Strong governance is at the heart of any serious blockchain project. Today marks the release of the Dusk Network Governance paper, which details the steps we’re taking towards a fully decentralized ecosystem.
Key takeaways:
- Today is the official release of the Dusk Network Governance Paper V1.
- A Governance Council will be elected.
- Dusk Network’s Governance Council will mature towards a fully Decentralised Ecosystem.
What is governance?
According to Watson Law: “Governance is a term that relates to decision making processes within an organization — who is responsible for what, how are major decisions being taken or implemented, is authority vested in a select few or distributed among all participants, etc.”
So, at its core, ‘Governance’ defines a set of decision-making processes. These are important for Dusk Network, as it enables us to mature, adapt, and evolve based on:
- Changing user needs
- New regulatory requirements
- New technological advancements
Governance is about designing mechanisms that will allow Dusk Network to stay relevant with changing times and requirements, and remain competitive in the long-term.
💡 The Economic Model Paper describes part of Dusk Network’s governance, establishing how the protocol’s tokenomics ensure efficient use of resources, incentivization for the parties involved, and how longevity of the system is ensured.
💡 The Dusk Network Governance Paper details, in particular, the self-funding mechanism sustaining the network’s treasury, and the on-chain & off-chain governance dynamics.
Dusk Governance Dynamics
In the case of Dusk Network, the initial governance structure consists of both off-chain and on-chain elements. Off-chain governance encapsulates all the decisions made outside the scope of the protocol state. En route to the Mainnet, it is important for the development and business team to maintain its agility, flexibility and ability to deliver without too much outside interference.
To formalize the off-chain governance for Dusk Network, we differentiate between two procedures:
1) Core Protocol
This governance is overseen by Dusk Network’s Core Research & Development team. The team is responsible for all amendments to the reference Dusk Network protocol specification, either in form of bug fixes or protocol upgrades.
2) Community Development Fund
The Governance Council oversees the Community Development Fund. It is a community governance committee responsible for allocating funds to proposals outside the scope of the reference protocol. Think of wallet implementations, certain research efforts, and protocol tooling. The Governance Council will also initiate the Dusk Network Grants program.
On-chain governance refers to the ability of users of the protocol to vote and enact protocol upgrades. The on-chain protocol upgrade procedure allows the network participants to either accept or reject proposals made by the Dusk Network’s Core R&D team.
Towards a fully Decentralized Ecosystem
There are a multitude of benefits to moving towards a more decentralized on-chain governance structure, including transparency due to the voting system, decentralized decision making due to each token holder having a voice in potential protocol changes, swift consensus due to the fixed voting periods, and so on, but most importantly, it reflects upon our ambition.
It is our ambition to create a single, decentralized financial ecosystem, and we plan for our governance structure to follow closely: an open, cross-border platform that eliminates the risk of single point of failures, and is safely governed by all its intended stakeholders.
Without further ado, dive straight into our Governance Paper V1: