Introducing the Voltaire GovTool

Contributors: Intersect

A truly decentralized blockchain protocol must embrace a governance model that fosters collaboration and democratic consent every step of the way. Alongside alignment around core principles, processes, organizations and mechanisms, effective governance requires tools to promote community engagement and provide the technical ‘plumbing’ for building consensus across the Cardano ecosystem.

The GovTool

Voltaire’s developmental roadmap has prioritized governance tooling in an effort to create greater efficiencies and provide new avenues for community involvement in promoting Cardano’s ongoing advancement. The Voltaire GovTool will enable ADA holders to register to become a Delegated Representative (DRep), delegate voting power to DReps, and review and vote on governance actions.

Governance tooling is owned and maintained by the community. With community approval, Intersect, through its committees and working groups, will play an important role in hosting and maintaining these governance tools. Through active community involvement, the aim is to create the initial foundation layer together with different builders in the community. These governance tools support and enrich the processes that are necessary to fully implement CIP-1694 on-chain voting. Once this foundation layer is ready, the community will be able to further contribute to these governance tools by maintaining and improving existing features and pillars, creating new features or completely new areas either by themselves or supported by awards and grants facilitated by Intersect.

The GovTool will also allow ADA holders to test some of the governance features available in SanchoNet – the testnet that puts the Cardano Improvement Protocol (CIP) 1694’s values and specifications into practice. With the freedom to test and refine Cardano’s next era of governance principles under one central apparatus, the GovTool helps the Cardano community forge a future governance framework that represents the community’s best democratic interests.

Each phase of SanchoNet’s rollout introduces new community-building features, not all of which will be available on GovTool, for more on the actions that ADA holders can iterate on and help improve through SanchoNet see the phases below:

Getting Involved

September's NFTxLV event included a first look at the GovTool in action. The demo highlighted key features of the tool and ways for those interested to become a GovTool tester.

Soon enough, the community will have a number of new tools at its disposal for engaging in participatory governance actions on the Cardano blockchain and will have an even greater ability to easily and effectively shape and improve the protocol through collective decision making as Cardano enters the age of Voltaire.

If you’re interested in testing the Voltaire GovTool please submit your interest here.