Proposal Lifecycle

A proposal goes through six stages from draft to execution.

Stage 1: Draft (off-chain)

Any community member can draft a proposal in the governance forum at gov.cashpop.meme. Required elements:

• Title and one-paragraph summary
• Motivation: why this change?
• Specification: exact parameter changes or Treasury disbursement
• Risk assessment: what could go wrong?
• Implementation plan: who will execute, by when

Drafts can be revised based on community feedback. No on-chain action required at this stage.

Stage 2: Discussion (7 days)

After a draft enters the official proposal queue, a 7-day discussion period begins. The proposer must respond to questions and concerns. Vote weight does not yet matter; everyone can participate.

Threshold to advance: at least 5 distinct community members must signal "ready for vote" with staked $POP (any amount).

Stage 3: Voting (7 days)

The proposal goes on-chain. Voting is open to anyone with staked $POP. Each voter chooses: For / Against / Abstain.

Vote weight: w_i = sqrt(staked_POP_i) × r_i (see Voting).

Stage 4: Tallying

After voting closes, results are tallied:

• For total weight
• Against total weight
• Abstain total weight (counted toward quorum but neither side)

Pass conditions:

Proposal type	Quorum (% of total $POP weight)	Threshold
Parameter adjustment	5%	Simple majority
Treasury disbursement < 100K $POP	5%	Simple majority
Treasury disbursement ≥ 100K $POP	10%	2/3 supermajority
Smart contract upgrade	20%	2/3 supermajority
Constitutional change	30%	3/4 supermajority

Stage 5: Timelock (24 hours)

If passed, the proposal enters a 24-hour timelock. During this period:

• The proposal is queued for execution.
• Any community member can submit emergency evidence of fraud or misrepresentation.
• An emergency multisig (5-of-9 trusted operators, dissolving over 24 months) can veto with cause.

Stage 6: Execution

After timelock, the proposal's on-chain effects execute automatically via the Execution_Module contract. For:

• Parameter changes: contract state updates immediately.
• Treasury disbursements: funds transfer to specified recipients.
• Contract upgrades: new contract bytecode deploys via the upgrade-proxy pattern.

Proposal types

Parameter adjustments

Most common. Examples:

• Adjust prize-pool ratio β from 0.60 to 0.65.
• Adjust Trust Ladder multiplier α_{L4} from 1.6 to 1.7.
• Adjust Season Pass Premium price.

Bounded by Constitutional limits (see Parameters).

Treasury disbursements

• Fund a Phase 4 development initiative.
• Grant a research partnership.
• Bug bounty payment.
• Marketing initiative.

Smart contract upgrades

Rare. Required for material protocol changes (e.g., new Round modes, new oracle integrations). Subject to upgrade-proxy + 2/3 supermajority.

Constitutional changes

The protocol's "constitutional" parameters — cryptographic primitives, maximum token supply, governance system itself, etc. — are immutable in v1. Constitutional change requires a 3/4 supermajority and a 30-day timelock, and is intended to be exceptionally rare.

Voting transparency

All votes are on-chain. Anyone can verify:

• Who voted (anonymous wallet addresses, no PII).
• How they voted.
• Their effective weight.

Voter aggregation by demographic stratum is published quarterly with the same anonymization rules as other CashPop datasets.

Defenses against governance attacks

• Flash-loan attacks: 7-day unbonding period prevents acquire-vote-exit cycles.
• Plutocratic capture: quadratic dampening + Reputation weighting (see Voting).
• Sybil voting: Reputation requirement makes Sybil creation expensive enough that it's not worth the vote weight gained.
• Whale-multisig veto: emergency multisig is dissolved over 24 months, becoming purely advisory by Phase 4.

Proposal templates

Available at gov.cashpop.meme/templates. Use of the appropriate template is required before advancing to discussion stage.