Nov 9, 2023 | Voltaire era: Parameter committee intermediate state

The Parameter Committee (interim state) meets on a tri-weekly basis. It discusses all parameters relating to the Cardano protocol including network, technical and economic parameters, providing technical advice and recommendations on updatable parameter settings.

Updated list of the Members (interim state):

Chairs:
Chair: Kevin Hammond
Vice- chair: Alex Moser
Vice- chair: Vijay Bhuvangiri

Advisory Group Heads:
Network group: Neil Davies
Technical group: Markus Gufler
Economic group: Samuel Leathers

Advisory Group Members:
Network group: Karl Knutson, Matthias Sieber, Marcin Szamotulski
Technical group: Ruslan Dudin, Michael Peyton Jones, Ashish Prajapati
Economic group: Sergio Sanchez, Philip Lazos, Giovanni Gargiulo

Other:
Communications: Tommy Kammerer, Nathaniel Acton, Addie Girouard, Matthew Capps
Domain experts: Martin Lang, Andrew Westberg
Observers: WIP
Secretary: JoaquĂ­n LĂłpez

Remit

The purpose of the Parameter Committee is to provide technical advice and recommendations relating to the updatable protocol parameters, taking into account economic, security, network and other technical considerations, as appropriate to protect the long term sustainability of the Cardano blockchain.

Agenda and Updates:

Agenda:

  • Change Request “CR 107 - Min Pool Cost reduction”
  • Report from Cardano Summit
  • Current Status wrt Intersect
  • Update: PCP-001 rationale and Parameter Committee explainer
  • New/Upcoming PCP requests
  • Parameter Guardrails
  • Nominations for the Governance Advisory Group Head

Updates:

  • The CR-107 - minPoolCost reduction has been implemented and it’s live. The change took effect on mainnet on the 27th of October, just before the Cardano Summit. Reducing Pool Costs is optional.
    • Over 200 pools have already taken advantage of the opportunity to reduce their fees.
    • The Network advisory group will be monitoring the effect and impact of this change on the Cardano network.
    • Stake Pools are encouraged to provide feedback on the impact of this change on their operations.
  • Some members of the Parameter Committee attended the Cardano Summit in Dubai and there was a short presentation on the Parameter Committee and its role as part of the Intersect organization. It was a great opportunity to engage directly with the community.
  • The Parameter Committee is making progress in our transition to Intersect and we are now waiting for other committees to be fully established and operational before we can consider the intermediate state to be finished. We expect to define the next steps at the beginning of 2024.
  • We have posted the PCP-001 rationale on the Cardano Forum, so the community can have a better understanding on how we came up with the conclusion and the process that was followed.
  • We are planning to publish another post on the Cardano Forum about how the Parameter Committee was formed, what is its purpose and other basic information about this group.
  • The PCP process is open to the community and we already have 3 discussions happening on the Cardano Forum. The Parameter Committee has reviewed these discussions and decided the following:
    • PCP_K-Parameter_EarnCoinPool. Members of the Network group will participate in the discussion and ask for additional details before proceeding with this PCP request.
    • PCP_utxoCostPerByte_ShawnMcMurdo. The Parameter Committee accepted this PCP request unanimously and assigns PCP# 002. All advisory groups will start working on the analysis of utxoCostperByte.
    • PCP_TreasuryTax-tau-parameter_EarnCoinPool. The Parameter Committee will wait until a formal PCP request is submitted.
  • The Parameter Guardrails document has been shared with all of the Parameter Committee members and we are waiting for them to provide comments.
  • Nominations for the head of the new Governance Advisory Group were considered. The committee members will now vote on the appointment.
2 Likes

Can we get some commentary/summary on what this document is intended to include? It sounds like it is going to be a set of guides that the Parameter Committee don’t step outside of. If it is, it should be shared publicy, otherwise it is effectively a shadow document that the community cannot see, but now forms part of the Cardano parameters.

The document discusses all (reasonable) upper and lower limits of network parameters. It also adds helper comments (aka guardrails) to understand specific mechanics like “the stake address deposit must not be negative” (as a negative deposit would give operators that amount when registering new stake pools)

Undoubtedly, it must be published as soon as it is finalized or maybe even before.

Thanks, yes, it would be good to see the reasonable limits.