Signals Protocol
Signals is an onchain governance primitive that lets communities surface and rank their priorities through continuous, conviction-weighted support, rather than one-shot token votes.
Instead of voting yes or no on a proposal, participants lock governance tokens behind initiatives they want to see prioritised. The longer and larger the lock, the more support weight it carries. Because token supply is finite and locked tokens can't be used elsewhere, every lock represents real opportunity cost, which makes the signal meaningful.
Core concepts
A board is a single deployment of the Signals contract, scoped to one ERC-20 token and one set of governance parameters. Boards are deployed through a factory contract (EIP-1167 minimal proxies) and their configuration is immutable after creation. A board can run indefinitely as a standing prioritisation surface, or can be configured to close after a fixed window.
An initiative is a proposal submitted to a board. Any tokenholder (above a configurable minimum balance) can propose one. Initiatives receive support in the form of token locks, accumulate support weight, and end up accepted due to popularity or expired due to inactivity. Tokens are evenutally returned to holders, and participants never lose principal through the mechanism itself.
A lock is an amount of tokens deposited into the Signals contract in support of an initiative. The contract then enforces the conditions of the lock the supporter has comitted to. Locks can be minted as transferable ERC-721 tokens to allow the future claim to tokens to be traded on secondary markets.
How support weight works
A lock provides support equal to the amount of tokens deposited, plus a bonus multiplier based on the amount of time comitted to locking. The bonus multiplier decays over time according to the board's configuration, meaning support is self-correcting: an initiative that was popular months ago but which has attracted no new backing will gradually lose weight and fall below the threshold without any intervention. Priorities stay current because sustained conviction requires sustained participation.
The decay mechanism also gives smaller holders a path to meaningful influence. A participant who locks a modest amount for months can generate more cumulative weight than a whale who locks a large amount for a short amount of time.
Thresholds and acceptance
An initiative becomes eligible for acceptance when its aggregate support weight crosses the board's threshold. The threshold is the greater of a percentage of total token supply (preventing whale capture) and a fixed minimum (preventing dust attacks). This dual-bound design means no single actor can push an initiative through alone, and trivial token amounts can't game the system.
Acceptance can be either be triggered by anyone or restricted to the board owner, based on the board's configuration. On acceptance, locked tokens enter a release timelock (configurable, can be zero), after which supporters reclaim them. Initiatives that never reach threshold can be expired after a configurable inactivity timeout (a period with no new locks) which returns tokens immediately.
Incentives
Boards can optionally attach two layers of financial incentives to reward participation.
Participation rewards distribute tokens from a funded pool, weighted by lock timing. Locks placed earlier in an initiative's lifecycle receive proportionally higher shares of the reward. This benefits early conviction over bandwagoning.
Bounties can be attached to individual initiatives by any contributor. On acceptance, bounty payouts are split between supporters, the protocol, and a configurable treasury address. If the initiative expires or is cancelled, bounties are returned to the contributor.
Why it works
The mechanism's expected behaviours are motivated by opportunity cost. Participants will only support initiatives they believe in because locking tokens has a real cost. They avoid supporting initiatives they're indifferent to because those tokens could instead be used to back something with a better chance of acceptance. And they may support initiatives they're personally neutral on but believe the broader community will prioritise, because accepted initiatives return tokens and can distribute rewards. This creates a self-selecting market for conviction.
Transferable positions
Because each lock can be an ERC-721, support positions can have a secondary market. If a lock position on a popular initiative trades above the value of the underlying tokens, the premium reflects the market's estimate of that initiative's likelihood of acceptance and the value of its associated rewards. The spread between lock price and underlying token value becomes a price signal for conviction which is visible, tradeable, and continuous.
Board administration
The board owner can be an EOA, multisig, or a governor contract for fully decentralised operation. When a board has served its purpose, it can shut down and stop new activity while allowing existing locks follow normal redemption rules, forcing users to follow through on their commitments.