Delegating to a Representative

In the Cardano ecosystem, Delegated Representatives (DReps) work to coordinate resources on behalf of ADA holders who delegate power to vote on governance actions.

For more information on Cardano governance, visit 1694.IO or GOV TOOL

Delegating to a representative involves generating a vote delegation certificate reflecting your delegation, and then submitting the certificate to the blockchain.

You can delegate your voting power to:

• Registered DReps—Members of the Cardano community who receive the delegation of voting power for voting on governance actions.

• Always Abstain—Opt out of the governance process.

• Always Vote No Confidence—Vote No on every proposal.

Thanks to Latin Stake Pools 👏

To delegate voting power:

Create a certificate, vote-deleg.cert, using the stake.vkey

air-gapped offline machine

To delegate your voting power to a DRep, type the following command where <DRepID> is the ID of the DRep receiving your delegation:

cardano-cli conway stake-address vote-delegation-certificate \
    --stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
    --drep-key-hash <DRepID> \
    --out-file vote-deleg.cert

OR

To opt out of the governance process, type:

cardano-cli conway stake-address vote-delegation-certificate \
    --stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
    --always-abstain \
    --out-file vote-deleg.cert

OR

To vote No on every proposal, type:

cardano-cli conway stake-address vote-delegation-certificate \
    --stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
    --always-no-confidence \
    --out-file vote-deleg.cert

Copy vote-deleg.cert to your hot environment.

You need to find the tip of the blockchain to set the invalid-hereafter parameter properly.

block producer node

currentSlot=$(cardano-cli conway query tip --mainnet | jq -r '.slot')
echo Current Slot: $currentSlot

Retrieve the UTXOs available for your payment address and calculate the balance.

block producer node

# Retrieve the list of UTXOs available for your payment address
utxo_json=$(cardano-cli conway query utxo --address $(cat payment.addr) --mainnet)

# Initialize variables
tx_in=""
total_balance=0
txcnt=0

# Loop through the list of UTXOs
while read -r utxo; do
    # Retrieve the values for the current UTXO
    values=$(jq -r --arg k "${utxo}" '.[$k]' <<< "${utxo_json}")
    # Retrieve datum associated with the UTXO
    datum=$(jq -r '.datum' <<< "${values}")
    # Retrieve the reference script associated with the UTXO
    script=$(jq -r '.referenceScript' <<< "${values}")
	# If limits on spending the UTXO may exist, then skip the UTXO
    if [[ ${datum} == 'null' && ${script} == 'null' ]]
    then
        hash=${utxo%%#*}
        idx=${utxo#*#}
        utxo_balance=$(jq -r '.value.lovelace' <<< "${values}")
        total_balance=$((${total_balance}+${utxo_balance}))
        echo "TxHash: ${hash}#${idx}"
        echo "ADA: ${utxo_balance}"
        tx_in="${tx_in} --tx-in ${hash}#${idx}"
		txcnt=$((txcnt + 1))
    fi
done <<< "$(jq -r 'keys[]' <<< "${utxo_json}")"

echo
echo "Total available ADA balance: ${total_balance}"
echo "Number of UTXOs: ${txcnt}"
echo "Final --tx-in string:${tx_in}"

Run the build-raw transaction command:

The invalid-hereafter value must be greater than the current tip. In this example, we use current slot + 10000.

block producer node

cardano-cli conway transaction build-raw \
    ${tx_in} \
    --tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+${total_balance} \
    --invalid-hereafter $(( ${currentSlot} + 10000 )) \
    --fee 200000 \
    --out-file tx.tmp \
    --certificate vote-deleg.cert

Calculate the current minimum fee:

block producer node

fee=$(cardano-cli conway transaction calculate-min-fee \
    --tx-body-file tx.tmp \
    --tx-in-count ${txcnt} \
    --tx-out-count 1 \
    --mainnet \
    --witness-count 2 \
    --byron-witness-count 0 \
    --protocol-params-file params.json | jq -r '.fee')
echo fee: $fee

When calculating the fee for a transaction, the --witness-count option indicates the number of keys signing the transaction. You must sign a transaction submitting a vote delegation certificate to the blockchain using the secret—private—key for the payment address spending the input, as well as the secret key for the stake address delegating voting power.

Calculate your change output:

block producer node

txOut=$((${total_balance}-${fee}))
echo Change Output: ${txOut}

Build your transaction to delegate voting power:

block producer node

cardano-cli conway transaction build-raw \
    ${tx_in} \
    --tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+${txOut} \
    --invalid-hereafter $(( ${currentSlot} + 10000 )) \
    --fee ${fee} \
    --certificate-file vote-deleg.cert \
    --out-file tx.raw

Copy tx.raw to your cold environment.

Sign the transaction with both the payment and stake secret keys:

air-gapped offline machine

cardano-cli conway transaction sign \
    --tx-body-file tx.raw \
    --signing-key-file payment.skey \
    --signing-key-file stake.skey \
    --mainnet \
    --out-file tx.signed

Copy tx.signed to your hot environment.

Send the signed transaction:

block producer node

cardano-cli conway transaction submit \
    --tx-file tx.signed \
    --mainnet