House of ADA & Senate of Cardanians

Have a bicameral voting system where each house is independent of the other. If they are truly independent, they can balance each other.

None. I have just been thinking about it for a while.

The US founding fathers were adamant to have a bicameral system to keep the government balanced. The Senate was supposed to give every state an equal vote while the House of Representative was supposed to give extra weight to states with a larger population. The state and the population were relatively independent and therefore were influenced by separate incentives. This is what kept them balanced. Having both houses vote on each issue ensured that most incentives were accounted for in the vote.

However, the revolving door between Wallstreet and Congress changed this. The representatives in Representative Democarcy are the weakest link in the system because they can be bribe. Arguably, the decline in the US government over the past half century is a direct result of indirect bribes (usually a cushie job after leaving office). These bribes have resulted in both houses being incentivized by the same thing: money. And because they are now incentivized by the same thing they can no longer keep themselves balanced. The US founding fathers warned that this could lead to failure of government. So far it seems to be true.

It is crucial Cardano gets this right if it is to survive long-term. I propose two houses should be used that are completely independent of each other. By using liquid democracy with these two houses that I am about to describe, the weakness of Representative Democracy should be largely mitigated. The influences of the Wallstreets of the world will be virtually eliminated.

The House of ADA:

The first house is the same thing that has been tried by others. 1 ADA = 1 vote. This gives extra weight to those that have a larger stake in the system similar to how the House of Representatives gives extra weight to those states with larger populations.

The Senate of Cardanians:

This is the second house that is required to balance the first house. In this house, each decentralized identity (DID) registered to Cardano gets 1 vote. 1 DID = 1 vote. This should be fairly easy to implement with Prism. A minimum voting age can also be programmed into the blockchain since the age should be easily accessible from Prism. This house is equally weighted among everyone just like the Senate.

By not having a financial requirement for the Senate of Cardanians, it ensures that the Senate of Cardanians will not be incentivized by the same influences experienced by the House of ADA. This feature is crucial for have balanced and stable government.

For all big updates to the Cardano protocols, both houses must vote and agree. It is important to note that for the vast majority of people, a person will automatically be in both houses. If a person has a DID, it is extremely likely that the person also has ADA. As it is, registering a DID on Prism requires a transaction fee in ADA by design.

Potential concerns:

1. What if a person has a DID but no ADA? Do they really have stake and therefore be allowed to vote?

This scenario seems extremely unlikely especially since registration and updates to DID's require transactions fees in ADA. This creates a strong incentive for everyone with a DID to own ADA. However, there are two potential options. The first is that wallets can be easily connect to DID's on the blockchain using zero knowledge proofs. Then Prism can verify that the person has ADA connected to the DID without exposing how much ADA the DID has. With this feature, the voting protocol can be programmed to include only the DID's with at least 1 ADA. This option does weaken the independence between the two houses and therefore is not preferred.

The second option is to not worry that they do not own ADA. By using the DID on Cardano, they arguably have stake in the system. They are using that DID for their commercial actions. They would care about the DID's integrity. In this option, there is no reason to verify if the DID has any ADA associated with it. I think this is the better option and I personally feel that a person owning a DID is enough stake in the system to allow them a vote. By definition of using the DID, they have to care about the system.

Research Questions:

Computational modeling may be able to answer the following questions.

1. In what contexts are bicameral voting systems more reliable than unicameral ones? Are there any contexts where the unicameral system is better? If so, perhaps there are proposal categories that don't need both houses to agree.

2. What happens if the House of ADA has a high voter turnout while the Senate of Cardano has a low voter turnout? Is the end result still favorable?

3. What if the situation is question 2 was reversed? Would it still be favorable?

I suggest dedicated resources for researchers to explore these questions.

1 Year Budget:

1. 2 researchers (for diverse perspectives) each at $80,000/yr = $160,000

2. Computational Equipment = $50,000 (this could be a huge over-estimate; I don't have a reference point)

3. Setting up sample groups and incentives for experiments = $30,000 with regulatory fees

Total = $240k

Would most likely just hirer IOHK researchers.