Deploying a Nationwide Referendum On-Chain

In 2025 we deployed the online voting for a non-binding, nationwide referendum in Germany (ABSTIMMUNG21). Of a total of 63,000 voters, around 13,000 voted on-chain; none of them needed to create a wallet, pay gas fees, or have any blockchain experience. As openPetition, a Berlin-based non-profit with limited blockchain experience, we built [opn.vote](https://www.openpetition.org/opn-vote), a voting system using blockchain for transparency and verifiability, in a way that ordinary people could use it. We will share what we have learned along the way and showcase that teams with limited blockchain experience can also build meaningful blockchain applications that can be used by ordinary people. We will explore the positive aspects, like EVM compatibility, a decentralized validator set, robust tooling/services, and the friction points and ecosystem gaps we experienced (e.g., credential storage, missing network layer censorship resistance).

Speakers: Felix Maduakor

Track: Open & Verifiable Stack