Fundamentals
Onchain governance explained
Onchain governance means the decision and its consequence live on the same ledger. A vote is not a poll - it is the authorisation for a specific transaction.
Offchain signalling vs onchain authority
Offchain votes are cheap and fast but produce no authority. Someone still has to act on the result.
Onchain votes are binding: the governor contract records the payload, and only that payload can be executed once conditions are met.
The core primitives
Voting power derived from token balances or delegation snapshots.
Quorum, the minimum participation that makes a result valid.
Threshold, the share of votes required to approve.
Timelock, the mandatory delay that gives holders time to exit or challenge.
Where execution fits
The executor is the final privilege in the stack. Whoever controls it controls the treasury, so it must be constrained by verified conditions rather than trust.