Voltaire CIP-1694 Summary
Blockchain Governance on Cardano. The Voltaire era
Cardano is a blockchain platform and cryptocurrency that was developed to provide a more secure and sustainable infrastructure for decentralized applications and digital assets. It is based on the proof-of-stake consensus algorithm and utilizes smart contracts, which allow developers to build decentralized applications on the platform.
The Voltaire era of Cardano aims to make the network self-sustaining by adding a voting and treasury system. This will allow network participants to use their stake and voting rights to shape the future development of the network.
Summary
In order to achieve these ends of greater decentralization and sustainability Input-Output Global has drafted a Cardano Improvement Proposal, CIP 1694, that outlines “An On-Chain Decentralised Governance Mechanism for Voltaire”.
This presentation by Quality Assurance DAO (QA-DAO) is a summary of CIP-1694.
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Background
In November 2022 a Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP) titled “An On-Chain Decentralized Governance Mechanism for Voltaire” was submitted to the Cardano Foundation’s “CIPS” GitHub Repository
From the outset Community Feedback has been sought encouraged by both IOG - https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1595459431164424195 and the Cardano Foundation on the Voltaire CIP.
What is a CIP ? (Cardano Improvement Proposal)
A CIP is “formalised design document for the Cardano community and the name of the process by which such documents are produced and listed” - https://cips.cardano.org/ The CIP process itself was defined and agreed in CIP 1 - https://cips.cardano.org/cips/cip1
What is CIP-1694 ?
In summary the abstract for CIP-1694 proposes a revision of Cardano’s existing governance (the blockchain).
Two new fields will be added to on-chain transactions : 1) governance actions and 2) votes.
Any Cardano user will be allowed to submit a governance action which will then be ratified by a constitutional committee, delegated representatives (DReps) and Stakepool operators (SPOs).
The ratified actions will then be enforced on the blockchain through a set of rules.
ADA holders can register as DReps or SPOs to either represent themselves or to delegate their vote, with the voting rights based on the amount of ADA held.
The Specification
The current specification draft (as of February 2023) documents the following :
The Constitution (a brief outline of intent) and The Constitutional Committee - an overview of the combined governance group and its remit
Governance Actions - the different types of on-chain events that are governance actions. These include a Motion of no-confidence, New Constitutional Committees and/or quorum size, Updates to the Constitution, Hard-Fork Initiation, Protocol Parameter Changes and Treasury Withdrawals
Votes - detail of a vote transaction, the lifecycle of on-chain governance states and epoch boundaries
Delegated Representatives (dReps) - detail on DRep registration and retirement certificates and a Vote delegation certificate, a New Stake Distribution for DReps and changes to the existing ledger rules
What motivated this CIP ?
The motivation behind CIP-1694 is to address shortcomings in the existing Cardano governance mechanism which modifies parameter values (incl. Hard forks) and transfers ADA between reserves and the treasury. These shortcomings include :
no room for active participation of ADA holders
Transfers from treasury can be hard to track ands lack transparency
Hard forks are not sufficiency differentiated from other protocol changes
No clearly defined common vision or guiding principles
What next ?
Discussion and review of the Specification is encouraged across the Cardano community in order to inform appropriate revisions to this governance model.
QA-DAO supports this objective by contributing to the broad communication and explanation of the Specification with this summary and subsequent presentations.
Full documentation of this presentation is available on QA-DAO’s Ekphrasis GitBook
Thank you
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