The Road to Decentralized Governance

Swell City is in our sights!

Our arrival will mark the end of the Voyage, the launch of SWELL, and the genesis of the Swell DAO.

From this point, the influence of core contributors will begin to be minimized, and governance power will gradually be transferred to token holders through progressive decentralization.

In the process, protocol transparency will be enhanced and centralized points of failure reduced – helping create a truly decentralized ecosystem that reflects the collective interests of its contributors.

Swell Token

SWELL is the token used to govern the Swell protocol and secure Swell L2.

Staked SWELL will secure the Actively Validated Services (AVS) — such as EigenDA and others — that provide strategic infrastructure services to Swell L2.

In addition, SWELL will be the governance token for the entire Swell protocol, enabling decision-making to be distributed across the community.

To help promote a healthy token distribution, SWELL tokens earned through The Voyage (8% of total supply) will be allocated primarily linearly, with the number of tokens received depending on the number of Pearls held. Within this 8%, the distribution will be weighted towards the most aligned and long-term community members. This weighting will be in the form of a loyalty bonus, which will scale according to multiple factors including time spent deposited in Swell.

Swell DAO

Swell’s approach of progressive decentralization aims to gradually reduce centralization across all aspects of the protocol — including governance, node operator diversity, and Swell L2.
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Swell DAO will be at the center of this transformation. Voting power in the DAO will be proportional to the amount of SWELL held, with more tokens giving a greater ability to influence decisions by submitting and voting on governance proposals.

This governance power will be made available to the community in three phrases.

Phase 0.1: Set up
In the first stage of the DAO beginning at token launch, governance channels on the forum will be opened up and snapshot voting will be enabled. DAO members will be able to submit and vote on proposals relating to governance topics including the selection and onboarding of EigenLayer Actively Validated Services (AVS) to Swell L2.

‍Phase 1: Light governance
‍In the final quarter of 2024, the DAO is expected to take on more decision-making power. This authority will be marshaled through several working groups, each of which will be voted on by the community, and address specific functions such as grants applications, node operator voting, rswETH AVS integration, and reward and incentive programs. 

Phase 2: Mature governance 
‍The final phase of the Swell DAO will be fully decentralized governance, with onchain voting and governance functions operating autonomously in accordance with rules encoded in smart contracts.

Learn more about the DAO roadmap in the docs.

See you in Swell City!

We look forward to welcoming you into Swell DAO as we reach Swell City.

Until then, stay up-to-date with Swell by joining our thriving community on Discord , Farcaster , DeBank , and X . 

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