Voltaire Update: Recent Updates to CIP-1694
Last week on June 13 and June 16, 2023, minor changes were submitted to CIP-1694 by Jared Corduan and Matthias Benkort. The list of changes includes several minor edits and clarifications, such as:
Explain the DRep inactivity better
- Introducing a new protocol parameter, “drepActivity.” This parameter indicates a fixed number of epochs. If a DRep does not cast a single vote for the epoch duration of the parameter, the DRep is considered inactive, and all the stake delegated to that DRep is no longer counted towards the active voting stake. It is vital to introduce an activity check in case a DRep leaves the system but does not issue a valid retirement certificate because, in that case, the DRep and the stake that is delegated to them will be counted towards the active voting stake indefinitely, which ultimately could lead to a system where a substantial amount of stake, necessary to meet any voting thresholds, is delegated to stale DReps.
Make all governance actions contain an optional anchor
- All governance actions can include an optional anchor for any metadata that is needed to justify the action
Explain how DRep deposits are returned
- It was clarified that as soon as the chain accepts a retirement certificate from a DRep, their deposit amount is returned to them as part of the transaction that submitted the certificate. This follows the same approach as the stake credential registration deposits and how they are returned.
New Constitutional Committee structure (i.e., explicit add and delete groups)
- It is now explicitly mentioned that governance action “2. New constitutional committee and/or threshold” can also change the term limits of the constitutional committee. It is also stated that this governance action has to include the following specific elements “The set of verification key hash digests (members to be removed), a map of verification key hash digests to epoch numbers (new members and their term limit), and a fraction (quorum threshold)”
SPOs vote on info action
- SPOs can now also vote on governance action “Info.” The SPO and DRep thresholds for the Info action are currently set to 100% since setting it any lower would result in being unable to poll above the threshold.
Optional anchor for voting transactions
- All Vote transactions can now contain an optional anchor for information that is relevant to the vote
While the changes made have been minor it is still important to highlight them and specifically showcase the necessity to clarify certain aspects of the proposal.
I will continue to monitor the progression of the Voltaire era and post regular updates in this thread.