Guide · checked against its sources on 2026-10-24
Namada is governed on chain by the people who stake NAM: any account can submit a proposal with a NAM deposit, accounts with staked NAM vote on it, and a proposal that passes can change the protocol and its settings or direct public goods funding.[1][2][3]
Your voting power is your staked NAM. Your validator votes for you by default, you can vote yourself to override it, and Namadillo lists current, upcoming and past proposals with their tally.[2][4][5][6]
Any account can submit a proposal, but it must lock a deposit of NAM, the minimum proposal fund, while the proposal is open; the amount is a protocol setting you can read from the chain.[2][7]
The deposit is returned to the author if the proposal passes and burned if it is rejected, according to namada.net, Namada's specs and its code; Namada's governance docs say instead that a rejected proposal's deposit is kept in the governance account.[1][5][8][2]
Namada's docs describe submitting a proposal from the command line, with its title, its voting epochs and any code in a file.[9][10]
Namada's docs list three types: default proposals, which can carry code that runs if they pass, such as a change to protocol parameters; steward proposals, which add or remove public goods stewards; and public goods funding proposals.[3][7]
A default proposal's code runs automatically if it passes, and its changes take effect at the beginning of its activation epoch.[9][7]
Accounts with active bonds vote, with voting power in proportion to the NAM they have staked; Namadillo says you cannot vote if you have not staked.[2][6]
Validators vote with their delegators' stake by default, but only in roughly the first two thirds of the voting period; delegators can vote during the whole period, and a delegator's own vote overrides its validator's.[2][1][5][4]
The choices are yay, nay and abstain, and in Namadillo you can change your vote while voting is still open.[6]
Each proposal names its own voting start and end epochs within limits the chain sets, and the votes are counted at the beginning of its activation epoch.[10][9]
A default proposal needs at least two fifths of all active voting power to vote, and its yay votes must be at least two thirds of the yay and nay votes together. namada.net's governance page gives two thirds of the voting power instead; the docs and the code that counts the votes say two fifths.[9][11][1]
A steward proposal needs at least a third of the active voting power to vote, with more yay votes than nay votes.[9][11]
A funding proposal from a steward passes without any yay votes unless it is vetoed: it fails if at least a third of the voting power votes and yay votes do not outnumber nay votes.[12][9][11]
Namada's specs say these rules are written into the protocol rather than chosen by each proposal.[5]
Public goods funding mints NAM into an on-chain account at a rate governance sets and pays it to approved recipients, either continuously, every epoch, or retroactively, in a single payment.[13][12]
Stewards are people or groups elected by governance to find good recipients: a steward can propose funding, receives a share of inflation, can resign at any time and can be removed by governance.[13][14]
Namadillo's Governance page lists current, upcoming and past proposals with their type, voting epochs, tally and turnout; to vote, open a proposal, choose your vote and sign it with Namada Keychain.[6][15]
This site's supply page lists the votes in progress beside the figures on staking and unstaking.
No. Voting power comes from staked NAM: accounts with active bonds vote, and Namadillo says you cannot vote without staking.[2][6]
It is burned, according to namada.net, Namada's specs and its code; Namada's governance docs say instead that it is kept in the governance account. If the proposal passes, the deposit is returned to its author.[1][5][8][2]
By default, yes: validators vote with their delegators' stake. If you vote yourself, your vote replaces your validator's for your stake.[4][5][2]
Yes. The staking rate's cap and target, the public goods rate and the stewards' rate are parameters governance can change, and a default proposal can carry code that changes protocol parameters.[16][13][14][7]
NamadaTrade is an independent site. It is not run by or affiliated with the Anoma Foundation, Heliax or any other team that builds Namada, and this guide is not advice. Each paragraph about Namada links the Namada pages it comes from.
NamadaTrade reports public on-chain and exchange data. It is not investment advice and is not affiliated with Namada or the Anoma Foundation.