MULTAV: A Multi-chain Token Backed Voting Framework for Decentralized Blockchain Governance

Abstract

Governance is a critical component in cryptocurrency systems for their sustainable development and evolution. In particular, on-chain governance has attracted a lot of attention in cryptocurrency communities after the hard forks of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The on-chain governance mechanisms offered by the existing cryptocurrencies have been implemented on their own blockchains. This approach, while working well for the established cryptocurrencies, raises certain security concerns for newly launched cryptocurrency projects with small market capitalization and initial circulating supply. To mitigate potential attacks against on-chain governance, we present a multi-chain token backed voting framework named MULTAV in this contribution. The MULTAV framework is able to enhance security of the current on-chain governance practices by enabling token holders to vote on multiple established cryptocurrency systems. The instantiation of the MULTAV framework for electing block producers on the IoTeX network demonstrates its feasibility and effectiveness in practice.