Authors: @setoshi (Set), @heychristopher (1kx), @AcceleratedCapital (1kx) @anon10525910 (Set)
This forum post picks up on one of the actions noted in last week’s Open Letter
It reflects our current viewpoints. We welcome questions and additional information to sharpen these views.
On Delegation
1kx and Set believe that decentralized organizations thrive when their most informed members are empowered in the governance process.
Token delegation is one important tool for empowering such members. We view delegation as a key way to expand the set of participants who have a meaningful impact on governance. Done well, delegation should reduce the surface-level concentration of voting power, and enhance the quality and diversity of perspectives impacting governance. The cumulative impact, ideally, is a higher-quality governing body over the long term. This requires that delegates are high-context individuals who are deeply involved in the organization. They should also be empowered to vote independently from the token holder, and they should vote for the benefit of the organization as a whole.
Thus far, neither 1kx nor Set has delegated INDEX for voting.
- Set took a hands-off approach in Snapshot voting from the very beginning. In retrospect, we believe this was a mistake that created a power vacuum in the Coop that in turn created a need for politicking to get things done.
- 1kx intended to delegate to members of ICC v1 at the start of 2022. However, by the time we were internally ready to delegate, the council term was nearly complete, so we chose to abstain until the subsequent election concluded.
Now, as mentioned in the Open Letter, we will soon delegate tokens to contributors. Separately, Set intends to delegate to member(s) of its team as well. Put simply, our primary objective is to foster the conditions necessary for Index Coop to achieve & maintain long term success. We expect to start small, treat this as an experiment to learn from, and iterate as needed. That said, we envision reaching a sustainable, steady state where delegation decisions are made only a few times a year and coincide with the Council process. While voting and DAOs are political by nature, we hope that the degree of politics in the Coop decreases as more community leaders gain a meaningful say in governance.
Principles & Criteria
Here are core principles and criteria we are keeping in mind for this first iteration.
v1 Core Principles
- Delegate independence - Delegates are empowered to vote independently from token holder views, and in benefit of the organization’s ultimate goals. Delegates will under no circumstances be required to vote in alignment with either token holder (Set / 1kx) or any of either token holder’s delegates.
- Elevate Community Leaders: We believe that the best way to achieve the-above stated goals is to empower Index Coop leaders who best imbue the DAO with leadership and reflect the values necessary to collectively thrive. We aim to delegate to those who have context and continue to create context for those who have voting power.
- Provide ongoing transparency - The Index Coop Community has visibility into the relevant parties (delegates and delegators) and how we select delegates. We encourage other major INDEX holders who delegate to community members also follow this principle.
- Delegate responsibly - We do not aim to overwhelm IC governance by delegating too many tokens. We do not aim to leave delegates without a voice by delegating too few tokens. Further, we will not delegate beyond our operational abilities. This means that on day 1, we do not expect to delegate to every single person who might fit the criteria below.
v1 Delegate Criteria
- Elected to the Index Coop Council
- From core create / grow / maintain functions
- Displays honesty, engages in debate with good faith, and takes a collaborative approach to improvements
- Directional alignment with what it takes for long-term Index Coop success.
What to expect next
We plan to start by delegating to members of the Index Coop Council who meet the criteria shared above and who agree to receive such delegation. We plan to execute delegations 1 week from this post.
We will follow up in this thread to transparently acknowledge delegations & the number of INDEX delegated, once those decisions have been made.
Please note that we (as token-holders) still maintain autonomy of how / whom we delegate to and reserve the right to revoke delegations.
Onwards 
We believe that empowering core contributors in Index Coop governance is an important step in the Coop’s evolution and are excited to learn what does and doesn’t work about how we’re approaching delegation.
Let’s keep pushing to prove that DAOs are the next vanguard of human coordination.