Rocket Pool Support Payments #4 (June 2025 - November 2025)
Note: My additions to the original bounty content are marked for clarity, while the original text is retained for context.
General Information
What is the nature of the proposed bounty?
Provide support for questions posed by Rocket Pool community members in the # support discord channel; questions come largely from Node Operators and those hoping to be Node Operators.
Allowing prospective payments allows for both effective budgeting from the DAO, the possibility of increasing payments for critical time periods (for example, bonus payments to encourage more #support contributors around rocketpool v2, LEB rollout, or megapool transition), and quicker feedback to contributors for their efforts.
This is a continuation of the previously approved Support Payments #3 (Round 19 - GMC Call for Bounty Applications - Deadline is December 7 - #3 by epineph) submitted by Epineph.
Why are you writing this bounty proposal?
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I think #support has been one of the most important services offered by the RP community and deserves regular reimbursement. This is particularly true as we look towards scaling up and lowering bonds in :checksnotes: the next 8 months with the new NOs we are trying to onboard.
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I think prospective reimbursement is both easier to administer and more effective than a retrospective payment structure.
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I think the previous bounty period May-November shows that this type of bounty has not resulted in any large-scale negative effects in #support (eg bots or low quality contributions)
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(NEW) Support was initially provided by volunteers and not funded by the GMC, during a time when the protocol was thriving. Incentivizing similar levels of service today—while recognizing loyal contributors to the protocol and community—offers meaningful benefits.**
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(NEW) I am updating the costs section to account for the state of the treasury and the recent support activity.
Benefit
<please enter N/A where appropriate>
| Group | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Potential rETH holders | questions answered, although much of this is done in # general/# trading |
| rETH holders | Solving NO issues ultimately benefits rETH holders through less downtime and drag on APR, as well as facilitating the supply side of rETH |
| Potential NOs | Huge benefit, both for answering questions and for the assurance that should problems come up, there is an active support structure |
| NOs | see above |
| Community | The community provides support; this bounty will regularize payments. The payments will all go to community members. The folks who are active in # support are often active in other parts of the protocol that they are not reimbursed for |
| RPL holders | By creating a budget for # support, the payments will be more regular and we will not have as many unclaimed allocations weighing on our balance sheet |
Which other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals would stand to benefit from the bounty being successfully completed?
So it is likely that questions about Rocket Pool adjacent protocols (as examples, NodeSet or Dappnode) sometimes pop up in support, but almost always in the context of Rocket Pool nodes.
Work
What steps would be entailed in completing the bounty? Do successful examples of such work exist elsewhere? What skillsets or knowledge will be required?
Provide user support in the # support channel of discord, under the following terms:
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Provide at least 1 hour of work providing #support discord channel in EACH of the three months June - August 2025 or September - November 2025, as measured by RocketScrape; alternatively provide 15 hours TOTAL over each 3 month block.
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Within the first 3 days after a 3 month block ends a list of all potential awardees will be produced by GMC.
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A 10-day period will follow where any community member can publicly or privately notify the GMC that a potential awardee was not providing support (for example, was requesting support) or not providing quality support (for example, multiple ineffective messages/farming). Anyone offering # support can also petition to add their name to the list if they narrowly failed the initial inclusion criteria and can be included on a case-by-case basis.
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The GMC will investigate the # support record of any questioned potential awardee and weight contributions either 0%, 50%, or 100% based on posts on # support channel. The 50% level will be for users with approximately 25%-75% effective support messages. Potential awardees receiving 0% or 50% will be considered 0% or 50% for future # support bounties unless they specifically request and are granted re-evaluation.
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The “cost” below will be split proportionally amongst all awardees based on time spent as measure by RocketScrape and adjustments based on investigation in (5); payment will be done during the next GMC distribution phase.
Note: No further # support retroactive awards will be considered for this timeframe to # support contributors.
What advice would you give a bounty hunter working on this bounty?
The pot is a fixed amount. If there are people who are not actively helping or should not be providing # support, there should also be self-monitoring to ensure that high quality contributors are not diluted. This can be done on the back-end by GMC oversight, but self-policing is encouraged (if for no other reason than a better experience for support seekers).
- If farming becomes an issue then some degree of whitelisting (support guild) may be needed in the future.
Should the output of this bounty be available under an open source license?
N/A, although rocketscrape should continue to be open source.
Costs (UPDATED)
How much do you think the completion of this bounty worth to Rocket Pool (in USD)?
Previously, support was funded at $18,000 per 3-month period.
This effectively worked out to around $8.50 per hour for 24/7 coverage.
Hourly Costs Over Time
| Period | Hourly Cost | Total Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Bounty 1 | $ 100.31 | 179.45 |
| Bounty 2 | $ 88.73 | 202.86 |
| Bounty 3 | $ 122.82 | 146.55 |
Source: Support Bounty Breakdown - Google Sheets
I’ve revised this proposal with the following considerations:
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The GMC is actively pursuing cost-saving measures.
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$18,000 is no longer a suitable benchmark given the reduced level of support activity.
I recommend a new cap of $15,000 per 3-month period. (This proposal covers two three-month periods)
In the most recent support period, contributors submitted 146 hours.
To create a more activity-aligned model, I propose using the formula:
$1,000 × √(total support hours)
For example:
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At 144 hours submitted, the payout would be $12,000.
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At 100 hours, the payout would be $10,000.
This approach helps ensure compensation scales appropriately with actual activity and avoids overpaying during low-volume periods.
How much work will be needed to verify this bounty has been completed? What skillsets or knowledge will be required?
- RocketScrape
- GMC investigation by reading support messages of people identified as not offering quality support.
- Math
Structure
How would you structure this bounty, and why?
Payments portionally split amongst all awardees based on adjusted hours worked per RocketScrape, as listed above.
Is this bounty repeatable?
The goal is to provide reimbursement for ongoing support. There are other ways to pay contributors prospectively, and it may be that other better systems are proposed. I think this systems is very low overhead and ‘good enough’. The specific amount is always open to negotiation from GMC.
Are there any reasonable circumstances under which this bounty should be withdrawn? Should it expire?
Only good for the 6 months in question. It should be withdrawn if there is significant evidence of gaming. It can be withdrawn effective immediately based on GMC request; in this case prorated awards would be calculated up to the withdrawal date.
Conflicts of Interest
Does the person or persons proposing the bounty have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the successful completion of the bounty).
I am the GMC administrator.
Steely, a member of the GMC, has received compensation from previous support bounties.
I consulted haloooloolo, an active member in the support community on the logistics and pricing of this bounty. Epineph proposed an alternative payout calculation here - Discord
Will the applicant, or any protocol or project in which the applicant has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the bounty is successfully completed?
No