I really like the proposal, and I agree that it can help address issues related to meeting quorum and other gov challenges. However, in line with @bitblondy’s comment, we need to determine if the suggested numbers are feasible.
I’m curious if there’s a maximum number of tokens that the foundation has allocated for supporting these types of strategies? Perhaps you know @addie ?
Also, tbh I’m a bit unsure if I fully understand the formula you suggest @jengajojo. Could you please provide an example?
While it’s great that the foundation is empowering delegates, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s very costly for token holders to lock and delegate. Extremely costly!
This might be a topic for a separate proposal, but it would be interesting to explore ways to empower token holders to lock and delegate. Maybe something similar to what we did with gas fee rebates.
The incentive for token holders is already in place; we just need to lower the barrier for participation. It’s a win-win situation.
First off, this is a very positive discussion to kick start. Thank you, jenga!
I love the idea of empowering active delegates with more delegation. I also resonate with bitblondy and jaf’s comment on providing more clarity to the calculation.
However, what I am truly interested in seeing after the call on Tuesday is an implementation of this in parallel with the methodology (delegates incentives) adopted towards the end of cohort one. Jana did mention a cap allocated for these initiatives so I would be in favor of a 60-40/50-50 split to keep things in check.
To elaborate, let’s take the cap for this initiative to be 100k $veRARI. A 60-40 split would mean that the delegate incentive campaign (or something similar to what was done with cohort one) will receive 60k $veRARI while the empowering active delegates initiative makes up the remaining 40k $veRARI.
I am generally in favor with this proposal because I personally think the incentives program run for cohort one was not as effective as we aimed. It would be fun to try out new ways to empower active delegates and I would be glad to support this fully once some clarity comes to the calculations.
I want to highlight this part from @bitblondy. By rewarding volunteer work and contributions from these delegates, we can further strengthen the bonds within the Rari DAO. Given that the Cohort program provides a ‘fictional’ asset that is not owned by the delegates and disappears after a few months, I think rewarding active delegates with real $RARI will lay a strong foundation for the future. This approach will enable these individuals to participate in governance regardless of their financial situation, as it is currently quite expensive to participate.
Additionally, there is a draft created by @jengajojo a few months ago that clearly defines the criteria for ‘active’ delegates and how to reward them.
I believe that rewarding delegates with a share of their delegation is completely doable too in financial sense, having in mind that not all of the selected delegates from Cohort 2 are being active.
Voted on 40% of proposal since receiving delegation
400
General Participation
yes/no
500
Has non zero values for gov engagement
500
Total veRARI this delegate will receive is 52900
I don’t know if this is true tbh. There is really no incentive for the average token holder to delegate or bother with governance in general since the reason why someone holds governance tokens today is because they act like pseudo-equity and/or represent some sort of claim on the treasury, but in reality gov tokens behave more similar to meme coins. The tally team actually puts this in much better words than me. You can check out the whole post here: Liquid staking for $ENS - #2 by dennison - 🗳️ Meta-Governance - ENS DAO Governance Forum
Delegation incentives should be a separate topic as you pointed out already. However, we need to see the data from the previous program first imo. Did 100K RARI actually generate 100K RARI worth of voting weight?
To the other point on token split, this proposal does not request any tokens from the DAO treasury, so we do not need to make a split here unless the DAO wants to use tokens from the treasury for this purpose.
However I’d like to stress on the fact once again that governance is work, and expecting delegates to lock their compensation for increased voting weight will only attract delegates who are well capitalised and do not need an income to pay their living costs.
I’ll refer back to the thread I shared earlier on tally’s solution to align incentives between token holders, DAO and delegates. It is the best one I have seen so far however it will be costly to implement this unless the tally team wants to help us build this with their own funds. In the short term, the best solution is to take tokens from the DAO or the foundation and delegate them to performing delegates.
That’s a really good point @Jaf
You mean it’s still costly when gas fees are low? I think the rationale was, that the tokens ideally should be locked for longer, incentivized by higher rewards, and thus the cost for locking gets balanced out.
I do agree, however, that it is worthwhile to discuss some options, especially when it comes to delegation.
Thanks for your opinion on this.
Rewarding active delegates with a share of their delegation is essentially a form of retroactively “paying” delegates.
While I think this can ca part of an engagement strategy (especially to give delegates a long-term perspective), that’s probably something the foundation has to decide upon, whether it’s an option at all.
Maybe it’s possible to lock the rewards for some time, since the point would be, that the rewards stay in the governance system.
Thanks for the additional info. While I still support the rationale of the proposal to reward active delegates, I want to emphasize again the need for a cap / smaller token numbers.
More than 5k is fine (which is by the way the min RARI amount needed to even be able to create a proposal), but not in any way, a delegate should get more than 23.5k through the foundation (the current Quorum).
I know that our participation rates are not that high in the voting, and looking at previous proposals, there’s nobody voting with such high stakes either.
I maybe would go with a cap of 5-10K veRARI, and lower the amount for passing a proposal.
Delegates get paid when they successfully pass a proposal that fee is put into the proposal this would pay delegates an additional 5000 rari on top of what they asked for in the proposal. I do not support this
The only reason the DAO quorum is what it is now, is that there isn’t sufficient active voting supply at the moment. The point of a cohort based governance onboarding and this proposal is that it allows:
more tokens to participate in decision making and consequently allows the DAO to increase it’s quorum requirements going forward (example)
gives motivation for future delegates to actively contribute and hence be proportionally rewarded in terms of voting weight
Thanks for the feedback @Firefly808 just as an FYI, the proposal does not intend to reward/compensate anyone with RARI, but to receive delegation in veRARI
Jumping in @Sixty. The Delegate Launchpad was kicked off in August of 2023 per RRC-9 passing
Cohort 1 ran from August 2023-February 2024
Cohort 2 is running from February 2024-August 2024
Cohort 3 aims to kick off around August or September 2024. Exact dates are pending and will be confirmed ASAP
The current mandate is to run the Launchpad 2x annually, so this will continue unless there is another vote to adjust the Launchpad program voted in via RRC-9
While the goal of the Launchpad is not currently retention between cohorts, prior cohort applicants are invited to apply to future cohorts under the Launchpad.
The Foundation encourages Launchpad recipients to campaign for their own delegations to continue contributing with RARI DAO. Thus, cohort 1 Launchpad recipients voted in RRC-13 to incentivize receiving direct delegations from other community members, coinciding with the Launchpad delegations linearly decreasing in Nov 2023 and ceasing to exist by Feb 2024.
The Foundation aims to elevate the Delegate Launchpad recipients in efforts to help them remain RARI DAO delegates as growing our community of active delegates is crucial to healthy functioning of our governance. Therefore, the Foundation participated in the working group that contributed to RRC-13 passing, and helped the DAO promote the Delegation Incentives Campaign during Q4 2023.
The Foundation reviewed the previous Delegation Incentives Campaign with the DAO during the community call (slide 6) on June 18, 2024, and shared how the Foundation will plan to amplify delegations to cohort 2 regardless of what the DAO decides to do for an incentives campaign for cohort 2, which is being discussed on this thread started by @jengajojo.
I agree on this, it would be more motivating if there are rewards to be earned for delegates in the DAO.
Think of a weekly reward system where Delegates have to complete simple tasks like:
Be active in the telegram channel
Gain some levels in the Discord Channel
Activity in the telegram group
Authentic engagement on forum posts
Create a discussion regarding a proposal
Creating proposals on Tally
Voting on proposals on Tally
Weekly reoccuring rewards depending on a delegates activity would reward and motivate someones effort in the DAO.
For proposals passed, what happens with situations with multiple authors on a post?
Do they each receive 5k?
Also, what is the timeline of the delegation — how long would this delegation span? 12 months?
As a follow up to that, can delegation be updated during the period of this program? For instance, you pass a proposal three months after this proposal passes, can you submit an application to have your veRARI updated?
StableLab supports empowering active delegates through increased delegation after the conclusion of this cohort of delegates. However, we have some concerns regarding the proposal in its current form.
Our Concerns
What is the total amount of veRARI the foundation can delegate? Are the proposed calculations feasible or will we run out of veRARI? What happens if we run out?
We believe 5,000 veRARI delegated per proposal passed is far too much. We believe offering 5k per proposal could lead to delegates gaming the system by publishing meaningless proposals to build up their voting power. In the example, the delegate publishes 10 proposals and gets 50,000+ veRARI delegated. This is a negative for the DAO as it would create a whale that could single-handedly decide most votes. Additionally, a 5k bonus may lead to people voting not on the proposal’s merits but on whether they want the proposer to gain 5000 voting power. Finally, giving so much voting power to delegates for creating proposals might limit the number of delegates we can delegate to. For example, if there is only 50K veRARI available to delegate and someone passed 10 proposals, would they receive all of the delegation? We believe it makes sense to have a more significant number of delegates with a smaller amount of veRARI.
Ideally, we need to eventually move away from the foundation being the largest delegator and attract outside delegators. Allowing delegates to accumulate very large voting powers without going out and finding delegators may prevent delegates from taking the initiative to find additional delegators. We need to encourage delegates to go out and find delegation so we are not so reliant on the foundation.
It is unclear what timeline is used to calculate rewards or how often delegation will be recalculated. If someone passes multiple proposals after the initial delegation, when will they receive their bonus?
Our Recommendations
Implement a cap on total delegation from the foundation to 5,000 veRARI. This allows the DAO to delegate to more delegates and prevents delegates from becoming too powerful but still allows the most active delegates to receive enough veRARI to post proposals to Tally.
Introduce a clear timeline for when delegation is calculated, starts, stops, is recalculated, and any decay schedule.
Lowering the “Passed a proposal onchain” bonus to 2000 and make is yes/no. This will reduce the chances for gamification and will prevent delegates from gaining too much power.
Include some mechanism to encourage delegates to find delegation outside of the foundation. We believe a 5000 veRARI delegation helps accomplish this as it forces delegates to find alternatives if they want to gain more power in the DAO. Another Idea is some matching aspect where the foundation would match a delegates outside delegation. However, this will be tricky as it can also be gamed
Thank you for the feedback @Matt_StableLab . I am happy to incorporate your recommendations 1and 3. In terms of timeline, my suggestion is:
When is the delegation calculated?
For a max lock of 104 weeks, there is no decay according to the formula stated in RRC-1. Additionally as I have suggested before, we can revisit this at the end of each cohort. On recommendation number 4, it would be nice to have some mechanism outside the foundation, perhaps we can use the tokens from the DAO treasury?
I think we all agree that the voting supply / voting activity is low, but as @Matt_StableLab is already pointing out, it would not be healthy if the amount of veRARI / the current quorum is “artificially” increased by the foundation. I guess a delegate with 50k voting power (like in your calculation example) could actually discourage regular RARI holders from participating.
I support this concern and recommendations. As I suggested before, a cap o 5-10k is already a 2,5 - 5x increase of the current delegations (2k) for active delegates. That seems like a good ratio / incentive to participate to me.
As for the 5k per passed proposal, I would rather suggest the authors split the amount, since they also shared the work.
@forexus regarding rewards in “real” RARI tokens, I still think it would be a good additional incentive to grant a (small) share of their delegation to active delegates.
The metrics you suggest are difficult to monitor, however. Looking at the proposal, the evaluation for active delegates could be used for this as well.
Thanks, @jengajojo, for this proposal and everyone for the feedback shared.
I wanted to jump in with Foundation POV. Apologies for the long response, but there is a lot to cover - happy to dive deeper in the next proposal review call.
Delegate launchpad program will run again at the end of Q3 - the current cohort is invited to reapply. We believe this is the best way for new delegates to enter the DAO and for current delegates to re-acquire delegations.
The Delegate launchpad is designed to fast-track delegates, who are encouraged to seek community delegations rather than stay sustained via Foundation delegations
Programs that enable concentration of power are problematic - one single delegate should not be able to meet the quorum. Agree with SL that more active delegates with smaller and/or similarly sized distribution is better for decentralised governance than a few whales.
DAO capture via consolidation of voting power is a real threat
veRARI model will be dropped per DAOs discussion and Eugene’s post - timing to coincide with the next Delegate Launchpad cohort
Only RARI tokens the Foundation has available for delegations are under the Delegate Launchpad. Any other program would need its own budget
That said, agree with SL that a single delegation should not supersede 5k veRARI / proposal threshold. The aim here is to empower, which this achieves. The 5k should be delegated only to those with the top delegate scores (see delegate scores on rari.foundation delegate profiles) AND who have been an active delegate for a period of at least 6 months (active delegate as described in RRC 9).
2k bonus should be given only to those 2k delegations or under, an only to a defined number of top delegates (again based on delegate score).
A budget needs to be set for this initiative. E.g. 3x5k delegation + 5x2k delegation = 25k. I’d advocate to wait until veRARI model is dropped, so we don’t undergo costly locks that are soon released.
Given the upgraded governance will not use veRARI token structure, there needs to be a time limit on Foundation delegations. We suggest 6 months - as the Foundation needs to be able to re-delegate if a delegate becomes inactive.
All that said, delegates should really seek community delegations as the Foundation is here to facilitate becoming a delegate and promote diversity in the delegate ranks. Retention should be up to the delegates and their efforts to convince token holders to delegate.