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.
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We should incentivize the behavior we want to see replicated
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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.
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The web3 ethos suggests that the information consumers and content producers should be rewarded, rather than just a few thought leaders.
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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.
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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.
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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.