April 2023 GMC Call for Retrospective Award Applications - Deadline is April 15th

ShfRyn · 2 April 2023 12:05

This thread is for applications for retrospective awards (award for work completed prior to April 1, 2023) as part of Rocket Pool’s April 2023 (Round 2) retrospective awards. Please only post retrospective award applications in this thread. If you would like to discuss and/or ask questions about any applications you see in this thread, we ask that you do so in this separate forum thread which has been established for all community discussions related to this round of applications. Only those retrospective award applications that are posted in this thread and timestamped by April 15, 2023 at 23:59 (11:59 PM) UTC will be considered.

To guide you in your application, the GMC has established the following goals and the following scoring rubric:

GMC Goals

Grants, bounties, and retrospective awards should make it easier and/or more attractive to do one or more of the following:

become a node operator

operate a node, mint rETH

hold or use rETH

improve the quality of life for the protocol and its community.

Retrospective Award Rubric

The Retrospective Award rubric involves scoring the following question on a 1 to 5 scale:

To what extent did the proposed and completed project further the GMC goals?

Note: if the project is ongoing, the retrospective award is given for work completed prior to the current award period, with any future awards for the same project expected to compete in the Grants category and as a separate application.

Retrospective Award Application

Please copy paste the template below into a reply. Answer the questions there, entering N/A where appropriate:

## Retrospective Award Application
## Retrospective Award

### Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

### What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

### Are the subjects of this award entirely open source ([MIT](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT), [GPL](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html), [Apache](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0), [CC BY](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

## Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

### How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

### How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

### How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

### How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

### How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

### How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

## Payment

### How much RPL is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

## Conflict of Interest

### Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).

calurduran · 2 April 2023 13:43

(deleted previous reply because I messed up the markdown)

Retrospective Award Application

Retrospective Award

Title

Rocketarb Part 2

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Ramana

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

This is a follow-up to Ramana’s previous Rocketarb application in Round 1 of the grant process. Much of the detail below will be the same and I will put the justification for a subsequent grant here. After the last round of awards were announced there was some dissatisfaction in the community about the amount awarded to Ramana. In DM’ing with Ramana and trying to explain the committee’s reasoning, it was clear that there had been a disconnect between the content of his application and the amount of work and support involved in creating and updating Rocketarb. We can chalk that up to this being the first round of applications and Ramana being the very first to post an RA application.

I would therefore like to add the following information as part of a request to the GMC to allocate an additional amount for Rocketarb for the work Ramana had done prior to the first round of applications and for the rounds in-between. Ramana is encouraged to apply for a grant for future maintenance/support of Rocketarb if he would like to do so.

First, in the initial application Ramana listed a very wide range of time estimate. In talking it over with him, it was clear that he had spent much closer to the 100 hour high end of the initial estimate than the 10 hour low end, and that his continued support for users since has likely incremented that number higher. While the GMC does not strictly operate on a pay-per-hour basis, I think it is worth highlighting as it shows that the effort involved in creating, updating, and supporting Rocketarb was likely a bit higher than the initial GMC impressions.

I also wanted to add that several people reached out to me (and I hope they will post as such in the community discussion thread) to mention how important Rocketarb was in attracting new node operators at a time that we found ourselves once again NO constrained. Numerous folks mentioned on Discord that Rocketarb was what specifically incentivized them to become NOs.

Additional details from the original app for this section:

Details:

rocketarb contract (deployment on etherscan)
rocketarb.js command line tool (code on GitHub) 2
README.md instructions (in the same repository)
live support in the Rocket Pool discord

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

By facilitating node operators to capitalise on the rETH premium by creating more minipools, thereby bringing the premium down and making rETH cheaper to acquire.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

By helping them take advantage of the market premium for rETH by creating minipools, capturing a profit that has in practice covered all their transaction fees plus more.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

N/A - or same as above if they create more minipools

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

The project helped reinforce that the Rocket Pool community has an active developer base that is often looking for ways to improve the node operator experience.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

N/A

Payment

How much in USD is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

In looking over the previous round of grants and considering the new information I received from both Ramana and the community, I am requesting a total of $10,000 be awarded. This includes the $5282 that was already awarded (139 RPL at $38 according to the GMC Treasury Sheet). That would mean this award request is specifically for a new dollar amount of $4718 above and beyond the initial award.

To what address should the award be sent if given?

ramana.eth (0x65FE89a480bdB998F4116DAf2A9360632554092c)

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).

The recipient is not a member of the GMC.

The recipient has received ad-hoc donations from users and community members for this work, and has paid some of the early beta testers.

Other people have contributed to rocketarb’s success through marketing, support, and writing the Docker mode.

calurduran · 2 April 2023 13:45

Because of forum limits on consecutive replies, I am including two separate RA applications in one post here. If that’s a problem let me know and I’ll split them up. They are both for the same person (Valdorff). They should not be taken to be jointly exhaustive of the things that Valdorff has done that might be appropriate for an RA. Rather they are the two items that I feel most comfortable writing an application for given my knowledge and experience and the two items I most want to see rewarded from a governance perspective.

Retrospective Award Application

Retrospective Award

Title

Governance Facilitation

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Valdorff

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of?

The purpose of this retrospective award application is to recognize the work that Valdorff has done over the past year in keeping the pDAO governance process running smoothly. Here I specifically have in mind his role as a sort-of unofficial elections officer. This has included calling for elections as dictated by RPIPs, writing vote text, posting forum threads and polls per our outlined processes, soliciting nominations, collecting position statements, and organizing ballots (including reminders to the Team to move his text to Snapshot). This has also included organizing the RPIP snapshot votes. The latter has often involved helping others with the RPIP process and shepherding RPIPs other than his own across the finish line to get them ready to vote.

There are two caveats to this application. First, I do not envision the application as being for Valdorff’s work writing RPIPs themselves. Others can nominate people for such things if they choose, but as someone who has written 1.5 RPIPs myself, I think that the reward for doing so is having a larger influence over pDAO governance through agenda setting and framing.

Second, and this was requested to be added by Valdorff, this work is not highly specialized, but is mainly based on energy and effort. He sincerely hopes that others will step in (either one off or repeatedly) and this RA grant serves as an important precedent to show the work is valued and likely to be rewarded.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

I don’t think this question is particularly applicable, but inasmuch as it is: yes.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

This answer is going to be the same for many of these questions. Valdorff’s work in this area has helped ensure that the RPIP process is a meaningful and successful one, and that the creation of our Management Committees has gone from idea to practice. Both of those factors have been important in the success of the protocol and of RP’s staking product.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

See above.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

This is the area where Valdorff’s work has had the most direct impact, as node operators are the voters of the pDAO. His efforts have assisted NOs in having their voice heard in snapshot votes.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

See above.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

See above.

Payment

How much in USD is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

$7500 - This is a hard amount to set. I don’t think that the work itself was difficult or required specialized knowledge (though assistance with the RPIP process did at least involve some specialized knowledge). Rather the reward should reflect the pDAO recognizing that even though it was a job that most members could do, it was not a job that anyone wanted to actually step up and do. There were ~15 votes shepherded through (though some take more effort than others, such as committee selections). An average around $500 per vote feels to me like a fair amount for saying thank you to someone for doing something that we clearly need(ed) in order to have a functioning governance process.

To what address should the award be sent if given?

rs.valdorff.eth

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).

None that I am aware of.

Retrospective Award Application

Retrospective Award

Title

Incentives Management Committee (IMC) Work

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Valdorff

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

In numerous discussions on the forum and in Discord, the pDAO has agreed (at least for the time being) that Management Committee positions should be voluntary and unpaid, but that especially strong contributions on such committees can and should be recognized with a retrospective award.

The IMC was voted into office back in September. The re-constituted committee is currently being voted on and should start effective mid-April. This RA would recognize the work that Valdorff did on the IMC, going above and beyond the expectations of a committee member, for the first 6 months of the committee’s existence. During that time Val took on a de facto leadership position; he not only initiated most of the committee’s multisig transactions, but also led discussions and was the one regular and consistent presence from the committee in the #rETH Liquidity Incentives sub-thread. This nomination should not be taken as a slight against any other committee members, several of whom certainly performed the job admirably and in line with expectations for an MC spot. But the award recognizes that Valdorff went above and beyond in being the force that kept the IMC moving.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Not sure this is applicable but inasmuch as it is, yes.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

The IMC’s work has helped drive the integration of rETH within DeFi protocols as well as the adoption of rETH more broadly. This has created more opportunities (as well as possible financial profits) for those who hold rETH or who might want to hold it in the future.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

The work of the IMC helped provide deep liquidity and thus confidence in rETH. Secondarily, the incentives helped drive demand for rETH, filling up the deposit pool at a time when we were rETH-constrained.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

RPL holders benefit by greater adoption of rETH, as part of the value of RPL in most models is tied directly to the amount of rETH minted by the protocol.

Payment

How much in USD is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

$10000 - Much like the first award, this was a hard amount to set but I believe this appropriately in line with the amounts given in the first round of retrospective awards. The IMC played a crucial role in incentivizing the adoption and use of rETH in DeFi, especially around and right after the time of the Merge. Valdorff was a vital part of making sure the IMC was active in pursuing opportunities and updating its plans to match changing conditions in DeFi.

To what address should the award be sent if given?

rs.valdorff.eth

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).

To my knowledge, there are none.

Valdorff · 3 April 2023 03:35

Retrospective Award

Migration Edge Cases

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

@Knoshua

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

As acknowledged in Discord, knoshua found 2 potential issues in migrating. One could result in loss of accumulated rewards during 16-ETH minipool to LEB8 migration. The second could result in a solo migrator failing a scrub check, which would mean they’d have to exit and rejoin; while no funds are directly lost, it would be inconvenient, cost gas, and have an opportunity cost.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

N/A

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

I will only answer once since the benefit spans groups. Showing a willingness to pay community members for finding issues in our codebases makes for stronger code and safer funds. We should do our best to support this, even if things don’t strictly meet bounty program parameters, and I think retroactive grants give us a vehicle for thanking researchers that have done whitehat work for us.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

See above.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

See above.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

See above.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

See above.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

See above.

Payment

This doesn’t strictly meet the requirements for an immuneifi bounty, but I think we can use that to think through scale. Immuneifi has “Contract fails to deliver promised returns, but doesn’t lose value” as “Low”, and I think both would be in that ballpark. While RP doesn’t have “Low” payouts on their bounty program, they have done so before at a rate of $2500. I would suggest a single payment of $2500 covering both of these edge cases.

Valdorff · 3 April 2023 03:36

Retrospective Award

Snapshot Voting Poaps and Template

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

@ShfRyn

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

They put together the poap people receive when they vote on snapshot, provided psd, available at RP vote poap – Google Drive

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes, CC-BY 2.0.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

It didn’t

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

Indirectly by encouraging governance participation.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

It didn’t.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Indirectly by encouraging governance participation.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

Governance is critical for the protocol, and getting people excited about it is incredibly valuable. I asked for help several times making a poap and ShfRyn was the one to step up. They’ve also maintained it by updating the text for each snapshot vote, while making sure anyone else (with photoshop) could take over.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

Indirectly by encouraging governance participation.

Payment

$500

Valdorff · 3 April 2023 05:54

Retrospective Award

LEB Research

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

@Valdorff

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

Val analyzed actual execution layer rewards and market dynamics. Previous work (eg, by Ken and Stader) has made the assumption that the market seen recently represents all future likely markets; I believe this has led to significantly overestimating how safe certain scenarios would be.

Val used the EL data to look at the costs of EL reward theft to the protocol (assuming all users are rational agents willing to steal to maximize profits).Finally, Val put some suggested directions that the protocol could take to enable smaller LEBs, including an option for doing it entirely trustlessly.

Val provides his analysis, the preprocessed data used in the analysis, and scripts to generate the charts used in the analysis. He also provides a link to the initial raw data and the script is also able to analyze using the raw data.

See the work at https://github.com/Valdorff/rp-thoughts/tree/main/leb_safety

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes,GPL v3

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

If we cannot meet rETH demand, a path towards smaller LEBs is important, and this work provides that.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

It didn’t

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

It didn’t.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

If we cannot meet rETH demand, a path towards smaller LEBs will allow NOs to get higher yield. Additionally, the negative commission construct in the mitigation section allows NOs to run without a trusted arbiter for penalties.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

This work helps create confidence that we will be able to meet rETH demand, even if it requires smaller LEB sizes to do so.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

RPL value is tied to rETH TVL. If we are unable to meet rETH demand, a path towards smaller LEBs is important, and this work provides that.

Payment

In my opinion, this work is both the most realistic and the most up to date look at LEB safety from EL reward theft [please talk with technical folks on that and get their opinions too]. Additionally, it provides two outline implementations for how we could safely include smaller LEBs in the protocol, which previous research did not seek to define. As such, I would suggest that the award should be similar or perhaps slightly greater than RA012312 (Ken’s LEB research paper), which was awarded $14000.

Address: rs.valdorff.eth

maverick · 3 April 2023 06:21

Replying so Val can continue spamming

Valdorff · 3 April 2023 06:21

Retrospective Award

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

@Invis

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

This application is for Rocket Watch. Rocket Watch has been around longer than I have, so if people have stuff to add, please DM me.

Rocket Watch serves many roles in discord. It populates a wider variety of events as they happen, and provides a massive variety of interactive functions:

Entertainment: 8ball, dice, sea_creatures
Ethereum info: burn_reason, call, get_block_by_timestamp
RP info: clear_queue, client_combo_ranking, client_distribution, collateral_distribution, current_reth_apr, deposit_pool, dev_time, effective_rpl_staked, get_abi_of_contract, get_address_of_contract, latest_releases, liquidity, minipool_balance_stats, minipool_distribution, node_fee_distribution, queue, rpl_apr, smoothing_pool, tvl, user_distribution, version_chart, votes, withdrawable_rpl
Defi RP info: curve, dai_stats, maker_vaults, yearn
Special purpose: analyze_pairs_max_leb, merge_ttd, odao_challenges, poap-autoclaim, support templates, wall

Rocket Watch is reference constantly. Additionally, invis has been a great dev. They have added new functions as soon as the need was shown, and have been good about keeping functions up to date (eg, recently rolled out LEB8 support for events).

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

GPL v3

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

/current_reth_apr is used regularly. Support templates are used constantly when talking to newcomers.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

/current_reth_apr is good info for LST holders.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

Support templates are used constantly. RPL apr is used directly to answer questions, and /current reth_apr can be used to model NO profitability.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

n/a

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

Rocket Watch serves as: an ear to the ground, information at our fingertips, and something purely fun. It’s great to have around and brings a lot of value.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

Nothing specific

Payment

I propose a payment of $40k, but I’ll grant I mostly made that up after looking at january GMC outcomes. Happy to discuss that number.

Valdorff · 3 April 2023 22:14

Retrospective Award

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

@landakram and @ramana

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

Modifications to allow allnodes users to use rocketarb.

Ramana did initial work in https://github.com/xrchz/rocketarb/commit/5a6a95eba750041ae5ba6b44fa08c35ca552848b and https://github.com/xrchz/rocketarb/commit/f1083a2d0f16a064e4bbebbfac92d6782acbe06d. However, the code was untested.

A while later, @landakram then fixed and tested the rough code (culminating with using it on mainnet) and made a PR with the fixes at Fix allnodes integration by landakram · Pull Request #11 · xrchz/rocketarb · GitHub

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

GPL v3

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

Helped reduce the premium.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

n/a

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

It incentivized NOs to add minipools, at a time when RP needed more minipool supply.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

It incentivized NOs to add minipools, at a time when RP needed more minipool supply.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

Confidence in the peg is a huge deal, and this helped with that.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

n/a

Payment

I propose something like $500-$750 each to @ramana and @landakram

Valdorff · 4 April 2023 05:10

Retrospective Award

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

@Hodja

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

Hodja made a website to simplify the oDAO Treegen Guessing Game, a small little game played at the end of each period. The codebase is available at GitHub - 0xHodja/rocketpool-odao-guessing-game.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

GPL v3

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

n/a

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

n/a

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

n/a

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

n/a

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

This is pretty much pure fun community building.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

n/a

Payment

$500 feels like the right ballpark as a “thanks for building us a fun front end!”

waqwaqattack · 5 April 2023 03:37

Replying so Val can continue spamming

Valdorff · 5 April 2023 03:37

Past Treegen Testing Support

Retrospective Award

Past Treegen Spec Testing Support

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

@peteris

Details

Please see the Treegen Testing Support bounty for details.

This Retroactive reward is simply “back pay” for v2-v4.

4/13 edit: peteris was busy this latest cycle and I don’t believe they met the criteria on v5. I’ve changed above to include v2-v4 only and adjusted pay.

Payment

$4500

Xer0 · 7 April 2023 22:14

Rocket Pool Loding

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Xer0

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of?

The purpose of this retrospective award application is to cover the costs for all the participants who paid for their stay at the Rocket Pool lodge in ETHDenver, retreat, and transportation costs associated with moving between airbnb’s as a group.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

There was no coding involved in making this trip happen

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Many of the people attending the RP Lodge were Node Operators and subsidizing the cost of lodging would enhance their experience of the conference

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

This event at ETHDenver has passed just recently and the community lodging was able to achieve a successful gathering of people from different backgrounds and cultures with Rocket Pool being the main reason for the gathering. The vision of this grant is to help build a strong and resilient community for years to come through community growth.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

The lodging was able to promote massive amounts of community engagement, network connections, the start of collaborations, and even engagement with people outside of the community.

Payment

How much RPL is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

City Airbnb + Transportation: $13,110 (292 RPL)

Retreat Airbnb: $6,309 (141 RPL)

Bowling Event: (Covered by Langers)

Gas cost to Distribute: 2 RPL

Total Grant: 435 RPL

Please send awards to Ethdenver.xer0.eth and it will be distributed to all attendees once approved.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).

Attendees to trust that I will send it to them once received. (I took payment to organized the airbnb, so I’m sure people can trust me)

fornax · 10 April 2023 14:26

Retrospective Award Application

Retrospective Award

Title

A thank-you to ETHDenver volunteers.

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Volunteers who worked at least one shift at the Rocket Pool both at ETHDenver according to this POAP POAP Gallery

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

The specific work relates to manning the booth for at least one shift (2 hours of work), helping to set up the booth, answering questions, posting on social media about the event, handing out swag/POAPs, and showcasing Proteus and the RP bike.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Not applicable.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

At ETHDenver 2023 we had a massive presence of volunteers and this really made the Rocket Pool both stand out. It worked as a big marketing initiative as the crowd around the both attracted lots of eyes and people asking questions always had someone willing to answer. We were able to show visitors a small sample of how amazing the RP community is. This proposal seems like a fair way to partially refund costs for community members at Denver as anyone who wanted to be a volunteer was accepted.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

Potential rETH investors at ETHDenver had a massive army of volunteers answering their questions.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

rETH investors at ETHDenver had a massive army of volunteers answering their questions.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

Potential Node Operators at ETHDenver had a massive army of volunteers answering their questions.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Node Operators at ETHDenver had a massive army of volunteers answering their questions.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

The volunteer army increased the visibility of the RP project and its community. Having this incentive to participate in an Ethereum conference would perhaps increase the number of community members in future conferences, improving the RP presence.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

The volunteer army increased the visibility of the RP project and its community, adding value to the RPL token.

Payment

How much RPL is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

According to the POAP we would have 45 recipients. I’m requesting $300 as a thank-you for each volunteer, for a total of $13.500 USD.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).

Many of the volunteers are members of the GMC, which would make the GMC vote very biased. A suggestion would be to run a pool on Discord to see how the community feels about this proposal and the GMC vote would follow the community sentiment.

fornax · 15 April 2023 13:30

Retrospective Award Application

Retrospective Award

Title

Smartnode contributions.

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

0xFornax

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

This proposal is to reward work done on the smartnode project from Jan-24 to Apr-14, consisting of 6 PRs (4 merged, 1 approved, and 1 under review).

The main goal was to help Joe focus his time on the most significant RP features while Fornax worked on smaller features, and implemented community requests.

The work includes the implementation to allow setting the ENS avatar for nodes (request by Peteris) and improving the security in the way the expose API/RPC port settings are done. This will help VPS users avoid exposing their system to the whole internet (requested by Patches). Also, Fornax actively searches and fixes bugs related to issues reported on #support and improvements to help lower the number of users requesting support. Also, maintenance to previous work was required as the Snapshot API had some breaking changes.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

The work is entirely open source.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

N/A

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

The work consisted of Smartnode new features and bug fixes improving the user experience for both new and current users and making the software more robust.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

The work consisted of Smartnode new features and bug fixes improving the user experience for both new and current users and making the software more robust.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

A robust software leads to an overall improved UX for the RP community. Having someone deal with community requests, identifying and fixing bugs reported by users helps them feel heard and included in the process.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

N/A

Payment

The applicant is suggesting $3,000 for this work.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).

Fornax is a member of the GMC and will not vote on this proposal.

epineph · 15 April 2023 19:18

Retrospective Award

Effective Governance Stipend

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

Community members participating in Rocket Pool governance through snapshot voting

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

20%: NOs, evenly split amongst those with at least one minipool who have designated a voting delegate prior to the calendar day that this application is posted OR have voted in at least one snapshot without setting a delegate (edited based on a better idea from feedback):

Reasoning: This simple act drastically increases the ability to participate in governance safely. Even if someone has never voted, this gives them the ability to vote at critical times/critical votes without putting their node at risk. If they have delegated to another individual who votes, then they have substantially decreased the sybil attack risk on the quadratic voting system.

65%: NOs, with reward apportioned based on the number of snapshot votes completed across all snapshots prior to this proposal

Reasoning: The process of keeping up to date with governance topics, weighing the options, and voting is time consuming. This award scales linearly with the number of times voted, rewarding those who have voted more frequently, and rewarding those who choose delegates who vote more frequently.

15%: Delegates, with rewards scaled with the share of voting power across all snapshots prior to this proposal

Reasoning: Without the delegate system we would likely not be meeting quorum on a regular basis. This part provides a small bonus to those who delegate to themselves rather than someone else, as this is the optimal form of democracy. It also rewards those delegates who have honored the trust placed in them and voted regularly. Lastly, it encourages more active participation in the early pre-snapshot parts of governance, as NOs choose delegates based on the qualities and engagement they see in discord, twitter, reddit etc.

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

There will be no code, but the calculations and spreadsheets will be auditable.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

see below

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

rETH security and profit is heavily tied to good governance. Currently there are training wheels from the team/odao making pDAO votes somewhat symbolic, but to advance as a project those training wheels will need to come off. Ineffective or malicious governance is perhaps the greatest threat to Rocket Pool, and having a thriving, decentralized governance system is a compelling reason to choose rETH over other protocols. For example, despite the lack of any rETH representation in the pDAO, the pDAO has voted for a decreased rETH commission with Atlas. pDAO also advances rETH demand through liquidity incentives.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

see below

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Those who have acted as delegates have helped give a voice to node operators who didn’t have the time, technical knowledge, english proficiency, or other reasons to vote. All those who voted helped determine multiple extremely beneficial programs (eg, this GMC which has approved Rescue Node payments; LEB8 protocol changes; IMC guided liquidity incentives which increase rETH demand) that have improved quality of life for node operators.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

A minority of NOs participate in governance, but their efforts channel the will of the Rocket Pool community (from #trading, etc) into actionable items, and are the official pathway to communicate community concerns to the team.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

RPL is a governance and utility token; ineffective governance (for example, through significant centralization seen in other protocols) devalues the first use. Malicious governance (for example, though sybil attacks) devalues the second use. Those individuals who have spent the time to contribute and made Rocket Pool an example of effective governance have directly contributed to the increased value of RPL for all holders.

Payment

How much RPL is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?

1500 RPL split amongst community members as stated above, sent to node wallets or delegated wallets by disperse.app. This amount was chosen at near the upper limit of individual retrospective grants from last round, but will be split amongst several hundred wallets. The average individual payout will likely be 2-3 RPL. I would prefer to not be a custodian of these funds before dispersal, and would recommend a trusted member of the community be chosen.

Additionally 5 RPL as a bounty to someone who can get me a .csv data dump of a few some critical metrics; i can crunch the numbers

I’ll pay for the disperse.app fees.

Because of the submission form, this grant mostly discusses why governance is important to Rocket Pool-hopefully this is hard to argue. Here, I'll add why I think voters should be reimbursed, which could be the more controversial take.

We should incentivize the behavior we want to see replicated
The GMC has been reimbursing individuals based on time spent, and it is time consuming to digest the pros and cons, and vote, on these various issues. This is evident because most snapshot polls only have ~20% of possible votes cast.
The web3 ethos suggests that the information consumers and content producers should be rewarded, rather than just a few thought leaders.
Increasing voting percentage exponentially increased the cost of sybil attacking; we have discussed various ways to combat sybil attacks and this is a relatively painless way to do it.
The vast majority of this award will go directly to node wallets; the path of least resistance is staking, which 1) increases the relative voting power of the more diligent governance members and 2) decreases the likelihood this RPL will be mass sold for fiat.
Hopefully this small thank you for effective governance will encourage others to join in the governance functions.

Could this have the effect of encouraging behavior we don't want replicated?

Definitely possible, but to me this is unlikely; this grant is retroactive with no planned future reimbursement announced, although it is likely I will write a different proposal next year; gaming it would be hard; additionally, the reward is not huge (most wallets may get a few RPL). The vast majority of reimbursement is agnostic as to whether someone votes themselves or chooses a delegate who votes, so it seems unlikely to encourage people to vote randomly for the sake of an airdrop.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts

I will be a recipient of some small amount as a voter and delegate for myself; however, after paying for the disperse.app i think the approval of this grant will likely be a net negative for me.

Some of the delegates are on the GMC, which may give them some conflict in the vote.

fornax · 15 April 2023 23:51

Retrospective Award Application

Retrospective Award

Fornax work on #support

Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?

0xFornax

What specific project or work is the retrospective award in recognition of? Please detail what the project or work entailed and the duration over which it took place.

This proposal relates to Fornax’s work in the Rocket Pool Discord’s support channel.
This work has taken place for close to 11 months that I have been helping the Rocket Pool community in support.

I like to use a metric to measure the quality of this work using the Discord search feature with the query “mentions: 0xFornax thank”, which brings people who directly answered to a Fornax message with a “thanks” or “thank you”. Not that this will not count all appreciation messages, but is a nice metric to compare to other support volunteers. At the time of writing 483 people directly thanked Fornax for his help.

Considering the total messages in support and the “thank you” messages, Fornax is one of the top contributors to the #support channel, behind Patches and objectObject.

At the time of writing

Are the subjects of this award entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Discord messages are public and everyone can benefit from past answers.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

Many users having issues trying to stake ETH received support from Fornax during those months.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders?

Many users having issues to unstake their rETH received support from Fornax during those months.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

A large number of users trying to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time received help on support.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

A large number of users already running a Rocket Pool node received help on support in a myriad of situations.

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community?

Fornax interacted with members of the community seeking help or asking questions. These actions helped RP

How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders?

Payment

This proposal was based on previous ones related to support work. In the past round, Patches had 30,427 messages in support and asked for 3k RPL. object, scaled his request based on his 6,783 messages, asking for a proportional 670 RPL.

Using the same logic, and considering at the time of writing Fornax has 4,605 messages in support, the proportional value would be 450 RPL.

All things considered, and applying a bit of a discount on the numbers above, the value being suggested is $15,000 USD for this work (~1,350 per month).

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons requesting the retrospective award have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if you have nominated a member of the GMC for this retrospective award).

Fornax is a member of the GMC and will not vote on this proposal.

ShfRyn · 16 April 2023 11:14

This message marks the closing of the second round of RP retrospective awards. Any applications submitted after this will not be considered for this round, but those individuals who are still interested in applying are encouraged to check back on the forums for our second round, likely starting July 1. The GMC will announce the award recipients in a new thread here on the forums on or before April 31 (likely on, not before). The community will then have two weeks to issue any challenges before funds are disbursed. Thank you to all who applied and thank you to everyone who has followed along. Anyone who would like to comment on existing applications is encouraged to do so in this thread.