Voting Power

Governance V2 update: The voting-power decay system described previously has been retired. Under Governance V2 (powered by Staking V2), governance power is constant and does not decay. This page now describes how voting power works under V2; the V1 decay mechanism is retained only as historical context at the bottom.

How Voting Power Works (V2)

Your voting power comes from:

• Staked SUMR (stSUMR): governance power is granted when you stake (and optionally lock).

• Delegated voting power: received from other stakers.

This power is constant for the duration of your stake or lock, there is no decay and no grace-window countdown. Missing a vote does not reduce your voting power or your staking rewards. You can vote directly or delegate; delegation can be changed at any time (subject to the maximum delegation depth of 2).

Because power is stake-based, locking longer increases your reward multiplier (see Staking) but does not change the one-token-one-vote weighting of your staked balance for governance.

Why decay was removed

V1 used decay to push token holders toward active participation, but it penalised honest long-term holders who occasionally missed votes and complicated reward accounting. Governance V2 replaces "participate-or-decay" with "stake-and-lock" alignment: conviction is expressed through lock duration and reward multipliers rather than through decaying votes.

---

Appendix (Historical): V1 Voting-Power Decay (retired)

The following described Governance V1 and no longer applies. Voting power started at 100% and, after a 60-day decay-free window, decreased at ~10%/yr (linear or exponential), with delegation inheriting the lowest decay factor in a chain (max depth 2). Governance actions reset the decay timer. This mechanism, and its VotingDecayLibrary / VotingDecayMath contracts, were retired with the migration to Governance V2.