Veto Power
The authority held by a specific party or group to block a proposal from taking effect, even after it has otherwise passed a normal governance vote.
Veto power is the authority granted to a specific party, group, or security council (see Kaavon's "Security Council" glossary definition) to block a proposal from taking effect even after it has already passed through a protocol's normal governance voting process. This typically exists as a safeguard against a proposal that technically achieved the required votes but is judged to be harmful, exploitative, or in violation of the protocol's fundamental rules or values.
Veto power represents a deliberate centralization tradeoff similar to a security council's emergency powers: it adds a layer of protection against governance attacks or rushed, poorly considered proposals passing through sheer vote-counting, but it also concentrates meaningful override authority in whichever party holds it, creating a dependency on that party exercising the power responsibly and sparingly rather than using it to override legitimate community decisions they simply disagree with.
Examples
- A protocol's founding team might retain veto power over governance proposals during an early bootstrapping period, intending to relinquish it once the community matures.
- Veto power is a double-edged safeguard: it can block a genuinely harmful proposal that technically passed a vote, but it also concentrates override authority in whoever holds it.