Catalyst Voting

Overview

Project Catalyst is Cardano's innovation and governance program, allowing ADA holders to vote on proposals. The Rosetta API implementation supports Catalyst voting registration through a dedicated operation type.

info

For more information about Catalyst voting and how the data structures work, see the CIP-15 specification.

Vote Registration Operation

To register for Catalyst voting, use the voteRegistration operation type with the /construction/preprocess and /construction/payloads endpoints.

Construction Request

{
  "network_identifier": {
    "blockchain": "cardano",
    "network": "mainnet"
  },
  "operations": [
    {
      "operation_identifier": {
        "index": 1
      },
      "status": "success",
      "type": "voteRegistration",
      "metadata": {
        "voteRegistrationMetadata": {
          "rewardAddress": "addr1q9nr7yuhzsmmdchsjacuqef5cnlajk2s4j2rjre5uzgmtw5vcjwuayent36vkw403c8hat9csyawfgg88qlwweyeshnqsh9r5q",
          "stakeKey": {
            "curve_type": "edwards25519",
            "hex_bytes": "56f29f391a3bb5ff90637b2d2d0a32590214871284b0577e4671b0c1a83f79ba"
          },
          "votingKey": {
            "curve_type": "edwards25519",
            "hex_bytes": "8bcec4282239b2cc1a7d8bb294c154c849fc200c7ebd27ef45e610d849bc302a"
          },
          "votingNonce": 26912766,
          "votingSignature": "f75f7a54a79352f9d0e2c4de4e8ded8ae9304fa0f3b021754f8d149c90c7b01e1c6bbfdd623c294d82f5e5cbbfc0bd6fd1c674780db4025446e2eafc87f61b0a"
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "ttl": "1000"
  }
}

Metadata Structure

The registration data is included in the transaction metadata with the following structure:

{
  "61284": {
    // voting_key - CBOR byte array
    "1": "0xa6a3c0447aeb9cc54cf6422ba32b294e5e1c3ef6d782f2acff4a70694c4d1663",
    // stake_pub - CBOR byte array
    "2": "0xad4b948699193634a39dd56f779a2951a24779ad52aa7916f6912b8ec4702cee",
    // reward_address - CBOR byte array
    "3": "0x00588e8e1d18cba576a4d35758069fe94e53f638b6faf7c07b8abd2bc5c5cdee47b60edc7772855324c85033c638364214cbfc6627889f81c4",
    // nonce
    "4": 5479467
  },
  "61285": {
    // signature - ED25119 signature CBOR byte array
    "1": "0x8b508822ac89bacb1f9c3a3ef0dc62fd72a0bd3849e2381b17272b68a8f52ea8240dcc855f2264db29a8512bfcd522ab69b982cb011e5f43d0154e72f505f007"
  }
}

Data API Response

Vote registration operations are returned in /block and /block/transaction endpoints:

{
  "transaction_identifier": {
    "hash": "adeb7b6845f3f4b0e74275588412cf00912b615e4bbf76d111326ce899260c59"
  },
  "operations": [
    {
      "operation_identifier": {
        "index": 1
      },
      "status": "success",
      "type": "voteRegistration",
      "metadata": {
        "voteRegistrationMetadata": {
          "rewardAddress": "addr1q9nr7yuhzsmmdchsjacuqef5cnlajk2s4j2rjre5uzgmtw5vcjwuayent36vkw403c8hat9csyawfgg88qlwweyeshnqsh9r5q",
          "stakeKey": {
            "curve_type": "edwards25519",
            "hex_bytes": "56f29f391a3bb5ff90637b2d2d0a32590214871284b0577e4671b0c1a83f79ba"
          },
          "votingKey": {
            "curve_type": "edwards25519",
            "hex_bytes": "8bcec4282239b2cc1a7d8bb294c154c849fc200c7ebd27ef45e610d849bc302a"
          },
          "votingNonce": 26912766,
          "votingSignature": "f75f7a54a79352f9d0e2c4de4e8ded8ae9304fa0f3b021754f8d149c90c7b01e1c6bbfdd623c294d82f5e5cbbfc0bd6fd1c674780db4025446e2eafc87f61b0a"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Required Parameters

The voteRegistrationMetadata field requires the following parameters:

Parameter	Description
rewardAddress	Staking address which will receive voting rewards
stakeKey	Public key of the corresponding staking account (hex string)
votingKey	Catalyst voting public key (hex string)
votingNonce	Current slot number
votingSignature	Vote data signed with the staking private key (hex string)

Generating the Voting Signature

The voting signature is created by:

1. Taking the voting data (corresponding to the "61284" field in the metadata)
2. Calculating its blake2b-256 hash
3. Signing this hash with the staking private key