Decentralized Voices & dReps: A Governance Showdown in Polkadot and Cardano
Decentralized governance in blockchain puts the power in the hands of users, but with great power comes great…complexity. Imagine millions of people voting on everything and on the other hand, just a few most powerful players deciding everything. Things get more intricate, right?!
Enter Decentralized Voices (DV) and Delegation Representatives (dReps). These are like powerful advisors for the blockchain world. DVs, created by the Web3 Foundation for Polkadot, and dReps, dreamed up by Cardano’s IOG team, help navigate the voting chaos. They basically act as filters and sounding boards, making sure everyone’s on the same page before big decisions get made. Let’s see how these two systems work their magic and keep the blockchain world running smoothly.
Decentralized Voices program in Polkadot
The Decentralized Voices (DV) program, launched by the Web3 Foundation, aims to improve community governance in the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. It does this by delegating significant voting power to a few chosen active participants for a specific period of time. Key aspects of the program include:
Delegation of voting power
The program allocates 42 million DOT and 180,000 KSM worth of voting power to selected delegates. The amount of tokens delegated is 7M DOT and 30k KSM, but as we will breakdown later on, those are used with conviction.
Second cohort expansion
There has already been the first cohort of delegates that tested the ground with some updates brought to the program as a reaction to the feedback received from the first cohort. The new second cohort includes ten delegates each for Polkadot and Kusama, compared to previously seven delegates for Polkadot resp. six for Kusama, with each delegate receiving:
- 700,000 DOT at 6x conviction = 4,2 M voting power / each delegate, and
- 3,000 KSM at 6x conviction = 18,000 KSM voting power / each delegate.
Inclusive governance tracks
Delegations cover various governance tracks, most of them are treasury-spending tracks, including
- Treasurer,
- Big Spender,
- Medium Spender,
- Small Spender,
- Big Tipper,
- Medium Tipper,
- Small Tipper and
- Wish-for-Change (non-spending track).
Three-month delegation period
Delegates hold their voting power for three consecutive months before a new set of delegates is chosen. Web3 Foundation is responsible for the selection process as its the one who delegates the voting power.
Competitive selection process
Delegates are chosen based on active governance participation, community involvement, and diversity in outlook, background, and location. All of this information is required by the W3F and specified at the Polkadot Forum, before the selection process starts.
The DV program aims to democratize governance by empowering a diverse range of community members to influence the future of Polkadot and Kusama. After the first cohort of delegates, it’s proven to be an effective way to engage active participants and reduce the power of the whales.
dReps in Cardano
In the Cardano ecosystem, dReps (Delegated Representatives) are key players in the Voltaire era, which introduces on-chain governance. Here’s how dReps work:
What are dReps?
A dRep is an ADA holder who registers to represent other ADA holders by voting on governance actions. This registration process involves a certificate, which acts as a credential that verifies the dRep’s identity and eligibility to participate in governance.
This system decentralizes decision-making and allows for more active participation in protocol changes and ecosystem support, because not all of the ADA holders are also developers or marketing experts at the same time.
Delegation process
ADA holders (delegators) can delegate their voting power to a dRep using a delegation certificate. This process is similar to staking, where ADA remains in the delegator’s wallet, and they can redelegate to another dRep at any time.
Voting and participation
dReps vote on governance actions using governance tools. Their decision-making power is proportional to the amount of ADA delegated to them. Active participation is essential — while inactive dReps don’t lose their voting power outright, it becomes inactive as well. This means their delegated ADA is not counted towards the active voting stake and therefore doesn’t influence the overall voting outcome. It’s essentially like their stake is temporarily voted out.
Types of dReps
Regular dReps
Individuals or collectives representing themselves or others.
Automated abstain dReps
Representing stakes that abstain from voting.
No confidence dReps
Represent stakes that vote “No Confidence” on every action.
Comparison Where Possible
Both Decentralized Voices (DVs) and Delegation Representatives (dReps) represent innovative approaches to fostering informed, community-driven governance within their respective blockchains. While they share the common goal of empowering users and ensuring balanced decision-making, their methods differ. They are not quite comparable, in Cardano view, there is a dRep Pioneer Program, that is similar to what DV means for Polkadot. So let’s have a final look at both dReps and DV.
DVs (Polkadot)
- Faster implementation: Already operational, DVs offer a real-world example of delegated governance within Polkadot and Kusama.
- Curated expertise: The Web3 Foundation handpicks DVs for their proven commitment to decentralization, leveraging their experience for critical decisions.
- Targeted focus: DVs prioritize proposals that safeguard Polkadot’s decentralization and prudent spendings, ensuring a laser focus on core principles.
- Number of DVs: The number of delegates differs on the approach of Web3 Foundation, at this moment there are 10 delegates for both Polkadot and Kusama and this number might slightly change in the future.
- Rewards: To this moment, it seems that there won’t be any direct reward for the participants of the program, at least it wasn’t a talk of a reward even at the beginning. But still, there were dozens of applicants for this program.
dReps (Cardano)
- Community choice: Elected by ADA holders, dReps offer a democratic layer of representation, ensuring alignment with community values.
- Broader scope: dReps handle a wider range of proposals, encompassing not only decentralization and spendings but also other areas crucial to Cardano’s development.
- Scalability and flexibility: The delegation system allows for adaptation as the Cardano ecosystem grows, with the potential to increase or decrease the number of dReps based on community needs.
- Number of dReps: The number of dReps is not limited, while it seems that there will be lower tens of participants at the beginning.
- Rewards: There is an ongoing debate about the amount of rewards in ADA as the work is time consuming, responsible and requires a high degree of expertise. There are no exact parameters yet, so we need to wait a bit. There is also a chance for example, that only TOP 10 dReps will reach a reward, depending on their activity and received delegaiton.
Closing Thoughts: Different Approaches to Improve Governance
Those programs are not the same, but they both improve decentralization in governance in some way. Overall, DVs excel in speed and focus, as the selection process is in the hands of the Web3 Foundation.
dReps allows anyone from the community to be active in Cardano's governance and even get additional delegations, which seems to be a more democratic and inclusive approach, where only ADA holders decide who to gets the delegations.
On the other hand, DOT holders in Polkadot can vote in OpenGov without any barriers and registrations, such as the dReps program, so the governance system is even more inclusive.
Let's close. Certainly, both programs contribute to a future where active communities shape the direction of blockchains in governance, ensuring long-term success and responsiveness to the evolving needs of the user bases. This adds value to simply having a governance system without any specific regulations and attributes.
If you like this article, then:
- Follow Polkadotters on Twitter
- Delegate your DOT or KSM to Polkadotters for easy participation in the on-chain governance via Talisman or Nova wallet.
- Strengthen Polkadot by nominating your DOT tokens to Polkadotters Shrimp and Polkadotters Octopus
