Signups for the second Algorand Community Governance period are open until January 7th! Here is a walkthrough for participating using your Exodus wallet

'Ello, gov'nas!

Algorand is in the middle of transitioning to a governance protocol, allowing hodlers to vote on changes to the network. Support for governance support was hotly requested by our users, and we implemented memo support for it in wallet version 21.9.24.

The first governance period came to an end on December 31st. Signups for the second governance period are open now and will be open until January 7th (roughly 5 days from this post. I apologize, signups opened up last week, and I meant to post this then, but I completely forgot. Who starts a governance period on Christmas??).

The Algorand Foundation has a full article on this second governance period here. However, for those who want to jump right in, we'll walk you through the steps here. This can be done on both Exodus desktop and mobile:

  1. Go to this page.
  2. Click the “Get Started” button in the purple box.
  3. In the list of wallets, click “Other Wallets”.
  4. In the box, input your ALGO receive address and click “Connect Wallet”.
  5. The box will close, and the button in the purple box will change to “Commit Algos”. Click that.
  6. The new box should show your ALGO total. The Algorand Foundation recommends any amount up to your total-1. The “MAX” button will automatically input this amount.
    1. Committing your full balance is not recommended because, if your balance drops below your committed amount, you lose your vote. When sending the 0.00 transaction in the later steps, a 0.001 transaction fee is deducted, which would lower your balance below your committed amount if you committed your full balance.
  7. Once you've decided how much to commit, click “Commit Algos”.
  8. This new box will show you an address and a note. In Exodus, navigate to your Algorand wallet, and click “Send” (or tap the “send” arrow” on mobile).
  9. Leave the send amount at 0.00. Input the address and memo note that the Governance page gave you. NOTE: Even though what the Governance page gave you is labeled as a “note”, this needs to go in the “memo” field, not the “personal note” field.
  10. Send the transaction.
  11. Back on the governance page, click “I've sent the transaction”.
  12. Wait about a minute, and then reload the page. Clicking “close” in the box will also reload the page.

If everything was completed correctly, you should see your committed ALGO in the purple box on the governance page. All done! Note that your ALGO is safe in your wallet. Your committed ALGO just determines the weight of your votes during this governance period.

The Algorand Foundation has not announced the voting rounds for this period. I will make a post announcing them once they are known and walking users through how to vote.

If you want to read all about the Algorand Governance protocol, the Algorand Foundation has a full hub all about it over here. We also have our own article on the governance protocol in our Knowledge Base.

Happy governing!

Signups for the second Algorand Community Governance period are open until January 7th! Here is a walkthrough for participating using your Exodus wallet