After I started keeping track of DAO votes, my biggest takeaway wasn’t that I “understand governance”—it’s that it’s become easier to see through, in the proposals, who’s “handing out candy” and who’s really taking the keys.

In the past, I’d also get worked up by slogans like “community co-building” and “incentivized growth.” But later, once I matched up the wallet movements before and after each vote, the people who were the loudest in the discussion forums, and finally who ended up getting the execution power, I cooled off a lot: some incentives are really just turning votes into something rented out; and some “decentralization,” if you say it plainly, is just concentration in a different outfit.

Recently, Meme and celebrities have kicked off another round of attention-rotation with callouts and trade-hinting. I can genuinely empathize with the veteran players who tell newcomers not to take the baton last… Governance is the same here too: when things are hot, everyone raises their hands; when it cools down, you realize the power structure was already written into the terms.

Anyway, I’ll keep recording for now—at least it makes it less easy to get dragged around by emotions.