Aquarius Governance
A way for the community to influence the path of Aquarius
Aquarius aims to be a decentralized protocol within the Stellar ecosystem, with AQUA token holders being the drivers on where liquidity flows, how DAO funds get used, and how the protocol is modified. One crucial piece was missing from the puzzle for this to happen: governance.
We proudly announced & launched Aquarius Governance in November 2021, providing a way for the community to create proposals and change how the protocol can work.
🧑⚖️ How Governance Works
Aquarius Governance allows AQUA holders to change how the protocol should work through proposals and voting wallets. Anyone can put forward a proposal for the community to vote on, but keep in mind that if the proposal doesn’t benefit the Aquarius or Stellar ecosystem, AQUA holders are unlikely to vote for it.
Proposal publications work in two parts:
- Part one is a mandatory 7-day discussion phase held mainly in the Aquarius discord server. During this time, creators can gather opinions on the proposal before making further edits, submitting it for final publication, or even deciding not to proceed if the proposal seems unpopular.
- Part two is the publication phase. After seven days of discussion, creators can immediately publish the proposal for voting or continue discussions and editing for up to 30 days. Every edit is treated as a new proposal and renews the 7-day discussion & 30-day publication phases. If a proposal isn’t published within 30 days of creation or the last edit, it will become finished.
💲Fees & Rewards
The following fee structure applies when creating, editing, or publishing a new proposal:
- Creation — 100,000 AQUA
- Editing — 100,000 AQUA
- Publication — 900,000 AQUA
The proposal creator pays all fees to the AQUA issuer wallet, burning them out of existence and creating a deflationary effect. Charging a fee ensures proposals and any edits are well-thought-out before proceeding to publication.
A reward of 1.5 million AQUA is given to the creators of proposals that reach quorum & gain more than 50% of “for” votes! That means creators can get back the 1 million AQUA paid in creation & publication fees and up to a 500,000 AQUA bonus if no edits are needed.
✅ Validity & Quorum
Thanks to the discussion phase, greater community engagement can be achieved as creators and the community discuss the pros & cons of each proposal. These talks are essential as a quorum of 10% of the current circulating AQUA + ICE supply is needed for a proposal to become valid.
For example:
If the total circulating supply of AQUA and ICE is 10 billion, then 1 billion worth of AQUA and ICE votes (10%) is required for a proposal to be deemed valid.
A proposal could have a unanimous “for” vote count, but if it has less than 10% voting participation, it will be automatically rejected due to not meeting the validity threshold.
This requirement reduces the likelihood of proposals with minimal community interest being implemented.
🌐 gov.aqua.network
To access Aquarius Governance, head to gov.aqua.network.
Here you can browse through all proposals past & present, and if you choose, sign in to vote & create new proposals using AQUA. Sign in is available using WalletConnect, Stellar Laboratory & secret key, although we will deprecate the secret key method in the near future.
🗳 How to vote
Once logged in, you can view various available proposals and vote for or against active proposals with your available AQUA.
All AQUA used for voting is locked until voting ends using claimable balances.
The unlock time for AQUA governance votes depends on how quickly a vote occurs after a proposal is published. The unlock logic takes the time difference between a proposal’s start time and when a vote occurs and multiplies it by two. This multiplied time is added to the end of a proposal’s vote period, giving a final unlock time.
For example, a user who votes 3.5 days into a voting period will have those days multiplied by 2, giving 7 days. Therefore the AQUA used to vote will unlock 7 days after the proposal vote ends.
📜 New proposals
The ability to create new proposals is also available for those who have ideas they think the AQUA community will like. The process starts by clicking the Create Discussion + button on the home page.
Next, choose a title for the proposal and fill the content section in a clear and detailed way. Be advised that creators of proposals should also provide a feasible technical plan to show how the idea’s implementation can happen. Aquarius can remove unrealistic proposals with no plan.
The option to add a Discord discussion has also been implemented into the proposal process. Creators can ask the Aquarius Discord admins to start a channel before submitting their initial proposal. Once done, creators can add the channel URL, provide the name for the proposal’s discussion channel, and add their Discord nickname for better communication with the community.
Once completed, click next to preview the proposal and start your final checks before submission. The proposal can be submitted to the discussion phase for 100,000 AQUA if everything is fine.
The proposal will then enter the mandatory 7-day discussion phase. During this time, you can gather the community’s thoughts on the proposal and make edits if necessary. Each edit costs 100,000 AQUA, with a new version of the proposal submitted for the community to view.
Discussions and editing can continue for up to 30 days, with the option to publish for community voting unlocking after seven days. Keep in mind that every edit is treated as a new proposal submission, renewing the 7-day discussion phase & 30-day publication phase.
Final publication cost 900,000 AQUA, with creators able to run voting from three to seven days. If the publication isn’t made within 30 days of creation or the last edit, the proposal will become finished.
Once voting has run and the results are in, the developers and the Signers Guild will act upon the proposal if it passes and start work on the implementation and distribution of rewards.
🛡 Aquarius Signers Guild
In November 2021, we announced the Aquarius Signers Guild. The guild is decentralized and made up of various members of the Stellar ecosystem. Members of the guild are the ones who control and sign funds from the Community DAO Fund when proposals call upon it.
This global team acts upon proposal votes, ensuring that Aquarius is always moving forward with no need for a single centralized project to execute the communities wishes.
🗞 Subscribe & Follow
You can learn more and keep up to date with the team & community using the following links:
