Governance
Anything that changes the rules goes through a vote. There is no admin key: the authority for every privileged action is a module account with no private key, and the only thing that can make it act is a proposal that passes.
What governance controls
- Which countries' passport certificates the chain accepts, and revoking one that is compromised.
- The proof verifying keys.
- Every module's parameters — fees, unbonding times, emission destinations.
- Opening the liquidity auction.
How a vote works
| Deposit | Voting period | Yes needed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | 1 ERTH | 7 days | two thirds |
| Expedited | 5 ERTH | 1 day | three quarters |
Both need 33.4% quorum, and a 33.4% veto defeats a proposal outright. Voting power is bonded stake.
A two-thirds bar rather than a simple majority is deliberate. A rule that changes on 50.1% is a rule that changes whenever the vote is close, and a chain whose parameters can flip back and forth is not one anyone can build on. The expedited track asks for more, not less: it trades a week of deliberation for one day, so it should need broader agreement to make up for it.
The full deposit must be present when the proposal is submitted, or it waits in the deposit period and the clock never starts.
Revoking a compromised certificate
Governments sign passports with Document Signer certificates. If one is compromised, someone could forge registrations with it, so revocation goes on the expedited track — one day rather than seven.
Revocation is not retroactive. Registrations already made with that certificate stay valid and are dealt with separately. Every registration names its certificate publicly, so they can be found; wiping them all on a single vote would punish people who did nothing wrong.
The procedure is written down in advance, because an emergency is a bad time to be drafting.
Where the chain is today
Earth launches with one validator. One party can therefore pass any proposal — not through a special key, but by being the only staker.
Stated plainly rather than left to be discovered. It resolves as other people stake, and there is no allocation list standing in the way of them doing so.