Governance
Acurast Mainnet governance is implemented through a combination of pallet-referenda and pallet-conviction-voting.
Together they provide an on chain referendum system where ACU holders can vote on protocol changes, with voting power amplified by voluntarily locking ACUs for longer periods.
Overview
Governance on Acurast Mainnet follows the OpenGov model: a referendum is created, a decision deposit is placed, and ACU holders vote during a fixed decision window. A referendum passes when both an approval threshold and a support threshold are met simultaneously for a continuous confirmation period.
Referenda are organized into tracks, where each track defines its own voting periods, deposit amounts, approval and support thresholds, and the set of origins allowed to submit to it. Currently there is a single track (the Root track) which gates all privileged protocol operations such as runtime upgrades and parameter changes. In the future, additional tracks with more granular permission levels will be introduced, allowing any ACU holder to submit referenda for the appropriate scope of actions.
In the current configuration only council members can submit new referenda.
Referenda Lifecycle
Every referendum goes through the following stages:
- Submission: A proposal is submitted and is placed in a queue for the selected track.
- Preparing: The referendum waits for the track's preparation period. During this time a decision deposit must be placed by any account, or the referendum will be discarded after the undeciding timeout period.
- Deciding: Voting is open for the track's decision period. The referendum is evaluated continuously against the approval and support thresholds of the track.
- Confirming: Once both thresholds are met, the referendum must remain passing for the track's confirmation period. If it drops below the thresholds during this window the confirmation period resets.
- Enactment: After confirmation the approved call is scheduled for execution after a minimum delay of the track's min enactment period.
See the Root Track Parameters section for the specific timelines of the Root track.
Conviction Voting
ACU holders vote using pallet-conviction-voting.
Each vote is cast as aye, nay, or abstain, with an optional conviction level that multiplies voting power in exchange for a ACU lock after the referendum concludes.
| Conviction | Vote multiplier | Lock duration |
|---|---|---|
| None | 0.1× | No lock |
| 1× | 1× | 7 days |
| 2× | 2× | 14 days |
| 3× | 3× | 28 days |
| 4× | 4× | 56 days |
| 5× | 5× | 112 days |
| 6× | 6× | 224 days |
ACUs are locked immediately when a vote is cast. If the referendum ends and the vote was on the winning side with conviction > 0, the lock continues for the conviction period after the referendum ends.
For losing side votes the lock is released once the referendum concludes. Releasing the lock always requires an explicit unlock call. An account can have at most 512 concurrent votes across all active referenda.
Root Track Parameters
Acurast Mainnet has a single governance track, the root track (ID 0), which gates all privileged protocol operations such as runtime upgrades and parameter changes.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Max deciding at once | 1 |
| Prepare period | 12 hours |
| Decision period | 48 hours |
| Confirm period | 6 hours |
| Min enactment period | 2 hours |
| Undeciding timeout | 14 days |
| Vote locking period | 7 days |
Approval and Support Thresholds
Passing the deciding stage requires two independent thresholds to be satisfied at the same time.
Approval measures the share of aye votes out of all conviction weighted votes cast (aye + nay). The root track uses a reciprocal curve: approval starts at 100% at the beginning of the decision period and decreases toward 50% as the decision period progresses, with the sharpest drop in the first few hours.
Support measures the total raw ACU balance behind aye votes (pre-conviction) as a fraction of the active ACU issuance. The root track uses a linear curve: the required support starts at 50% at the beginning of the decision period and decreases linearly to 0% by the end.
Both thresholds must be satisfied simultaneously for the entire track's confirmation period before the referendum is approved.
How to Vote
Currently there are 2 ways a user can vote.
- Through the Acurast Hub Governance page. When a referendum is ongoing, it will appear on the Hub's governance page and users will be able to cast a vote and, later on, unlock ACUs from previous votes.
- Through the Polkadot JS Web Application.
Once the vote is cast, it can be updated by voting again. This allows the user to adjust both the ACU amount and conviction parameter.