One of the things about crypto-governance tokens is the fact that they are supposed to be used to govern... and not just sit around being staked as passive income for a number go up sell event. You know... the hint in the name of the type of the token!

I try to be a decent voter/governance stakeholder in the systems that I have tokens in... but it is a real pain in the arse to stay current across so many different networks and protocols. It is a full time job, and I'm afraid that I'm more than happy with my current day job! However, I have started to be much more active on the Cosmos chains in the last few months... as I've gotten quite annoyed by the Polkadot user interface. I've said it before, and I will say it again... I don't care which might be the better technology, but the user interface REALLY matters! Cosmos is cleaner and much much less confusing... and I'm technically minded, so I can imagine that people who have a less technical background would find it even more frustrating!

Anyway... back to the point. Juno is a smarts contracts layer for Cosmos... and over the last couple of weeks, it was discovered that a centralised entity (which were supposed to be excluded from the Juno airdrop for ATOM stakers) had collected the Juno airdrop due to the distributed nature of its wallets and managed to get a nice drop of JUNO tokens. Now, it turns out that these JUNO tokens were later consolidated into a single wallet address, thus proving that the ownership was a single entity.

It later came out that these JUNO airdrop tokens weren't being passed onwards to the people that it was custody for ... and were both sold and staked. Anyway, all around it didn't look good... and it was claimed that the entity had gamed the airdrop.

Fast forward to Proposition 16, which put forward the question of whether or not to "correct" the mistake by stripping the unintended drop of JUNO tokens via a fork.

It is a tricky question, and the debate has split the community a bit... there are many that are in favour, given that the JUNO whale was not supposed to have received the airdrop in the spirit of the airdrop... but since the airdrop HAD taken place, the tokens were already distributed and would stripping them amount to "theft"? Plus, it wasn't clear how committed the whale was to the JUNO ecosystem...

Thorny questions...

In the end, I was tempted to vote "Yes" to strip the tokens... as I do think that "code is law" is a bad policy. Community governance and appeals are the softer end of governance... and to rely on "code is law" is just rigid ideology. Plus... most people can't code or interpret code, so it is not really a good defence either!

However, I'm not sure that voting to strip anyone of their assets is a great thing either... even if we did do it to create our little home here.... still, a under forked system, anyone can choose which home they prefer.

So, in the end, I was leaning towards Yes... but at the last minute I chickened out and voted for "Abstain". I was not 100 percent sure after the blog post from the JUNO whale that we had all the evidence to prove that the stakedrop was "gamed". It was definitely badly allocated and went to a centralised entity when it shouldn't have... but that was not due to gaming, just the way that the whale had spread out their ATOM staking. And that would have been the fault of the JUNO developers, community and team...

... so, in the end, I found not quite enough evidence to strip the assets... and voted with the Abstention. However, in the end, I believe that "strip" vote did pass...

I can also be found cross-posting at:
Hive
Steem
Publish0x

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
FTX: Regulated US-based exchange with some pretty interesting and useful discounts on trading and withdrawal fees for FTT holders. Decent fiat on-ramp as well!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Huobi: One of the largest exchanges in the world, some very interesting listings and early access sales through Primelist.
Gate.io: If you are after some of the weirdest and strangest tokens, this is one of the easiest off-chain places to get them!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
Stoic: A USD maximisation bot trading on Binance using long-term long strategies, powered by the AI/human system of Cindicator.
StakeDAO: Decentralised pooled staking of PoS assets.
Poloniex: One of the older regulated exchanges that has come into new ownership. I used to use it quite a lot, but have since stopped.
Bitfinex: Ahhh... another oldie, but a goodie exchange. Most noted for the close affiliation with USDT and the Basic "no-KYC" tier!