Pump.fun, as the undisputed decentralized platform of Meme Launchpool, continues to reach new profit highs but still retains a centralized distribution model. Uniswap, the most revered DEX in blockchain, consistently leads in trading volume, yet its token model is widely debated. What kind of decentralized model does Web3 truly need to avoid becoming a tool for capital exploitation? Does the free market require the presence of enterprises, or does the decentralized financial market need pioneers to deeply explore DAO governance models?

SUN.io, as the leader of TRON’s DeFi, has always upheld its commitment to decentralization. On July 31, SUN.io announced the official establishment of SUN DAO, marking the beginning of a new chapter in DAO governance. With the introduction of SUN DAO, SUN.io’s governance mechanisms and economic model are continuously optimized, decentralized community governance is evolving, and the application scenarios for the SUN token are expanding.

As a builder exploring DAO governance models, what exactly is SUN.io, and how does it create its formula for decentralized finance and governance? This article will take you on an in-depth exploration of SUN.io’s journey toward decentralization.

About SUN.io

Before exploring SUN.io’s decentralized governance, it’s essential to have a basic understanding of the platform.

SUN.io is a decentralized financial ecosystem built on the TRON blockchain, offering a variety of financial services and products, including token exchanges, liquidity mining, and decentralized autonomy. It is designed as a one-stop platform for TRON DeFi enthusiasts, catering to liquidity miners, stakers, and anyone interested in participating in decentralized governance. Not only is it user-friendly for the general public, but it also provides more accessible channels for developers.

When discussing Web3, the pursuit of decentralization is a constant theme. Since adding SUN.io to the project watchlist, it’s evident that the platform remains true to this core principle, driven by a pure vision—to create a fully decentralized exchange (DEX) within the TRON ecosystem that belongs to the community. With deeper exploration into decentralization, its governance structure is likely to successfully transfer platform control to token holders, truly achieving community autonomy and maximizing benefits for every community member.

Exploring SUN.io’s Governance Model

Productivity dictates relations of production, and humanity’s exploration of production relations to meet the demands of new era development has never ceased—from family businesses to corporations, from unions to platform enterprises. The rapid development of productivity presents new challenges for the transformation of production relations. In the Web3 domain, centered on decentralization, the DeFi market more closely resembles a free market model, where traditional corporate governance methods are inadequate.

As the SUN.io protocol continues to expand and its market ecosystem evolves, traditional human-to-human governance in organizations can no longer satisfy the joint governance of humans and machines. SUN.io has begun transforming its governance model. By introducing SUN DAO, it can expand organizational boundaries, better support community development and construction, and achieve a reverse transformation from production relations to productivity.

Exploring The Starfish Organization—Why SUN DAO?

In terms of organizational form, humanity is not lacking in real-world examples of DAOs as decentralized organizations. Community Management Organization (CMO) and Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) can be seen as early forms of self-organizing phenomena in natural ecosystems. The Starfish and the Spider, written by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom in 2007, vividly introduces this decentralized organizational form. “Although spiders and starfish look very similar, their cores are entirely different. When cut in half, the spider dies, but the starfish can divide and regenerate.” This illustrates that decentralized organizations are inherently more resilient than centralized ones, characterized by high decentralization, transparency, and autonomy, with no hierarchical authority or top-down management—traits that align well with blockchain technology. By introducing SUN DAO, SUN.io can truly harness the advantages of decentralized governance:

• Community Governance: Achieve ecosystem co-building by everyone.
• Token Design: Ensure everyone shares in the profits.
• Consensus Concept: Align with consensus principles for sustainable project development.

1. Vitalik Buterin, in the Ethereum whitepaper, mentioned two key features of DAOs: decentralization and autonomy. SUN.io’s updated governance model aligns well with this vision, representing an exploration and practice of Buterin’s ideas. The combination of DeFi and DAO holds promising potential for SUN.io’s continued growth.

SUN DAO with Governance as Its Goal

Decentralized finance requires decentralized governance. SUN DAO, as a governance tool, decentralizes power to token holders through smart contracts. Based on user contributions, SUN.io grants corresponding proposal and voting rights, making it an excellent practice of decentralization.

However, several challenges exist in this process:

1. Voting Rights vs. Holding Shares: When DAO governance is determined by token weight, the wealth gap may lead to the wealthy controlling voting outcomes, contradicting the original intent of decentralization.
2. Short-term Incentives vs. Long-term Ecosystem Building: Short-term incentive measures to attract users may lead to “whale” exploitation, draining liquidity and harming ecosystem development.

This suggests that governance tokens, which provide no value beyond voting rights, present many issues, requiring a more sophisticated model design to achieve decentralized governance. How does SUN DAO address these challenges?

The veToken Model—Optimizing SUN DAO

While the Matthew effect and voting paradox prevent the creation of a perfect decentralized governance system, ongoing exploration can bring us closer to fairness and transparency. ve (vote escrow) is a promising solution, and SUN DAO’s governance model is akin to this.

The core mechanism of ve involves users locking tokens to obtain veTokens. veTokens, as non-transferable and non-circulating governance tokens, increase in quantity the longer the lock-up period. Users’ veToken weights determine their proportional voting rights. Voting rights include decisions affecting user profits, such as allocating additional token rewards to liquidity pools. For users, this enhances holding incentives. For the protocol, it reduces selling pressure and stabilizes token prices. For the project, it retains true ecosystem co-builders, making DeFi + DAO a promising exploration.

SUN DAO Governance Model

The overall governance logic of SUN DAO is similar to the above. It primarily operates through proposals, enabling SUN token holders to collectively act as stewards of the protocol, allowing them to vote and make proposals. Through its governance mechanism, all participants in the SUN.io ecosystem are encouraged to reach a consensus. Although its governance approach is relatively straightforward, it is still in the early stages of development.

The core security elements include protocol functionality and the SUN token.

1. Protocol Functionality: The governance mechanism in decentralized protocols encompasses community participation, incentives, self-regulation, and policy management. SUN DAO primarily governs through on-chain proposals, achieving self-operation, self-management, and self-development according to preset rules through token economic incentives and smart management without third-party intervention, maximizing efficiency.
2. SUN Token: In SUN DAO’s governance process, the SUN token plays a crucial role by digitizing and tokenizing various organizational elements, fully integrating monetary capital, human capital, and other forms of capital, thereby effectively enhancing organizational performance. The goal of the SUN token economy is to ensure the positive and long-term development of the entire SUN.io ecosystem, allowing stakeholders and investors to benefit under a more secure protocol. SUN token holders are responsible for the protocol and ecosystem, and stakeholders contribute through actual actions, typically in the form of technical integration or financial investment, significantly impacting the protocol’s execution, security, and functionality.

Based on the trust relationships established by SUN DAO, including mutual trust among SUN token holders, markets, liquidity providers, and integrators, economic incentives have been implemented. These incentives are based on liquidity governance, aiming to maintain an active voting pool and expand as new participants join the SUN.io ecosystem.

SUN DAO Governance Process

1. Proposal Stage: Any governance idea can be proposed and discussed on the SUN DAO forum. If the discussion is uncontroversial, any user holding more than 30 million veSUN can initiate a proposal on the platform, and other users can participate in voting. “The 30 million threshold is reasonable at this stage, but as token circulation changes and the average holding amount fluctuates, different thresholds will need to be established.”
2. Review Stage: Once the proposal is created, it enters a 2-day review period.
3. Voting Stage: After the review period, veSUN holders can participate in voting. Each veSUN counts as one vote, and users vote for or against the proposal based on its content. Each wallet address can only vote once. The voting period lasts for 3 days. If the proposal receives more than 90 million votes in favor and exceeds the number of opposing votes, it is approved.
4. Execution Stage: After voting ends, if the proposal is approved, it enters a 48-hour lock period. After this period, the proposal takes effect immediately. (Note: Any changes to the protocol require at least 7 days to implement.)

We can see from the SUN DAO governance process that the design is notably simple and clear. This governance framework relies on systematic incentives and multi-level governance, creating an effective balance to promote the long-term growth and continuous optimization of the protocol. Under this model, SUN token holders collectively act as the protocol’s managers, engaging in community self-governance, voting, and proposing. However, freedom needs to be checked, and the scale of DAO powers also needs to be managed. As seen from MakerDAO’s governance struggles, with the expansion of the protocol and the increase in token voting power, achieving consensus and making more professional decisions are aspects that SUN DAO needs to continuously refine during its expansion.

Not Just Governance: veSUN

Although SUN DAO is in its early stages, the benefits and application scenarios for veSUN holders are already quite extensive. In addition to participating in governance voting, veSUN holders can enjoy community incentives and rewards, which provide valuable rights in protocol profit distribution and asset management. This not only further motivates SUN token holders to engage in protocol governance but also brings additional benefits to veSUN holders, enhancing the overall activity within the SUN.io ecosystem.

Currently, staking SUN tokens grants veSUN in corresponding amounts. veSUN holders can enjoy the following benefits:

1. Participate in SUN DAO Voting:
2. Accelerate Liquidity Pool Mining: Up to 2.5x faster — Mining rewards are distributed based on virtual balance. Therefore, with the same actual balance, veSUN holders can mine up to 2.5 times faster than non-veSUN holders.
3. Vote on Liquidity Pool Mining Weights: Users can vote on the weight of different liquidity pools using veSUN. Weekly snapshots will determine the pool weights for the following week. Users can vote according to their veSUN holdings. To prevent frequent changes, users can only change their votes 10 days after the initial voting.
4. Earn 50% of Stablecoin Pool Fees: 50% of the transaction fees from the stablecoin pool will be distributed to veSUN holders in the form of TUSD. Snapshots of veSUN holdings will be taken multiple times each round (from Thursday 00:00 to the following Tuesday 00:00). After each round, weighted TUSD rewards will be calculated and distributed to users according to their veSUN holdings through a smart contract.

How to Become an Early Contributor

The introduction of SUN DAO by SUN.io represents an excellent practice of the DeFi + DAO formula, both in terms of its governance process and the benefits it provides. Rather than creating barriers to participation with complex governance processes, the project achieves decentralization through insights into users’ true needs and delegating governance rights, embodying the principle of everyone contributing and sharing. On this basis, the project team and token holders can establish a positive feedback loop, adhering to the mission and original intention of community co-governance and ecological prosperity.

Although SUN DAO is still in the early stages of decentralized governance, it has made a promising start in its practice. There is confidence in its potential for unlimited future development. As a user, how can you participate and achieve shared prosperity as the project grows?

How to Obtain Voting Tickets

To obtain voting tickets, if you already hold SUN, follow these simple steps to participate:

1. Staking for veSUN: Users can obtain veSUN by staking and locking SUN tokens. To do this, log in to https://sun.io/?lang=zh-CN#/stake/two, go to the “SUN Lock” section, click on “Lock to Earn veSUN,” and confirm the amount and unlocking period. After confirming, click the “Deposit” button. The unlocking period ranges from 26 weeks (6 months) to 4 years (365 days * 4). All stakes share the same unlocking time, with a maximum of 4 years. All locked SUN will expire simultaneously, and veSUN will be awarded accordingly.

1. Authorization: After completing the authorization, click “Accept” in the wallet signature pop-up window to complete the deposit operation.

How to Vote

Once you have obtained voting tickets, here’s how to exercise your voting rights:

1. Access Proposals: On the “DAO Governance” homepage, select proposals marked as “In Progress” and click to view the proposal details and participate in voting.
2. Vote Options: On the voting details page, choose to cast either “Support” or “Against” votes.
3. Submit Vote: After selecting an option, a voting window will appear. Enter the number of votes and click the “Vote” button.
4. Confirm Vote: After clicking “Vote,” confirm the vote operation by clicking “Sign” in the TronLink signature pop-up window.
5. Check Status: After confirming the transaction, you will be notified that the vote has been sent. You can check your voting status on the page. Note that each wallet address can vote only once.

How to Redeem SUN

1. After staking SUN, you can view the amount of locked SUN and voting rights obtained on the page. Click “View Details” to see the expiration date of the lock.

1. Once your locked SUN reaches its expiration date, click “Withdraw” to redeem the SUN. After withdrawal, the corresponding voting rights will be nullified.

Conclusion

Decentralization exploration faces many challenges at this stage. Democratic voting may be heavily influenced by the Matthew effect, and decentralized governance may lack professional management. Eliminating information asymmetry comes with the cost of inefficient decision-making and fragmented consensus. Although a utopia remains elusive, the idea of decentralization is deeply ingrained. It is crucial to reflect on whether current innovations are truly on the right path. As we look to the future, no one knows which new chapter will be the true beginning. How will DeFi + DAO construct a perfect formula? How should we explore the path of decentralization? In today’s volatile market, SUN.io, as a true practitioner, remains steadfast in its pursuit of deeper decentralization.

Disclaimer：

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