Algo-gov

This demo is an on-chain governance contract using smart contracts on the Algorand blockchain. This contract allows users to stake their governance tokens, register up to a fixed number of proposals per cycle, vote, and execute approved proposals.

The governance process occurs in time-based cycles. A cycle contains of the following 5 periods, with their respective operations:

1. Staking period

• Stake
  • Users are able to send their governance tokens to the governor contract to receive governance powers (voting power and proposition power)
  • Once staked, the governance tokens are locked until the claim period
  • Users can only stake once
• Delegate
  • Users that have already staked are able to delegate their governance powers to another address
    • If a user staked in the previous cycle and has not claimed since then, their voting power and proposition power is reset to their staked amount
  • Voting power and proposition power is delegated separately
  • The delegate address must have power of given type at the moment of delegation
  • Once an address delegates, their power is given to the delegate address in full until the end of the governance cycle

2. Proposition period

• Register proposal
  • Users that have staked are able to register their proposals with the governor.
    • If a user staked in the previous cycle and has not claimed since then, their voting power and proposition power is reset to their staked amount
  • A user must have sufficient proposition power, i.e. >= PROPOSE_THRESHOLD
  • There must be free proposal slots remaining
  • If successful, a proposal is assigned a slot in the governor contract and voting will be open in the voting period
  • If successful, user's proposal power will be decreased by PROPOSE_THRESHOLD
• Cancel proposal
  • The creator of the proposal or the creator of the governor are able to cancel a registered proposal at this stage

3. Voting period

• Vote
  • Users that have staked are able to vote on proposals
    • If a user staked in the previous cycle and has not claimed since then, their voting power and proposition power is reset to their staked amount
  • A user must have sufficient voting power to participate, as specified by VOTE_THRESHOLD
  • A user cannot vote twice on any given proposal
  • A 0 vote is against, any other vote is for
  • Upon successful vote, the chosen option receives the number of votes equal to user voting power
• Cancel proposal
  • The creator of the proposal or the creator of the governor are able to cancel a registered proposal at this stage

4. Execution delay period

• Cancel proposal
  • The creator of the governor is able to cancel a registered proposal at this stage

5. Claim period

• Execute proposal
  • Anyone can call execute on the governor to execute a registered proposal
  • To succeed, the proposal must have received total votes above VOTE_THRESHOLD and more votes for than against, and have not been previously cancelled or executed
• Claim
  • Receive staked tokens (in the future, rewards as well) and opt out of the governance contract

0. Post-claim

• Begin new governance cycle
  • Anyone can call this to clear out the proposal slots, increment the cycle counter and update start time, kicking off a new cycle

Usage

The file gov/operations.py provides a set of functions that can be used to create and interact with the governance contract. See that file for documentation.

The file example.py demonstrates the governance contract in action.

ToDo

• Features:
  • Rewards
  • Linked list-based proposal model
• Maintenance
  • Simplify contract code
  • Tests
  • Docs

Development Setup

This repo requires Python 3.6 or higher. We recommend you use a Python virtual environment to install the required dependencies.

Set up venv (one time):

• python3 -m venv venv

Active venv:

• . venv/bin/activate (if your shell is bash/zsh)
• . venv/bin/activate.fish (if your shell is fish)

Install dependencies:

• pip install -r requirements.txt

Run tests:

• First, start an instance of sandbox (requires Docker): ./sandbox up nightly
• pytest
• When finished, the sandbox can be stopped with ./sandbox down

Format code:

• black .