Beyond MVG Workshop Series
Community workshops exploring Cardano governance challenges. Each session brings together participants to discuss, assess, and shape governance recommendations.
Thank you everyone who participated!
49 contributors have shaped these workshops so far. Their input drives the recommendations and assessments captured across this series.
Past Sessions
9
Constitutional Leadership tools and incentives
Key insight: the Constitutional Committee is critical infrastructure but the role sits on a deep, undocumented learning curve and runs uncompensated -- with a CC election in three months and governance halting on 1 September if four credential-capable candidates are not elected. The group elevated CC tooling and CC incentives to Must-tier: AI-assisted constitutional review that builds an institutional knowledge base, plus a fixed per-seat support model (legal, hardware, training) rather than scaling pay by member count. Data collection freezes Monday so Payit can move into analysis.
Chapters · assessment & guiding questions15
- 2:37GuideGoal: tackle the missing Must-tier CC recommendations
- 8:18GuideKen proposes new recommendation: operating CC credentials
- 14:26GuidePivot to CC tooling: DRep pressure, uncompensated, complex proposals
- 22:28GuideTenant 8 example: voting unconstitutional on the CF summit proposal
- 25:31GuideAI / scripts to instil CC institutional knowledge
- 27:30AssessCC tooling: impact (Sebastian: 10, blocker)
- 31:30GuideBalancing security vs low-friction usability
- 38:10AssessCC tooling: urgency (10, CC keys expire and election in 3 months)
- 39:32AssessCC tooling: cost (10 -> 6, composable solutions exist)
- 43:06GuidePast CC budget: $350k comp/legal, $265k hardware, $221k training
- 51:24GuideMove to CC incentives & productivity optimization
- 1:01:05AssessCC incentives: impact (governance halt risk if CCs step down)
- 1:13:41GuideWrap up CC assessments: now have a Must-tier CC recommendation
- 1:19:32GuideRodrigo: lack of participation, fragmented silos in Cardano governance
- 1:25:22GuideData freezes Monday; site stays available for the year
How to tackle language barriers in governance?
Key insight: translations were the only governance challenge on the overview map with no associated recommendation, so the group zoomed in on it. Three angles surfaced -- AI translation tooling for proposal metadata and rationales, treating localisation as part of the DRep role (Rodrigo cited his own Portuguese-context rationales), and a lightweight pilot rather than a protocol-level fix (Olive: pick one language, one DRep, hold it up as a working example). Ken proposed a CIP recommending governance actions ship with at least one secondary language. Four new recommendations were assessed live and the challenge is no longer an empty node.
Chapters · assessment & guiding questions10
- 0:00GuideIntro and walkthrough of the overview map
- 4:39GuidePicked a challenge to tackle: language barriers
- 6:50GuideRecommendation: AI translation tooling for governance
- 9:12GuideExpected outcome of AI-assisted translation
- 11:26GuideShould DReps be incentivised to translate or verify?
- 14:55GuidePilot one language with one DRep instead of a protocol fix
- 19:59GuideThree recommendations: AI tooling, DRep incentives, translator role
- 21:29AssessAssessing the translator role: MoSCoW tier
- 22:09AssessImpact, urgency and cost assessment
- 40:51GuideKen: CIP for secondary-language governance actions
SPO Governance Friction and CC Metrics
Key insight: SPOs see governance participation as costly and risky -- cold-key friction, scattered/missing documentation, no in-node or wallet alerts when an SPO vote is actually required, and a real fear of losing delegation if they vote against the IO-aligned status quo. Joker would limit SPO voting to hard-fork / node changes; Adam Dean argues SPOs were designed-out (no default-yes, buried protocol-parameter list, conflict-of-interest pressure against also being a DRep). Recurring asks: standard on-chain socialisation alert before a governance action, wallet-level signalling for SPO-relevant votes, and a dedicated social/notification layer for governance.
Assessing Governance Recommendation - Voter Incentives and Requirements
Key insight: removing the DRep-delegation requirement to withdraw staking rewards is cheap and low-risk, but on its own it will not fix DRep concentration. The structural fix is the Voter Incentives R&D bundle -- bonus pool, saturation caps and DRep compensation -- assessed as a Must, but multi-year and hard-fork dependent.
Assessing Governance Recommendation - DRep Incentives
Key insight: DRep compensation is urgent -- without it, Cardano faces a stake-bleeding-style long-term attack vector and there is no K parameter to cap governance concentration. Pilot proposal on the table: 100k ADA from treasury, top-10 DReps excluded, ~10 ADA per proposal voted on. Open question: deliver on-ledger or via smart-contract / saturated stake-pool path.
Ideating on Governance Recommendations
Key insight: DRep 'stickiness' may be a false premise -- non-movement can mean satisfaction, not apathy. Paying people to vote raises turnout but not decision quality; current participation is mostly an artifact of locking staking rewards behind DRep delegation. Better levers: lower the barrier to self-represent, surface DRep voting history before delegation, and fix mobile UX before chasing edge markets.
Governance Metrics Analysis
Key insight: DRep delegation is structurally sticky (~0.14% change per epoch) and Cardano's Gini coefficient (~0.93) sits between large DeFi DAOs (~0.99) and nation-states (~0.63), with the trend pointing upward. Cross-role concentration (DReps who are also SPOs / CC members) is undercounted by current charts, and rationale quality lags the meritocratic selection criteria available for stake pools (Civotas mentioned as a comparable tool for DReps). Bigger lever may be voter-side tooling and education rather than reactivating inactive DReps.
Governance Experience Insights
Key insight: only ~5% of the ~38B circulating ADA actually votes, and the barriers are structural -- weak calendar / committee communication, ~11 wallets with no governance UX standard (Lace still missing it), and very little material on how to become a DRep. DReps publishing rationales face conflict-of-interest pressure (treasury applicants), fear of losing delegation, and hostile social reactions (e.g. the SNEK vote). Smaller SPOs are also priced out of Discord tooling like Clarity at ~$75/mo.
Governance Experience Insights
Key insight: DRep voting power keeps concentrating because governance complexity drives ADA holders to shortcut-delegate to large DReps, retired DReps still hold significant power (Cardano Whale ~50M ADA), and there is no incentive mechanism that would let a K-parameter equivalent cap it. SPOs cited cold-key friction and silent treatment when publishing rationales; the CC lacks tooling to capture its debate. Funding DRep rewards from the governance-action deposit was strongly contested as 'taxing ideas'.