Decred is the first cryptocurrency to implement on-chain hard fork voting. Moreover, it seems that the Decred community has already approved the first Hard Fork - completely decentralised.

What are we voting for?

The first vote includes proposals to start Lightning Network development and to change the PoS Algorithm. The first topic was announced in the 2017 Decred Roadmap, the second topic was brought in by the community (in particular by those who take part in PoS mining).

The Hard Fork voting process itself is described in docs.decred.org/getting-started/user-guides/agenda-voting

Preliminary results

At all times, there are up-to-date statistics available. If you are interested, check voting.decred.org and dcrstats.com.  The statistics show that voter turnout is high. It means that a large proportion of the PoS miners participate in Hard Fork voting. For the first topic the proportion is ~86.8% and for the second topic it is ~64.2% of the votes.

Furthermore, the statistics show that there is a consensus within the community. Of the active participants, current support levels show that ~97.8%  of the votes are in favour of the staking algorithm change, and ~98.5% are in favour of Lighting Network support development to begin. There is a 75% threshold of support needed for a successful Hard Fork.

At the time of writing only 1/3 of the cycle has been completed. The current ‘Rule Change Interval’ ends at Block 141183. For the most recent Block you can check mainnet.decred.org

Significance of the vote

As mentioned in a recent post of The Decred Digest, this is an exciting time for Decred. The efficiency and effectiveness of Hard Fork voting will allow the community to quickly reach consensus. This enables a community-based decision making process, creating a highly progressive and innovative cryptocurrency.

The smooth implementation of the on-chain Hard Fork voting system also highlights the calibre and work ethic of the Decred development team. This promises great things for the future.