The discussion began with Martin from ChainSafe Systems presenting research on Aave governance, highlighting that a significant number of tokens are excluded from voting due to their relocation from Ethereum Mainnet to other chains. The research also revealed that the average participation for passed proposals is low, with a small number of users holding the majority of voting power¹.

ChainSafe Systems proposed a technical solution to increase participation, which involved the creation of a PowerDelegation token for bridged tokens and updating AaveGovernanceV2¹. Bgdlabs from BGD responded that they are developing a new iteration of the Aave Governance system, which will likely include some of the "dormant" voting power².

The discussion then shifted to the potential of using tokens on a sidechain to incentivize more participation in voting. Sakulstra pointed out that aAave and stkabpt, significant parts of the ecosystem, are not eligible to vote but should be considered⁴. Neptune emphasized the importance of governance participation for the growth of DeFi and AAVE, suggesting that boosting participation could involve enabling people who have deposited into an AMM pool or the aAAVE pool to participate, incentivizing centralized exchanges to offer voting platforms, and allowing side chains and L2 to participate in governance⁶.

Martin agreed with Neptune's comprehensive analysis and proposed splitting the analysis into a monetary observation and one that caters for non-monetary factors⁷. Bgdlabs suggested that Martin should look at the analysis done with a past proposal to reduce Level 2 governance requirements on RFC⁸. Nandy.eth recommended prioritizing protocol security to avoid double voting and suggested implementing voting power for aAave V2 and V3⁹.

In conclusion, the discussion highlighted the need for increased participation in Aave governance and proposed several solutions, including technical updates, incentivizing voting, and considering tokens on sidechains. The community also emphasized the importance of protocol security and the need for comprehensive analysis of the issue.