Impeachment and Emergency Procedures

Elastos has built-in mechanisms to handle misbehaving council members, failing validators, and consensus emergencies. The chain itself never stops — these procedures ensure recovery without manual intervention.

Impeachment

Community members can remove underperforming Council members through an on-chain impeachment vote.

How to Impeach

An ELA holder creates a TransferAsset transaction (type 0x02) with a special vote output:

Field	Value
Output type	OTVote (1)
Vote type	CRCImpeachment
Target	CID of the council member
Weight	ELA amount in the output

When total impeachment votes against a member exceed the threshold, the member is immediately removed.

Council Member Statuses

Status	Meaning
Elected	Actively serving on the council
Impeached	Removed by community vote
Returned	Voluntarily left, deposit returned
Terminated	Removed by system rules
Inactive	Not participating for too long
Expired	Term expired without re-election

BPoS Emergency Procedures

Revert to PoW Mode

If BPoS consensus stalls for 12 hours (no blocks produced), the chain automatically falls back to pure proof-of-work:

1. A RevertToPOW transaction (type 0x41) is injected
2. Block production continues via AuxPoW only (merged mining with Bitcoin)
3. The 30% DAO treasury share goes to the burn address instead
4. BPoS validators are no longer needed for finality

Recovery

When enough validators come back online, a RevertToDPOS transaction (type 0x42) restores normal BPoS operation automatically.

Degradation States

The consensus system degrades gracefully through three states:

Force Change

When illegal behavior is detected, ForceChange() triggers an immediate validator set recalculation — swapping in backup candidates to replace failed validators.

Triggers:

Evidence Transaction	Code	What it proves
IllegalProposalEvidence	0x0e	Double proposal at the same height
IllegalVoteEvidence	0x0f	Conflicting votes on the same proposal
IllegalBlockEvidence	0x10	Two blocks signed at the same height
IllegalSidechainEvidence	0x11	Validator misbehavior on a sidechain

Each evidence transaction must contain cryptographic proof (conflicting signatures from the same key).

Consequences of Illegal Behavior

• Validator enters Illegal state immediately
• 200 ELA deducted from deposit
• Can re-register by posting a new deposit
• Removed from the validator set via ForceChange()

What Happens When the Council Fails

If too many members are impeached, resigned, or inactive:

Component	Behavior
Block production	Continues normally — BPoS consensus is independent of the council
Proposals in review	Remain in current state until council is restored
Approved proposals	Continue executing (tracking and withdrawal still work)
Treasury	Appropriation pauses; no new funds move from Assets to Expenses
Block rewards	30% DAO share continues accumulating in CR Assets address
Recovery	System automatically enters the next election voting period

info

The chain never stops. BPoS consensus and block production continue even if the Council is dysfunctional. Governance is a feature of the chain, not a requirement for its operation.

Security Model

Elastos uses layered security — an attacker must compromise multiple independent systems simultaneously:

Layer	Mechanism	What it protects
Bitcoin Hash Rate	AuxPoW merged mining	51% attack cost = cost of attacking Bitcoin
BPoS Finality	2/3+1 supermajority	Block confirmation requires >2/3 of validators
Penalty Enforcement	200 ELA penalty from deposit	Illegal behavior is economically punished
Economic Incentives	2,000 ELA deposit + 35% rewards	Honest participation is rewarded
Emergency Fallback	PoW mode after 12h stall	Chain continues even if BPoS fails
Community Oversight	Impeachment + annual elections	Council members are replaceable