On-Chain Proposal Fatigue

On-chain proposal fatigue occurs when the frequency and volume of governance proposals overwhelm the community's capacity to review and vote on them. This often leads to reduced participation, lower-quality scrutiny of proposals, and a higher probability of malicious or poorly thought-out changes being passed.

As protocols grow in complexity, the number of operational and economic decisions requiring a vote increases, exacerbating the problem. To mitigate this, many projects implement tiered governance, where minor operational changes are handled by committees while only fundamental changes require full community voting.

Managing the flow of proposals is essential for keeping the governance process functional and sustainable. It is a symptom of a scaling organization struggling to maintain community attention.