Governance

Minterest protocol is controlled by the independent Minterest DAO, which is governed transparently by the community of MNT holders staking their MNT on the protocol. Each MNT token staked on the protocol carries a vote which can be used to vote for or against proposals concerning the evolution of Minterest protocol.

Governed by the community

Users who stake their MNT can participate in Minterest governance. The Buyback contract tracks all MNT locked for each account in Minterest protocol smart contracts for allocation of Buyback rewards. The same MNT proportional weight value is used in the Governance contract for voting weight.

A snapshot for accounts voting weight is generated when each proposal is created. Voting power is transparent and can be queried through the public {getVotes} and {getPastVotes}. An account can vote For, Against, or Abstain on each proposal. Users must participate in Minterest governance regularly in order to keep their MNT staked and receive Buyback rewards. Unstaked MNT is not counted in voting weight.

Controlled by Minterest DAO

The Minterest decentralised autonomous organization (DAO) is an independent legal entity that controls all aspects of the Minterest protocol. A DAO is a decentralised structure to enable transparent democratic community governance. Proposal votes control the Minterest DAO, which has authority and control of the Minterest protocol.

Minterest Improvement Proposals

A Minterest Improvement Proposal (MIP) is a very specific and exact proposal to edit, update, or add to Minterest protocol smart contracts or guardian functionality or parameter settings. Each MIP must be submitted with the exact fully coded change or addition that is proposed. Community members who want to suggest changes but do not have the expertise to create a MIP can advocate those suggestions to Advisory Council members who can create a MIP.

Advisory Council

In the early days of Minterest protocol, the DAO will appoint a Minterest Advisory Council. This body of trusted expert community members will be tasked with the responsibility of creating Minterest Improvement Proposals (MIPs) when the community determines a need to evolve the protocol or update operational parameter settings. Initially, only Advisory Council members will be able to submit MIPS. In the future, the governance process will be updated to allow all community members to submit proposals.

Voting process

In Beta phase, Minterest governance smart contracts exist without their final graceful user interface. So if votes are deemed necessary by the DAO and Advisory Council, instructions will be provided for participants to directly interact with the governance contracts to complete their voting transaction process. By including the proposal ID, Minterest account wallet address, and a For, Against, or Abstain vote, users can easily cast their vote.

The voting process is enabled and codified with a custom implementation of the OpenZeppelin open source blockchain governance simple voting smart contract. MntVotes is a custom base contract per Quorum ERC20. Minimum for voting quorum is 30% of total staked MNT per the Buyback contract total, snapshot calculated when proposal is created. Wait time between a proposal and voting start is 3 hours, and voting period is 40320 blocks which is 1 week of voting.

Vote delegation

Accounts can delegate their governance vote to another account so an account can vote on behalf of other accounts, with the delegator’s voting weight added to the delegatee’s total. An account can delegate to only one delegatee, and multiple accounts can delegate to a delegate, but delegation chaining is not supported. For purposes of determining governance participation status, a delegatee’s votes also count as governance participation for the delegator.

Administrator

The Minterest DAO has appointed Minterest Labs as the Administrator of the protocol. It will be tasked with executing the will of the DAO as represented by successful MIPs. The Administrator represents a trusted list of technical executors capable of implementing MIPs. The Administrator role has no decision-making authority, and is only permitted to execute specific tasks assigned by the DAO through the MIP vote governance processes. Administrators will be added and changed from time to time by DAO vote.

MIP implementation

When a submitted MIP is voted successful by a majority of governance vote weight, the tasks are implemented by a Administrator as per DAO task assignment. The exact code or parameter change stipulated in the MIP must be implemented. This is to avoid instant execution of potentially sensitive changes, yet is short enough to allow fast reaction to any urgent situations that may arise.