The xGov Council: Shaping the future of xGov

The xGov ecosystem is evolving, and we need your help to build a strong foundation for its governance.

We’re currently seeking community feedback on the proposed eligibility criteria and other essential aspects of the xGov Council. Your input is crucial in shaping the future of xGov.

What are the council eligibility requirements?

  • Any community member with Algorand technical knowledge and a strong reputation can run for the council.
  • Candidates must be publicly doxxed, have an identified Algorand address, and undergo the KYC process with the Algorand Foundation.
  • Broader inclusivity is encouraged to incorporate diverse perspectives from outside the xGov domain.

We want to hear from you :+1:

We’re seeking community feedback on the proposed eligibility criteria and other aspects of the xGov Council. Your input is crucial to shaping the future of xGov governance.


— xGov Council ARC —

Council setup:

  • 13 [proposed] members elected via general governance

Eligibility criteria:

  • Any community member, including xGovs, with Algorand technical expertise and a strong reputation can run for the council.
  • Candidates must be publicly doxxed, have an identified Algorand address, and undergo the KYC process with the Algorand Foundation.
  • Broader inclusivity is encouraged to incorporate diverse perspectives from outside the xGov domain.

Duties:

  1. Review and understand the terms and conditions of the program.

  2. Evaluate proposals
    2.1. Assess every proposal for compliance with terms and conditions.
    2.2. Provide guidance for the broader xGov membership by providing a summary of the proposal on the corresponding Algorand Forum thread, highlighting how it aligns (or doesn’t) with the ecosystem goals or needs:
    a. if the proposal is good, and meet the terms and conditions criteria, outline the benefits, the quality of work, and the team
    b. if the proposal is not good, and do not meet the terms and conditions criteria, outline the main issues.

  3. Transparency:
    3.1. Hold public discussions periodically to review proposals, maintaining accountability.

  4. Decision-making:
    4.1. After the voting phase is complete, remove proposals that do not comply with the program’s terms and conditions, slashing the application’s anti-spam fee.

Accountability:

  • Council members are publicly accountable for their decisions.
  • Discussions and decision-making processes must be transparent and publicly accessible.
  • Members are elected to serve a 1-year term [proposed] and are subject to re-election by the Algo community.
  • In case of councilor misbehavior, the council must be able to raise the issue with the community and propose replacing the councilor.

Restrictions:

  • xGov councilors cannot submit grant proposals during their council term.

Compensation:

  • If approved, council members’ compensation will be funded by the xGov budget, ensuring financial sustainability and alignment with community goals.
  • [Proposed] compensation: 10,000 Algo/year per councilor, paid quarterly.

Please share your thoughts and suggestions below. We will be collecting feedback for the next two weeks here and will host a live community session on X or Discord in the first half of February.

11 Likes

I believe council members should be able to submit proposals but should need to abstain from voting on their own proposals. If they’re building open source public goods that are providing value they should be able to be rewarded for that. I worry the best suited for the council wouldn’t want to join if they couldn’t then access any funding through the program.

I understand the corruption concern, but I believe it’s mitigated by conflicted members abstaining. The goal of the council is to act as a filter for what actually gets voted on. So even if the council were to be 13/13 corrupted, they still couldn’t pass funding on their own.

I’m very happy that the council idea is being explored and appreciate the work you guys are putting in. This undoubtedly leads to better spending.

11 Likes

First off - i’m glad this is finally moving forward to public discussion. In general i believe it’s a good starting point. but there are 3 topic i feel need wider consensus.

  1. Eligibility criteria
    how and who will determine eligibility? I strongly believe the criteria should detailed out and then council should entail a few people for each of the determined verticals or fields, so there is actually people evaluating proposals from ALL neccessary viewpoints and not jsut popularity contest/favour exchanges. It makes little difference if 5 or 20 KOLs with all social media/influencer skillset evaluate a smart contract based DEX proposal as they all can only evaluate from the “end user” perscpetive… For an example, we’ve seen this issue with some of the previous xgov iteratiosn when SCs had to be avaluated to determine deliverables and everyone was just “shrug”…

  2. Accountability

  • Council members are publicly accountable for their decisions.

how is this enforced and what does the “publicly accountable” mean? If it’s jsut a “do better” then its pointelss. I suggest counsil don’t get paid anything during the term, and only get paid at the end of their1 year term - atleast in thsi case they don’t get paid to do malicious acts. While i’m sure most of the council will be honnest just assuminng good actors is bad pratice. I would even go as far as say coucil should pay something upfront to showcase their commitment and tehy get reimbrused at the end of their term ONLY if they did their job ok.

  1. AF involvment
    I feel we need a VERY detailed outline of all and i literally mean all AF actions and invovment in the xgov process from the start to the finish. With clear and thought out examples written (e.g. user story for when there is a malicous actor, what and how AF participates). I’m sure if we pool community feedback together we can get many of such stories compiled very quickly… think of it like how precedent cases are used in courts/law. This will help council to their job better but it also prevents some absurd decisions made by AF in the earlier xgov iterations(ensuring stability and certainty for the proposers)
7 Likes

Agree with Fisherman, council members can apply, but not review and vote on their own proposals.

Doxxing a potential member for everyone or AF only? If the former, I don’t think it’s necessary. Since member nominations are basically a community trust vote, pseudo-anonymous individuals can have just as valuable and contributing reputation in the community, and I see no reason to require doxxing completely. Maybe for AF is necessary to KYC to pay out renumeration but that should be the limit on doxxing level.

Great work!

7 Likes

Agree with this sentiment. I would love someone like Fish or Patrick on the xGov team, but excluding them from building something would be silly. I think there are ways we can make sure there is no conflict of interest. With as much transparency as this proposal seems to have, I think it could work.

5 Likes

I agree

I think you want in this position to be people familiar with the ecosystem and the successfull grantees are the perfect people who knows it the best. And its better not to exclude them from future grants but rather its better to define clear rules what they can and cannot do.

To clarify, does the term “proposed” refer only to the number of members? Additionally, what is the application procedure for council membership? Is it open to the general public?

Perhaps the number 13 may be decided after you see the first list of candidates that would want to do the job?

Could you elaborate on the future of xGov? Will it remain limited to the grant program, or are there plans to expand its scope? Personally, I would love to see broader community involvement in shaping Algorand’s direction.

For example, addressing centralization in the protocol’s code management is crucial. I’ve had a pull request to fix the private network consensus bug pending for three years. More recently, my request to access the real signer of app calls in smart contracts was denied without a reasonable technical resolution. Resolving such issues would significantly enhance community trust and engagement.

If the future of xGov is solely focused on grants, I would suggest renaming it to “Algorand Public Grants” for clarity. Similarly, the xGov council members could be referred to as “Algorand Public Grant Overseers” to better reflect their role. Expanding the scope to include broader community decision-making would also be a welcome step forward.

What does it mean that councilor misbehavies… Is it something against the free speach, like if he is not polite to others he can get replaced? Or is it just the formal thing for the restrictions or eligiblilty criteria? Or is it something that if the councilor does not vote in favor or against of the proposal where others councilor votes or AF wants, the AF can replace him?

6 Likes

I agree, there are probably members of the community who were waiting for xGov to return to propose things and who would be good candidates for council and having to decide between one or the other can be limiting.

6 Likes

My wife thinks fewer xGov governors are enough!

3 Likes

This, to me, is one of the most important parts. The xGov Council has to be diverse in its members—not just technical experts. We need a spectrum of people who can see Algorand from all perspectives, including developers, business leaders, marketers, community organizers, and end users. A diverse council ensures well-rounded decision-making that accounts for real-world adoption, usability, and growth.

A Harvard Business Review study found that diverse leadership teams make better decisions 87% of the time compared to homogeneous ones. Similarly, blockchain projects that engage a broader range of stakeholders tend to have stronger ecosystems, higher user adoption, and greater trust.

This is the only way we can protect ourselves from bias and create the ultimate, equitable, and reliable public blockchain. Algorand aims to be the most decentralized, fair, and scalable blockchain—ensuring governance reflects that mission is critical.

Furthermore, we should seek to have alternates who can step in quickly if a member becomes unavailable or chooses to leave the council. This ensures continuity, avoids governance bottlenecks, and keeps decision-making efficient and adaptive. Many successful DAOs and governance models already use backup delegates or rotating members to maintain consistency and prevent stagnation.

A well-structured, inclusive, and resilient xGov Council will strengthen Algorand’s long-term vision, ensuring it remains fair, adaptive, and community-driven—not just controlled by a small group of insiders.

7 Likes

As you all have mentioned, I believe we should avoid a situation where the xGov Council is unable to make xGov proposals. If this situation continues, there is a risk that engineers with a deep understanding of the Algorand ecosystem and the ability to contribute to the development of public goods may no longer want to join the xGov Council. While this might not be an issue in ecosystems like Ethereum, where the number of developers is vast, our ecosystem does not have such a large pool of engineers. As a result, the number of candidates for the xGov Council may decrease, and lower-quality talent may be gathered.

Moreover, in terms of the quality of talent, there is little value in having everyone with the same perspective and skill set. For example, if we gather only engineers, the community they belong to will share similar backgrounds and perspectives, which could lead to a lack of diverse opinions. In the development of public goods, it is not just engineers who are important; those who are familiar with user needs and can make business-oriented decisions also play a crucial role. Public goods may be developed that aren’t even used if only engineers are involved. It would be preferable for participants from various communities to evaluate projects from their areas of expertise, leading to better results.

While values may differ, I believe the compensation for the xGov Council could be slightly lower. For example, an annual amount of 4,000 ALGO would be sufficient. I have experience providing a full review of all xGov proposals and explaining their advantages and issues to a Japanese audience, and I would do it for free. Rather than being paid in ALGO, it makes more sense that the rise in the ALGO unit price would ultimately serve as compensation for those involved.

4 Likes

afaik the new xgov is purely and only retroactive grants, so people waiting to build smething should probably just start building…

5 Likes

tldr: not voting on your own proposal eliminates nothing and puts you in a unfavourable/unfair position(you need one extra vote to offset your abstain) and actually promotes under the table deals, so i think council should be able to vote on their own proposals and then take the responsibility for it.

rationale:
How do you prevent council member A to “push forward” proposal from council member B, and B doing the same in return bsaically bypassing it. Both of them being xgov whales. You know basically what we’ve seen in the past with “we didn’t vote for our own proposal… but our buddy did and we returned the favour ~whale”? This is even more so, as you will need a whale backing to get you voted in the council since it’s proposed to be voted as part of general gov… :slight_smile:

I feel that the “not voting on your own proposals” is actually accelerating a potentially corrupt voting body instead of preventing it. Because the council memebr proposing as xgov, not being able to vote on their own proposal requires them to get one extra vote (favour?) in comparison to non council member.

Hopefully tere will be some redundancy of skill-sets within council, but if there isn’t, abstaining from voting might axtualy be harmfull to objectivity of the evaluation: Let’s say you are the sole person on council able to determine the “proposals” implementation of the Smart contracts…if you abstain, the proposal fails to get fairly measured for this aspect.

I do agree council members should be able to participate and propose stuff in xgov.

4 Likes

I think having dedicated, focused working groups for different aspects of the blockchain would be good, at least on the coding side of things, rather than a single group.

Having a group dedicated to scaling, for example, all out in the open on GitHub. Answering questions like, what’s the theoretical max sustained TPS? How much data would that be? Could relays afford sustained 15k TPS? If not, how do we get to that point? How does p2p change things?

Another working group dedicated to privacy on the chain. Another for optimizing archival data and querying. Etc.

4 Likes

1). Grants should be retroactive as @simonb mentioned. This way only serious builders will build for the Algorand ecosystem.

  1. council members should be diverse. Having only technical people on the council is a bad idea. Need council members from all backgrounds/expertise who knows about Algorand, who uses Algorand, who supports Algorand.

3). Agreed - everyone on the council must be fully doxxed.

Once council members are elected, how long is their term?

After how long before a reshuffle of council members?

3 Likes

The restriction seems logical. As the council members are getting paid, it is prudent to enforce this restriction for following reasons.

  1. Avoid conflict of interests.
  2. To keep the moral high. (say there are 13 members and 8 of them has proposals which gets passed, it send the message that the whole process is rigged).
  3. To avoid council members influencing other members for favor.
5 Likes
3.1. Hold public discussions periodically to review proposals, maintaining accountability.

On holding public discussions: This may be hard for all members, especially if they are in different countries. A day and time should be set to meet everyone’s availability as best as possible.

Restrictions:
xGov councilors cannot submit grant proposals during their council term.

Not only that, but if any member colludes or conspires with a grant proposer to pass their grant after sufficient evidence is brought to the attention of the foundation and found to be factual, such council member and grant proposer will be banned for life from participating as a council member or proposer.

Also, suppose there is a conflict of interest between the council member and the proposer or proposal. In that case, they shall abstain from voting on the proposal or proposals to maintain their integrity as a council member.

2 Likes

How do we know the members are conflicting and will be

1 Like

This can still happen even if they vote for themselves

1 Like

XGovs should be node runners so their addresses must be known no pools no delegate. Doxxed by social media handle.
20 xGovs max
Anyone can select themselves to be xGovs and show proof of their portfolio eg: what they’ve worked on, proven credential i.e certifications, Degrees, research papers. Once registration is closed with portfolio saved and eligibility assesed, The 20 xGovs will be selected based on the last 10k blocks, xGovs with at least 500 blocks made will be selected in the 20. This is verifiable because the chain is public. These figures are arbitrary but the aim is some element of randomness
XGovs should not get paid until their one year is over
XGovs should not make their own proposals unless they wish to vacate their position
Portfolio must be updated every 2 years

2 Likes

1

“Any community member, including xGovs, with Algorand technical expertise and a strong reputation can run for the council.”

We should aim for a broad definition of ‘technical expertise’ beyond just engineering. We’ll need experienced business, product, and finance people. And given the emphasis on public goods, we might also include people in the sustainability, humanitarian, and NGO space.

2
Regarding the ‘strong reputation’ requirement, we have a handful of influential people in the community whose voices are heard the most, maybe we can try to include less prominent community members too. If the selection process is a community vote, we may end up with a council filled with those people with the biggest social reach.

Perhaps we can define expertise categories that candidates can compete within to maximize representation of different skill sets?

3
Regarding whether a council member can submit their own proposals… Algorand has thousands of participants, surely we can find 13 qualified people who don’t plan to submit proposals during their term?

Alternatively, we could remove the fixed 1 year term, and if a council member wants to submit a proposal, they can do so but must resign form the council first. They can reapply to join later.

We could also require council members to recuse themselves from reviewing a project if a clear conflict of interest exists.

We might also structure the review process so that council members cannot influence each other. Maybe all council members should submit their reviews prior to publication.

4
We should also try to mitigate any damage that xGov grants can have on existing ecosystem companies. As a small network, Algorand has many small bootstrapped companies struggling to build sustainable businesses. We should make sure that xGov is not used to fund duplicate businesses, for example by funding an open-source version of an existing monetized service. If xGov makes it harder for some businesses to compete and grow, it could deter founders and hinder the overall growth of the network.

Including community members that work for live Algorand businesses in the council, can help voice the concerns of existing ecosystem members. This can also create conflicts of interest, but having detailed selection criteria should help avoid issues.

5
Council members are expected to explain how a proposal “aligns or doesn’t with ecosystem goals or needs”… Have these goals been defined yet? Or are individual council member expected to judge this for themselves?

We should create detailed selection criteria. This will help ensure strict alignment between proposals and community needs, and reduce the overall quantity of low alignment proposals.

6 Likes