MakerDAO Enforces Delegate Anonymity

Over 88 percent of votes cast on Sunday afternoon favored approving the proposed changes. Voting will conclude on Monday.

MKR holders are eligible to vote on protocol changes in the Maker ecosystem. They can, however, delegate their vote. These delegates operate similarly to politicians.

Representatives have more power, and the more MKR holders they can convince to hand over their votes, As part of the modifications to the MakerDAO voting mechanism championed by co-founder Rune Christensen, it will be prohibited for delegates to reveal their identities publicly.

Any representative found guilty of such conduct would forfeit their average compensation.

In addition, a whistleblower bounty would award half of the sacrificed payments to anyone who helped identify breaches of anonymity or rule violations.

Christensen argued in favor of enforced anonymity in his posts to the MakerDAO governance forum. According to him, the new rules will prevent delegates from abusing their voting power.

“The point is that potential attackers, bribers, etc., should not be able to determine which companies or individuals to target,” Christensen wrote.

He added that enforced anonymity would prevent people from accumulating power through “real-life personal connections or social politics.”

Ultimately, the new rules will pass with a majority vote. However, the concept of enforced anonymity has its detractors.

For example, a Maker community member known as CodeKnight has pointed out that the bounty system risks inviting doxxing.

They explain that because it rewards those who expose infringements of anonymity rules, the proposal could encourage people to dox delegates.

Such a move “will create an environment where people are suspicious of each other and collaborative activity is risky,” they argue.

They go on to state that delegates may unintentionally expose their identities. As CodeKnight puts it, enforced anonymity may penalize more active representatives simply because they have more opportunities to make mistakes.