Participating as a Community Member

Any ELA holder can participate in Elastos governance — voting for Council members, voting for BPoS validators, and submitting suggestions for DAO funding. No special role or permission is required.

Looking for the user walkthrough?

This page covers the on-chain mechanics. If you want a step-by-step Essentials wallet guide, see How to Vote in a Council Election.

Voting for Council Members

Council members are elected by ELA holders using stake-weighted voting. Your vote weight equals the ELA amount in your voting output.

How to Vote

1. Lock ELA in a voting output
2. Select candidates — you can vote for multiple from a single output
3. Submit transaction — a TransferAsset (type 0x02) with an OTVote output

The vote output specifies:

Field	Value
Output type	OTVote (1)
Vote type	CRC (0x02)
Candidates	List of CIDs with vote amounts

Key Points

• Vote weight = ELA value of the output
• You can split votes across multiple candidates
• Votes persist until the UTXO is spent
• Voting costs only the standard transaction fee

Election Cycle

Phase	Duration
Voting period	~30 days (21,600 blocks)
Duty period	~1 year (262,800 blocks)

The cycle: Voting -> Council Seated -> Duty Period -> Next Voting

Voting via the Governance Portal

The governance portal at elastos.com provides a UI for voting:

1. Browse candidates (data from listcrcandidates RPC)
2. Select candidates and allocate votes
3. Sign with your wallet
4. Transaction is submitted to the ELA node

Voting for BPoS Validators

BPoS validator voting is separate from Council voting but uses the same mechanism — a TransferAsset transaction with an OTVote output.

Field	Value
Output type	OTVote (1)
Vote type	Delegate (0x00)
Candidates	List of producer public keys with vote amounts

Under BPoS (after height 1,405,000), vote weight uses a logarithmic time-lock multiplier:

effectiveVotes = stakedELA * log10((LockTime - BlockHeight) / 7200 * 10)

Longer lock times produce higher vote weight. The 7200 divisor represents approximately 10 days at 2-minute block time.

Submitting Suggestions

Any community member can submit a suggestion through the governance portal:

1. Authenticate with your Elastos DID
2. Write your suggestion — description, motivation, and budget estimate
3. Submit — stored in the portal database, visible to Council members
4. Discuss — community members can comment and refine
5. Wait for Council attention — members tag suggestions as:

Tag	Meaning
UNDER_CONSIDERATION	Council is reviewing
INFO_NEEDED	More information requested
ADDED_TO_PROPOSAL	Converted to a formal proposal

If a Council member sponsors your suggestion, it becomes an on-chain proposal via the proposal system.