Governance is a critical component of the long-term success of any DeFi protocol, and SundaeSwap is no exception. Over the past several months, as the typically hectic pace of a DeFi startup slowed to the point where we could devote more resources to strategic projects, we’ve been able to really focus on the Sundae DAO. In our July Sundae Scoop, we previewed what the Sundae DAO would look like (be sure to give it a watch), and now, we’re pleased to be able to show you how some of our governance features are expected to work.
Today, we’ll be launching the preview testnet for our layer-2 Validium-inspired secure governance solution on the Cardano Preview Testnet, where we’ll begin hosting a 15-day vote for the best ice cream flavor. Using the portal at https://governance.preview.sundaeswap.finance, you’ll be able to connect your wallet and cast your vote. Note that Eternl is the only wallet that currently supports both the preview environment, and the APIs we needed to build this. Once you’ve connected your wallet you can claim a small amount of a VOTE token. This token takes the place of the SUNDAE token on the Preview Testnet environment. We’ve recorded a video with Andrew Westberg, for his show NerdOut, that explains how the governance process works in full technical detail.
Voting will be absolutely free (even on mainnet — there are no transaction fees!); users will be able to confirm that their vote will be counted, and any attempt to tamper with the vote will be cryptographically detectable. We’ve partnered with trusted members of the community to independently audit the results. The inaugural partners for this are:
Cexplorer/ Adapools
DripDropz
Eternl
Smaug / Pool.pm
This is the next step in a process that will give SundaeSwap DEX users a strong, immutable voice in directing the future development of the platform.
We’re extremely proud of what we’ve built, and we’re also excited to share this with the wider Cardano community. If you’re building on Cardano, and are looking for a way to give your community a voice without building a full governance platform yourself, please reach out to us at contact@sundaeswap.finance. And if you’re a member of a community for a Cardano project and want to see your developers partner with us, let them know!
It’s been six months since our Governance Beta launch on testnet, and we’ve been working hard toward our formal Governance Portal launch to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the launch of the SundaeSwap protocol. We have a ton of people to thank in helping us get here; we couldn’t have done it without our partners and all the wonderful people that have helped us with the testing and feedback to help make the technology something special.
Background
In July of 2022, we launched our first public instance of our off-chain Validium-inspired secure Governance Solution on Cardano by taking a vote for the best ice cream flavor (cookies n’ cream won by a landslide!). After our vote, we had several conversations with partners across the Cardano ecosystem and discovered that voting was a fairly common pain point across several different projects in addition to ours. We also learned that many companies operating within the space simply would not have the resources necessary to build their own voting system, so we worked to make our solution malleable enough to support other projects.
Fast forward to today, and we’re proud to say that the Governance technology we are launching is the same technology powering the governance portals for NMKR, Discoin, NEWM, and that also powered the voting that took place leading up to the Cardano Summit.
What makes our governance unique?
The solution we’ve built is a custom layer-2 Validium solution. This means we publish a commitment to the votes we have seen on layer-1 Cardano in a way that allows us to present a cryptographic proof that your vote is included in this commitment. The benefit of this is that it generates zero fees for the end user. Votes are still signed by the user’s wallet, but don’t translate into a transaction directly on-chain. Instead, they get included in the next merkle-tree root, where users can verify for themselves that their vote is included. For a deep-dive on exactly how this works, see our video on NerdOut, Andrew Westberg’s Cardano education channel.
Adoption of Governance Procedures as a First Vote
To give the community guidelines on how to effectively propose changes for the SundaeSwap DAO, we have created an initial set of guidelines for submitting Temperature Checks and Proposals.
Each section of the Procedures, which includes Proposal Creation, General Procedures applicable to all Proposals, Moderator Roles and Obligations, and Definitions, are required to develop, manage, and organize the future SundaeSwap DAO community. Future DAO participants should become familiar with these Procedures to ensure that the DAO operates efficiently and transparently. The first Forum Temp Check introduces the proposed Governance Procedures document as a Temperature Check.
In closing…
Our team has been focused on Governance as our first major product release for 2023 because we view it as a critical component solidifying the SundaeSwap DEX as a fully decentralized project. With this launch, we are enabling a goal we’ve had since the launch of the DEX last January — to give SUNDAE token holders the capability to propose and vote on key decisions related to the future of the DEX protocol.