Introduction to Polkadot Governance System V2

Polkadot employs a sophisticated governance mechanism that allows the network to evolve gracefully according to the will of its stakeholders. Its goal is to ensure that the majority of staked interests can always control the network.

The governance system of Polkadot has undergone iterative upgrades from V1 to V2. The V2 version improves the daily decision-making process, broadening and making the scope of referendums more flexible, significantly increasing the number of collective decisions the system can make.

The main changes in Governance V2 include:

• Transfer the responsibilities of the council to token holders through democratic voting.
• Dissolve the existing council
• Expand the ways users can delegate their voting rights to community members

Referendum Mechanism

In V2, anyone can initiate a referendum at any time, with no quantity limits. V2 introduces the concepts of Origins and Tracks to optimize the referendum process:

• Origin is a description of a specific permission level.
• Each Origin corresponds to a voting category, and each category is associated with a Track.
• Track defines the lifecycle of a proposal, with different Tracks running independently.

This allows for the adjustment of the dynamic parameters of the referendum based on the permission level of the proposal.

Voting can start immediately after the referendum is created, but the following conditions must be met to enter the "decided" state:

• After the import period
• Decide if there is remaining space
• Payment decides the deposit

A referendum requires meeting approval and support rate requirements to be approved. Different Tracks have different confirmation periods and approval/support requirements.

Voting Mechanism

V2 retains the "voluntary lock-up" mechanism, allowing token holders to increase their voting weight by locking up tokens.

V2 has removed the adaptive group bias system and replaced it with an approval rate/support rate system.

Committee

V2 has abolished the council and adopted a multi-role delegation feature to implement voting delegation. Voters can designate different representatives for different categories of referendums.

Technical Committee

V2 introduces the "Polkadot Fellowship" to replace the Technical Committee. The Fellowship is an autonomous expert organization that categorizes members through a hierarchy.

Fellowship can vote on proposals, and their opinions are weighted by level.

Whitelist Mechanism

The whitelist mechanism allows Fellowship to authorize certain operations to be executed with Root privileges, thereby achieving shorter voting cycles.

Blacklist Mechanism

Root permissions can blacklist proposals, and related votes will be canceled immediately. This helps to remove erroneous proposals.

Overall, Governance V2 enhances Polkadot's governance system through increased decentralization and flexibility.