---
title: "Polkadot (DOT & OpenGov)"
url: "https://caper.network/wiki/daos/networks/polkadot"
updated: 2026-08-26
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Polkadot (DOT & OpenGov)

| Type | Layer-0 relay chain / sovereign-network DAO |
| --- | --- |
| Governance token | DOT (voting, staking, bonding) |
| Governance mechanism | Polkadot OpenGov — fully on-chain conviction-voted referenda across 15 origin tracks |
| Founder / steward | Gavin Wood; Web3 Foundation & Parity Technologies |
| Relay chain launch | May 2020 (DOT redenominated 100× Aug 2020) |
| OpenGov live | June 2023 (replaced the Council-based Governance V1) |
| Treasury | On-chain, funded by fees + inflation + slashes; spends by referendum |
| Website | [polkadot.com](https://polkadot.com) · [OpenGov docs](https://wiki.polkadot.com/learn/learn-polkadot-opengov/) |

## What Polkadot governs

[Polkadot](https://polkadot.com) is a layer-0 network: a central **relay chain** that provides shared security and interoperability to the parachains connected to it. Its native token, **DOT**, is used to stake for validation, bond parachain slots, and—most relevant here—to govern the protocol itself. The relay chain went live in [May 2020](https://polkadot.subscan.io/block/1) — block 1 is timestamped 26 May 2020, 15:36:18 UTC, read from `rpc.polkadot.io`, and DOT was [redenominated 100×](https://support.polkadot.network/support/solutions/articles/65000168057-how-was-the-dot-redenomination-implemented-) in August 2020.

Unlike most token-DAOs on this directory—which run off-chain [token-weighted votes](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/voting/token-weighted-voting) on Snapshot and then execute through a multisig—Polkadot's governance is **entirely on-chain**. An approved referendum executes its own privileged call directly against the runtime, with no council or foundation as an execution intermediary. That makes it one of the purest large-scale examples of [on-chain governance](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/fundamentals/on-chain-vs-off-chain-governance) in production.

## From Governance V1 to OpenGov

Polkadot's original model (“Gov1”) split power between a token-elected **Council**, a **Technical Committee**, and public referenda. In [June 2023](https://web.archive.org/web/20231226181342/https://polkadot.network/blog/gov2-polkadots-next-generation-of-decentralised-governance/), Polkadot enacted **OpenGov** (formerly [“Gov2”](https://web.archive.org/web/20231226181342/https://polkadot.network/blog/gov2-polkadots-next-generation-of-decentralised-governance/)), which **abolished the Council entirely** and handed every decision to direct, token-holder referenda.

The key unlock is **parallelism**: Gov1 could decide roughly one referendum at a time, whereas OpenGov lets many referenda run simultaneously across different classes of decision, each with a risk-calibrated set of rules. A tweak to a treasury tip and a change to the Root runtime no longer compete for the same queue.

## Origins and tracks

Every privileged action in OpenGov is dispatched from an **Origin**, and each origin is bound to a **track** with its own capacity, deposit, and timing rules. There are [15 origins](https://wiki.polkadot.com/learn/learn-polkadot-opengov-origins/), ordered roughly by how much damage a bad decision could do:

- **Root** — the most powerful origin (runtime upgrades, setting the code itself). It accepts only one proposal at a time and carries the longest lead-in and highest deposits.
- **Whitelisted Caller** — a fast path for changes that the [Technical Fellowship](https://wiki.polkadot.com/learn/learn-polkadot-technical-fellowship/) has vetted and whitelisted, with shorter timing than Root while still requiring a token-holder referendum.
- **Treasury spenders** — a graduated ladder from the _Small Tipper_ (up to 250 DOT) through _Big Tipper_, _Small_/_Medium_/_Big Spender_, up to the _Treasurer_ (up to 10,000,000 DOT). Bigger asks route to higher-scrutiny tracks.

Riskier tracks demand higher turnout and slower timelines; a cheap tip can clear quickly, while a Root change must survive a long, high-bar decision window.

## Conviction voting and the referendum lifecycle

OpenGov weighs votes by **[conviction](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/voting/conviction-voting)**: a voter multiplies their voting power by voluntarily locking DOT for longer after the vote resolves. The multiplier runs from **0.1×** (no lock) up to **6×**, where the 6× level locks tokens for 32 lock periods (roughly 224 days). Voting power is `tokens × conviction`, so someone who is willing to be locked in behind a decision counts for more than a whale who wants their DOT back immediately.

A referendum passes only if two curves are both satisfied through a **confirmation period**: **Approval** (the conviction-weighted share of _aye_ votes) and **Support** (turnout, measured against total possible votes). Both thresholds _relax over time_—an uncontroversial proposal can meet a high early bar, while a contested one has to wait for the curves to loosen. The lifecycle is: _Lead-in_ → _Decision_ → _Confirmation_ → _Enactment_, per the [OpenGov reference](https://wiki.polkadot.com/learn/learn-polkadot-opengov/).

DOT holders who don't want to vote on everything can use **multirole [delegation](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/voting/voting-and-delegation)**: delegate voting power to a different trusted account _per origin_, so you might follow one expert on treasury spends and another on technical upgrades.

## The on-chain Treasury

Polkadot runs a large, protocol-owned [treasury](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/treasury/dao-treasury-management) that spends only by referendum. Per the [treasury docs](https://wiki.polkadot.com/learn/learn-polkadot-opengov-treasury/), it is funded by **80% of transaction fees** (the other 20% goes to block producers), **15% of annual DOT inflation**, and slashed validator/nominator stake. Crucially, unspent funds are **partially burned** at the end of each spend period—a deliberate pressure to _deploy capital rather than hoard it_, a problem many idle DAO treasuries never solve.

Spending flows through the _Tipper_ and _Spender_ tracks above. For recurring, curated work, the treasury also funds **bounties**: a parent bounty reserves DOT under a curator (usually a multisig), and _child bounties_ pay out from it without a fresh referendum for every disbursement—an on-chain answer to the [working-group](/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/subdaos-and-working-groups) funding problem.

## The Technical Fellowship

OpenGov removed the appointed Technical Committee and replaced it with the on-chain **[Polkadot Technical Fellowship](https://wiki.polkadot.com/learn/learn-polkadot-technical-fellowship/)**: a permissionless, rank-based collective of the protocol's technical experts. Ranks run from **0 (Member) to 9 (Grand Master)**, votes inside the Fellowship are weighted by rank, and members are promoted through the Fellowship's own referenda (see the live [fellowship dashboard](https://polkadot-fellows.github.io/dashboard/)).

The Fellowship's main governance power is **whitelisting**: it can flag a proposal as technically sound, routing it to the faster _Whitelisted Caller_ origin. It cannot enact anything alone—a whitelisted proposal still faces a full token-holder referendum. This is a clean separation of _expertise_ from _authority_: technical review speeds a decision up, but token holders still decide.

## How Caper approaches this

Conviction voting solves a real problem—letting committed holders outweigh mercenary ones—by asking voters to _opt in_ to a lock. [Caper](/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) reaches the same goal without a separate locking step. A member's weight on a proposal is computed directly from the stake they already hold in that specific caper: in the contract it is `(your caper-token holdings × your votes) / (vote supply × circulating supply)`, and when the tally is taken after voting closes, the holdings term is clamped to the smaller of what you held when you voted and what you hold then (a clamp anyone can re-apply downward until the result settles), so selling out of a position after voting shrinks the vote it bought. Influence and exposure move together by construction—you weigh more because you already have more capital at risk in the outcome, not because you signed up for a longer lock.

See also sibling network DAOs [Arbitrum](/wiki/daos/networks/arbitrum-dao) and [the Optimism Collective](/wiki/daos/networks/optimism-collective), and the [networks directory](/wiki/daos/networks).