Governance & Catalyst over time

Governance is unsolved: if two brilliant cryptographers propose rival signature schemes, there is no systematic way to decide between them.

A governance crisis is a barrier to consumer and enterprise adoption, since executives cannot build on rules they have no say over.

Like an IPO, an ICO is a one time capital injection, which leaves a sustainability problem of how to fund a protocol long term.

Sustainability comes down to voting, and a bad voting system gives you poor choices by the time you get to vote.

Cardano leans toward liquid democracy, delegating votes per situation with additive homomorphic encryption and thresholds.

A Lancaster University team under Bingsheng is writing papers on a voting system and treasury abstracted as a reference model for any blockchain.

A system needs a constitution and rights baked in before everyone gets rich and powerful and tempted to change things.

Commits to a fully operational Treasury and Voltaire governance by 2020 or 2021, with ADA holders voting on future IOHK funding.

Stresses the need for multiple independent development teams to avoid key man risk in Cardano's protocol governance.

Cardano's federated structure across IOHK, the Foundation and Emurgo, arguing the project would survive without him thanks to shared decision making.

Shuts down the idea of burning or redistributing ADA, saying he has no legal authority to seize anyone's holdings.

He who has the gold makes the rules, so funding decides governance, and a system without a decision process ends up forking into Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Private and Ethereum Classic.

The best thing Satoshi did was go away, but Bitcoin's implicit governance is hitting its limits, and Tezos, Decred, PIVX and Zcash each have their own answer to who pays and who decides.

Asked how Cardano governs itself: the project was federated from the start, with IOHK on the tech held accountable by peer review on the science and independent third party code audits.

The Cardano Foundation in Switzerland under Michael Parsons acts as neutral custodian and Emurgo is the independent venture arm, comparable to ConsenSys, with weekly reports and monthly updates keeping everyone informed.

In a liquid democracy community leaders become the delegates people hand voting power to, the way Bitcoiners followed Andreas Antonopoulos, Adam Back or Roger Ver, and improvement proposals then only ship once voted on.

A treasury sets priorities because funded things get built, as Dash has shown by allocating millions every month, and anyone can submit a ballot to start a debate.

Governance has to beat rational ignorance and misaligned incentives, the same demons every democracy faces, making this a social experiment as much as a technological one.

Outlines plans to route part of the inflation into a treasury that the community votes on, like an NSF or DARPA for Cardano.

Argues a treasury gets holders actively engaged in the platform's direction, unlike passive Bitcoin ownership.

A longer term liquid democracy where holders can delegate their vote to trusted community figures.

Previews the 2019 Cardano Improvement Proposal process that will let the community vote on contentious calls like quantum resistance and privacy hardening.

Frames privacy as Cardano's toughest governance decision yet, since going more private risks exchange delistings while going less private risks a Facebook style backdoor.

Insists the privacy spectrum must be settled by community governance, not by IOHK unilaterally or by courting regulators like Ripple has.

Rejects the idea of a guaranteed IOHK contract renewal, insisting future funding should go through community Treasury votes.

Lays out the path through Cardano Improvement Proposals and Treasury funding for whichever stewards prove most useful over time.

Addresses the Cardano Foundation leadership change, with Pascal cleaning up after Parson's resignation.

Revives the idea of community funded Cardano hubs to evangelize and grow the ecosystem in different regions.

Distinguishes free software from open source and argues Cardano should follow decentralized, non custodial governance like Bitcoin rather than closed roadmaps like Oracle's Java.

Announces plans for a Cardano Improvement Proposal process to govern all updates after Shelley.

A treasury funded, liquid democracy voting system for deciding which CIPs get built.

Cautions that on chain democracy must evolve gradually, drawing lessons from a decade of DAO governance history.

Recalls an April pilot that drew over a thousand expressions of interest in running a stake pool, with plans to reopen registration within 60 days and convert the list into testnet participants.

Recalls lobbying Ethereum Classic for a treasury system to sustainably fund development, warning that donation only funding would fail for projects without pre existing wealth.

Announces the Cardano Foundation has appointed three new interim board members, Nathan Kaiser, Donna Berkey, and Manmeet Singh, tasked with cleaning up its systems and appointing a new, larger, diverse board.

The Guardians of Cardano and the new board exist to stop the foundation's funds from ever being used for personal gain again.

Contrasts PBS-style donation begging with an on-chain treasury where ADA holders directly fund proposals like a government budget.

Argues on-chain treasury voting gives ADA holders real accountability and influence that Bitcoin holders never get, which helps prevent community forks.

Explains why a decentralized treasury matters so ecosystem funding does not depend on a single gatekeeper deciding who gets grants.

A treasury lets third parties propose and the community vote, which prevents forks and division, and funding is decided before code is written, so a five million dollar lightning proposal is argued up front while meetups gain real power and dApps get funded without an ICO.

Treasury research with Roman Oliynykov and the Lancaster team produced a paper accepted to NDSS, and delegation is generation one of voting before liquid democracy layers on the same mechanics.

Governance consumes 2020 while scalability is nearly solved with shorter, more elegant papers, and by the end of the year the community should be self determining with IOHK just one voice needing a democratic mandate.

With Parsons gone the Guardians turned into watchdogs recommending better governance systems and better ways to manage the ecosystem.

On liquid democracy, says Voltaire has moved from theory to a plan under Bingsheng Zhang, rolling out a Treasury and CIP process with new product manager David Esser, to be announced at the summit or in the second half of 2019.

A three-stage governance path: get the Treasury and social dynamics right, then optional CIP voting for 40 percent of the system, then in the 2025 to 2035 future compulsory certified clients enforced by formal methods.

Some pieces like Goguen are nearly done while the Treasury system is still in heavy debate for the first half of 2020.

Commits to a Treasury system before the end of 2020 and a new five year roadmap the community can vote on and compare to rival proposals.

Argues a Treasury and voting system gives speculators real power and turns opinions into funded action, unlike most cryptocurrencies.

Addresses the long promised ADA debit card, saying the Cardano Foundation is negotiating it after rebuilding its finances.

Wants the Cardano Foundation to run monthly AMAs, hire an executive director, and set up an ambassador steering committee.

A treasury system opens up new monetary policy and new funding structures, so the protocol could become its own venture capital fund for future companies.

The Treasury system is scaling up and leaving the lab, and is the very next thing IOHK starts as Shelley draws down and some people move to Hydra.

Snark work may optimize the anonymous voting protocol, whose partial additive homomorphic encryption primitives are a bit heavy.

The Treasury has to be done in 2020, and IOHK will not leave Cardano until the CIP process, voting and Treasury are deployed and stable, self funded if needed.

Lists other active research threads: incentives, stake pool rational-actor behavior, the CIP process, voting, and the Treasury system, with Ben Chang leading Treasury and voting product management.

The coming need for a CIP process modeled on Bitcoin's BIPs and Ethereum's EIPs, since Shelley removes IOHK's ability to unilaterally push hard forks.

Points to Tezos's on-chain governance experiment as a chance to learn from its successes and failures, cautioning against introducing too much democracy too early.

Targets implementing the Treasury system around Q1 2020 to give the community an alternative source of development funding.

A Voltaire product team is starting to take shape, needed soon to hit a 2020 target on the now rewritten, low technical debt codebase.

After Treasury launches, future proposals will be broken into smaller items like stablecoins, portfolio caps, and a venture fund for DApps.

Looks ahead to a Voltaire era marketing push centered on governance, finding community leaders, and the Treasury system.

A boatload of treasury work is queued up, the design is known, it just has to get built.

A decentralized protocol can still be upgraded after launch through an improvement proposal process and democratic voting, unlike a centralized company.

Uses the low turnout DAO hack vote to discuss representative sampling and how to incentivize participation in on chain governance.

Calls the treasury and voting system the great 2020 challenge, an interdisciplinary problem spanning economics and political science.

Expects cryptocurrency to be the first practical instrument for delivering universal basic income.

Handing governance to the community happens in stages, starting with participation infrastructure like improvement proposals and ambassador programs before any voting matters.

Argues a voting system is only legitimate with high turnout, comparing low participation to a president elected by just five percent of voters.

Cites declining US presidential election turnout and weak candidate choices as a cautionary tale for what happens when participation infrastructure is neglected.

Lays out the concrete rollout: IOHK writes the improvement proposal process, the Cardano Foundation builds ambassador and meetup programs, then a liquid democracy voting system follows.

Never part of the Cardano Foundation, only a representative helping rebuild it: an interim board, a hunt for seven new board members and an executive director, then full independence.

IOHK will put organizational pressure on the Foundation to work on the Cardano improvement proposal process and Voltaire so a clear governance model exists by the end of 2020.

Any voting system or incentive model can be built, but if the community stays ignorant and does not use it, decentralization goes nowhere.

A treasury is a printing press for the ecosystem: ask the community for fifty million and it shows up, the same way Tesla prints stock, but you can never print integrity.

The community cannot vote on renewing the IOHK contract until governance exists, so the incentive is to keep writing code and losing money until it ships.

Walks through the post Voltaire funding process: IOHK will publish a five year closing report, then submit a funding ballot the community can negotiate or reject.

Argues that competing funding proposals and ada holder votes stop any cult of personality from controlling Cardano's future.

Heads to Switzerland to discuss forming a CIP committee with the Cardano Foundation as the first step of Voltaire governance.

Outlines the CIP process of drafting, hashing, voting, and ratifying proposals, targeting Q2 2020 announcements and using it first for an IOHK funding contract.

CIP updates will surface via the Daedalus newsfeed, eventually with CIPs submitted as on chain transactions.

The Cardano Foundation is the single most important entity for long term decentralization: it shepherds community management, market liquidity relationships, adoption and the Cardano Improvement Proposal process until it makes itself obsolete.

The prior chairman Michael Parsons made a strategic decision to ignore his mandate and squandered the community's time, resources, faith, trust and money, and the tripartite structure let the other two pillars compensate.

Phase two is doing the work Michael Parsons was supposed to do: talking to exchanges, community management, branding Cardano and finding the elevator pitch.

Phase three is diversification: involve democracy, create groups people can join, expand the Ambassador Program, diversify funding and build a Governing Council of independent experts, which is why Tamara, who ran IOHK's HR department, is there to install control systems and recruit.

The Foundation needs a solutions group that talks to solutions architects building real applications on Cardano, turns improvement proposals into RFPs with budgets and brings them to a treasury system for the community to vote on, which by 2020 becomes the business and technical requirements for Voltaire.

A first real sit down with a foundation member on the Cardano improvement proposal process, a new Solutions Group for routing deal flow, and the first serious talk about a treasury and RFP process.

The Foundation was a mess a year ago with books that were not even kept correctly and now has proper processes and personnel, but this is an interim board that should be gone within one to two years and replaced by people independent of IOHK.

IOHK linked members should not sit on that board long term and as CEO he will write letters instructing them to resign, expecting Emurgo to do the same, with the whole board replaced within 12 to 24 months, because these operations are public goods that belong at the Foundation where they run more transparently.

Argues a Cardano style treasury would have been a game changer for ETC, pointing to Dash and Zcash as proof treasuries keep developers funded and projects alive.

Cardano brings in social and political scientists for the Voltaire governance work, treating it as a complexity theory problem.

Presents blockchain based governance, voting and private money as direct solutions to America's institutional dysfunction, not just a developing world tool.

A path where Wyoming's blockchain integration into IDs and voting spreads state by state toward a constitutional convention.

Addresses stake pool saturation caps, describing plans for on chain voting over protocol parameters like block size and the K parameter.

A 39 page paper on decentralized software updates with IBM Research and the EU Horizon 2020 project, which together with voting research and the CIP process forms the bedrock of Voltaire.

A parallel team can start implementing Hydra before Shelley and Goguen are finished, while Voltaire's requirements will come out of the CIP process.

Three years of voting research at the University of Lancaster under Bingsheng Zhang has produced groundbreaking papers sent to conferences like NDSS.

A Cyprus based research team wrote a 40 page paper on decentralized software updates with Guardtime, IBM Research and the University of Edinburgh, and a new group at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center will consolidate that with the European Union work.

The intent is to launch a voting and treasury system with incentivized participation in 2020, because IOHK wants to run the next five years of Cardano research and development through it.

Funding for The Cardano Effect has moved from IOHK to the Cardano Foundation, and they will likely be among the first entities funded directly by the treasury.

Aligning IOHK, Emurgo and the Cardano Foundation is iterative work, and he has started participating directly in the CIP process with regular meetings, while IOHK hires a dedicated product manager before opening it to public comment.

A Voltaire task the Cardano Foundation is leading is evolving the Cardano protocol beyond where IOHK took it, keeping the quality methodology intact: science must be peer reviewed, code must be documented, tested, built with formal methods and audited by third parties like Root9B and Kudelski Security.

Protocol changes split into two dimensions, improvement proposals that update a formal specification such as the delegation design spec or the Byron chain spec, which is how soft and hard forks and ledger, consensus and network rule changes get made, and eventually those specs can be self hosted on Cardano instead of GitHub with the democratic mechanisms on ledger.

The other dimension is enhancement proposals that need community judgment rather than mathematical formalism, like an ATM network throughout Addis Ababa for adoption in Ethiopia or a grant for the government of Mauritius to put voting infrastructure on Cardano, and the Cardano Foundation's CIP committee explores both mandates plus a code independent reference system so a C, Java or Haskell client can verify one source of truth.

The goal is to put both proposal types under a single democratic voting mechanic attached to the treasury, which is the point of Voltaire, backed by a Horizon 2020 grant of over half a million dollars won with IBM Research and Guardtime to study decentralized software updates, executed by IOHK's Cyprus entity Input Output Research.

Combined with three years of research at Lancaster University with Bingsheng Zhang, including a paper at NDSS, IOHK has the mechanics, but none of it substitutes for community participation and incentives to participate.

Moving into 2021, once the bulk of Shelley and Goguen is done the entire team becomes available to implement the treasury and voting system, and a base version needs no substantial protocol changes because much of it can be layer 2 or more centralized at first.

The Cardano Foundation is pushing hard on the CIP process and should soon publish its first principles for handling proposals.

A dedicated Voltaire product manager is in final interviews to coordinate the Lancaster, Berkman Klein, and European Union governance threads.

Suggests any university could one day ask Cardano's treasury system directly for funding to set up its own research lab.

Funding for community driven projects is taking shape, with the foundation asked to talk publicly about its 2020 grant strategy and a coming statement on commercially critical Cardano infrastructure.

Welcomes Dor Garbash as dedicated product manager for Voltaire as it moves from research into implementation, also representing IOHK on the CIP committee.

Invites the community to brainstorm on Reddit what else should count as commercially critical infrastructure for Cardano's long term competitiveness.

Voltaire's treasury and voting system will fund ongoing maintenance and lists post quantum signatures and one shot signatures as future treasury funded research.

A diverse multi vendor development ecosystem, not a single contractor, is the point of decentralized governance.

Confirms he would be glad for IOHK to keep working with Cardano for many years under the treasury system.

Argues opponents of blockchain treasuries misunderstand that inflation can fund system maintenance just as it funds security.

Community leaders who explain papers and write tutorials will earn democratic mandates or blockchain funding to write the DeFi smart contracts and run thousands of stake pools making Cardano the most decentralized financial operating system, and that social progress matters more than any release.

Pushes for online and blockchain based voting, starting with Wyoming state elections, after senators couldn't vote remotely during COVID.

Plans a year-end closing report summarizing five years of work, with the community voting on funding another three to five years.

IOHK has professionalized from two people to a company of 200, with the community holding final consent over continued funding.

Insists decentralized systems need checks, balances, and social structures so people can disagree without a demagogue taking over.

Explains why CCI needs multiple independent builders, not just IOHK, to create healthy debate among infrastructure developers.

Warns that democracy's weak point is letting a small, loud minority co-opt the system for short-term gain.

Calls on community leaders to help moderate speculators as Voltaire approaches, so short-termism cannot steer the project off course.

Cardano Foundation educational handouts for community outreach are coming in June.

Predicts Cardano will be the best voting system once Voltaire ships.

Governance meetings are productive, covering improvement and enhancement proposals and how to practically implement the Voltaire protocols.

The Treasury voting system can adjust monetary policy parameters like inflation if the community agrees.

Answers how Cardano will handle transaction fee adjustments as ADA's price changes, describing a future dynamic fee formula set through Voltaire.

Teases upcoming Voltaire governance announcements from the more than ten person team, now including former incentivized testnet staff.

Frames IOHK's continued funding as a democratic Treasury vote, arguing a real commercial system beats charity or telethon style funding.

Confirms excitement for the upcoming Bitcoin halving and reiterate that Treasury funded work contracts will be made public for ADA holders to review.

ITN inflation splits into a rewards bucket and a treasury bucket, and that current mainnet transaction fees are simply burned rather than going to IOHK or the treasury until Shelley.

Warns against letting protocol development become an exclusionary ivory tower, citing how Bitcoin's culture mocked an early sidechain and proof style proposal from one of his own researchers that was later vindicated with a PhD and papers underpinning ideas like fly client.

Announces the Cardano Foundation's CIP committee will present its improvement proposal process at the Shelley virtual summit, alongside updates on Voltaire voting and decentralized software update work with Guardtime and IBM.

Floats bundling something like git directly with Cardano software so the canonical source code repository itself is controlled in a decentralized way instead of by one owner.

Proposes a simple litmus test for healthy decentralized governance, namely whether the system keeps moving forward with a genuine diversity of contributors rather than the same five people repeating themselves.

The Ambassador Program as a meritocratic community role meant to eventually be elected and funded through Voltaire voting.

Fields a question on who controls the Treasury wallet's private keys and what checks and balances exist.

The long term Treasury will be controlled entirely by the chain itself through a spending predicate built from votes, not by any party's keys.

The Cardano Improvement Proposal process is coming together, with the Cardano Foundation publishing a first CIP template around May.

Pitches blockchain voting as the fix for the political blame trap that discourages governors from ever reopening their states.

Predicts the Wyoming lab will make Cardano's Treasury a magnet for global academic research, unlike funding models controlled by an inner circle.

The Cardano Improvement Proposal process works and why it's rolling out slowly to bring the community along.

Private transactions and balances could be built if the community votes for it once the treasury system is live.

Contrasts Cardano's coming decentralized treasury with going through a centralized foundation like the Ethereum Foundation's grant program.

Compares treasury funded ecosystem growth to how Bitcoin mining scaled from laptops to warehouses once incentives aligned.

Highlights the ITN treasury passing 100 million ADA, ready to fund proposals once Voltaire voting turns on.

Hopes to pilot a Wyoming state level voting system within two years, alongside the broader Voltaire voting philosophy.

Looks forward to Voltaire unlocking treasury funds so the community can build and pursue its own projects.