# Governance (/docs/guides/governance)

Bittensor governance runs through the **root network** (netuid 0) and,
operationally, through **sudo**: privileged operations (runtime upgrades,
protocol changes) are dispatched through sudo, held by the **Triumvirate** —
a multisig of three Opentensor Foundation keys.

## The root network [#the-root-network]

Registration on root is stake-based, not burn-based:
[`root-register`](/docs/tx/root-register) joins a hotkey, and placement depends
on the stake behind it — root slots are limited, so joining a full root network
evicts the member with the least stake.

Root stake also earns cross-subnet dividends; see
[Staking](/docs/guides/staking#root-stake-and-dividends) for claiming.

## Voting [#voting]

There is no on-chain voting today. The legacy senate-vote extrinsic — and the
collective and membership pallets behind it — have been removed from the
runtime, so top root members no longer form a voting senate. Privileged
operations run through sudo held by the Triumvirate; the collective system
below remains designed but undeployed.

## Root claims [#root-claims]

Configure how root dividends pay out with
[`set-root-claim-type`](/docs/tx/set-root-claim-type) and collect them with
[`claim-root`](/docs/tx/claim-root).

## The planned collective system [#the-planned-collective-system]

A two-stage collective governance system is designed but **not deployed on
mainnet as of mid-2026** — sudo remains the operative mechanism. As designed:

1. **Triumvirate stage**: the three members have 7 days to vote; 2-of-3 ayes
   advance a proposal, 2-of-3 nays or timeout rejects it. The Triumvirate
   would no longer hold sudo directly — it becomes just the first referendum
   stage.
2. **Review stage**: the combined Economic and Building collectives vote
   during a delay that starts at 24 hours and stretches to 2 days as nay votes
   accumulate. At least 75% aye fast-tracks execution to the next block; at
   least 51% nay cancels the proposal. Absent a blocking nay majority, the
   proposal is enacted automatically when the delay ends — enact-by-default,
   not approve-to-pass.

Proposals could only be submitted by a curated **Proposers** group of roughly
20 community members. The review-stage electorate is the deduplicated union of
16 Building seats (top subnet owners) and 16 Economic seats (top root
validators) — at most 32 voters.

The reviewing collectives rotate every 60 days: Economic seats go to the top
coldkeys by a stake EMA (fed from root-network registrations), Building seats
to the top subnet-owner coldkeys by their best subnet's moving price. Until
those collectives are populated, the review stage adds no check on the
Triumvirate.