How We Voted

Two governance actions are open to stake pools until epoch 653. We abstained on one and voted yes on the other.

The first reduces minPoolCost — the fixed fee floor every pool charges — from 170 to 75 ADA. It also raises Plutus execution limits. Two unrelated changes in one action, and a vote is a single yes or no. There is no way to support the technical change without also supporting the economic one, or to oppose the fee change without also blocking an improvement developers have asked for. Part 1 of the same two-part increase passed in February with no fee change attached, and we voted for it. The tallies show the split it creates: DReps are running near 43% in favour, stake pools near 16%.

Our view is that a lower floor invites a race to the bottom, with the Sybil implications that carries for chain health. Professionally run pools carry real costs in hardware, power, security, operations and capital deployed. Cardano needs a bedrock of operators with a business case that lasts over generations, and the fee floor is part of what makes that possible.

We also have a direct interest, since the floor is pool revenue. That is why we abstained rather than voting against: better to make the argument in public than to use our stake to block a change that carries technical improvements the ecosystem wants.

The second renews four Constitutional Committee seats expiring at epoch 653, seating the candidates chosen in this year’s public election and independently audited. We voted yes. Without it the committee falls from eight members to three, below the five it needs to act, and governance stalls until the seats are refilled. The quorum is unchanged at two thirds, and two of the four are re-elected incumbents.

Credit to Intersect for running that election as a neutral administrator and standing no candidates of its own. One detail worth knowing: stake in a pool that does not vote is counted as opposed unless its delegators have chosen to abstain.