Proposal Threshold
The minimum amount of governance tokens or voting power a holder must control before they're allowed to formally submit a new governance proposal.
A proposal threshold is the minimum amount of governance token (see Kaavon's "Governance Token" glossary definition) holdings, or delegated voting power, that a participant must control before they're permitted to formally submit a new governance proposal for the community to vote on. This is distinct from a quorum (see Kaavon's "Quorum" glossary definition) requirement, which governs how much participation is needed for an already-submitted proposal's vote to count, rather than who can submit one in the first place.
A proposal threshold exists specifically to prevent governance spam — without one, any token holder, however small their stake, could flood the governance process with low-quality, frivolous, or malicious proposals, forcing the broader community to spend time reviewing and voting on each one. Setting the threshold involves a tradeoff: too high a threshold concentrates the practical ability to propose changes among only the largest holders, while too low a threshold risks exactly the proposal spam the mechanism is meant to prevent.
Examples
- A DAO might set its proposal threshold at 1% of total token supply, meaning only holders controlling at least that much voting power can formally submit a new proposal.
- Setting a proposal threshold too low risks governance spam from frivolous proposals, while setting it too high concentrates the practical ability to propose changes among only the largest holders.