EpiK PreDAO Guideline

On August 15, 2021, EpiK Protocol main-net was launched. On the first day, the number of on-chain transactions exceeded 44w and the number of access nodes exceeded 2w. The total value of ERC20-EPK exchange for EPK on the main-net exceeded 3000w USD and achieved zero exchange error. The number of pledged tokens exceeded 2200w, accounting for 50% of the total circulation of the whole network. EpiK Protocol main-net has achieved outstanding performance on the first day among the leading blockchain projects.

With the launch of the main-net, EPK has begun to spread across the collaborative network of EPKers (EPKers: EPK community members and fans) as described in the EpiK Protocol Economic White Paper. As highlighted in the EpiK Protocol Governance White Paper, an economic model without dynamic regulation cannot respond to a rapidly changing external environment. Therefore the EpiK DAO was created to avoid resource misallocation by enabling dynamic regulation.

The EpiK DAO will be released with EpiK Protocol Main-net v2.0 “Hammurabi” in 2021.Q3-Q4, which means that there may be some governance gaps before the EpiK DAO is available. To avoid urgent governance needs during this time, the EpiK Foundation has prepared a transition plan that allows for community governance during this time. In this article, we will focus on the operation mechanism of EpiK PreDAO, the transition plan.

EpiK PreDAO

Since EpiK PreDAO is not a fully-fledged EpiK DAO, it cannot cover dozens of proposals across three types as EpiK DAO does. The only proposals that can be governed in EpiK PreDAO are the following.

Knowledge Ecology Category

• 001 — Remove the qualification of malicious domain experts whose unlocked rewards will be destroyed and the corresponding accounts will never be activated as domain experts again. The domain expert who nominated this disqualified domain expert at the time will need 12.5w EPKs supported instead of 10w EPKs to be activated.
• 002 — Modify the minimum amount of backups of uploaded files for domain experts, so that files uploaded by domain experts will be counted as contributions only if they reach the minimum backup requirement. The current default value is 10, i.e. a file is considered as a valid contribution only after 10 or more knowledge nodes have stored it.

Storage Ecology Category

• 003 — Modify the places for double storage power. The current default is 100, which means that the first 100 knowledge nodes that complete the encapsulation of a new file can get double the storage power provided by that file, while others can only receive single storage power.
• 004 — Modify the Window PoSt sampling ratio, currently defaulting to 100%, i.e. every 7 days every knowledge node needs to submit 100% of proofs of spacetime of all files they have stored to the chain.

Referendum Category

• 005 — Modify the unlock cycle of the basic collateral. Currently it is T+0 by default, i.e. the basic collateral can be withdrawn after 0 days after initiating a cash-out.

Although it is a transitional solution, EpiK PreDAO still needs to adhere to the two main design principles of EpiK DAO, i.e. the disclosure principle and the stakeholder principle. Therefore, EpiK PreDAO will follow EpiK DAO’s voting and arbitration mechanism as much as the development resources allow.

How to participate in EpiK PreDAO

In the absence of governance tools as the EpiK DAO is still under development, the EpiK PreDAO will guide the community by focusing on only one proposal per week which will be valid for a period of 5 days.

Any member of the community can request to initiate one of 001–005 proposals by paying 99 EPK to the EpiK main-net death address f099 and then filling out the form for the proposal. Note that proposals outside the above range will be considered invalid, and the EpiK Foundation will publicize the valid proposals received each week on Twitter. The highest-popular proposal within a week will be included in the EpiK Foundation’s voting governance process, but the remaining proposals will be discarded. To re-initiate a proposal, you will need to destroy the 99 ERC20-EPK and submit the form again in the next week.

There will be different voting methods for the selected proposals depending on their type, and the EpiK Foundation will provide a voting page for users to vote by scanning QR codes on the page with their EpiK wallets.

Proposals in the Knowledge Ecology category

It is governed by domain experts’ voting on a one-person-one-vote basis.

A Knowledge Ecosystem proposal can be valid only if being voted by more than 1/3 of the domain experts and the votes of the most-voted option must exceeds 50% of the total number of participants. After the vote, if the arbitration result is valid, it will be effective on the chain after 3 days of disclosure.

Proposals in the Storage Ecology category

It is governed by the knowledge node holders voting according to the value of raw storage power.

A Storage Ecology proposal can only be valid if more than 1/3 of the storage power holders participate in the ballot and the option receiving the most storage power support must exceed 50% of the total storage power involved in the voting. After the vote, if the arbitration result is valid, then the result will take effect on the chain after 3 days of disclosure.

Proposals in the Referendum category

Since there is currently no additional incentive to participate in the EpiK PreDAO referendum ballot, it is not necessary to lock positions to participate in the ballot. This will mean that all main-net EPK holders will be eligible to participate in the governance of the ballot according to the size of their positions, regardless of whether their main-net EPK is in circulation or collateralized.

A Referendum proposal can only be validated if the total number of votes exceeds 1/3 of total circulation of the whole network and the most-voted option must exceed 50% of the total number of votes cast. After the vote is closed, if the arbitration result is valid, then the result will take effect on the chain after 3 days of disclosure.

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EpiK PreDAO is a transition solution before the official launch of EpiK DAO. We hope that all EPKers will adequately evaluate each proposal and cast the proper vote to help keep EpiK healthy in the long run!