Governor with Proposal Threshold vs No Threshold: A Technical Analysis for DAO Architects

Prevents Spam & Maintains Focus: Requires a minimum token stake (e.g., 0.5% of supply) to submit a proposal. This filters out noise, ensuring only serious, well-resourced initiatives reach the voting stage. Critical for large DAOs like Uniswap or Compound, where proposal volume is high.

Creates Centralization Risk: Concentrates proposal power with large token holders or whales. Can stifle grassroots innovation and create a perception of an "insider club." Requires careful calibration; a threshold that's too high (e.g., 5%) can freeze governance entirely for newer, smaller stakeholders.

Maximizes Permissionless Innovation: Any token holder can submit a proposal, enabling rapid ideation and community-driven initiatives. This model is foundational for optimizing for maximum participation and is often seen in newer, experimental DAOs or protocol upgrades where broad input is valued over strict filtering.

Vulnerable to Proposal Spam: Can lead to governance fatigue as voters are bombarded with low-quality or malicious proposals. Requires robust off-chain signaling (e.g., Snapshot temp checks, Discord forums) and potentially a dedicated moderator or sub-DAO to curate before on-chain execution, adding operational overhead.

Prevents spam and low-quality proposals: A minimum token requirement (e.g., 0.5% of supply) filters out noise, ensuring only serious, well-resourced initiatives reach a vote. This protects voter attention and reduces governance fatigue, as seen in Compound Governor Bravo.

Creates a barrier to entry: Concentrates proposal power with large token holders (whales/funds). Early-stage contributors or small stakeholders cannot directly propose, potentially stifling innovation and leading to perceived centralization, a common critique in early Uniswap governance.

Maximizes permissionless innovation: Any token holder can submit a proposal, enabling rapid ideation and community-led initiatives. This is critical for grassroots DAOs and L2 governance experiments like Optimism's Citizen House, where broad participation is a core value.

Vulnerable to proposal spam and attacks: Malicious actors can flood the governance queue with frivolous or harmful proposals, wasting community time and potentially obscuring critical votes. Requires robust Snapshot strategies or Tally filters to mitigate, adding operational overhead.

Specific advantage: Any token holder can submit a proposal, removing gatekeeping by whales or core teams. This matters for grassroots-driven protocols like NounsDAO, where daily auctions and open proposal submission are core to its culture. It ensures no single entity controls the governance agenda.

Specific risk: Low-quality or malicious proposals can flood the system, wasting community attention and on-chain gas. This matters for high-value DeFi protocols (e.g., a hypothetical Uniswap upgrade) where voter fatigue and the cost of evaluating spam can lead to apathy and security risks.

Specific advantage: A minimum token requirement (e.g., 0.25% of supply) filters out noise, ensuring proposals have preliminary community support. This matters for technical upgrade decisions in protocols like Compound or Aave, where focused discussion on vetted proposals is critical for security and efficiency.

Specific risk: The threshold can entrench power with large holders or founding teams, stifling innovation. This matters for newer protocols seeking decentralization; if the bar is set too high (e.g., 1% of supply), it may mirror a multi-sig rather than a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).