Governance on Cosmos-based chains

Governance & Proposals

Cosmos chains are based on the same underlying technology and are all Proof of Stake blockchains. In effect, this means that everyone owning native tokens on the blockchain can create and or vote on proposals.

What kind of proposals can be made?

  • Chain and governance parameters (inflation rate, quorum thresholds...)
  • Non-binding Community consultation
  • Allocating capital from the Community Pool to new projects
  • Reverting transactions from bad actors

Governance is a way to direct the evolution of the chain and to help the growth of new projects, and it's important to keep an eye on proposals submitted.

We'll explain how to create a proposal in another article and just focus on the voting process for now.

Voting Process

Once a proposal has reached the deposit threshold required to be valid, anyone can vote on this proposal if they have staked their tokens on a validator.

The voting power of an individual or group is therefore linked to the amount of tokens they have staked. It is also important to note that if you do not vote yourself, then your voting power will be used by the validator to whom you are delegating your tokens. It is therefore important to stake with a validator that has a similar vision to yours, or keep an eye out for proposals.

Proposals are straightforward Yes/No questions so there are 4 ways to vote:

  • Yes
  • No
  • Abstain
  • No with veto

A proposal will be accepted if:

  • A quorum is reached, usually 40%
  • More than 50% of votes are "Yes"
  • No with veto are less than 1/3 of votes

It is important to note that if these conditions are not reached, the deposit for the proposal will not be refunded, but instead sent to the community pool.

Once the vote is over, and if there is a need for it, a new version of the blockchain client including the necessary changes will be made available to validators. Once 2/3 of them have updated their client to this new version and have signalled they are ready, the network will enable the changes.

Voting on the Fetch.ai Blockchain

There are different ways to vote on proposals on the Fetch.ai Blockchain, but the best way is to use FetchStation.

FetchStation is an interactive dashboard developed by AzoyaLabs for the Fetch Blockchain. It allows users to interact with the chain by tracking their assets, stake their tokens and of course vote on proposals in a simple and convenient way.