On August 18th, Cardano blockchain founder Charles Hoskison announced that the CIP-1694 testnet, SanchoNet, has officially launched. SanchoNet aims to introduce the governance function of CIP-1694 to the Cardano community in a controlled testnet environment.

CIP-1694 proposes that any Cardano user can submit governance operations, and will introduce three different governance organizations: a constitutional committee, a group of representatives (DReps), and stake pool operators (SPO).

Every governance action must receive the approval of at least two of these three governance organizations through on-chain voting. In the initial stage of SanchoNet, stake pool operators (SPOs) have different responsibilities and play a critical role as the only participants authorized to vote on governance actions, in addition to block production and network maintenance.