Liquid Democracy

Don’t want to track every proposal yourself? Liquid Democracy lets you follow a trusted person — a delegate — so your Voting Power automatically votes the way they vote, without you lifting a finger. You stay in control: you can step in and vote yourself on any proposal at any time, and your own vote always wins. Think of it as “vote-by-default through someone you trust,” not “hand over your account.”

Delegation works on both kinds of OhShii DAO: the OhShii ecosystem DAO (ONS, the OhShii Network System — the launcher, the locker, and the OHSHII token) and every per-campaign DAO (SONS — each LGE’s own DAO). The model is the same on both; a few details differ, and campaign DAOs even add one extra capability — see On the ecosystem DAO vs a campaign DAO below. If you’re new to ONS vs SONS, start with Voting.

For the full technical flow

This page is the user-level mental model. For the complete delegation flow, the exact cascade internals, and the precise anti-abuse numbers, see the developer page: Liquid Democracy (technical).

The two roles — and you’re only ever one

On any OhShii DAO — the ecosystem DAO and each campaign DAO — there are exactly two roles in delegation, and you can only be one of them at a time:

• Follower — you follow a delegate, and your Voting Power votes alongside theirs.
• Delegate — you switch on “accept followers”, and other people can follow you. Your own vote is what carries their votes.

You can never be both at once. If you’re following someone and you turn on “accept followers” to become a delegate, the app automatically drops your follow first — so don’t be surprised if becoming a delegate quietly ends a follow you had.

On the ecosystem DAO you are either a delegate (accepts followers) or a follower (follows a delegate) — never both at the same time.

How delegation gets set up — both sides opt in

Nobody can be made your delegate, and nobody can be made your follower, without each of you taking a deliberate step:

• The delegate must switch on “accept followers.” This is off by default — until they turn it on, you simply cannot follow them.
• The follower must press Follow on that delegate themselves.

Only when both of those are true does the link form. There’s no way to be opted in silently.

How you move between Independent, Following, and Delegate — and how each link forms when both sides opt in.

What you need before you can follow

To start following a delegate, a few conditions must be met:

Requirement	What it means for you
You’re verified	When identity verification is switched on for the ecosystem DAO, you must be verified first (World ID or DecideID — one is enough, see Voting).
Your delegate is verified	The person you want to follow must also be verified. Both sides need it.
They accept followers	Their “accept followers” toggle must be on (it’s off until they turn it on).
You have Voting Power	You need real Voting Power of your own at that moment — that means holding at least one active OHSHII lock that lasts long enough to count (currently locks of about 45 days / 1.5 months or longer).
You’re not already following	You can only follow one delegate at a time. To switch, unfollow the current one first.

If your lock is too short you’ll have zero Voting Power, and the follow is declined with a clear message telling you to create or extend a lock in the OhShii Locker.

The conditions checked when you press Follow. All must pass, and both sides must be verified.

The 45-day figure can change

About 45 days is the current minimum lock length that earns Voting Power — but it’s a value the DAO can adjust by governance vote, so treat it as “currently around 45 days,” not a permanent rule.

How a delegated vote actually flows

Here’s the part most people get wrong, so it’s worth being precise: your delegated vote is not cast the instant you follow someone, and it does not lock in the Voting Power you had when you followed.

1. Your delegate casts a vote on an ecosystem proposal.
2. At that moment, the system measures your own Voting Power (fresh, from your current locks) and records a pending vote for you, matching your delegate’s choice.
3. On its regular cycle — about every 5 minutes — the system applies that pending vote. Your vote is cast with your own power, exactly as if you’d voted yourself.

So a delegated vote normally shows up within a few minutes of your delegate voting, not in the same instant.

Your delegate votes, your power is snapshotted at that moment, and about 5 minutes later your vote is applied with YOUR own power.

A couple of things follow naturally from this:

• Your delegated vote uses your Voting Power measured at the moment your delegate votes — not the amount you had when you set up the delegation. If your locks change in between, the next delegated vote reflects your up-to-date power.
• A very popular delegate has their followers’ votes applied in batches over successive cycles, so they spread out reliably rather than all landing in the same instant.

Your direct vote always wins

If you vote yourself on a proposal before your delegated vote has been applied, your direct vote stands and the pending delegated one is simply dropped. You’re never counted twice — and you never lose the ability to vote on your own.

Ending it — anytime, from either side

Delegation is never permanent. Either side can dissolve it whenever they like:

• You (follower): press Unfollow. From that moment, none of your delegate’s future votes are applied for you.
• Your delegate: can remove you individually, or turn off “accept followers” — which drops every one of their followers at once.

Either side can dissolve the link at any time — and a delegate turning off accept followers drops everyone at once.

Already-cast votes can’t be undone

Unfollowing stops future delegated votes immediately. But any vote that was already recorded for you before you unfollowed cannot be retracted — there’s genuinely no undo. So if you no longer trust a delegate, unfollow right away to stop anything new from going through.

Cases & conditions — the fine print that matters

Situation	What happens
Your locks change after you follow	No problem. Your power is recalculated fresh each time your delegate votes — your delegated vote always uses your current, up-to-date Voting Power.
Your power is zero when your delegate votes	Your delegated vote contributes nothing to the result — a delegated vote always uses your power, and zero power adds nothing.
Your delegate turns out untrustworthy	Unfollow immediately. Future votes stop being applied for you. Anything already cast can’t be undone, but nothing new goes through.
You want to switch delegates	Unfollow your current delegate first, then Follow the new one. You can only follow one at a time — there’s no splitting your vote.
You become a delegate while following	Turning on “accept followers” auto-drops your existing follow. You can’t be a delegate and a follower at once.
Following a big holder for tier perks	Doesn’t work. Your LGE purchase tier (Fish/Shark/Whale) is based only on your own OHSHII stake — delegation passes along votes, not tier benefits. A large holder does not share their purchase limit with followers.
Fees to delegate	None. There’s no token fee to follow, unfollow, accept followers, or remove a follower. (Identity verification, a one-time prerequisite, is separate.)
Your verification gets reset	While verification is required, you can’t start a new follow until you re-verify. Existing follows aren’t deleted, but pending votes for you are skipped until you verify again — then things resume normally.
Is it permanent?	No. Either side can end it at any time.

A delegate’s vote stays one hop

Following is always a single, direct link. If the person you follow also follows someone else — they can’t, by design, because a delegate can’t be a follower — your vote would never chain onward. Your vote goes to your delegate and no further.

There are also some gentle limits on how often you can follow, unfollow, become a delegate, or remove followers in a short window — and a cap on how many followers one delegate can have. These exist to prevent abuse. If you ever hit one, you’ll just be asked to wait a little and try again; the exact numbers can change over time (see the technical page for the full anti-abuse model).

On the ecosystem DAO vs a campaign DAO

Liquid Democracy works the same way on both kinds of OhShii DAO — the ecosystem DAO (ONS, voted with locked OHSHII) and each campaign’s own DAO (SONS, voted with that campaign’s locked token). The two roles, the one-delegate-at-a-time rule, the power snapshot, the ~5-minute apply, and “your direct vote always wins” are identical on both. A few things differ:

• What it covers. On a campaign DAO, delegation applies to all of that DAO’s proposals. On the ecosystem DAO it covers the OHSHII ecosystem proposals you vote on with OHSHII.
• Verification by default. Each campaign DAO starts with verification required (the DAO can vote to turn it off). The ecosystem DAO only requires verification when an identity method is switched on. Either way you verify once — World ID or DecideID — and it counts everywhere (see Voting).
• Stepping out is always open. On a campaign DAO, unfollowing yourself or removing one of your followers never needs verification — you can always leave a delegation.
• If a campaign turns verification off, you can still delegate, but the delegate must hold at least one active lock (an anti-bot rule).
• Resilience. If the verification check is briefly unavailable, campaign DAOs keep delegation working through a built-in fallback (a short automatic pause plus a memory of already-verified members), so verified members aren’t blocked.

Campaign DAOs can assign a delegate for a group

Campaign DAOs have one extra power the ecosystem DAO doesn’t: through a governance proposal (passed at the strictest, critical bar), the DAO can assign a delegate to a whole group of members at once — without each person opting in individually. The safety rules still hold: the chosen delegate must have accept-followers switched on (re-checked the moment the proposal runs), nobody can be made to follow themselves, there are no follow loops, and the usual caps apply (up to 500 followers per delegate, up to 300 assignments per proposal). If you already follow someone, a DAO-assigned delegation replaces it — and you can always unfollow afterwards. Only the DAO’s voters can trigger this; no single admin or user can.

Where to go next

• Voting — Voting Power, identity verification, and how to vote directly on ONS and SONS.
• Liquid Democracy (technical) — the full delegation flow, cascade internals, and exact limits.