In order to keep the application threads clear of discussions (to make it easier for committee members to read and score them), please use this thread for any and all questions and discussions of round 13 period of grant, bounty, and retrospective award applications.
Couple of thoughts on the tokenomics related grants / retros.
Milestones
The milestones are slightly unclear. The acceptance criteria is successfully ratified RPIPs, however there are two milestones for Saturn 1 and Saturn 2 upgrades. The current plan is to vote all these RPIPs at once, meaning both milestones resolve simultaneously and may as well be combined.
Compensation Split on Core Group Grant
Iām unsure if Valveās stack rank is suitable for figuring out compensation split for this. It was designed for a different use-case (on-going comp in a much larger group with frequent re-evaluations, work in a different field, etc.) Personally, I would prefer to do something like:
- Chat with the core contributors and make sure everyone knows what everyone has contributed.
- Attempt to find common-ground on a split - So far there are 5 core contributors, feels like its still possible to have this conversation with 5 people.
- If #2 canāt resolve to a single split, see if an average of the positions is agreeable to all.
- Otherwise if this canāt be resolved amicably, use stack rank, ask a neutral party, or something similar.
TL;DR, weāre hopefully mature enough to just handle this like grown ups. Iād prefer to at least try that before trying to use a system that wasnāt designed for this that Iām unfamiliar with.
Core Contributors versus Other Contributors
Caveat that I came in fairly late, so I may just be flat out wrong on the particulars here. Arguably some of this would also benefit me, so I guess keep that in mind as you read through as well.
It looks like the core of this effort from the start has been @Valdorff and @Samus, with myself having also started to take that role much more recently.
I think messages in discord is a good measure of engagement, debate, and feedback, which are all important, but I think that ultimately the core contributors are the people that consistently push and ensure progress is made.
So, I would probably split along those lines.
- Core: Val, Samus, me.
- Other: Everyone else.
If three core members is uncomfortably small given the voting requirements, you could give the GMC two votes as well.
However, it also looks like @sckuzzle, @knoshua and @epineph (potentially others as well) have contributed more than $4kās worth of effort in the past, and I donāt want people to contribute less because theyāre not in the core group. So I would also rebalance the grants (slightly less to core, slightly more to other), and increase the highest possible tiers in the āotherā grant significantly (20k+), with the caveat that the bar to reach these is very high.
I would also change the structure here so that the core contributors donāt have a big disincentive to vote in other core contributors (currently it reduces any comp they will get.) The more people we have pushing and ensuring progress the better (up to maybe 5, not sure, depends on available time, etc.) Potentially: āCore grant payout increases by total / current members amount when a member is voted in up to a maximum of x membersā, or even just āthe GMC is willing to adjust the total pot here if the number of core contributors changesā.
The end result should be that the core members are taking on the burden of ācoordinate, direct, review, and make sure stuff happensā, but that there is room for contributors that donāt want this burden to still contribute significantly in areas that suit them and be funded appropriately.
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My main intention was to break it up so thereās not a huge gap where the contributors go unpaid. Is there a sense of time until project completion relative to time already spent?
TL;DR, weāre hopefully mature enough to just handle this like grown ups. Iād prefer to at least try that before trying to use a system that wasnāt designed for this that Iām unfamiliar with.
From what Iāve gathered, the contributors are keen on a system in place where individual contributions are compensated fairly. Iād suggest the contributors choose which system is used in the first month or so of the grantās acceptance with a vote, that way thereās no confusion at the end.
However, it also looks like @sckuzzle, @knoshua and @epineph (potentially others as well) have contributed more than $4kās worth of effort in the past, and I donāt want people to contribute less because theyāre not in the core group. So I would also rebalance the grants (slightly less to core, slightly more to other), and increase the highest possible tiers in the āotherā grant significantly (20k+), with the caveat that the bar to reach these is very high.
Yeah my suggestion only works under the assumption that the core will contribute far greater than the other contributors. We could add tiers for people who plan to contribute at a much higher rate than the average joe, but at that point shouldnāt they just be added to core for efficiency?
I would also change the structure here so that the core contributors donāt have a big disincentive to vote in other core contributors (currently it reduces any comp they will get.)
I agree this is a huge weakness, and adding a maximum number of contributors might be one of the most straightforward solutions.
1 Like
Grants
Expand BA082402 Non-Custodial Staking Grant to include one more team
I support the idea of opening it up for more teams. As Iāve said before, redundancy and friendly competition are good.
But itās a bit sus that itās anonymous. Not sure why they are getting special treatment. I am not liking the precedent this sets. I say no unless itās revealed who they are.
Tokenomics Rework Grant (Core Contributors)
When this goes live it will prove that Rocket Pool is a true DAO. Retokenomics comes from the community (and not the team) and is driven by volunteers. They deserve to be rewarded generously.
No idea how to classify whoās a core contributor, how to split the compensation or what the milestones should be but the proposed solution seems good enough. I donāt care how they get paid as long as they get rewarded well and fairly.
Pay them. Double it, triple it.
Tokenomics Rework Grant (Other Contributors)
Same as above. I support it. I like the idea of separating core and other contributors. Tiers seem reasonable.
Rocketlend
Ideally such protocols are self-sufficient and can fund themselves e.g. by having a fee. But in that case it makes no sense to subsidize such protocols because they will be earning fees. Unless the GMC becomes like an investor and gets a cut of the fee or equity for providing the initial funding.
I like the idea of Rocketlend and would like to see it implemented. Because itās Rocket Pool specific and also because it comes from a prolific community contributor.
I think the GMC at the very least should fund the audits. Ramana made Rocketarb easily accessible to everyone and node operators made hundreds of ETH in profit. Ramana could have kept it private. We owe it to Ramana to at least fund the audits which is a significant upfront cost.
If all expenses get funded by the GMC the GMC should get all profit from the project (or make it free). Otherwise the GMC could just pay for the audits and Ramana could take all risk but keep all fees. Or something inbetween.
RocketPool & Gitcoin: Grants for Growth
No.
Marketing Rocket Pool through educational videos paired with incentive programs in Unitap
We already have Rocket Pool School, Rocket Pool University, Bankless educational videos. Adding more is diminishing returns.
Also the example raffles are for a project in its infancy not a mature project (e.g. 5 RPL raffles for node operators). On the other hand, the team and their previous projects seem reputable.
Do not fund this.
Dappnode Rocket Pool package UI/UX improvement
They are requesting 32 ETH or $121k for this incl. $24k for documentation and support and $12k for testing. This is very expensive compared to how much the GMC funds other projects and given that Dappnode makes money from their products.
Dappnode seems to be popular with non-technical node operators and many are drawn to it. Thereās already an unofficial Rocket Pool Dappnode package but itās very shitty and has created a lot of headaches for node operators and the protocol (e.g. dissolved minipools). Itād be good to fix it. On the other hand, giving $121k which would be the most the GMC has every paid to a project thatās given us so many headaches does not seem fair.
Donāt fund it unless the cost is dramatically reduced. Given the bad reputation of Dappnode I think itās best if they apply for a retroactive award instead.
Retros
Patches āoptimisticā work prior to May 12
kurtosis work should only be paid when itās finished i.e. when itās actually used and proven to be useful. Based on the description I donāt see that. Also weirdly in Coda itās 36h while in the retro itās 39h.
Other stuff looks good. Double it, triple it.
Tokenomics Rework Retro
Pay them.
Contract Verification with Guides
Double it, triple it. Obviously Iām biased.
leighm.eth May 2024 Support Hours
Seems reasonable.
4 Likes
Bounties
This is pretty saddening ā no bounty applications.
Grants
Expand BA082402 (Non-Custodial Staking Grant) to include one more team
Tokenomics Rework Grant (Core Contributors)
Obviously massive conflict, so Iāll comment more on the structure than the price point.
I like that it structures it as āhereās how much core contribution is worth to the DAOā. Core contributors have been quite supportive of each other, so I believe they will be willing to add others and reasonably give credit when stack ranking. There are obvious vulnerabilities, but I hope this method can show itās worthwhile.
Tokenomics Rework Grant (Other Contributors)
Some moderate conflict since Iād be a core contributor getting to give extra feedback. I quite like the mix of rocketscrape for ease and human attention for tweaking and robustness to gaming. I like the fairly significant max budget with no requirement to burn it all. I like that the lowest tier is quite low, allowing for broad acknowledgement.
RocketPool & Gitcoin: Grants for Growth
Unless thereās external funds, this seems to offer little value add. We already have a system for funding retroactive grants. We also even already have a system for voicing opinions about things with quadratically scaled votes (should we want that). This seems like worse than options already available and weād get charged for it.
Rocketlend
My core question is: why will this get folks that wonāt use myso/aave? Ie, whatās the evidence of significant addressable market. I believe the answer needs to be that the capital efficiency from not having collateral (even if that is an LST) makes the difference. But from real world experience, Myso has had almost no uptake ā ie, folks are hesitant based on something other than pure price. At a guess, itās primarily that itās not a very well-known protocol and secondarily the modest challenge to get started (folks donāt have offers pre-posted, though they could).
I think itās worth comparing to Myso (since thatās also fixed term and fixed price) to get a numerical value here. According to /current_no_apr and /current_reth_apr, LEB8s are making 5.04% and rETH is making 2.86%. Weāll use 10% as RPL apy. As our example case, letās consider someone with 16 ETH doing one of: 2 LEB8s using rocketlend, or 1 LEB8 using the rest for rETH collateral in myso, or holding rETH. The rocketlend user will earn 16*.0504 + 4.8*.1 = 1.2864 ETH. The myso user will earn 8*.0504 + 8*.0286 + 2.4*.1 = 0.872 ETH. Finally, a pure rETH holder would earn 16*.0286 = 0.4576 ETH. Essentially the claim is that the bonus 0.41 ETH wasnāt enough to pay a fee and cover the NOās perceived risk/effort, but a bonus 0.83 ETH will be.
My suggestion? Offer a 0.42 ETH incentive to the first 5 (or 10) people that do the Myso thing (at the end of the year, assuming they kept that amount of RPL staked). If we see strong interest, then that means we have a real market. If not, then I donāt think rocketlend makes sense.
Marketing Rocket Pool through educational videos paired with incentive programs in Unitap
Itās not clear to me that weāre lacking in this (we have already funded a number of education initiatives). Itās not clear that the poster has a significant understanding of RP that could be translated to providing clarity when educating.
Dappnode RocketPoll package UI/UX improvement
The price is, frankly, unhinged. āWe are requesting a total of $227053.92 USD (32 ETH)ā. More than 2 months of the entire GMC budget. On the other hand, I would like to sell them ETH for over $7k if thatās their going rate.
The post itself is ridiculous. Formatting is incredibly broken and haphazard, rocket pool is spelled 3 different ways, including āpollā in the title, almost 2x wrong in pricing of ETH. Honestly a little insulting to get something like this presented by a team whoās main contribution would be clear UX and thatās asking for nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
Now letās talk support, which they use as a selling point.
- https://discourse.dappnode.io/t/rocketpool-dappnode/2279/2. No response whatsoever.
- Another case https://discourse.dappnode.io/t/rocketpool-package-not-working/2043/3. No response, and luckily the user figured it out.
- 539 mentions of dappnode on our discord support with quotables like āits dappnode after all so all bets are off!ā and āDonāt run rocketpool on dappnodeā
Frankly, I tend to agree with https://discourse.dappnode.io/t/rocketpool-package-should-be-removed/2063. From where I stand, it appears to create negative value. A massive spend culminating in unspecified maintenance (team continuously searches for improvement and something about open sourceā¦ which should already apply) makes little sense.
Retrospective Awards
Patches āoptimisticā work prior to May 12
Seems sensible. Pay and consider a minor little bonus for working ahead of certainty and taking on that personal risk.
Tokenomics Rework Retro
Conflict of interest, so gonna not opine.
Contract Verification with Guides
I wrote this, so no surprise I think we should pay it.
The price point is interesting here. On the one hand, the work is moderate. On another hand, the value is immense. The writing is extremely good at guiding folks, and nobody else took this important task up (including oDAO members or the team) (while the team do provide a tool, the point is partly to confirm that the team didnāt change anything, so trusting their tool is flawed; they do not walk through verifying things without their tool). If the GMC wanted to reward significantly harder, they have my blessing 
May 2024 Support Hours
I think this essentially backpropagates the awards from the forward looking grant? Makes sense to me. Iād suggest paying out all contributors, not specifically leighm and waiting for more retros.
[edited 6/7 to add the 2 last grant applications that were made after my post]
3 Likes
Iām not sure how I copied it wrong, but it doesnāt impact the final amount, which comes directly from coda.
Hello!
For whatever itās worth, I think Epinephs reasoning is the most sound on all points, although I do agree with Valdorffs reasoning when it comes to Rocketlend, although I would need to understand more about why the tool is useful in comparison to something like myso.
If Rocketlend is useful I think it makes sense to fund the work that goes into it & use the fees inside of the Rocketpool ecosystem.
Looking for Wisdoms methodology regarding pay sounds just fine (work it out amongst yourselves and use a third party(s) to navigate any ties or conflict). I completely agree that folks like Epineph, Sckuzzle, and Knoshua should be considered when itās time to reward this work.
This looks like a management layer / structure on top of grants / bounties. I donāt think the DAO has a volume/management issues.
Rocketlend
Would this still make sense in a world with ETH-only minipools?
Suggest them doing something small and doing a retroactive to assess quality.
Doesnāt look professional, especially given the large ask.
Disclosure: Iām in the āother contributorā category (tbd!).
Structure LGTM. Most important is to start recognizing contributions now, not later, so folks donāt burn out, especially valdorff, samus and lfw.
You do godās work in there @leighm.eth. Glad thereās an official program now.
RE: Bounties, all of these threads should reference https://rpbountyboard.com/ or the āofficial backing storeā. Iāve had trouble finding them before ā maybe because I wasnāt clear of the difference between grants and bounties.
1 Like
Re whether Rocketlend makes sense for ETH-only mini/mega-pools: the answer is Yes as long as there is still a reason to have staked RPL. My understanding is that in the revised tokenomics plans, there is a reason to stake RPL: for increased yield (the voter share of RP revenue), and for voting power. There may be other reasons. Rocketlend is neutral on where the demand for staked RPL comes from.
I am the one responsible for the application "Dappnode Rocket Pool package UI/UX improvement". Iām deeply sorry and would like to apologize to the Rocket Pool community for the bad writing and to Dappnode for posting it without their approval. Unfortunately, my account was blocked and I had to create a new one that put my post on hold, I wasnāt fully aware that the post was approved until this morning.
Iād like to ask to withdraw this proposal since applying was a human error on my side and the fact that it was not fully revised and approved by Dappnodeās team.
Please know that the mistakes on this proposal are human and personal mistakes from my side and are not a reflection of Dappnodeās relationship with Rocket Pool
6 Likes
Expand BA082402 (Non-Custodial Staking Grant) to include one more team
Expanding this is fine. But I tend to think the anonymity of the recipient is problematic. We shouldnāt be doing awards to folks that are completely unidentified here. If the PDAO has concerns about alignment or capability, the PDAO would have to take the GMCās word for it. Thatās not great.
Tokenomics Rework Grant (Both proposals)
Good.
RocketPool & Gitcoin: Grants for Growth
The cost is wayyy too high and there seems to be a basic misalignment when Gitcoin sees these grant applications as a customer acquisition process. No.
Rocketlend
Given the low to no uptake on Myso loans, I get Valās skepicism. But I donāt think that this is a good indication of no demand for borrowing (or lending). Thereās 427K RPL currently borrowed on Aave and cursory look through the top 15 borrowers shows almost all of them have their borrowed RPL staked. And, given the interest paid to yield earned spread at the moment, itās not hard to see why - collaterallized nodes between 10-15% are getting 10+% apy while paying an average of 5.7%. As long as Aave presents that good of a deal, tying up non-node capital in the rigid, fixed term loan structure that Myso offers isnāt all that great.
With Rocketlend - the operator can use their plain eth capital that they want to stake anyways as collateral, and they donāt need to possibly take a taxable event putting some of that into an LST to use as collateral, and they maintain control over the node operation of their staked eth. Not to mention - a decent chunk of the market would likely be current operators who are below 10% RPL collateral and want to top up without having to exit anything to take a loan. Rocketlend also allows basically a 1:1 loan to collateral ratio. 2.4 Eth of node eth can borrow 2.4 eth worth of RPL. The maximum debt limit is currently specced at 100% (and this is likely too high), but not having to be overcollateralized to borrow also improves capital efficiency.
Thatās not so say this proposal doesnāt have issues.
- I want to see Ramana well compensated here, but the protocol fee seems like a big source of complication overhead to figure out how to use it and keep things fair. Not to mention it potentially puts the Rocketlend admin(s) at some legal risk.
- Lenders will have to take a decent amount more risk without forced exits. That said - with Saturn coming and the intention to discontinue RPL rewards to node operators and no voter share to legacy minipools, there is a time limit to how long lenders might have to wait to get repaid.
- Having a single contract as the withdrawal address for potentially a large number of nodes is scary. The audit(s) need to be very, very thorough.
- Enabling more lending on RPL to stake is a double edged sword. It can get and keep operators in the protocol. But as weāve seen with Aave - it can mean even less buy pressure from folks topping up.
- More lending built on top of RPL staking also makes it easier to build tokenized staked RPL products, which is a double edged sword as well.
Unitap Marketing
Weāve already done a decent amount of educational spending. The audience seems small for the spend.
Dappnode Rocketpool package improvement
In addition to whatās been said by others - the V2 smartnode is going to offer a lot of new UI integration opportunities that the GMC could support. Thereās not a huge reason to try to spend a lot towards an integration that has a history and record of not supporting itās users well.
Patchesā work
Yes.
Upgrade Contract Verification
Yes. Double it.
Tokenomic retro
I seem to be on this list. So, yes. I strongly approve of money that might come in my direction.
May support
Yes. Iād suggest doing a full review on everyoneās contributions in support though.
4 Likes
Grants
-
Expand BA082402 Non-Custodial Staking As A Service - No, please modify
Complete anonymity to pDAO will set a problematic standard that may lead to conflicts of interest down the road. Would support if modified away from complete anonymous. -
Tokenomics Rework Grant (Core Contributors) - Yes + modify
Grant payment level is low, please add a bonus structure based on rETH and NO growth 6 months after full implementation. -
Tokenomics Rework Grant (Other Contributors) - Yes
-
RocketPool & Gitcoin: Grants for Growth - No
Thank you shudog2162 for the proposal. The added complexity for a relatively narrow prospective fund raising audience is just not a great fit for this community commons. -
Rocketlend - I donāt know
-
Unitap - No
Timing is off with upcoming protocol changes which is a large misalignment to start. I did not delve further and would be concerned about a future proposal from Unitap. -
Dappnode Rocket Pool package UI/UX improvement - No
Thank you Suanex1 for clarifying and removing the proposal. Unfortunately Dappnode has provided little support or care to existing customers using the current integration and show no signs of change. This is an ongoing product and service issue that should be addressed by Dappnode as it devalues their own product.
Bounty
Retrospective
-
Patches - Yes
-
Tokenomics Rework Retro - Yes but prefer peer-rating
Concerned about using message count as metrics as this may increase noise. -
Contract Verification with Guides - Yes
Fills a gap and is greatly appreciated. -
leighm.eth May 2024 Support Hours - Yes
1 Like
I think there are several flavours of contributor, for the sake of clarity Iāll try to define them below:
- Core Contributors - The people coordinating efforts, pushing things forward and making sure progress is made. Often also strong contributors. Always has time, sometimes also expertise. Worth funding heavily because otherwise everything takes far longer than it should for lack of coordination.
- Strong Contributors - Have both time and expertise, and can contribute strongly to a specific area, however, have little desire to manage the big picture or drive things forward. Worth funding heavily due to expertise and ability to complete individual items.
- Limited Contributors - Limited in either time or expertise. Are able to contribute to one area intermittently, or to lots of areas at a surface level. Still useful and worth funding, this is how we make sure the rework takes into account the most feedback and perspectives.
I believe the current setup conflates Strong Contributors with Core Contributors, I think this is a mistake, because those are different roles and it will add to contention later if there is a single pot to be split between them, because each type of contributor values certain actions over others.
The essence of my suggestion is to instead conflate Strong and Limited in the āOtherā grant, and adjust it to better fit both of those types (larger pot and wider tiers.)
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