As regular readers will know, we have been working towards the final stages of our governance module. We originally envisioned deploying this feature across Arbitrum and Milkomeda simultaneously. However, after researching this approach, the practicalities of having a multi-chain governance system are too complex to undertake at present.

The primary obstacle stems from the technical challenges of harmonizing vote tracking and consolidation across multiple blockchains. While some options could be utilized, none sufficiently satisfy our stringent criteria for reliability.

Rather than coming to a final decision ourselves about where to deploy the governance system, we decided to open it up to the community through a poll on X. The result was an overwhelming majority favoring deploying the governance system on Milkomeda.

We have, therefore, listened to the community and decided to release the initial Paribus governance system on Milkomeda. This approach fits perfectly with our long-term aspirations because once we have transitioned into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), it will be up to our community to make these decisions.

While blockchain remains a technology at the bleeding edge of innovation, it’s not without challenges, particularly when more intricate use cases are contemplated. Regarding reliability and security, we necessarily apply high standards, so we chose the safest, most robust pathway available now: single-chain deployment.

Our development process always places interoperability at the heart of our decisions. This decision in no way affects our aim to become a multi-chain platform. Instead, it’s an agile response to specific challenges that provide us with the best pathway forward for one element of our vision.

It’s important to note that this should not be misconstrued as a slight toward Ethereum or an implicit endorsement of Cardano. Our philosophy is chain agnosticism, geared primarily toward identifying the most secure and efficient paths to market.

Another important factor that makes Milkomeda ideally suited to the initial release of our governance system is their recent announcement regarding Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) interoperability. Now, Cardano users can interact with EVM contracts directly from their Cardano wallets through Milkomeda.

This is accomplished through wrapped smart contracts that run within the Milkomeda system and interact with native smart contracts on other chains. This innovation greatly enhances the interoperability between Cardano and other chains, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it.

Should a governance system be developed that allows multi-chain voting safely and securely that meets our expectations, we will look to roll out governance across other chains. We aim always to be accessible to as many communities as possible.

In addition, as we evolve, so will our opportunities for broadening governance capabilities. Our current codebase leverages Solidity, native to EVM. However, as we develop Paribus in additional languages, such as Plutus or Aiken, our prospects for multi-chain governance are likely to increase.

Although some may have mixed emotions about this recent development, we’ve concluded that postponing the release of the governance module wouldn’t serve the best interests of the platform or the community. The feedback from our community helped shape this decision, and we look forward to being part of the growth in activity and TVL on Milkomeda.