by Silvio Micali

STATUS QUO

Currently, in Algorand, every account can participate in consensus, but not governance.  Governance is the power of deciding non-consensus tasks, the funding of grant proposals being an example.

As a next step toward responsible decentralization of the network, we want to introduce a mechanism for any account to not only participate in consensus, but also to govern.

GOAL

The goal of this proposal is decentralizing Algorand governance, and aligning network rewards with such governance. More precisely, it is putting forward the mechanics and incentives guaranteeing a governance that, just like our consensus protocol, is simultaneously decentralized, secure, and efficient.

QUICK SUMMARY

Participation in governance will be voluntary. The accounts that choose to participate, the governing accounts or, more simply, the governors, lock their tokens for a given amount of time, initially proposed to be one year. Governing accounts shall be rewarded for their work. We anticipate that the rewards earned by governing accounts will be higher than the current network rewards they will replace.[1]

We propose to implement this governance gradually, starting by decentralizing the funding of grant proposals presented to the Foundation.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION!

Discuss this proposal for decentralized governance and more on the Algorand Governance Forum and Algorand’s Governance Discord Channel.

[1] Network rewards are the additional tokens every Algorand account receives, based on its own stake and the given year, whether or not it participates in consensus.