Round 33 - GMC Call for Bounty Applications - Deadline is February 7

Grants / Bounties
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This thread is for applications for Rocket Pool’s January 7, 2026 - February 7, 2026 bounties. Please only post bounty 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 February 7, 2026 at 23:59 (11:59 PM) UTC will be considered. Any bounties posted after that deadline will be carried over to the next award period.

This is the expected schedule for round 33:

  • Application Period (January 7 - February 7)
  • Scoring Deadline (February 17)
  • Final Voting Amendments, Discussion and Finalization (February 18 - February 21)
  • Award Announcement (February 22)
Differences Between Grants and Bounties Grants are intended to be applied for by those who are wishing to carry out the work themselves. Bounties are open-ended goals that could be met by anyone, including those other than the proposing party. In other words, if I believed that Rocket Pool needed a fifty-foot paper mache orange rocket for publicity purposes and I wanted to be the one to built it, I would apply for a grant. If I instead thought Rocket Pool needed a fifty-foot paper mache orange rocket for publicity purposes but I wanted it to be open to whoever built it first to claim the reward (similar to a prize), then I’d apply for a bounty.

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.

Bounties Rubric

When evaluating grant applications, the GMC takes into account the following goals:

  • If the bounty is completed successfully, to what extent does it further the GMC goals?

  • To what extent is it likely that the bounty can be feasibly claimed/completed successfully?

  • If the bounty is successfully completed, how large is the benefit to the protocol relative to the size of the proposed costs?

Bounty Proposal Template

Guidelines

  • The goals of the Bounty Proposal are:
    • to communicate your bounty idea clearly, in general terms, such that the GMC can decide if it’s worth pursuing.
    • to estimate the benefits and costs attached to your proposal.
    • to disclose any relevant conflicts of interest.
  • Answers to the template questions do not need to be highly detailed. Estimates or ranges are acceptable. Brief answers are also fine.

Template

# Bounty Name

## General Information

### What is the nature of the proposed bounty?

### Why are you writing this bounty proposal?


## Benefit

<please enter N/A where appropriate>

| Group | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Potential rETH holders | If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH? |
| rETH holders | If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help rETH holders? |
| Potential NOs |  If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time? |
| NOs | If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node? |
| Community |  If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help the Rocket Pool community? |
| RPL holders |  If the bounty is successfully completed, how does this help RPL holders? |

### Which other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals would stand to benefit from the bounty being successfully completed?



## 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?

### What advice would you give a bounty hunter working on this bounty?

### Should the output of this bounty be available under an open source license?



## Costs

### How much do you think the completion of this bounty worth to Rocket Pool (in USD)?

### How much work will be needed to verify this bounty has been completed? What skillsets or knowledge will be required?


## Structure

### How would you structure this bounty, and why? 
* A single payout to single team on completion? 
* Divided into milestones? 
* Multiple payouts to multiple teams? 
* Should this be written up as multiple bounty definitions?
* Something else?

### Is this bounty repeatable?

### Are there any reasonable circumstances under which this bounty should be withdrawn? Should it expire?


## 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).

### 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?

Bounty Definition Template

Guidelines

  • When a single proposal bounty proposal has parts that must be completed by different groups, it should become multiple definitions.
  • Where reasonably possible, bountiy definitions should limit the number of distinct skillsets required for completion of the bounty.
  • Bounties should be defined in terms of the smallest worthwhile unit of work. IE: $25 to add/update a single relevant FAQ question rather than $5,000 to update the FAQ.
  • Include any information or resources that might reasonably help a bounty hunter complete the bounty.
  • Think carefully about which tasks are required, and which can be optional.
  • Clearly list any dependencies, if the bounty cannot be completed in all circumstances.
  • Only include multiple milestones for large bounties with natural points of division.

Template

# Bounty Name 

## Data
* Repeatable?
* Expiring?
* Skillsets for completion? (See existing bounties and reuse where possible, new skillsets are recommended if sufficiently distinct)
* Relevant tags? (See existing bounties and reuse where possible, new tags are recommended if sufficiently distinct)
* Min reward (USD)?
* Max reward (USD)?
* Any linked definitions? (e.g. if a single bounty proposal becomes multiple definitions.)
* Any dependencies? 

## Summary 
Short 1-3 sentences describing the bounty.

## Dependencies
Is there anything that must happen (outside of a bounty hunter's control) before it is possible to complete this bounty? This may be other bounties that must be completed first, an upcoming event or change or a regular occurance that triggers a valid bounty. This section is optional. May be later removed from the definition if the dependency becomes permanently met. 

## Required Milestones
What _must_ be completed for a bounty hunter to claim some amount of bounty. Described per milestone.

### Milestone A - <Name of Milestone>
**Payout: ** <payout amount>
Clear bulleted list or subheadings covering the items that must be completed and/or adhered to for this milestone to be valid.

### Milestone B - <Name of Milestone>
**Payout: ** <payout amount>
Clear bulleted list or subheadings covering the items that must be completed and/or adhered to for this milestone to be valid.

### Milestone C - <Name of Milestone>...

## Optional Milestones
What tasks _may_ be completed for a bounty hunter to earn extra bounty rewards. Described per milestone. This section is optional.

Optional milestones may be less strictly defined than required milestones. You may aggregate multiple minor considerations that would contribute to a payout. 

### Milestone D - <Name of Milestone>
**Maximum Payout: ** <maximum payout amount>
Clear bulleted list of the items that would contribute to payout for this milestone.

### Milestone E - <Name of Milestone>...


## Further Notes
Anything you think that would be beneficial for a bounty hunter to know when working on this bounty. Maybe be divided into subsections as needed.

## Resources
Links to repositories, web pages, forum discussions, etc. Anything that the bounty hunter may be able to use to do a better job on the bounty work. 

## Contacts
Individuals that have agreed to act as contacts for this bounty. Include usernames + contact details for any platform on which the contact is willing to respond to requests. Any contacts are expected to fully understand the bounty definition. This section is optional. 

Contacts:
* MAY be eligible for incentives.
* SHOULD NOT assist the bounty hunter directly with the bounty work.
* SHOULD assist bounty hunters via feedback, direction and oversight upon request.

## Verification
Who is expected to verify that the work delivered meets the relevant milestones? This person or group must have agreed to do this in advance of this definition being published. This person or group should have any relevant skillsets needed to properly verify the bounty work.
2

Support Payments #6 (March 2026 - May 2026)

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 #5

Why are you writing this bounty proposal?

I believe responsive, public, node operator support at this level is one of the major differentiators for RP compared to other protocols and it makes sense to compensate people for providing that service. This 3-month period specifically is expected to encompass the Fusaka hard fork and the Saturn 1 launch, both of which are likely to significantly increase support activity.

Benefit

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 regularizes 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?

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:

  1. Provide at least 1 hour of work providing #support discord channel in EACH of the three months March 2026 - May 2026, as measured by RocketScrape; alternatively provide 15 hours TOTAL over the 3 month block.

  2. Within the first 3 days after a 3 month block ends, a list of all potential awardees will be produced by GMC.

  3. 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 for a name to be added to the list if they narrowly failed the initial inclusion criteria and can be included on a case-by-case basis.

  4. 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.

  5. The “cost” below will be split proportionally amongst all awardees based on time spent as measured by RocketScrape and adjustments based on investigation; payment will be done during the next GMC distribution phase.

What advice would you give a bounty hunter working on this bounty?

The pot scales sub linearly with total time. 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 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

How much do you think the completion of this bounty worth to Rocket Pool (in USD)?

In the previous round, support was funded at a maximum of $10,000 per 3-month period, down from $18,000. Given the difficult treasury situation and lower activity as of late, continuing at this reduced level of funding seems appropriate.

The formula for total payout should stay the same at `min($1000 × √(total support hours), $10000)`.

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 proportionally split amongst all awardees based on adjusted hours worked according to 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 system 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 3 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).

Steely, a member of the GMC, haloooloolo and myself have been major contributors to this grant.

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?

I will likely be one of the major contributors.