Galaxy Research proposes new voting system to reduce Solana inflation

Crypto research firm Galaxy Research has made a proposal to adjust the voting system that decides the outcome of future Solana inflation following the failure to come to a consensus in a previous vote.

On April 17, Galaxy introduced a Solana proposal called โ€œMultiple Election Stake-Weight Aggregationโ€ (MESA) to reduce the inflation rate of its native token, SOL (SOL). The researchers described the proposal as a โ€œmore market-based approach to agreeing on the rate of future SOL emissions.โ€

Rather than using traditional yes/no voting for inflation rates, MESA allows validators to vote on multiple deflation rates and uses the weighted average as the outcome.

โ€œInstead of cycling through inflation reduction proposals until one passes, what if validators could allocate their votes to one or many changes, with the aggregate of โ€˜yesโ€™ outcomes becoming the adopted emissions curve?โ€ Galaxy explained.ย ย 

The motivation for the concept comes from a previous proposal (SIMD-228), which showed community agreement that SOL inflation should be reduced, but the binary voting system couldnโ€™t find consensus on specific parameters.ย 

SIMD-228 proposed to change Solanaโ€™s inflation system from a fixed schedule to a dynamic, market-based model.ย 

The new proposal suggests maintaining the fixed, terminal inflation rate at 1.5% and sets forth multiple outcomes that create multiple โ€˜yesโ€™ voting options with different deflation rates from which an average is aggregated if a quorum is reached.ย 

For example, if 5% vote for no change, remaining at 15% deflation, 50% vote for a 30% deflation rate, and 45% vote for 33%, the new deflation rate would be calculated as the aggregate at 30.6%. The target is to reach the terminal rate of 1.5% supply inflation.ย 

Predicted inflation curves under new voting proposal. Source: Galaxy Digitalย 

Solving problems with binary votingย 

The benefits are that a more market-driven system allows validators to express preferences along a spectrum rather than with binary choices, while maintaining predictability with a fixed inflation curve.

โ€œGalaxy Research seeks to suggest a genuinely alternative process to achieving what we believe is the communityโ€™s broad goal, and not necessarily proscribe any particular inflation rate outcome,โ€ the firm explained.ย 

Related: Solana upgrades will strengthen network but squeeze validators โ€” VanEck

Under the current mechanism, supply inflation begins at 8% annually, decreasing by 15% per year until it reaches 1.5%. Solanaโ€™s current inflation rate is 4.6%, and 64.7% of the total supply, or 387 million SOL, is currently staked, according to Solana Compass.ย 

Galaxy affiliate Galaxy Strategic Opportunities provides staking and validation services for Solana.

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