Celo Governance in a Nutshell - Gavin (Figment Networks)

Governance
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Full article here.

Grateful for any likes/RTs!

Celo Governance in a Nutshell

Celo governance is complex and unlike other networks. Figment Networks strives to drive governance activities at all stakeholder levels in order to ensure that networks like Celo stay healthy, sustainable, and resilient. Here’s how to understand and participate in Celo’s system of governance.

At a Glance

Observing active governance proposals
:mag_right: http://thecelo.com (retains historical proposals)
:mag_right: https://celoist.com/ecosystem/governance
:mag_right: https://celovote.com (requires a Ledger hardware wallet)
:mag_right: Command-line interface celocli
:eyes: Coming soon: Celo Hubble by Figment Networks

Voting
:ballot_box: https://celovote.com
:ballot_box: Command-line interface celocli
:eyes: Coming soon: Celo Hubble by Figment Networks

From proposal to execution

:bulb: Someone will create a forum topic to discuss their proposal (ideally)
:bank: They’ll deposit 100 cGLD to launch the proposal
:arrow_up: cGLD stakers “upvote,” and top 3 proposals advance to next stage (24 hours)
:balance_scale: Celo Foundation decides which proposals are approved to advance (24 hours)
:ballot_box: Finally, cGLD stakers vote with their locked Celo Gold (48 hours)
:arrow_forward: Successful proposals are executed on-chain and enacted by the protocol

Related : Celo Governance: A High Overview (Apr 27, 2020)

5 Likes
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Thanks @Gavin for this concise summary. A few things stick out to me -

1 - The entire process feels a bit rushed. It doesn’t give validators sufficient time to thoughtfully consider a proposal.

2 - It seems like requiring 3 proposals in a 24 hour period assures proposals of getting advanced to the next stage. On other networks, there is rarely more than 1 proposal active at any given time. Sometimes there are 2, yet very rarely 3. So this means a proposal is likely to breeze through the first stage.

3 - The Celo Foundation deciding which proposals to advance is a significant centralization factor. Do we know what the plans are to decentralize this over time?

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The Celo Foundation deciding which proposals to advance is a significant centralization factor. Do we know what the plans are to decentralize this over time?

In our protocol design decisions, the assumption has always been that the approver would be migrated to a more decentralized set of individuals over time, although I can’t speak for the plans of the Foundation itself. Proposal approval is not designed to be high-barrier, and if the approver is ever blocking proposals that have broad community support, that would be a form of constitutional crisis. Its purpose is to prevent spamming proposals, or misleading proposals that if voted for would severely harm network stability. I definitely think this will be a topic going forward, and there are a lot of interesting questions to answer about what a decentralized approval mechanism would look like!