The SVT Protocol is governed by its community through a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO). Governance token holders vote on proposals that control protocol parameters, upgrades, and treasury: no single person or entity can override the community's decisions.
A dedicated governance interface is coming soon. In the meantime, proposals can be submitted and voted on directly through the smart contracts.
The SVG Token
SVG (Self-Valued Governance) is the governance token of the SVT Protocol. Holding SVG tokens gives you voting power on protocol decisions.
Initial Distribution:
- 55% — DAO treasury, released in 8 steps over 4 years
- 25% — First community airdrop for early protocol participants
- 20% — Founder allocation
Both the community and founder allocations vest linearly over 4 years after the airdrop closes. The DAO treasury releases in discrete steps (every ~6 months), ensuring a gradual, predictable token supply. The DAO allocation is to be airdropped to protocol users in further airdrops.
Voting
To vote, you need SVG tokens and must delegate your voting power: either to yourself, or to another address you trust to vote on your behalf. Without delegation you won't be able to vote.
Votes are cast as For, Against, or Abstain. A proposal passes when it receives more For than Against votes and meets the quorum threshold.
Proposals
Who Can Propose
Creating a proposal requires two things:
- Protocol participation: You must have authored or currently herald at least one SVT
- Token threshold: You must hold at least 0.01% of currently vested SVG tokens
This ensures proposals come from active protocol participants, not passive token holders.
Proposal Lifecycle
Every proposal follows the same path:
| Phase | Duration | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | 24 hours | Cooling-off period after creation. No voting yet. |
| Active | 7 days | Token holders cast votes. |
| Queued | 48 hours | Passed proposals wait in a timelock before execution. |
| Execution | — | Anyone can trigger execution after the timelock expires. |
Minimum time from proposal to execution: ~9.5 days.
If quorum is reached within the final 24 hours of voting, the voting period extends by 24 hours to prevent last-moment governance attacks.
Quorum
A proposal needs votes from at least 4% of vested SVG tokens to be valid. This threshold scales with vesting: early on, when fewer tokens are vested, the absolute number required is lower.
What The DAO Controls
The DAO governs the protocol through proposals executed via a standard OpenZeppelin's timelock. It can:
- Manage registries: Approve new SVT collections or remove existing ones
- Adjust parameters: Royalty rates, Val floors, mint fees, fee splits, lock duration, minimum Val increase percentages
- Upgrade contracts: Deploy new implementations for SVTProtocol and Registry
- Withdraw protocol fees: Collect accumulated fees from the treasury
The DAO cannot access user funds, change token authorship, or bypass the core Harberger mechanism.
The Timelock
All governance actions pass through a timelock controller with a 48-hour delay. This gives the community time to review upcoming changes and react if needed; for instance, by exiting positions before a parameter change takes effect.
No individual — including the protocol founder — retains admin access after governance is activated. The timelock is the sole authority over protocol changes.
Decentralisation Timeline
The protocol launches in stages:
- Airdrop period: Eligible users (those who have authored or heralded an SVT) claim their SVG allocation, but the vesting period doesn't yet start. The protocol operates normally, but DAO governance is disabled. Deployer can act as emergency governance.
- Governance activation: The airdrop closes, tokens are minted, and vesting begins. DAO control transfers from the deployer to the timelock. The deployer's admin role is permanently revoked.
- Full decentralisation: From this point on, only governance proposals can modify the protocol. Token supply vests gradually over 4 years.
Want to understand the protocol itself? See the SVT Protocol Overview for an explanation of how the SVT Protocol works.