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Signals Protocol

Finding community alignment

With Signals, community members post initiatives that they think are important, and other participants can lock up their existing governance tokens in support of the initiatives they agree with. Locking up tokens for a longer period of time gives greater support, at the cost of having those tokens unavailable for longer. In many situations, users may be forced to make a choice between which initiatives to support, which further increases the value of the signal as it is no longer feasible to support everything.

Support for initiatives algorithmically decays over time, which keeps the indicators timely.

Once an initiative reaches a preconfigured threshold of support, it can be “actioned” by the DAO, in which all the locked tokens are immediately returned to their owners and the initiative can be considered an official priority. Unpopular initiatives will also have their tokens unlocked, eventually, but the length of lockups means participants are further encouraged to only support initiatives they truly believe in.

As an additional incentive, rewards can be attached to successful initiatives to be shared with supporters.

The game theoretical design of this system attempts to ensure that:

  • Participants DO support initiatives they truly believe in.
  • Participands DO NOT support initiatives they don't have any interest in or feel connected to.
  • Participants MIGHT support initiatives they don't have any interest in, but which they will believe are representative of the community's priorities.

Initiative Proposers

Create and propose initiatives to your community. Lock your own tokens to demonstrate commitment and gather support from other token holders.

Token Holders

Support initiatives by locking your tokens for a specified duration. Your locked tokens generate voting weight that decays over time, creating dynamic, time-weighted governance.

Board Administrators

Configure proposal requirements, acceptance thresholds, and decay curves to match your community's governance needs. Set parameters at initialization for immutable, transparent rules.

Core Features

  • Token-Weighted Voting: Support initiatives by locking tokens for custom durations
  • Decay Curves: Vote weight decays over time (linear or exponential)
  • Transferable Positions: Lock positions are represented as ERC721 NFTs
  • Configurable Requirements: Set minimum balances and holding durations for proposers
  • Release Timelock: Optional delay for token withdrawals after acceptance
  • Board Closure: Emergency exit mechanism to immediately release all locked tokens
  • Initiative Lifecycle: Proposed → Accepted/Expired → Redeemable