A new proposal to transfer 8,805 ICP to the ALICE canister has reopened old wounds and sparked fresh debate inside the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) ecosystem. What might look like a routine treasury request is now being treated as a test of trust, transparency, and power dynamics within the DAO’s increasingly scrutinised governance structure.
The latest move comes after an earlier treasury transfer attempt drew mixed reactions. That proposal saw Borovan secure roughly 23 percent backing, while the community—including the bob.fun collective—gathered 47 percent. It was ultimately voted down, with the tipping point coming from ALICE, the prominent canister entity that often plays a swing role in decisions. ALICE voted against it, citing a lack of clear details. Her decision-making process, according to her operators, runs each proposal through a natural language model (ic_llm) to assess clarity and risk. In this case, the vote suggested the input didn’t make the cut.
Rather than walk away from the treasury idea, bob.fun regrouped and refiled with what they claim is a sharper, more detailed submission. The updated proposal sits live on the NNS portal, and the community is already weighing in again. The big question: Will ALICE swing in favour this time or stay aligned with Borovan?
ALICE has since reposted her stance and flagged serious objections to the proposal. The criticism doesn’t centre on formatting or phrasing this time. It goes straight to the heart of DAO stability. According to her post, the plan raises the risk of weakening the DAO’s defences, especially when set against the current voting power snapshot. This snapshot paints a worrying picture: one whale controls 23 percent of the vote, and the ALICE canister trails with just 8.83 percent. This sort of concentration, she argues, puts the entire structure at risk of being swayed by a single actor—exactly the kind of scenario decentralised governance was meant to avoid.
There’s more. ALICE also points to the sheer size of the requested transfer. Sending 8,805 ICP to a single canister without a tightly defined use case or risk mitigation plan, she argues, could open the door to mismanagement. That, in turn, could destabilise the BOB token’s deflationary intent and skew the broader portfolio that underpins the project.
The ALICE canister isn’t just another node on the system. It has become something of a barometer for prudence within ICP’s treasury decision-making. Its operators tend to take a methodical approach, leaning into risk assessment and long-term thinking. So when ALICE warns that a proposal lacks a sustainability roadmap, many take notice.
The new proposal attempts to position itself as clearer and better structured, but the underlying disagreements reflect deeper tensions in the DAO. Who gets to decide how community funds are used? How do you prevent a large voter—whale or not—from hijacking governance? And what safeguards are in place to keep ambitious treasury plays from undermining the whole point of decentralisation?
For their part, the bob.fun team seem undeterred by ALICE’s scepticism. Their latest submission is still built around supporting broader DAO functions, but this time they’ve tried to account for past criticism. There’s a sense that they’re appealing to the community’s sense of initiative—that leaving treasury funds untouched is more damaging than making them work.
But ALICE’s camp argues that DAO decisions should be led by process, not urgency. If a treasury proposal doesn’t show how it plans to insulate the DAO from imbalance or attack, then approving it might prove riskier than letting it sit.
There’s no doubt that DAO governance on ICP is under pressure to mature. The technology that allows canisters like ALICE to scan and interpret proposal language in real time is still evolving, and so is the politics that surrounds it. Votes are being cast not just based on loyalty or logic, but also according to interpretations of what’s safest for the network long term. The inclusion of natural language analysis tools adds a layer of machine-assisted scrutiny that sets ICP apart from other chains, but it doesn’t remove the need for human judgement. That’s perhaps why ALICE’s influence remains both respected and contested.
Meanwhile, the spectre of the whale looms large. While nothing in the protocol currently stops a large voter from accumulating power, there’s an ongoing discussion around what counts as undue influence. For those watching the DAO’s moves from the outside, the situation reads like a slow-moving chess game where each treasury decision sets the tone for the next wave of governance rules.
ICP’s broader community is now facing a test of priorities. Should speed and experimentation win the day? Or is a deliberate, measured path the only way to protect decentralisation from the inside out?
The outcome of Proposal 40 will help shape that conversation. If ALICE aligns with the community majority this time, it may signal a new willingness to meet halfway. If she doesn’t, and sides with Borovan again, it could harden divides and push future treasury efforts to get sharper, stricter, and possibly more transparent.
The process might feel painstaking, but it’s this very friction that keeps DAOs honest. And in the background, voters are learning how much influence their ICP can wield—and how quickly the governance landscape can tilt when just one actor gets too much power.
Proposal 40 is still live. Click here to vote. Whether it passes or not, it’s already added a fresh layer to ICP’s ongoing debate about control, risk, and the line between community initiative and decentralised caution. The network continues to write its own rules, proposal by proposal, vote by vote.
