Proposal: Permit transfer of neuron ownership

[kyliux]

Thanks for your explanation ( nice dodge too ),

Tbh I do not think neither that they are a big risk. But I think its still higher than an online market.

[skilesare]

You hit on an essential distinction. I think that the cumulative effect of the governance votes will dictate a lot about future value of the network.

I see the fundamental security assumption of the NNS being “a voter’s stake must remain at stake until the the effect has been endured by the system and incorporated by the market.”

This is super short for things like exchange rate votes. It could be super long for things like admiting new data centers whose inclusion can flip from beneficial to the network to malicious for the network long into the future.(say a change in ownership of the data center leads to a malicious owner publishing internal canister state).

We can’t do this 1:1 in reality, so we use a time bound abstraction over it and try to make the effect match the reward we pay in order to maximize the long term thinking of the network.

The NNS does have some say over things that are fundament different than other networks. We are paying people to make right predictions about the future, not fact based consensus where we have full,deterministic knowledge.

This whole system may not be a good idea, but it is currently the one we are running with and it seems that most just want to slap a incorrect label and set of assumptions on it and degen forward.

[bjoernek]

@wpb

I think it’s been a long time since we’ve heard an official position statement from DFINITY on neuron markets. It would be helpful if DFINITY would reaffirm previous positions or officially announce new positions. I know John isn’t with DFINITY any more, so perhaps @bjoernek or @diegop could indicate if we are likely to get additional, formal feedback from DFINITY on this topic.

@wpb As recently shared in this forum thread on the transfer of Internet identity anchors

• DFINITY still has concerns on neuron markets for security reasons. In particular, we believe that it should be difficult to transfer neurons in order to ensure that neurons have skin in the game and thus vote in the long-term interest of the IC.
• The team is still exploring ideas on how to make it more difficult to transfer neurons (or provide additional incentives to neurons which are not transferable).

[mechaquan]

@wpb

Named neurons vote on governance motion proposals.

They can of course also vote on other proposals too.

Isn’t the whole point of named neurons to drive decentralization? And isn’t it necessary for them to vote on code changes independent of Dfinity to achieve this?

@wpb

There is zero risk to the network caused by named neurons.

The point I was making in my post is that if you think buying/selling of neurons is a risk to the protocol due to lack of ‘skin in the game’ then you have to apply that logic to named neurons as well which have much less skin in the game compared to the VP they control.

So the question is, if you think there’s no risk from named neurons even though they can control a disproportionate amount of VP compared to their personal stake, why do you think it’s a security risk if people buy neurons at a discount?

[kyliux]

Beautiful remarks, for the sake of network security and stability we would need to give all neuron holder the same benefits level and influence. Lets change the value of all account that have proven to be managed by distinct human, the same amount of token.

@wpb and bjoernek here for security right ? How can you PREVENT that the HUGE VC whales of this network will just sell in a disinterested manner to bad actors and gtfo without caring about the long term growth of the network ?

No, instead, you guys are focusing on making life hard for ppl that lost most of their money/ are more requiring the IC succeed further while those ppl are in the same time the one that have the LEAST INFLUENCE.

How can you defend this type of position ?

[Severin]

@kyliux

How can you PREVENT that the HUGE VC whales of this network will just sell in a disinterested manner to bad actors and gtfo without caring about the long term growth of the network ?

That can’t be prevented. But if they want to sell (and therefore dissolve their neurons), they can’t vote on proposals that could cause long-term damage to the network

[kyliux]

If I understand well, the scenario you are afraid of is the following :

1. Big enough accounts
2. wanting to sell their ICP just after influencing a critical decision that will
3. destroy the network
4. To people willing to buy for it
5. Those should be also rich enough

Those 5 points needs to be met together to raise any security concern from the existence of a neuron market

1. Arent we decentralised ? And becoming more and more decentralised over time ?
2. Because if they do not want to sell, the market have no influence
3. I guess thats not possible, but they can arm it buy making network forgetting ckbtc keys
4. Someone want to buy when the network is at risk ? LOL
5. Will the day someone can buy a tens of half of the supply ever exist ? LOL

We can simplify the previous 5 concerns with the following population :

Basically you are just effraid that

1. VC 2. vote for bad decisions and 3. people buy their neurons

Since the demand is so low in ICP we dont even need to prevent VC from selling, they have already difficulty selling with gains XD

I really dont see where anyone can find any concern, and in long term this will reduce with the decentralisation of the network.

[FranHefner]

There is something clear to keep in mind. Identity on the internet is precisely to uniquely identify the person. Corrupting this basic is detrimental to IC.

Another example of yours, do you see that gmail officially offers address sales? They are definitely not interested in that market.

You can sell your seed phrase if you want, but it seems wrong to me that dfinity generates tools to enlarge that market.

It seems to me flatly harmful to offer tools to exchange neurons. In every way it is detrimental.

Let’s keep moving forward and don’t go backwards in this that doesn’t make sense…

Why not add a vote in the forum? to see if you agree that dfinity spends resources to expand a market that no one needs?

Proposal: Permit transfer of neuron ownership

• In favor of spending resources to enlarge the neuron market…
• Against spending resources to enlarge the neuron market…

[ZackDS]

Just to be clear you could have phrased this simply yes or no for neuron marketplace. Some might reed into it that if spending is done by others and not Dfinity it could be ok.

[FranHefner]

You’re right but they already did it… outside of dfinity. The key is to try not to enlarge what they did.

Introducing IDgeek - Identity Anchor Marketplace

Hello everyone! We have launched a new project called IDgeek. IDgeek is a secure and automated marketplace for buying or selling Internet Identity (II) Anchors with their linked assets. The concept of selling II Anchors (and their linked neurons) has been a topic of discussion in various forums and communities, with differing opinions on its advantages and disadvantages. Our vision is to address the lack of security surrounding the transfer or sale of II Anchors by providing a solution thr…

[ZackDS]

Yes I am aware of NFTgeek and IDgeek. Bunch of useless Anchors with 0 value and few days old probably listed by them as it was discussed to experiment and also if I am not mistaken Manu said that it is only for Anchors created with Internet Identity Frontend and that is just a tiny fraction.

[kyliux]

@FranHefner

to keep in mind. Identity on the internet is precisely to uniquely identify the person. Corrupting this basic is detrimental to IC

Well well It seems that there are some misconceptions here.

Uniquely identify a person ? People can have many internet identity so its certainly not unique.

About your vote, I am also not sure to understand, you are then in favor of the market right ? Since dfinity people have nothing to do with it ( exept that some want to make it hard for some people to trade their neurons )

All best xx

[FranHefner]

@kyliux

Uniquely identify a person ? People can have many internet identity so its certainly not unique.

That each IC identity identifies only one person does not contradict the fact that a person can have multiple identities. The relationship is 1 to N, not 1 to 1.

The problem comes when you buy and sell identities, the essence of the identity is lost and it becomes a token that goes and comes from person to person… that’s the problem… one can have several emails that identify you, but the same email does not It goes from person to person buying and selling.

[kyliux]

@FranHefner

That each IC identity identifies only one person

One IC identity = one account.

Your extension for a person comes from thin air. Many keys can log to the same account, and I can share my keys the same way as I can share my email or google services.

I hope it helps

Best regards,

[FranHefner]

@kyliux

and I can share my keys the same way as I can share my email or google services.

Great, those who want to share, sell, give away their identity and their neurons that share the seed phrase. Solved this issue, nothing needs to be done.

[krzysztofzelazko]

Or maybe DFINITY skeptical about this idea of neuron transfer due to panic fear of the ‘neuron market’ will at least allow their transfer if they have a ‘dissolved’ status? This would be a nice compromise, and at the same time a step forward and the beginning of further movement in this topic.
Perhaps someday, like NNS DAO, we will decide to abolish the dissolve delay and the problem will solve itself?

[doo]

Neuron transferable and ii account trading feels unnecessary, if a project is issued to escrow ii account after minting new tokens, new tokens and icp do liquidity … and escrow ii account for dissolution, dissolution is completed in the market to buy back the minted tokens for destruction … can also serve as a good exit mechanism, if the price of the tokens for the market panic situation will become lower, and then slowly recover to a certain tiny difference

[kvic]

If neuron owners wish to transfer ownership of their locked ICP could they not be added to a pool where they are burned in the purchase of cycles and therefore control inflation.

[kvic]

In many cases I see long term participants with much learned knowledge and experience burnout, pressure in life or have other interests, decide they want to move on which is a great loss to a project and then you have new interests come in that don’t have that history and experience that start the old arguments again.

Neuron owners may need a break and be able to have a break while keeping good relations so they can and would want to return at a later date.

We need to find a way to reduce the overhead and streamline voting and ownership of their neurons that cause the least friction to the owners and the project.

The IC creates neurons for cycles but instead it could burn old ICP instead so that there would be no need for outsiders to take advantage for profits as the pool could repay funds that have been earned for their participation and goodwill and not be punished.

If the pressure is off a neuron owner that they know they can sell all or part of their investment then they have options but as a 8 year neuron I have to wait for a longtime.

Also there needs to be an incentive for neuron owners to think twice about transferring their ICP from their neurons by seeing value added to the price of an ICP. Personally I see that any coin that has a circulating supply too high the value is much lower where by putting a max supply seems to give higher value.

[kvic]

If an ICP coin grows in value then participating should give a good reason for a neuron owner to join in discussions and also be aware of the changes and the other opportunities that they can also participate in like the SNS.

As we live in different time zones it makes it harder to vote when we are at rest.

If each proposal has 1 vote awarded to each neuron to vote on then those who don’t vote lose rewards and therefore no need for a followers list.

If a neuron that has had no activity for a period of time then could be flagged as dead for some other process to take over.

Taking away or making it harder for a third party to dominate or take control of the IC I feel would be achieved while incentivizing neuron owners to participate and they not only get rewards for each ICP in that neuron but the value of the ICP is also a reward as it grows in value.

I feel that this makes a neuron a private wallet that gives the owner control and safe guards their investment from the problems seen with exchanges which could increase investment to then loan ICP from neurons for the SNS and mitigate risk for the SNS of lack of funds and participate in projects of the choice for further rewards.