quartz/content/notes/eth-governance.md
2022-11-24 13:46:51 +13:00

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eth-governance

note: may be out of date after the merge

  • governance are the systems that allow decisions to be made
    • e.g., shareholders vote on proposals for change, elected officials enact legislation that attempts to represent their constituents desires, board of directors have the final say in decision making
  • decentralised governance
    • no one person owns or controls ethereum, this makes traditional organizational governance an incompatible solution
  • eth governance
    • the process by which protocol changes are made
      • not related to how people and applications use the protocol because eth is permissionless anyone can participate in on chain activities
    • the governance systems need to ensure that changes to the protocol are secure and widely supported by the community
    • on/off chain
      • on: proposed changes to the protocol are decided by stakeholders (holders of a governance token) and voting happens "on the blockchain" sometimes changes are already written and are automatically implemented if a vote is successful
      • off: decisions are made through an informal process of social discussion, which , if approved, would be implemented in code
    • eth is off chain but many things built on eth (e.g., DAOs) use on chain governance
  • who is involved (stakeholders)
    • ether holders
    • application users
    • application tooling devs
    • node operators
    • EIP authors propose changes to the eth protocol
    • miners/validators
    • protocol developers
  • EIP eth improvement protocol
    • anyone can create
  • process for change
    • propose a core EIP
    • present EIP to devs
      • rejected/modified/considered for dev
    • EIP is developed
    • EIP included in network upgrade (coordination required)
    • upgrade activated (tested on a testnet first)
  • handling diagreements
    • discussion in public forum hopefully, one side concedes or a medium is reached
    • however can result in a chain split
  • fork: when major technical upgrades or changes need to be made to the network
    • DAO fork
      • low turnout
      • many weren't aware
      • only represented ETH holders, not other participants
    • some didn't want to fork because it wasn't a fault in the system
    • community has adopted a policy of non-intervention in the case of contract bugs or lost funds, to retain credible neutrality

further reading