Decred (DCR) $20 Million Crypto Treasury Turns to Self-Governance With Launch of Politeia

Empowering Investors: Decred Opens Its $21 Million Crypto Treasury

The long-awaited approach to blockchain governance, Decred's Politeia software, is live to investors.

Politeia attempts to turn over all governance decisions to those actively participating in the operation of its protocol at the time of any given decision. It is able to do this by building on Decred's existing approach of combining proof-of-work and proof-of-stake consensus.

Those who own Decred tokens (DCR) currently stake the coins in exchange for a chance to be chosen to verify blocks. If chosen, they get a payment from that block's token emission.

Politeia going live also helps people waiting for their turn at block verification to also be able to vote on Politeia proposals.

Decred Treasury In The Hands Of Investors

Decred Project Lead Jake Yocom-Piatt confirmed the imminent launch, noting that:

“It is important to understand that Politeia is a very powerful tool: it can enable all manner of positive developments for Decred, but if used unwisely, it can lead to a wide variety of problems.”

In short, Politeia gives holders of the cryptocurrency a way to exercise control over every aspect of the project, meaning it puts the Decred treasury in their hands.

That treasury currently holds DCR 570,000, valued at roughly $21 million.

The treasury is funded by a portion of new coins emitted with each block, so it's constantly growing.

As Decred users start making proposals for expenditures and the community begins voting them through, Yocom-Piatt is going to initially maintain a veto power over expenditures. He's told the community that he intends only to use these powers if a specific proposal puts the project itself or the legal entity that manages it into jeopardy.

His veto power will sunset in six to 12 months when control of the funds moves from Decred Holdings Group LLC, an organization he manages, to a smart contract.

“Once the smart contract replaces the corporate entity as the holder of the Treasury funds, there is no longer a legal entity to target with sanctions or other penalties that could result from certain stakeholder-backed actions,” he told CoinDesk.

But Politeia Is Not Limited To Financial Decisions.

It also opens up decision-making around how the organization that supports Decred works, how its staff is managed and even the fundamental consensus model that Decred uses. For example, Yocom-Piatt will also announce plans to put forward a non-treasury proposal to the community.