This thread is for applications for Rocket Pool’s August 7, 2025 - September 7, 2025 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 grant applications that are posted in this thread and timestamped by September 7, 2025 at 23:59 (11:59 PM) UTC will be considered. Any retrospective award applications posted after that deadline will be carried over to the next award period.
This is the expected schedule for round 28:
Application Period (August 7 - September 7)
Scoring Deadline (September 23)
Final Voting Amendments, Discussion and Finalization (September 23 - September 27)
Award Announcement (September 28)
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
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 Template
Please copy paste the template below into a reply. Answer the questions there, feel free to remove or add sections based on relevance.
## Name of 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?
## Benefit
<please enter N/A where appropriate>
| Group | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Potential rETH holders | How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people looking to stake ETH for rETH? |
| rETH holders | How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help rETH holders? |
| Potential NOs | 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? |
| NOs | How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given help people already running a Rocket Pool node? |
| Community | How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help the Rocket Pool community? |
| RPL holders | How did the project or work for which the retrospective award would be given how does this help RPL holders? |
## Costs
### How much USD $ 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).
Who is the proposed retrospective award recipient?
Token Motion
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 to award 1 month of funding that was done at the completion of the Token Motion Design Subscription (GA182405) grant. The original grant application can be found here.
The original grant ended on August 13. However, Token Motion worked for an additional month (August 13 - September 13). There were several high priority projects / items underway and the additional month helped get some of these projects across the finish line.
Two examples of high priority projects completed during this period include the branding refresh and a 30-second advertisement video for rETH.
Ideally this should have been submitted as a renewal grant in advance. However, I failed to remind the applicant in a timely manner, and there were so many projects underway the grantee likely forgot as well.
There was no shortage of work for Token Motion during the entirety of the grant, and the grantee was kept very busy especially by the committee and even the core Rocket Pool team.
A renewal grant is being submitted this period to cover a six-month period.
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?
By default, designs will be CC BY, unless a design requires something different (e.g. logo or using another org’s logo for co-marketing)
Benefit
I’ve added a few potential design deliverables to each group - but ultimately the direction and focus of what gets produced would be GMC/Team/community led.
Group
Benefits
Potential rETH holders
If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH? Engaging visuals to help attract potential rETH holders. Maybe a series of walkthroughs on minting via RP website/buying rETH on selected secondary markets. Maybe an animated explainer on the Deposit pool mechanism. Maybe infographics on the decentralization of rETH compared to other LSTs.
rETH holders
If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help rETH holders? Infographics on rETH supply stats, commission explainers, maybe a ui for yield calculation.
Potential NOs
Lots of NO’s required, could benefit from onboarding explainers, visual aids in the official documentation, community enticement through sharing user experience videos.
NOs
If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node? Could make ui design improvements, explain upgrades via visuals, demonstrate features, help series.
Community
If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help the Rocket Pool community? Community gets a voice in the creation of media. Can crowd source effective visuals from other protocols and replicate for RP, offer an opportunity for big brains to have their writing enhanced with professional tier graphics. Could raise the collective presentation of community research. Could help brand important GMC funded projects.
RPL holders
If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help RPL holders? RPL holders may benefit from educational content on Defi integrations, TAX explainers, tweet threads on RPL utility post-Saturn, constant stream of visual media to retain confidence in token, etc.
Costs
How much USD $ is the applicant requesting be awarded to the recipient?
$2,797.20
This equates to an additional month of funding following the payout rate of the original awarded grant.
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).
I’m the GMC administrator and am submitting this on behalf of a community member whose project has been instrumental to the committee’s monthly operations.
Notice: This message marks the closing of the twenty eighth (28) round of Rocket Pool retro applications. Any applications submitted after this will not be considered for this round. The GMC will announce the award recipients in a new thread here on the forums around September 26. 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.