Weighted Voting - State of the Discussion

We’ve analyzed the current discussion around weighted voting and the different modes of accruing or assigning weight.

We want to use this thread to further the understanding of where the community is at the moment and what could be good to implement into Canton governance in the future.

The public CIP Discuss thread shows support for broader participation, with different views on how to get there. A May draft used existing active SV reward weight. Eric Saraniecki reported strong feedback to find another basis, and the July v0.5 draft instead uses capped locked CC. Self-operated SVs get full credit up to a proposed 350M CC cap. Hosted SVs receive a fraction based on their days active as an SV against a 1,461-day vesting period. The rollout would start with off-chain tallying and operator execution, then move voting and delegation on-chain. Digital Asset’s October 30 letter describes the current protocol governance model as one vote per SV node operator.

Tradeweb argued that the earlier 200M CC cap gave too little credit for larger commitments and suggested raising it or giving diminishing credit above it. Zenith argued that an absolute balance favors early SVs and proposed rewarding the share of otherwise-liquid SV rewards voluntarily locked long term.

Proof Group raised a different issue: some institutions may need internal approval to vote and may face restrictions on delegating. It proposed that SVs opt into voting and suggested a 100M CC cap under that model.

All of these discussions have the underlying assumption that voting weight rises with time and locked CC. We can look at other modes in the wider ecosystem for what has been tried and succeeded.

A hosted SV can build tenure before adding the CC that will count toward its vote. This rewards time in the network. A separate lock-age rule would be needed to reward how long that particular capital has been committed.

There’s also a distinction between time elapsed and the term chosen upfront. Puffer’s current vlPUFFER docs describe higher multipliers for longer elected lock terms, from 30 days to two years.

Summing this up, we can see three different avenues of accruing vote weight in exchange for time preference: reward the commitment still ahead, the time the capital has already been staked, or the term selected when locking.

Reputation and attestations.

As an example of a fully decentralized reputation system: the Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) provides a way to issue signed, structured claims on-chain or off-chain. Canton could use a similar pattern to record that an SV passed an operational readiness review, delivered a milestone, or has a reviewer qualified in a specific domain. This can be further expanded by weighing attestations by expertise to attest on a certain topic. This weight could be designed such that it is increased with each corroborated attestation and slashed with each counterfactual attestation.

The market has tried several ways of turning reputation into influence. Colony weights certain votes by non-transferable, team-specific reputation earned through contributions, with decay so recent work matters. Optimism’s Citizens’ House used reputation for eligibility and gave each member one vote. The Optimism Foundation announced an indefinite pause in June 2026, citing low and declining participation. In Canton, Zenith proposed Recognized Delegates who would publish their voting records and exercise weight voluntarily delegated by SVs. That would give expertise a role without requiring a universal reputation score.

Vote escrow also shows how a market for influence can emerge around a lock. Convex channels voting rights from its veCRV holdings through vote-locked CVX, and empirical research found that its gauge vote outcomes closely tracked payments through markets such as Votium. However, gauge votes are very particular edge case of decision making, where the incentives for voting one way align perfectly with the rewards for doing so. This can not be generalized to any decision.

For Canton, the parallel question is whether the entity funding a lock, the SV credited with it, and the delegate casting the ballot can be different parties, and whose control counts toward a cap.

I’d be interested in three decisions from the community:

1. What is the voting unit? Should every eligible SV organization get a base vote, and should affiliated entities share a cap?

2. What should the time factor reward? Future time committed, past time continuously locked, or tenure as an SV? Should CC already locked for SV rewards count on the same terms as an additional governance lock?

3. Where should expertise matter? Should credentials qualify reviewers or delegates, or should they carry formal weight on specific classes of CIPs?