Governance Process

The AdmiralDAO governance process is comprised of 4 phases. The full proposal lifecycle, instructions for making proposals, and details on voting are explained below. Durations listed may be subject to change.

Note: Proposals deemed eligible by the Security Council for an expedited vote may not follow all phases and durations listed here.

Definitions:

  • AP: An Admiralty LLC governance proposal (synonymous with "proposal")

  • Day: A 24-hour period

🔹 Phase 1: Proposal & Discussion (off-chain)

The purpose of this phase is for the community to vet and discuss ideas, ask questions, and provide feedback. You can think of this as the “draft stage”. It is advised that authors use this time to refine their AP before it moves to a community temperature check.

Phase 1 takes place off-chain in the Clipper Discord proposal-submission-forum channel (start here). This is a token-gated channel for SAIL holders. Anyone in the channel can post a proposal on the forum, however, keep in mind that authors are required to hold at least 30,000 SAIL or veSAIL tokens to submit a Snapshot proposal for an on-chain vote in Phase 3. To post a proposal on the forum, copy the AP Proposal Template and include answers to all specified criteria. Once an AP is posted, the author should actively engage in the discussion by responding to comments and considering the community’s suggestions. The author may make edits to the AP at any time during this phase.

Duration: 2 days

🔹 Phase 2: Temperature Check Vote (off-chain)

Phase 2 serves to gauge sentiment and evaluate the community’s level of interest in an AP before escalating it to an official on-chain vote. A temperature check vote must have a minimum of 20 participants for the AP to pass this phase. APs are not required to win the majority vote to pass the temperature check, however, any AP with 85% or more of the votes against it won’t pass.

The temperature check vote is held in the gated temperature-check Discord channel. Once an AP has met the 2-day requirement for Phase 1, the author can call for an Operator in Discord to launch a temperature check vote.

If after 5 days the temperature check vote does not have 20 participants or has received 85% or more ‘Against’ votes the AP fails. APs that fail the temperature check may be re-proposed after 14 days and must begin again with Phase 1.

Duration: 5 days

🔹 Phase 3: On-Chain Snapshot Vote

Once an AP has passed the temperature check, it can be escalated to an official on-chain vote which takes place in the AdmiralDAO Snapshot space.

In order to create a proposal on Snapshot, the author must hold at least 30,000 SAIL or veSAIL tokens in their wallet. To create the Snapshot proposal, copy and paste the AP directly from Discord with proper template formatting. Make sure to include a link to the original Discord forum/temperature check post in the “Discussion” section of the Snapshot proposal. This link will verify that the AP has successfully passed Phases 1 and 2. When setting vote options, only include "In favor of this proposal" and "Against this proposal". If any other options are included, the proposal will be deemed invalid and require a re-vote.

If a valid link verifying successful passage through Phases 1 and 2 is not included or cannot be provided by the AP’s author, the AP will be deemed invalid and will not be actioned, regardless of voting results.

The Snapshot voting period will last 5 days unless otherwise specified. For an AP to be considered successful, both of the following conditions must be met:

  1. A quorum of at least 1,000 voting power must be reached.

  2. A simple majority (at least 51%) of votes cast must be in favor of the proposal.

If an AP fails the Snapshot vote because the quorum was not met, it may be resubmitted for a Snapshot vote after a 7-day cool-off period. If the reason for failure was not achieving a simple majority vote, the AP may be re-proposed after 30 days but must start over at Phase 1. Any APs re-submitted in violation of the cool-off periods will be deemed invalid and will not be actioned, regardless of voting results.

Duration: 5 days

🔹 Phase 4: Waiting Period

A security waiting period of 3 days shall commence before any successful AP goes into effect. During this period, APs will be checked for any violation of cool-off periods or unwarranted bypassing of the off-chain phases.

This period will also include a check to see if any voters have nefariously manipulated their voting power to the effect of results being significantly impacted. If such activity is detected, a re-vote could be issued.

Implementation

After the waiting period, the Operators of the DAO will action the AP or determine the prioritization of the necessary actions in the DAOs backlog/roadmap. Roadmap items will be discussed publicly in Discord and the full roadmap can be viewed here. Implementation timelines will be determined on a case-by-case basis.


On-Chain Voting

Anyone holding SAIL tokens may vote on APs on Snapshot. There is no minimum token requirement for voters.

The voting strategy used on Snapshot is quadratic voting. This means that voting power is assigned based on the square root of the number of tokens held in the voter's wallet. E.g., if a voter is holding 100 SAIL tokens, their voting power will be 10.

The quadratic voting model is an alternative to the 1 token = 1 vote model and aims to even the distribution of voting power by reducing the influence of whales in decision-making.

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