The Community Development Fund will be governed by the Governance Council. Council members will be elected before the official network launch and are appointed to ensure stability, efficiency, and gradual decentralization of governance.
On March 8th 2021, we publicly revealed our Governance Paper for Dusk Network. In this paper, we present the on-and off-chain governance procedures that we’ll launch the public network with. Central to its design is the Governance Council, and for good reason. In this article we explain more about the council, and its connection with other governance components like the consensus, the self-funding mechanism, and the community development fund allocation.
Who sits on the Council?
The Governance Council oversees the Community Development Fund, and is responsible for allocating funds to ecosystem proposals. Community developers who want to contribute to Dusk Network can decide to submit a proposal for funding. Their proposal is reviewed by the Governance Council who decides its fate: approved or rejected. By endorsing the right proposals for the tooling ecosystem, the Council members intend to bring stability to, and ensure future usage of, the Dusk Network protocol.
In order to succeed in their task, all members of the council need to demonstrate a certain level of technical expertise. That is why the first Governance Council will comprise a total of 7 members, split among members of the Dusk Network team and high-profile researchers.
What funds does the Council govern?
Simply stated, the Governance Council governs the Community Development Fund, or CDF, but how does this work? Thanks to Dusk Network’s consensus infrastructure, the CDF receives its share of the block rewards. It is this 'treasury' that the Council can utilize to fund the appropriate grant proposals that will help to bring stability and decentralization to the Dusk Network. Let’s dive a little deeper into this flow of community development funding below.
Consensus. Dusk Network is powered by our very own consensus mechanism, called Segregated Byzantine Agreement (SBA). In SBA there are two types of roles: Block Generators and Provisioners. Together, they are responsible for the addition of blocks to the network, and they're rewarded their fair share, totaling 90% of the block reward.
Self-Funding Mechanism. While 90% of the rewards go to the participants active in the consensus, 10% of the block reward are allocated to the Community Development Fund (CDF). This ‘’treasury’’ is there to secure the long-term future of Dusk Network. The Dusk tokens in the CDF represent real economic value, and will be used to fund development initiatives. Of course, it is crucial that the right proposals are selected, and funded activities add long-term value to the network.
Community Development Fund Allocation. Anyone can submit a proposal for the development of ecosystem tooling on the Dusk Network but not all proposals will be accepted by the Council. A grant proposal contains a description of the proposal, the amount of funding requested, the execution power of the submitting party, and the general status. When approved, the requested funds will be allocated as milestones are completed, or in a lump sum.
Governance Structure
At Dusk Network we strive to balance governance decentralization and efficiency. This is why we install both Dusk Network’s Core Research & Development team and the Governance Council as governing bodies. Once the stability of the network is safeguarded by size and on-chain dynamics, and the Council has successfully expanded the supportive tooling ecosystem, we will consider the idea of deprecating the Dusk Network Governance Council in favor of a fully Decentralized Autonomous Organization.