer
* GitHub: https://github.com/calebsheridan
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/calebsheridan

## Live Demo
Live Platform Demo:
https://liquid-democracy-staging-dot-handy-reference-234917.ew.r.appspot.com/

If you would like to connect a wallet to play around with the app, [import one of these private keys into your MetaMask](https://medium.com/publicaio/how-import-a-wallet-to-your-metamask-account-dcaba25e558d) and change your network to Rinkeby:
* edb2fa708c92b59e8ef11ad776931f053748fc064fb6fdb044c4c65aa3b540b1
* 0ec0c9cc134405adf0a8861274aeada1bda0a2aecffffa177899cf86c61d654f
* 15eda8c3b8197379a8cfa6394a83cb7fc00d8618ef44604c1eff103fc03781b7

(Don’t worry, they’re just burner accounts we’re using for testing, go crazy! Just make sure you keep an eye on your delegable balance if you try to delegate; someone else may have already delegated your balance for that department. Undelegate first!)

## Aragon App Demo Video
Delegable Voting App Walkthrough:
https://www.loom.com/share/f8ff81e9103b477d88ffad7b3351d0b3

## Code
Liquid Democracy Aragon Template:
https://github.com/blocklytics/liquid-democracy-aragon-organization-template/tree/master/templates/liquid-democracy

Delegable Voting (Department) Aragon App:
https://github.com/blocklytics/delegable-voting-aragon-app

Delegable Token Manager Aragon App:
https://github.com/blocklytics/delegable-token-manager-aragon-app

Subgraph:
https://github.com/blocklytics/connect/tree/master/packages/connect-thegraph-delegable-voting/subgraph

Liquid Democracy Platform Front End:
https://github.com/blocklytics/liquid-democracy-front-end

## Other Links
Liquid Democracy Subgraph:
https://thegraph.com/explorer/subgraph/blocklytics/aragon-delegable-voting-rinkeby

Example Aragon Org:
https://rinkeby.aragon.org/#/compound-finance/0x32c458518c6ce3c2403ad54cc1d069987e4f7323/

## Future Work
We have a number of goals for future development of this template and platform.

Some key items:
* Support multiple levels of delegation (delegates can re-delegate their voting power). This would likely require a phased approach, as there are some fundamental limits to the Ethereum platform (namely, gas limits) that must be overcome:
* The first phase would require setting hard caps on the length of delegation chains (i.e. delegates can only re-delegate a maximum of three times).

* The next phase would likely require using an oracle to keep track of delegation chains, although it may be possible in the near future to use an L2 solution with a stronger trust model like Aragon Chain or ZK proofs.
* Richer stats + engagement on our platform. We see this platform as having tremendous potential to help voters find and vet delegates for the networks they care about. Users will want to know more about a given delegate’s voting record and ideology. Similarly, delegates will want tools to connect with voters and demonstrate their expertise in a given subject area.

* Implement a ‘function library’ for each Department of whitelisted smart contract functions the voting apps have permission to execute directly upon passing of a vote
* Add nuance to votes by allowing voters to include a git-commit style message explaining their reason for voting a certain way. We would host this data on IPFS, giving immutable transparency to the thinking behind every vote.
* Reduce gas cost for votes/delegation. This is a major deterrent for onchain voting systems (particularly as gas prices on Ethereum continue to soar). Delegation already helps in this area (because not every voter has to vote to have their voice heard), but the friction is still too high. Again, this is an area where L2 solutions will help tremendously. We’re excited about Aragon Chain in particular in this area.
* Sybil resistance. This is hugely important to enable DAOs with more open membership models. Our current preferred approach here is to support a bring-your-own identity verification model to allow organizations to choose the level of proof that makes the most sense for their organization (anything from linking social profiles to full KYC).

## Issues/Questions
If you run into any issues while playing with the demo (i.e. a test account runs out of gas) or if you have any questions/comments, don’t hesitate to reach out:

Chris Piatt
[e-mail]

Caleb Sheridan
[e-mail]