First, just wanted to add that I really appreciate you opening up this conversation, as I think thinking about how ANT accrues value relative to the aragon ecosystem is critical to ensure that the project becomes a self-sustaining economic engine. While I feel strongly that optimizing ANT for use as collateral is strongly aligned with both the long term growth of the network and value accrual to early adopters, if there are better approaches or alternatives its best to identify and adopt them through open discourse.
A non-volatile token mutes the upside of early token holders.
This is true, but it is important to recognize the the goal is absolutely not to create a stablecoin or non-volatile token. The goal is to make a useful currency that is uniquely well suited to the Aragon ecosystem such that as the Aragon Ecosystem as a whole grows so will demand for its native currency.
The purpose of the reserves is to minimize downside, if the network experiences sustained growth it does not mute the upside for early token holders. When the network experiences sustained growth, ANT can split to maintain a stable unit of account. This keeps price stable, but moves the upside to unit count instead of unit price. An early token holder would not see price increase, but they would see their number of tokens increase and thus experience the value appreciation of the network.
However, why not adopt a stable-coin such as DAI?
I think it makes sense to allow users to decide which currency they want to use as collateral. This means we don’t need to choose to adopt DAI or ETH, users will be able to lock up whatever they want in in agreements, potentially even NFT’s like crypto-kitties. However, the intention is to design ANT such that it is uniquely well suited to this particular purpose and thus is naturally adopted by users.
I think you are directionally right that most people will want to use a stable coin, and may even have a preference for existing stable coins like DAI that have proven to be stable over a longer period of time. The issue with using DAI to collateralize agreements is the opportunity cost of locking up capital for long periods with no upside potential. The ideal asset for use as collateral would not be stable, but experience low-risk growth over time. That growth can either be in terms of unit count or unit price, and in the case of collateral its much much better for that grow to occur in unit count rather than in unit price, because agreements need to be denominated in unit count rather than in unit price.
More importantly, though, what are the implications of “double-spending” ANT as collateral and as influence?
I don’t really follow the concern here. Allowing users to get additional utility from an asset while it is locked up as collateral is a win-win. It reduces the friction of economic interactions.