---
workshop_number: 1
date: 2026-02-19
title: Beyond MVG Workshop -- Governance Experience Insights (Kickoff)
video_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D384TI5Tob8
youtube_description: |
  First Beyond MVG workshop. Tevo Kask kicked off the series, walked through
  the Governance Measurement Framework on Miro, and ran three structured
  questions across the four governance stakeholder roles (ADA owner, DRep,
  SPO, CC):

  1. CC -- What factors affect how quickly the Constitutional Committee can
     review and vote on governance actions? Themes: CC members deliberately
     voting late so as not to bias DReps, lack of tooling to capture CC
     debate, no single channel to reach all CC members, highly technical
     submission steps after social agreement is reached.

  2. SPO -- What factors encourage or discourage SPOs from participating in
     governance voting? Themes: cold-key friction (repeated cold-key
     access), confusion over which proposals SPOs should vote on,
     inconsistent explorer reporting of SPO-eligible actions, silent
     treatment when SPOs publish rationales, social-pressure risk for
     larger pools, Kaladus-keys / hard-fork dependency for wallet-based SPO
     voting.

  3. DRep -- Voting power has become more concentrated among DReps since
     the role was established. What contributes to this change? Themes:
     governance complexity drives shortcut delegation to large DReps, weak
     rationale UX (IPFS / GitHub renders), historical-trust delegation,
     ADA parked on centralised exchanges, retired DReps still holding
     significant voting power (Cardano Whale ~50M ADA), no incentive
     mechanism for DReps so a K-parameter equivalent is hard to design.
     Ryan floated rewarding "second-K" DReps; Gintama pushed back strongly
     on funding DRep rewards from the governance-action deposit ("taxing
     ideas"). Prediction-market style alternatives raised.

  The session closed on participation logistics -- two more workshops on
  27 January and 21 (Saturday), surveys per stakeholder role, the Beyond
  MVG link tree, and Essential Cardano monthly updates.
attendees:
  - Tevo Kask (host)
  - Maureen
  - Danielle
  - Kelvin
  - Peter
  - Ken Erik
  - Fanny
  - Gintama
  - Lloyd
  - Mark
  - Ian Hartwell
  - Ryan
  - Tortz
  - Rob
  - Martin
---

# Workshop #1 Transcript -- Governance Experience Insights (Kickoff)

## Transcript

0:00
All right, table. Let's kick off. All right, I'm going to share screen.
0:07
This is a motherboard uh that we will be using or at least I
0:13
will be using it. Nobody else is going to use it. I'll share the link again on the chat. If new people are joining in,
0:20
I don't know if they see the history, but you can always repeat that.
0:26
And is the recording on? So I'm basically officially going to start the beyond minimum viable governance
0:32
workshop and uh first before we go into it I've draw first thing that a square
0:39
here which is a biong group itself it's a square because it has permissions and
0:44
that is like a structured uh way but in the end what we are trying to achieve is
0:50
um effective governance and um we try to always continuously improve kadana governance system itself and we do it
0:57
with structured way and evidencebacked way but in order to do that we also need
1:03
people's input and this we for that we have created this like workshop operations
1:09
um they're put in a way that I have also like workshop guides u along with it so tools who feel like they could
1:15
facilitate their own workshops and or contribute to this collective um
1:21
information aggregation that we are conducting here then yeah you can also take it away and run your own workshops
1:27
But for now with this first iteration kind of let's go through the motions and
1:33
and some kind of discussions and see how we feel and where we end up with. The workshop goal is to have some
1:40
captured live experiences. um and like desired outcomes from Cardano governance
1:45
measurements and like measuring Cardona in general and dependencies uh what we
1:51
have when we are uh like doing some onchain interactions and what it will affect getting all that together um with
1:58
our team and you will find many of us here Moren Danielle Kelvin Peter and Ken
2:06
is in this call and Fanny there who are also helping every week we meet and and
2:11
try to process uh information and go and and prepare this experience for you. And
2:19
yeah, once we capture this and collect it, we will help to create actionable next steps for um Cardano proposal
2:27
statements and Cardano improvement proposals. Um and already have followed
2:32
us. You can see we have made a draft governance framework
2:37
um which we then with this information like keep uh updating and improving and
2:43
understanding these frameworks we are using. Um also here are some slide text
2:48
for those who are using it. I'm mainly going to use only slide tech um but we have a bit more insight on governance
2:56
measurement framework itself. So I'm going to read through one of the notes

## Governance Measurement Framework

3:01
and this slide is about uh how people don't just appear in the governance report uh but actively shape it over
3:09
time. What's important to understand is that the government's measurement framework is init intentionally adaptive. It's not
3:17
one time assessment or a static score guard. Instead, it's designed so that the community behavior and feedback
3:23
continuously shape both the results and how the framework itself evolves. There
3:28
are three main ways people influence the report. First, uh onchain actions create
3:34
direct measurable impact. Every time ADA holders vote or delegate, every time
3:40
DREPs publish ration, register, retire, so on. And and in governance actions,
3:47
those behaviors directly change the quantitative metrics we report on. These
3:53
are not abstract signals. They're ledger recorded actions that flow straight into measurements. So this gives a little of
3:59
a context of the uh yeah the stuff you're measuring and then like what
4:04
they're going to be about. And the framework basically covers like
4:11
four stakeholders. Other holders, D reps, SPO, CC's nowadays actually legally we are auto owners now but this
4:18
a topic for another event but even this is a lived experience and all of these like stakeholders are
4:25
then moved into questions and a bit of context around the question in the below
4:31
these boxes that we will go through. Um but before I jump into is there any
4:37
questions about like the structure of the workshop itself? Um yeah and then
4:44
you just raise your hand. I already see some questions or like some chat
4:49
happening. Yeah it's a treasury funded team on the call includes myself Ken that was mentioned earlier. So this was
4:57
indeed a community initiative in a sense. I I do agree there has been a like a less co-createdness but now we
5:04
are in this stage where we are we prepared bunch of material help to talk
5:10
think through it and now we are like in this um I think feel this moment where
5:15
we can finally um coate the result and the report
5:23
if there are no questions um then with the people around this call I feel like
5:29
currently we plenty of it. So instead of like introducing each other but I would like to go like a round table and then
5:38
mention what stakeholder are you are you holder are you dre SPO you can be
5:44
multiples so we just kind of get like a glance of who who are the people who are in this call itself and or something
5:52
else a stakeholder that is not mentioned but is important for the Cardano governance then you can also mention
5:58
that I see also New people are showing here but thanks Daniel dropping the new
6:03
marboard. So those who are able they can put notes directly into marboard
6:09
otherwise you can use chat and we'll be then moving information from chat to
6:15
marboard itself and I will also try to take some notes my own
6:22
um so talking with myself I don't know maybe let's see what happens if people
6:27
join into the marboard we give like two minutes uh find try to navigate yourself
6:33
to this welcome an agenda location and see if you can grab a sticky with your
6:39
stakeholder and put your name down. Going to try it here
6:47
and like this time we may have multiple names if you're running multiple rows.
6:57
I see one CC member. Yeah, I was wondering based on what
7:04
we're going to end up seeing here, the color amount and the people amount in different if we choose questions based
7:12
on like what's the least uh uh like
7:17
found members so that we can cover that.
7:23
Um and let's um and let's see if it I can
7:30
see only one CC representation and if I zoom out on the right side and there is
7:37
um speed of constitution committee I know this is related to um CC question
7:45
um you can cover that
7:50
um what you guys Shall we dive in?
7:58
Sounds good. Yep. All right. Okay. First question.

## What factors affect how quickly the Constitutional Committee can review and vote on governance actions?

8:04
What factors affect how quickly the constitutional committee can review and vote on
8:09
governance actions? This is then a metric about measuring
8:14
average uh constitutional committee response time to governance actions. um
8:20
and a bit of uh like background information to get us thinking and also I can I'm gonna take bring everything to
8:27
me. So this is the area where we're working [clears throat] in the middle of writing your name. The constitutional
8:34
committee serves as a mandatory constitutional gatekeeper for Gardano governance under CIP 1694. Governance
8:42
actions cannot be enacted without CC review and approval making the committee's effectiveness a critical
8:49
systemic dependency. Abstension is an explicit voting option for
8:54
constitutional committee members but uh but persistent or elevated abstension
8:59
can weaken constitutional oversight. This metric tracks how often CC members
9:04
abstain from voting to assess whether constitutional guidance is sufficiently
9:10
sufficiently clear and whether members are able to exercise independent judgment.
9:17
So based on that, let's give another like three minutes on the top of 20 minutes to put your notes down in chat
9:24
or in the the marboard of what factors affect how quickly the constitutional
9:30
committee can review and vote on governance actions and based on these lived experiences or your understanding
9:38
of their uh work or your expectation of their work. this stakeholder work. Um we
9:46
yeah how how each stakeholders and perspective then understand that and then we have a bit of a discussion
9:53
around with open hands to to go through them
9:58
and then we have a probing question too which we later will go into.
10:05
Okay, we have been two minutes in. Um let's get some other voices other than
10:10
me into this um call. Everybody who has
10:16
some chat up or don't have um but wants to give their answer to this question um
10:24
please raise your hands not done soon. Okay. Thank you Kama then
10:32
I will start the round table but you raised your hand go ahead.
10:39
Yeah. Uh I think uh you know uh lot of people there is no pressure on the CC
10:46
right to vote uh early on the governance or info action right because the ds may
10:53
not look at how the constitutionality of the action right so that way they may take their own time to vote near the
11:00
ending so that their decision making does not affect how a dre votes and also
11:05
that how a dre should not affect their uh decision making cap capabilities. So
11:11
that's why you know they there is a a gap where how when they vote that's what
11:16
I think you know you know because if they vote early it may look like okay if it is unconstitutional why should the
11:23
DFS vote or they won't look into the proposal so that is why I think you know there is a late voting by the CC
11:33
thank you your hand up next
11:38
um so actually the the way I've seen the operations of the various CC members
11:44
thus far um from when I've been able to observe it's been that they are having
11:50
actually some fairly substantial debates about you know the items covered in these things. Um I I posted in there
11:57
that there's you know there's both technical and social things that are slowing the CC from voting. Um, one of
12:06
the biggest things is that they do they I I they have open debate whether it's synchronous or asynchronous but then
12:12
they don't have any real tooling. This is a very specific kind of bespoke
12:18
unique thing that they do which is you know get their however each of these individual bodies exist. they get their
12:25
people or their groups together and they have these ad hoc discussions and you know maybe synchronously have a
12:31
discussion on a Google meet or asynchronously through some kind of discord or or you know or slack channel.
12:38
Uh they have their discussion and then there's no way to really capture that. So there's nothing that's sense making
12:44
that and showing the public what that looks like that they're actually putting that work in. And after all that is
12:51
done, you then also have to go and perform some highly technical steps in
12:57
order to post your feedback. So you've got to get it right from a social perspective. Then you've got to get it
13:02
right from a technical perspective and then you have to post it. So these things actually do take a significant
13:08
amount of time unless it's a single actor kind of CC member.
13:15
I was wondering yeah how hard is for the multisk owners like does everybody and they have their own rules and they
13:21
probably also discuss like are is our rules good so far and then they also get this internal operational discussion
13:27
every time they do an governance action then you have your hand up and that's a also part of the CC I think you're
13:36
put put a hands on and I think that Lloyd literally nailed it there uh on
13:42
several points Um um I wrote in the tab there that the
13:47
earlier a proposer reach out to let's say CC that there's currently no way to
13:52
reach out to all CC members at once for example. I think the if we had like a
13:58
you know like a heads up for a proposal u our response time will be uh much
14:04
faster. Currently at the moment uh we are like uh seek and destroy. So we are
14:09
like uh seeking down people or like we hear rumors something is coming and
14:15
that's actually when we are able to let's say get in touch with the proposal first and get the intention and see if
14:23
it actually is constitutional. So we got over one question and this is
14:31
how the practice goes. Um now as a next question as a low like low color amount
14:38
I see we have SPOS's and others which are budget committee secretary and IOG
14:45
ecosystem governments interested. So yeah well we don't have specialized questions for them but if you do have
14:51
time we can come up with something let's move to SPO questions. I think we have
14:57
SPO participation here. Power concentration and um
15:04
yeah I guess maybe the power concentration is more about the D reps less about the SP although they are
15:12
similar. So let's take the SPO participation question
15:17
and try to tackle that one.

## What factors encourage or discourage SPOs from participating in governance voting?

15:24
What factors encourage or discourage SPOS's from participating in governance voting? And this is measuring about SPO
15:31
engagement in governance and the context network security and resilience in
15:37
Gardana depend on behavior and ability stability of stakehold operators who
15:43
blames a formal oversight role in security critic role in security
15:48
critical governance decisions. Understanding what drives or discourages SPO voting participation allows
15:56
governance processes to be better designed. Reducing friction, ensuring SPOS's can consistently perform the
16:02
security and oversight responsibilities. I'm really glad to see that the
16:08
information that I've heard is being repeated here on the board. Everybody's talking about repeatedly accessing their
16:15
cold keys and how much of a problem that is. like that's something talk about a lowhanging fruit that we need to discuss
16:21
and figure out how to resolve. Um I have heard that so many times from SPOS's.
16:28
Yeah. those who have finished reading if they want they can also organize because
16:34
I do feel like this one we have opportunity to crop similar stuff together and see where the
16:42
at the top of the head and and you know just this may be a little bit of a unique perspective to but you
16:49
know just from working governance actions a lot in in what I do it's just really nice when SPOS's do state their
16:58
opinion and put their rationale out. It's it's just a great additional data
17:03
point to have. Um, you know, some some DR represents
17:12
on stuff that they don't they're not even responsible for. So, it's just good stewardship of the community. Um, and so
17:18
it's really neat to see when that happens. And if we can get that cold key
17:23
objection out of the way, I just feel like there'd be a lot more because they're the stewards of our ecosystem.
17:29
They really are. So, I think they'd be more active if if if it wasn't a uh a
17:35
potential issue. Not sure if everybody wrote it down but
17:40
I'll noted that if the feedback if SPO feedback is is considered because I
17:47
think once there is one side that we just put rational out there and for months and no feedback and you just
17:54
spend time and time but now hearing somebody that is a role that does value
17:59
that feedback but doesn't have that mechanism to kind of recognize that maybe there is also like a winning point
18:05
here. because it [clears throat] it would definitely encourage me more if
18:10
I would know that my feedback matters but if my ADA amount and nobody does
18:16
give any feedback it's like why do I even hear so this silent treatment is
18:22
maybe also affecting us
18:28
I'm curious about the one confusing which proposals SPOS's can or should vote on um if whoever wrote that is
18:35
willing to to speak to that where do you go to try to learn which ones you should
18:40
be voting on or not to start off with and why is that confusing?
18:47
Are you looking at this one? Mhm. Maybe I could add just a little bit there. I wrote something similar, not
18:53
that ticket, but um I think mainly the parameter change updates probably like
18:59
it's the same action and or it's the same action name, but they only uh
19:05
required to vote on I can't remember what the parameter names are. So at face
19:10
value, if there's a parameter update, you're not sure as an SPO whether you should or shouldn't vote on it or need
19:15
to. And I think the only place that information really exists is when an action goes on chain checking explorers
19:22
to see if your little SPO boxes, you don't vote on this one. But some
19:27
explorers don't quite have that right anyway. So, good look there. Um, and the
19:32
only other place that I use is like Mike Horn's uh infographics cuz he's got a real good one for SPOS's [snorts] and
19:40
what you should vote on, you know. Yeah, I do want to add a point to that.
19:47
There is there have been a a couple of comments about the tools that are
19:54
available. Apparently, some government governance tools say SPOS's
20:01
can vote on certain proposals and then you go to another tool and it's a
20:06
different situation. Mark, I don't know if you have seen that. I can't confirm because I don't have that. Uh but I want
20:15
I was wondering if any SPO in here has that.
20:20
Yeah, you're pretty much right. Some explorers show different uh results. So getting the standard and
20:28
there's other working groups that have already try to get that going. So uh I
20:33
don't know how you encourage all the different explorers to adopt the same standard. That would be great from this
20:39
regard, but also great in general so that the percentage results of who's voted is the same DB sync query for
20:45
example at the minute like you check a proposal on five different explorers and
20:51
there's five different percentages. Um so bits like that. Yeah.
21:06
Yeah. I just want to chime in what Mark said that uh this for from this um
21:13
uh one of the outcomes from this will actually be uh copy and paste for you uh
21:19
for those who wants to use it uh to actually do uh the measurement uh and
21:25
queries and the visuals.
21:36
Yeah. Uh you know like uh like what happened with the CC, right? We just had CC elections and we had put a new CC uh
21:44
uh members and then someone resigned and there was a you know like a kind of
21:51
uh block for the governance and we had to elect new CC right so had to vote on
21:58
the same action twice right in a very short span of time and it let's say CC
22:04
votes any action unconstitutional right after the SPO's vote and DF's vote at
22:10
the end of CC votes is unconstitutional governance action they have to revote on if that is again you know put forward as
22:16
a governance action after that one. So all of these thing you know like where
22:21
with the low tooling that is currently available right they have to vote again and again on the same actions is kind of
22:27
a hectic work for them because they're already taking care of the security of the chain right so if they are not
22:33
involved so much in governance it can be uh you know fatigue a governance voting
22:40
fatigue for them because they are not signed for governance they're signed for the security of the chain so they have
22:45
their role specified you know DF's role goal is to vote on actions, debate, discuss and give feedback. So, uh there
22:53
is putting too much pressure on SPOS's to you know do all the other stuff also.
23:02
You can go and go ahead. Now just a quick note um from our side from the intersect side um I've pushed for it and
23:09
and we've maintained it I think on nearly every info action uh that we
23:14
actually put forth a means to for you to test how the action can be accepted. So
23:22
it's immutable in the metadata of the action itself how to test the action for
23:30
whether or not it's passed. So that way it you know it it helps a I know it's not the perfect solution, but it's uh
23:36
it's what we've had up to this point. um is that we actually do include a you
23:42
know how to validate this uh info action in the inside the info action itself
23:51
and uh just before I go to Daniel I already we have a probing question here that uh we answering and I already see
23:59
we're getting into that like what should we make what would be make it easier for
24:04
SPOS's to engage in more actively in governance And I see like the CIP links
24:10
or that what you just mentioned about the validating information inside the interaction. These are like create notes
24:16
and if somebody al comes up with solutions or knows something then yeah
24:22
shout it out put it in chat or my and we will take it from there. But Danielle you
24:28
have your hand up. Did you want to add? Yeah, I was just curious um given Gintama's
24:34
uh discussion on the role of the SPO originally and that it's really securing
24:40
the network and now they have to vote. I'm just curious if there are SPOS's who are like glad or happy that they did get
24:47
a vote on certain decisions like security critical protocol parameters
24:53
and hard forks or if they would have does everybody as an SPO generally feel like ah I didn't need to vote at all.
24:59
You see, Mark, you're kind of shaking your head or nodding, I guess. Yeah. I mean, from my perspective, I'm
25:05
glad SPO's vote on at least security premise or technical premise. I mean, I
25:12
know a lot of DEPs and they're not suited to understand that stuff. And I'm not like I don't know the chain inside
25:19
out, so it takes a lot for me to understand that stuff, but um yeah, you need to have a technical prowess to vote
25:26
on that type of thing in my opinion. and taking SPOS's into account is that's
25:31
what we've got as Cardano. They are our technical arms. So yeah.
25:43
All right. I would like to hear from Ian Hartwell if you are in this call and
25:49
listening because you also noted yourself that you're a SPO and did you
25:56
put any kind of notes down something that or you are agreeing with
26:03
somebody else? Uh yeah I just put um two of the purple notes in there. Um many SPOs are
26:11
reluctant to expose the cold keys repeatedly. um when inviting on uh voting on actions. Um and then having to
26:18
access the cold environment usually involves extra steps because you have to go from one computer to another to transfer vote files and create vote
26:26
files and um submit them. Um you know current DRPs maybe have registered with
26:33
a wallet and they're not familiar with those extra steps. So I just wanted to raise awareness there that you know as a
26:38
as an SPO there usually is I know some DREPs like myself also operate with a cold environment but many many DREPs
26:44
would just be you know connecting a wallet to a website and voting that way. So I just wanted to raise awareness of
26:50
of that extra step in case people weren't familiar. Um and then yeah like Ryan's raised there on some of the green
26:57
post-it notes what would make it easier. Um there is currently um something called the Kaladus keys that Martin from
27:05
Atardada stake pool has worked on. Um that would allow SPOS's to vote from a
27:11
wallet because you can just use a seed phrase. Uh you verify ownership by linking it to your state pool keys. But
27:18
unfortunately at present that um method of voting is not supported and it would
27:23
require um being implemented into a hard fork in the future for that to to be an
27:28
option. Um yeah, they're the points that I can think of at the moment. Thank you.
27:34
Have you voted on governance action yourself? Like you speak of like going through this pain of getting the call
27:40
kids and and knowing the process, but uh have you like participated in like
27:47
rational or voting yourself? Uh yep. um don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I've got a 100% voting
27:53
record on all info actions and non-critical uh um the more critical uh actions to and as of all of last year, I
28:02
put a rationale with all of them. um even if it was just a pointer to the transaction hash of my DWP vote just so
28:09
there was a link there so um my delegators could could see um you know
28:15
what the although it wasn't um required of an SPO I put a link on there just so
28:21
they could see where the deck vote that was being counted and what my rationale was there
28:27
[clears throat] yeah one more question just because I see a lot of problems but uh what encouraged
28:34
you to put all of that work because that's a crazy amount of actions to go to as an SPO and like
28:42
what made you want to do that call? Uh yeah, I participated as an SPO and a
28:47
DREP in the early days of Sanchoet. So I learned how to use the uh command line from from an early day before like the
28:54
inwallet uh registration options became available. So I was already comfortable with like the process and then after a
29:02
while it just became um yeah just like a personal personal goal really like I
29:08
wanted to keep that um 100% record. Um so even though I appreciate a lot of
29:14
people um don't want to vote on info actions as an SPO um as I'm doing it I'm
29:19
usually accessing my cold environment because my dre uses cold keys too in that way. So while I'm at it, it's just
29:26
it's not so much of an extra step for me as a SPO and DREP to to carry out those
29:33
actions while I'm in the process. So yeah, personal preference more than anything, but um yeah,
29:40
thank you. Uh Kana, yeah, I had a question for you know SPOS
29:46
who are in the meeting, right? I just wanted to know that if you vote on a governance action related to parameters
29:53
or anything where SPO needs to vote right. So if the vote passes uh like the
30:00
do the SPO need to update their node or something you know or you know update
30:05
the protocol or something or if the voting is enough to just pass it on and
30:11
do nothing else you know because if SPO votes yes but does not update his node
30:16
or something is that a no or a yes you know like because for SPOS's if they want to show the action right uh the
30:22
decision the action of updating a node itself is an yes action for the governance action parameter or anything
30:29
right. So why do they need to do the same thing twice you know voting yes and then again downloading the node if they
30:35
agree with the parameter they can download the node if not it is fine not to download and be on the the previous
30:41
version right so this is something that you know can uh I think can better
30:48
answer like do they if they have to you know update the node or
31:00
I am an SPO but I have no clue. Sounds like a technical
31:09
I the way I understand the question was like how does auto version affect governance actions when voting?
31:17
Do you need to do double vote when it I'm not an SPO but my understanding
31:23
is a protocol parameter change is once the vote happens the ledger then
31:29
automatically updates but the difference the governance action where that's not the case and I would love if someone
31:36
else could confirm this is actually how it's working in the real world a hard fork will require an action after
31:45
the vote passes
31:51
Yeah. The only Oh, you There you go, Mark. You're SPO. You can have it on.
31:58
Yeah. Well, yeah. The only time you'd update your node as a result of a government's action is a hard walk.
32:03
Yeah. you wouldn't uh if I'm understanding what the question is uh
32:10
for parameter changes that that's all handled on chain automatically SPOS's
32:16
wouldn't um need to do anything it's only the hard fork
32:22
yeah so normally before a hard fork action gets submitted um it would be
32:27
monitored the um the current SPO adoption rate and it would have to hit a certain percentage before they would
32:34
even consider consider submitting the hard fork action otherwise you could end up with some big problems. Um as far as
32:40
far as parameters go because they're not like big ledger level changes. You don't have to update your node. It would just
32:46
sort of it would happen within the current rules and um things would just carry on like as normal. But yeah, only
32:53
hard forks would require a node upgrade.
32:58
Did that answer your question? Uh yes, it answered.
33:05
And Ken, you end up Yeah. Yeah. So, just to get back on topic, um to those who are SPOS's,
33:13
um do you think that you will get more ADA delegated to you if you participate
33:19
in governance? Honestly, no. I don't think that's going
33:26
to help. Yeah. One of my tickets up there was like SPOS's had no incentive and weren't
33:33
really asked well to participate in governance. It's just just became a
33:38
thing after the fact. I mean unless you registered when governance was already in full swing obviously but
33:45
yeah I don't know but hopefully results of this working group or the work you do
33:51
right will show hopefully the flows of ADA based on
33:57
voting action like did we see any do you feel like the ADA holders sorry
34:04
ADA owners um like appreciate like oh Mark, your staple did the right thing
34:11
and voted in my direction. So, I'm going to delegate to that guy. What about you, Ian? You feel
34:17
I'd say there's definitely there's definitely some because you can see there are a couple of people that have
34:22
put in effort and have got increased stake. So, I would say that's probably a result of their governance actions. But
34:30
I don't know. I'd say it's a small number of people aid owners or holders whatever they'll actually monitoring
34:36
that to make their decision. I mean, let's face it, the incentive is the percentage return. So, as long as
34:42
I'm getting that, I'm probably going to be happy. I mean, it would be nice if the uh the
34:49
participation was recognized in that way. But this is where the important distinction comes in between DREPs and
34:55
SPO delegation. Um, you can move your stake between DREPs and you don't have a
35:00
financial consequence to that. But if you move to a you might have a really active but small SPO and if you move to
35:07
them because they're active in voting you might not get as many that SPO might
35:12
not get as many blocks as the one you're with. So there is that that element of the financial connection that an SPO has
35:20
when it comes to governance that a DREP doesn't have. So that could impact whether delegators would move between um
35:28
and then also knowing like education around you know if people are saying why
35:33
are SPO dragging their feet on this action um people may or may not know
35:38
that they can they can move their stake to the SPOS's that have voted. Admittedly, it doesn't happen as quick
35:44
because you have a two epoch delay between your vote delegation changing with an SPO, whereas with a
35:51
DREP, I think it's like that epoch, isn't it? So, there's a few subtle differences there. Um, but yeah, um,
35:58
they're the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Just one just to round this question up.
36:04
Um, so both uh Mark and I here uh at least I know participate in governance.
36:11
Uh are you scared of losing delegation? Let's say if you only put could you
36:19
forward your uh uh sorry
36:24
um the cynical answer to that question. It's kind of hard to lose what you haven't got. I mean me and Mark are both
36:32
quite small pools and you'll usually find sadly that it is the smaller pools that do tend to be more active in
36:37
governance. Um because you know some may or may not see that as a way to distinguish themselves from more
36:43
established players. I mean and I know that's partly myself like I like to be active to to show that. Um but yeah
36:51
speaking from from my own perspective um yeah I'm I've never been above a million
36:57
delegation within my pool. So I I feel quite um okay with voting the way that I
37:03
vote because I don't have that risk. um maybe surveying some larger pools you
37:09
might get a different answer. Um but that that's that's my take.
37:14
Yeah, just to add to that, I would say um yeah, there's definitely if I got a
37:19
lot of delegation, I would definitely um think twice about my rationale
37:26
and who I vote for. I mean we've already seen the consequence uh on uh
37:33
a certain products on Cardano that you know no names mentioned delegated XY Z
37:40
and were publicly destroyed for for the fact. So to say that there's no social
37:47
pressure involved in that as uh yeah would we'll be ignoring it. So yeah,
37:54
exactly like Ian said, right now what have I got to lose? If I had a lot, then I'd behave very differently. Yeah.
38:04
Thanks, Mark.
38:13
Table, do we have time for one more? Okay, let's go for another one.
38:18
Technically if now people joined here for one hour call then we don't have a time for another one but if people have
38:26
time to push through and can sit through another 20 minutes or so then definitely
38:32
we could take a another question at worst we could start the one and finish
38:37
with those who will stay here and but while when we kick it off you can leave your notes and
38:44
um because I think as little bit we have started to talk about power concentration but in SPO style but we

## Voting power has become more concentrated among DReps since the role was established. What do you think most contributes to this change?

38:50
have a DEP question here which I think is allows us to understand these kinds
38:56
of mechanics of how delegations affect each other. So maybe we jump on this
39:03
question voting power has become more concentrated among TEPs since the role
39:08
was established. Uh what do you think most contributes to this change? And
39:14
this is then measuring voting power concentration, gain coefficient, akamoto
39:19
coefficient and the context is decentralization requires not only participation but also
39:26
balanced distribution of influence and transparent representation.
39:32
uh evaluate whether delegated voting power is broadly distributed, whether the representative layer remains active
39:39
and whether governance decisions are accompanied by publicly accessible ration. Together, these metrics assess
39:45
whether Cardano's representative governance avoids concentration of power and operates in alignment with the
39:51
decentralization and transparency principles articulated in CAP uh 16.94
39:58
and the Cardano constitution. So use your chat, choose a motherboard
40:06
and to answer voting power has become more concentrated. Uh what do you think most contributes to
40:13
this change?
40:22
Okay, while people are still typing, um we'll do a quick closing. It doesn't
40:30
mean that we have to run the code but Danielle already mentioned that who do
40:36
want to hop off. Um there is this uh be on the link tree which
40:42
was the one that probably brought you in unless there was a onetoone conversation invite from somebody
40:48
can did you just uh marine to go break some arms if people don't join I
40:56
don't know how many people have broken arms here we going to have two more
41:02
workshops on 27th January and 21st one is like completely different time
41:09
zone but one other one is on Saturday those who cannot make it in the week and then I don't probably even like today or
41:18
tomorrow we will see if we need more uh workshops to go through this and and then we just add more and we'll be
41:24
listing all of that new information to this link tree
41:30
um and also in the top here on the context documents you will see these articles
41:36
essential Cardano. So any news that will come will also come here and where we
41:41
share our latest updates. So these are ways to keep connected. Um
41:51
or yeah just wherever you saw if you're in the discord wherever my message or invites you can also directly just type
41:59
in these discords. This means that I'm actively looking at these discord servers.
42:11
Yeah. And also just to note that we have surveys with different questions um more
42:17
details as for each of these roles. So for SPOS's for DRPs, data owners. So if you're
42:25
interested in providing more detailed feedback, please fill out the surveys. They're different questions than what
42:30
we're covering in the workshops. Yeah. And they're a bit different too.
42:36
So you don't have to write a lot of text, but we give you like options so that we can create this like scorecards.
42:43
And they're not surveys that take hours to
42:48
complete, which sometimes you read like intersect survey only takes five minutes and then hour later I'm like, okay, last
42:54
page finally.
43:00
But we'll see. Sometimes it does take time to think through what we have experienced through.
43:08
So for those who are left there um raise your hands in the
43:15
Google meet if you want to kick it off with the some discussions
43:23
with this topic on what do you think most contributes to this change of
43:30
DAP's concentrating power
43:38
and if nobody raises hand I will put an input on tors on spot because I know you
43:43
are a dup mentioned it there so I would like to hear your take on it
43:52
okay thanks to well uh uh I hope you can hear me
43:58
yes we can hear yeah well well I I think uh I mean I'm not sure what why why the concentration
44:05
happens. I mean we can all guess right but I think it's uh primarily like I put
44:11
like people have uh you know regular lives and often many people don't
44:18
participate in their local communal elections or something that might influence their lives and more not to
44:24
mention that crypto is complicated. Cardano governance is multi-layered,
44:29
complicated. You really need to devote a lot of time. So I think uh the normal reaction of a average
44:38
person is to default to a uh to a simple shortcut when faced with complexity. And
44:46
uh you know what would happen in a average person's mind is what I think is they would look
44:53
okay look these people are large D-Reps there must be some reason why they're popular so they're probably taking care
45:01
of the system and I'll delegate to them and that's it because it's really
45:06
difficult even as a DREP or SBO even more to to follow everything that's happening. So uh I think reducing
45:15
complexity of governance, simplifying processes, simplifying
45:21
the uh the structure of governance, simplifying constitution, simplifying
45:26
uh the type of actions that are possible. Overall simplification is probably a win and some kind of
45:34
uniformity like even even for a direct reading like if I could read proposals
45:39
that are following the same pattern of presentation where I can easily navigate
45:44
through it and know okay uh it has this part it has this part
45:50
I mean for data holders it's probably multiple times more complicated. So I think simplification is a win. How to do
45:57
it I don't know but that that's my instinct. Thank you.
46:04
Thank you. Yeah. uh you know like uh I would say
46:11
that the information on the rational right is if you go to any governance
46:17
tooling where you can read the rational it is not so good when you're trying to read you know because it uh the way it
46:27
is shown the rational of ds it is very how do I say it's very not user friendly
46:33
right if you want to compare rational of ds or voting again it is very difficult to even Take notice that when did the d
46:40
vote when did this action even you know uh when did he put a rational for it or
46:46
did he change the rational again after voting [snorts] or where did he debate or discuss on these things you know uh
46:53
or what is he thinking right other than the rational I cannot it's if you're not actively taking part in governance or on
47:00
various social platforms if the discussion takes place right as a normal awner you rarely get the information
47:08
reaching to Whereas in you know if you go to in in real world right anything that happens related to government right
47:15
you get from news articles from news media reports or from somewhere that okay news reporting happens of some
47:23
statement that comes out or some document that is being done. So that information is not listening to the
47:28
people who you know who want to delegate to someone else right okay is he
47:33
speaking my point or what is even speaking about you know so there is a way information gap between what is
47:39
happening and what is reaching to the ADA owner that is why the delegation is not moving so much it as it should be
47:51
thank you next I see from Ken Yeah. So I don't know if you guys agree
47:58
with me, but um are we sure that every let's say ADA
48:04
owner knows that they can uh delegate and redelegate? So you know um you don't
48:11
read about this in you know Cointelegraph or it's been spoken on in
48:16
the biggest um YouTube channels where let's say the ordinary boulders are and
48:23
the second one is that um I think that might uh contribute to the
48:30
concentration of the is that the majority of all ADA uh in the circulating supply is actually parked on
48:38
central ized exchanges. I don't know if people agree about that, but um it's just a a hunch for me because
48:46
um u let's say corona governance uh really don't hit the headlines to put it
48:52
like that in the governance crypto space. No.
48:59
Yeah. Um I think um the major cause of uh
49:05
delegation concentration has to do with historical tights and um I mean and
49:11
prior knowledge. uh you know people for a very long time have been accustomed to
49:16
certain entities and certain individuals in the ecosystem in terms of their participation and the kind of things that they do and for that matter they
49:23
find it easy to sort of trust them and you know they don't necessarily find it
49:28
maybe plausible to even want to look at other options right so they begin they begin to stick or they get to stick with
49:35
these entities and individuals wherever they move and wherever they go without having to think of you know looking at
49:40
others and I also think the others The other issues has to do with the fact that some
49:46
um some dre when they vote um they are able to you know uh in the in the
49:53
rationale they able to have the IPFS link only the IPFS link in there right
49:59
which when you click on usually takes you to GitHub and you know how GitHub presents these um rationals right it is
50:07
very difficult to really want to read uh the entire of the message to even understand what's they are saying. So I
50:13
think something like that also affects you know delegators and they are not able to really read and understand what
50:19
is happening or what their ds are voting and for that matter they tend to even um you know ignore that particular process
50:26
of having to check on their ds and of course some of some of them too they don't have enough time to even check
50:31
their own ds to I mean yet again even check other ds and how they are you know
50:38
sort of fairing in the ecosystem and for that matter they don't they are not able to you switch delegation, they just
50:44
become um stagnant at one D and that is it.
50:49
Yeah, I'll add to that. Um since nobody else had their hand up, just that I choose to directly vote because it feels
50:57
easier than assessing a deer that I would want to trust. Um I find it much
51:03
much easier to engage directly than trust somebody else and figure out who I
51:09
would trust enough to do so. which actually goes towards the other
51:14
the other direction of decentralizing um voting rather than centralizing but
51:19
it doesn't seem to be the norm. I second that. I think yeah direct voter
51:24
should be an option on the table voiced more often.
51:30
Isn't direct voting actually the decentralization part because that's the
51:35
peak decentralization we can have if everybody votes themselves.
51:42
Well, I I would say everyone votes directly but a lot of people a lot more
51:48
people work like that and people start reading each other's rationale reading
51:53
their friends rationale to inform their vote instead of having to do the whole homework. they can build on their
51:59
friends and their trusted peers decision.
52:07
I wonder if um Milo, Randy, Ryan wants
52:12
to put some thoughts in there or want to share something
52:20
because I know Ryan, you're a vocal in usually these discussions.
52:28
Yeah, I've just been scattering um a bunch of notes all over the thing trying to brainstorm my ideas.
52:35
I think a lot of the green ones are mine, but I'm happy to expand on them if anybody's interested.
52:43
Sure. If you say green ones, I like for example the KVUs for SP um sounds
52:50
something that you would write. Is that fair? Yeah. So, I'm actually working on an idea for this. Um, I won't get to that
52:57
yet, but the K we use for SPO is basically is only tied to rewards, right? You could put as much ADA as you want in a pool and that pool will make
53:03
more blocks, but you only get rewards up to that threshold set by K. Um, the the
53:08
reason that wouldn't necessarily work for DUPS now is because there's no rewards for being a DREP, right? So, you can't incentivize um people to
53:15
redelegate because the DREP is over a cap because of you you would forfeit rewards because there's no rewards to
53:20
forfeit. Um, so I guess there's kind of um you could put consideration to putting a hard cap or maybe some sort of
53:27
a quadratic voting. Um, those also have trade-offs um or trying to incentivize it in such a way that um you spread out
53:35
uh voting power instead of concentrating it. So one idea I was just brainstorming just minutes ago actually is instead of
53:41
rewarding the top K dreps what if you reward the second K dreps whereas instead like say it's 100 instead of
53:47
rewarding the top 100 D reps you reward ds 101 through 200 and that incentivizes
53:53
people to delegate away from those um but I'm still putting that together so
54:02
Mark yeah it's really cool to you're working on that Ryan like And exactly like you
54:08
say, without any incentive mechanism in the first place, what's the point of having a K program grammar? Yeah. And that's what I was trying to write in
54:14
that post. Another incentive I've heard thrown about was uh some sort of lottery
54:19
payment mechanism um which of course has its drawbacks, but can help. That'd be great be great
54:27
to look at what you're looking into if there's anywhere. [laughter] There's actually a uh
54:33
an IO research paper I can drop the link to that I was basing a lot of it and also I think Thomas um I forget his last
54:40
name wrote an interesting sip on it as well. I'll drop both of the links to those in the chat. Yeah, thanks Rob
54:54
and yeah I wanted to ask that if someone is delegating to a retired Drepp is that
55:02
person still getting staking rewards right if someone can answer that because if you know like Cardono whale right he
55:09
is a retired D but he still holds like almost 50 million ADA in voting power it is way more than a lot of dre combined
55:16
you know so uh if the a owners are still getting mistak rewards if the ds have
55:23
retired I can quickly answer that and the answer is yes
55:33
I'm wondering when we go into like incentivization like with with financials it kind of
55:39
gives you this experiment option like okay let's just throw in 100,000 data
55:45
and see what happens and then you just throw it through a mechanism. But the danger there is like so far every almost
55:52
everything I see that has happened in Gardano the experiment stick to tell like
55:59
for example in catalyst oh let's try reviewers and now we never get rid of the reviewers or like the people who
56:04
were assessing the proposals and the game was like as soon as with the same
56:11
thing I don't know like with the [clears throat] SPOS's like to me I don't feel like the K parameter ever would really work stuff for the SPOS's
56:18
like it was somewhat a good experiment but it failed. But we never really got rid of them either. They just kind of
56:24
stay there forever now. Um and so how would we introduce like these new
56:32
experiments or games into dups? Would we want it to be like time bound or has
56:39
there been any thought of that? Like how would you introduce like hey let's this quarter or this year we try this kind of
56:45
incentive model. And can could it be then done like that?
56:50
Because that probably like where does these funds coming from? Are they like treasury withdrawals and somebody
56:57
administrates it or is it literally protocol design which makes it cooler
57:02
for like for to present Cardano as a product but uh probably much harder to maintain because then we need to always
57:09
discuss and have governance actions in order to maintain it.
57:14
And Ryan, I think uh so you mentioned like paying it from the treasury. I think a cool way to think about it actually is we we
57:20
already have a a deposit, a government actions deposit that's pretty high at 100K ADA tied to each proposal to prevent people from spamming proposals.
57:27
Um what if a portion of that proposal deposit was set aside uh as a small fee for DRPs? That way you you could
57:34
actually lower the proposal uh the deposit rather um to maybe 50k ADA and
57:40
then set aside 1% of it to pay all the DRPs who actually vote on it or the top end DRS that actually vote on it. Um
57:45
it'd probably be just a couple ADA per vote. Um but it would be self sustainable and it wouldn't require treasury funding or routine maintenance.
57:51
Um but that's basically uh kind of the idea that's that Thomas shared in the the SIP but um just something food for
57:58
thought. We got a thumbs down from Gintan on
58:05
that. If you're comfortable sharing your thoughts, that's always interesting to hear the opposing viewpoints.
58:11
Yeah, like paying dips from the action
58:16
fee, right? It is like taxing the people who are willing to put forward their
58:21
work, right? Putting forward their idea, right? Whether it passes or not, right?
58:27
There is uh see uh no one uh the thing is that DFS are involuntarily stepping up right now to stand up in the position
58:34
that they are as an agent of the ADA owners right no one forced anyone here and now putting a fee for them to vote
58:43
and taking that fee from the proposer of the idea it is taxing the ideas of the people even if you reduce it to 10,000
58:50
ADA as a fee is at the end you're taxing the ideas and then you're like stopping
58:55
creativity from coming up into a real tangible actions on chain. The people vote. Okay, it it doesn't matter it's 1%
59:03
0.1% or 0 anything. Taxing an idea is the wrong move any cultural shift can
59:09
bring right in the longer term where people just don't bring ideas on the chain at all and it there's no
59:16
creativity going on you know so for me taxing anyone for putting forward their idea proposal is a very bad move to just
59:23
to reward ds to participate in governance there are other today in blockchain right there are v other
59:29
incentives that can be created and made right like prediction markets that I still believe are very bigger
59:36
more beneficially for today's uh blockchain system governance where the
59:42
DFS you know bet on their action that I'm voting yes and I'm also putting betting money on the yes option and earn
59:48
like there are another theory that can be done but you do not need to follow the first century tax and spend system
59:55
that has been done for of lot of you know kingdoms and empires in previous years which was breaking the ideas and a
1:00:04
chain on shack uh on people's mind. So I I'm really against taking any P from
1:00:10
these things.
1:00:16
U would not from a chat very interesting that the cost of staking rewards lost trying tying up some 100k deposit for
1:00:24
six epoch is about 200 300. I didn't know you actually lose deposit. So you
1:00:30
is it I thought you only sign your ADA but you're actually locking it to smart contract that is not delegated. Is that
1:00:37
what happens? Okay. More or less. Yeah. It's it's it's
1:00:44
doesn't earn staking rewards.
1:00:50
Kama, you have something more. I had no I had a question. Right. So uh
1:00:56
if anyone can answer this. So if I like the D has not dregistered himself from
1:01:01
uh you know from the governance. So does the chain does not automatically clean itself you know like okay this person
1:01:08
has not been active or dregistered for a certain amount of epochs or time. So now
1:01:13
we remove him from you know the direct directory or something you know like that. uh is that uh something that has
1:01:20
been put forward uh in previous discussion of workshops or something or is it possible?
1:01:29
I can just chime in and say it has been debated especially during Edinburg when
1:01:34
they let's say laid the foundation for 1694 and uh it was decided not to do that. Uh
1:01:44
um but yeah this a debate that came up that let's say make flushing
1:01:51
uh of it.
1:02:02
All right. Well we got another question done. Uh and it took about 30 minutes or so. How
1:02:10
does people feel? Do we want to take another one?
1:02:16
What's the energy use reactions
1:02:22
or shall we call it the day for call it a day?
1:02:32
I see no reactions. So it seems there is no burning desire to brainstorm more get
1:02:40
stuff uh up but thank you for everybody for joining. There is a lot of notes

## Elegant Next Steps

1:02:46
there and the team will go into them organize them and uh get some summaries.
1:02:54
Uh what I will personally be doing is we have part of this actually not in here.
1:03:00
And so I'm going to show you the workshop guide template a bit. This is something if you want to run in the
1:03:06
workshops yourself, go to discussions. If there are this survey questions which you can also answer but if you have your
1:03:12
own team and just feel like I need to get some cool thoughts into it and then
1:03:18
we are collecting this stuff also all into this form uh where I will be
1:03:24
listing the same questions that we covered today and summarizing them into this form and then that will be then
1:03:29
processed by AI and our team to into the report itself. Um but the report itself
1:03:37
will take a bit like week at least a week maybe that the second week we start
1:03:42
to kind of get something out there. Um
1:03:47
so yeah as a closing I already shared before but there are new I think only Martin showed here later uh you will
1:03:55
find more updates probably if anything will come on this essential Cardano. So that this link tree like the main uh
1:04:03
stuff where you can find what happens all the resources are here all the documents are here all the other surveys
1:04:10
are here and other workshops that we plan this week and there are different time zones but if this time zone was
1:04:18
okay for you then probably the Saturday session will also fit and assuming you
1:04:25
will have weekend free when I started Kardan I started with using weekend time. So
1:04:34
this is opportunity for those who are in day-to-day activities work which
1:04:39
is not Cardano. Again thanks for joining and whoever
1:04:45
wants to have a final call out or feedback they're welcome to do so.
1:04:51
I'm done. I just want to say congrats for the great work. It's great to see you the
1:04:57
team working together. looking forward to future ones and the outputs.
1:05:04
Yeah, thank you guys. It was great discussion today. Really enjoyed it.
1:05:11
Thanks guys for coming. I just want to say uh table and I were scared that it's
1:05:16
only going to be him talking to himself, but you guys are here so I really
1:05:23
appreciate it personally. All right. Cheers everyone.
1:05:30
Thanks everyone. Take care. Thank you.