Recently, I’ve been reviewing several DAO voting records again, and the more I look, the more uncomfortable it feels: on-chain it says “decentralized governance,” but when you click in, it’s all about delegated addresses fighting, retail votes are like decorative lights for big players… Honestly, the final outcome of governance tokens might just be “who can get the most delegated votes.” What’s even more ridiculous is that many people delegate and then ignore it; proposals are written in a fancy way, but in the end, it looks like a few people just hold a meeting and casually click “read.”

Then everyone starts complaining about validator income, MEV, and unfair ordering, and I immediately go into conspiracy mode: the oligarchic nature of governance, and the “who goes first and who goes last” in ordering, are actually part of the same pattern—power being packaged and sold to a few professional players. Anyway, I don’t even get excited when I see highly upvoted proposals anymore; I first check who voted and who was delegated, then I get itchy and draw a couple of relationship diagrams, and after drawing them, I feel even more calm.