Governance Incentives Framework 2026
Discussed in the Governance Review for epochs 650 to 652.
120 DReps voted · 54 with a rationale · 2 changed their vote
Open a row to read the rationale.
Changed votes: 2 to no, together voting with 460.9 ₳ of voting power.
Voting concentration
5 of 120 DReps cast half of the voted power.
Largest voter 14.6%, top 5 combined 53.2% of 3.1B ₳ voted.
The 24 largest voters together held as much voting power as the 67.0% threshold required in yes votes.
- No142.9K ₳No rationale
- No124.6K ₳No rationale
- No95.8K ₳No rationale
- Yes85.6K ₳Rationale
EN — iFly (SWADA) votes YES.
First, my interest: I'm an active DRep and I run a stake pool. If this work leads to DRep compensation, I could get paid by it. Saying so up front.
Why I want this research done: we are losing DRep decentralisation, fast. Active DReps fell in every 12-epoch period of the first year. Concentration went up, not down (Gini 0.92 to 0.94). Something like 11-16 DReps now control 51% of the voting power. A Constitutional Committee consortium quit because nobody was paying them. Governance power is now more concentrated than stake is — and stake concentration is the thing everyone watches. Meanwhile being a DRep costs you: a locked 500 ada deposit earning nothing, transaction fees, and far more importantly, hours of real work per proposal. Right now you pay to participate. That is exactly backwards, and it quietly selects for people who can afford it.
WHAT I WANT OUT OF THIS — and I'll be blunt about it:
The goal is MORE DReps. Not better-paid big DReps. If this research comes back recommending payment simply proportional to delegation, it will have made concentration worse and wasted 4.2 million ada. The measure of success is whether the number of independent, genuinely active DReps goes UP.
So find a way to pay small DReps proportionally more. Somebody with a few thousand ada delegated to them, who reads the proposals and writes real rationales, should not be out of pocket for it. That is the person this framework has to reach. Lowering that barrier is how you grow the number of representatives, and growing the number is how you fix the concentration.
Now the hard part, and please don't dodge it: paying small DReps more per ada invites gaming. A large holder can split their stake across many small DReps they control and farm the higher rate. That's a Sybil attack wearing a different hat. I know this makes the design harder. Do it anyway. Do NOT let 'we couldn't solve the Sybil problem' become the excuse for a safe proportional model that just pays the incumbents — that outcome is worse than doing nothing, because it spends treasury money entrenching the exact problem we're trying to fix.
Some directions I think are worth testing:
Anchor everything to delegated stake, because stake is scarce and can't be duplicated. A flat payment per DRep is an open invitation to spin up bots.
Use a floor and a ceiling. A minimum delegation to qualify makes bot DReps expensive, since each one has to attract real stake. Earnings that flatten out past a saturation point stop anyone chasing delegation purely for the money. This is the same shape as k and saturation for stake pools — a mechanism every operator already understands, and it works.
Don't treat 'published a rationale' as proof of work. Text is cheap to generate now. It only means something on top of a real stake floor.
And keep in mind some competition for delegation is healthy. A good representative should attract stake. What needs to go is chasing delegation purely as income, disconnected from whether you're doing the job well.
WHAT I DON'T LIKE ABOUT THIS PROPOSAL: the money goes as one lump sum to an ordinary key-controlled wallet. No escrow, no milestone payments, no multisig. The refund promises are words, not mechanisms. The detailed budget is deliberately kept private, so we're voting on eleven summary numbers. Admin and conceptualisation are about 22% of the total before any research comes out, while the independent audit is 3% — and the auditor isn't named and gets paid out of the grant.
I'm voting YES anyway, because the problem is real and urgent and the design questions are genuinely hard enough to be worth researching properly. But I want escrowed, milestone-released funding, the full budget published, and a named auditor. If milestones aren't met, I'll back returning the money to the treasury.
SV — iFly (SWADA) röstar JA.
Först mitt intresse: jag är aktiv DRep och driver en stakepool. Om det här arbetet leder till ersättning för DReps kan jag komma att få betalt. Det säger jag rakt ut.
Varför jag vill att forskningen görs: vi håller på att tappa decentraliseringen bland DReps, snabbt. Antalet aktiva DReps sjönk under varje tolvepoksperiod under det första året. Koncentrationen ökade i stället för att minska (Gini 0,92 till 0,94). Ungefär 11-16 DReps kontrollerar nu 51 % av röststyrkan. Ett konsortium i konstitutionsutskottet hoppade av för att ingen betalade dem. Styrningsmakten är nu mer koncentrerad än vad staken är — och det är stake-koncentrationen alla håller ögonen på. Samtidigt kostar det att vara DRep: en låst deposition på 500 ada som inte ger något, transaktionsavgifter, och framför allt timmar av verkligt arbete per förslag. Just nu betalar man för att delta. Det är precis bakvänt, och det sållar tyst fram dem som har råd.
VAD JAG VILL FÅ UT AV DET HÄR — och jag säger det rakt:
Målet är FLER DReps. Inte bättre betalda stora DReps. Om forskningen kommer tillbaka och rekommenderar ersättning rakt proportionell mot delegering har den gjort koncentrationen värre och slösat bort 4,2 miljoner ada. Måttet på framgång är om antalet oberoende, verkligt aktiva DReps ÖKAR.
Så hitta ett sätt att betala små DReps proportionellt mer. Någon med några tusen ada delegerat till sig, som läser förslagen och skriver riktiga motiveringar, ska inte förlora på det. Det är den personen ramverket måste nå. Att sänka den tröskeln är hur man får fler representanter, och fler representanter är hur man löser koncentrationen.
Nu det svåra, och snälla, smit inte från det: att betala små DReps mer per ada inbjuder till utnyttjande. En stor innehavare kan dela upp sin stake på många små DReps under eget inflytande och håva in den högre ersättningen. Det är en Sybil-attack i annan skepnad. Jag vet att det gör designen svårare. Gör det ändå. Låt INTE 'vi kunde inte lösa Sybil-problemet' bli ursäkten för en trygg proportionell modell som bara betalar dem som redan sitter där — det utfallet är sämre än att inte göra något alls, för då används statskassans pengar till att cementera precis det problem vi försöker lösa.
Några riktningar jag tycker är värda att testa:
Förankra allt i delegerad stake, för stake är knappt och kan inte dupliceras. En fast ersättning per DRep är en öppen inbjudan att starta bottar.
Använd ett golv och ett tak. Ett krav på minsta delegering gör bot-DReps dyra, eftersom var och en måste attrahera verklig stake. En ersättning som planar ut efter en mättnadspunkt gör att ingen jagar delegering bara för pengarna. Det är samma form som k och mättnad för stakepooler — en mekanism varje operatör redan förstår, och den fungerar.
Betrakta inte 'publicerade en motivering' som bevis på arbete. Text är billig att generera nu. Det betyder något först ovanpå ett verkligt stake-golv.
Och kom ihåg att viss konkurrens om delegering är sund. En bra representant ska attrahera stake. Det som måste bort är att jaga delegering enbart som inkomst, frikopplat från om man gör jobbet bra.
VAD JAG INTE GILLAR MED FÖRSLAGET: pengarna går som en klumpsumma till en vanlig nyckelstyrd plånbok. Ingen spärr, inga delutbetalningar mot delmål, ingen multisig. Återbetalningslöftena är ord, inte mekanismer. Den detaljerade budgeten hålls medvetet privat, så vi röstar på elva sammanfattande siffror. Administration och konceptualisering är omkring 22 % av totalen innan något forskningsresultat kommit fram, medan den oberoende granskningen är 3 % — och granskaren är inte namngiven och betalas ur anslaget.
Jag röstar JA ändå, för problemet är verkligt och brådskande och designfrågorna är svåra nog att förtjäna ordentlig forskning. Men jag vill se spärrad finansiering som betalas ut mot delmål, hela budgeten publicerad och en namngiven granskare. Nås inte delmålen stödjer jag att pengarna går tillbaka till statskassan. - Abstain74.5K ₳No rationale
- No63.1K ₳No rationale
- No62.7K ₳Rationale
The topic matters and the methodology looks solid, but over 4 million ada for research whose main output is a framework document is hard to justify, particularly when the proposal itself notes overlap with Input Output Research's ongoing Cardano Vision 2026 work.
The core options for DRep compensation are also already well understood and openly debated in the community, see for example: https://dreptalk.com/t/options-for-drep-compensation-and-who-should-actually-pay-fo-in60zg/
I'd rather see that already-funded research conclude first.
- Abstain56.4K ₳Rationale
At its current state I will ABSTAIN from voting on this proposal. I do find value in an incentive program for Governance but feel this topic requires more discussion. 5M $ADA for research is not viable in my eyes at this time.
- No56.1K ₳Rationale
nope.
A PDF version of this rationale is also made available.
I can also voice what Megan said already - this is a research grant, not anything with concrete outcomes.
In isolation, this would be a big plus for me, as it distributes and decentralizes Cardano’s research - away from the monolithic IOR team - and fully in line with other independent community research groups, like the Incentive WG. However, a grant over roughly 1m USD for a 12-month project, run by 2 people, that aims to provide an answer to a widely contested and highly emotional topic seems kinda ridiculous. Especially with such a proposal, which reads a little unprofessional.
Costs are nicely broken down into categories, but neither category gets justified for, or explained at all(??)... Which would be crucial, because the amounts are not intuitive - and appear to be very expensive.
I do like the S.M.A.R.T. KPIs, but at the same time consider them to be rather random and hardly quality-controlling. Anyone can talk to 50 people and create a dashboard showing (something?) that loads in 3sec — for 1m USD.
The team may or may not be appropriate to lead this, I dont know them, but their Catalyst and Cardano track record seems… …ok? Ok enough I guess.
Scanning through the references and what the 2 proposers are actually bringing to the table: they quote a lot of content from other groups. All they (seem to) have written is https://cips.cardano.org/cps/CPS-0020 which is pretty good quality, but also not exactly rocket science. In it they say “what's bad” in their views, and what things would need to be considered for a “whats better”.Id welcome such a proposal if they were to start smaller and prove themselves to produce value worth 1m USD like by providing more research done by them, or generate previews or outlooks of where they see the outcome to go. Also, they should please break down the costs more - IO may get away with generic categories, but not a new research group.
- Abstain45.3K ₳No rationale
- No15.7K ₳No rationale
- No14.3K ₳No rationale
- Yes6.8K ₳No rationale
- No3.6K ₳No rationale
- Yes2.7K ₳No rationale
- Abstain1.2K ₳No rationale
- Yes688.8 ₳No rationale
- NoChanged293.8 ₳History
Earlier votes
Abstain26d agoSuperseded
- NoChanged167.1 ₳History
Earlier votes
Yes19d agoSuperseded
Voting YES on Governance Incentives Framework 2026 (₳4.21M). As elected Cardano Civics Committee member, Unified Cardano Student Club President in Nigeria, and advocate for inclusive governance, I support rigorous research into sustainable incentives for DReps and other actors. Current participation costs time and money, which risks concentrating power and excluding voices from emerging markets and student communities like those I work with in Africa. A well-designed framework that increases the number of independent, active DReps (not just better-paying existing large ones) would strengthen decentralisation and long-term participation. I expect transparent methodology, clear success metrics focused on diversity of active participants, and full public reporting. This is an investment in healthier governance rather than a blank cheque.
- No10.8 ₳No rationale