On-chain governance released

Today we are pleased to announce an important milestone – the release of on-chain governance for the Fantom network. You can access the Governance module on your Fantom fWallet.

Onchain governance

Fantom is one of the first chains that support on-chain governance for a fully decentralized blockchain. The governance system allows FTM holders to further engage with Fantom by giving their opinions and suggestions by creating new proposals and voting on existing ones to improve the network.

How does it work?

The voting is entirely on-chain and decentralized, and 1 FTM equals one vote. Governance is available to FTM holders who stake their tokens.

Any FTM token holder who stakes FTM can submit a proposal. Each proposal submission costs 100 FTM that will be burned during the operation. Voting costs just the transaction fee, usually a fraction of 1 FTM, or $0.00001.

Unlike other on-chain governance systems, we introduced more flexible ways to vote.

Depending on the proposal, users can vote with a simple yes or no, or express the degree of agreement with the proposal, where 0 is disagreement, and 4 is full agreement. Each proposal can have multiple options, and users can express independent agreement on each.

Only the contract owner has the right to add or erase proposal templates. However, ownership of the contract may be transferred to the Governance contract.

The creation of the new templates may be done by an executable proposal. This way, the system can be fully self-governed.

Proposal templates

We created four proposal templates to cover different scenarios.

All templates share these characteristics:

• Minimum start delay: 1 hour
• Maximum start delay: 30 days
• Minimum voting duration: 7 days (14 days for proposal template 3)
• Maximum voting duration: 180 days
• Turnout based on staked amount

Template 1: General non-executable

These proposals aren't executable, therefore can’t break anything.

The requirements aren’t very strict:

• The minimum turnout is 55%
• The minimum agreement is 55%

This template is most suited for gathering opinions about non-critical features or for general suggestions. Proposals of this type are similar to off-chain decisions with multiple options in other systems, although FTM token holders can do it via online governance.

Template 2: General call-executable

Proposals of this kind may execute arbitrary code, but cannot execute code from governance's address.

The requirements are moderately strict:

• The minimum turnout is 60%
• The minimum agreement is 60%

This template is suited for non-critical proposals that are not related to the governance execution itself. Examples of this template include deposit proposals, crowd sales or for fund gatherings. These proposals may involve transferring funds to a specific address during proposal execution.

Template 3: General delegatecall-executable

Proposals of this kind can execute arbitrary code on behalf of the governance contract.

The requirements are as strict as possible:

• The minimum turnout is 90%
• The minimum agreement is 90%

This template is suited for software upgrades and changes in network parameters proposal, for example, changing the rewards rate.

Template 4: Delegatecall-executable with verified bytecode

Proposals of this kind use a verifier to check that proposal bytecode matches to a reference.

For this reason, the requirements are less than Template 3:

• The minimum turnout is 90%
• The minimum agreement is 55%

This template is suited for changes in slashing penalties, for example.

How are the votes calculated?

The percentage of turnout is based on the staked amount. If a delegator does not vote, the system takes the vote of the validator he delegated to. This way, also proposal with high minimum turnout can pass.

Where can FTM holders discuss proposals?

Once a proposal is live, FTM holders can discuss it in the #governance channel at chat.fantom.network.