EP4.9 Voting Reports

nick.eth · December 6, 2023, 1:30pm

EP4.9 has 27 shortlisted candidates for provider streams, which is a lot to work through, and we’re asking a lot of delegates to examine all of the proposals with the care they deserve.

To help make this easier, I’d like to encourage delegates to post their ‘voting reports’ here. A voting report is a short explanation of why the delegate is voting for or against each proposal. Having these should make it easier for people to decide how to vote, as well as providing valuable feedback to candidates.

nick.eth · December 6, 2023, 1:30pm

Voting Report: Nick Johnson

Votes

I intend to vote yes on the following 9 proposals:

namesys.eth
Namehash Labs
Unruggable
Namespace
Blockful
Wildcard Labs
eth.limo
resolverworks.eth
1w3.eth

Taken together, their requested budgets add up to $3.6 million USDC per annum.

Key Criteria

I took into account three main key criteria when deciding how to vote:

Scope: Is the project in-scope? To be in scope, the project needs to contribute directly to the ENS ecosystem. It’s not enough that a project uses ENS, it needs to enhance ENS to qualify. Likewise, projects that improve the ENS DAO are out of scope; the purpose of provider streams is to improve ENS itself. These projects may qualify for other grant programs from ENS, but not for provider streams.
Track Record: Does the team have a track record of delivering useful, polished products?
Impact: The fuzziest criteria; do I believe the project, if executed successfully, would have an impact that justifies its cost?

There are a lot of projects that propose to improve subdomain issuance as a way to onboard new users to ENS. Given ENS’s recent focus, with the name wrapper and CCIP read providing L2 support, this isn’t entirely surprising. I have given several of them my support below. Although it may seem like a waste of resources to fund multiple teams building similar things, I believe we have the best odds of building something viable if we have a diversity of approaches. I expect that we will see consolidation in coming years.

I strongly encourage teams working on this to collaborate on shared standards and APIs; I would like to see them dedicating real manpower and financial resources to collaboratively building common protocols they can all use, to avoid fragmentation. When it comes time to review the streams in a year, I will heavily favor teams that have done this.

Detailed Reasoning

namesys.eth

Yes. Namesys have a track record of doing excellent work, and their ask is reasonable.

handle.eth

No. Other teams with proven track records are working on subdomain issuance, and I believe this project would be better served by working with one of them.

Namehash Labs

Yes. Namehash Labs have a track record of building useful infrastructure, and furthermore of giving careful thought to what needs are not being served well by existing solutions. $600k p.a. is at the larger end of requests, but they can put it to good use.

Unruggable

Yes. Premm is a long-term contributor and current ENS Fellow, with a track record of positive contributions. They intend to work on areas that are not well served by other proposals.

generalmagic.eth & pairwise.eth

No. Supporting grantees is a valuable role, but $200k is almost the entire annual small grants budget; it’s difficult to believe it would do more good than doubling the small grants program. Improving the grants site is a worthwhile goal, but out of scope for the provider streams program.

Further, I was not impressed with General Magic’s performance for the merch store: after selection in July '22 on fairly generous terms ($1k/mo + profits!), it took them 4 months to launch a store with a single hat in it, and another 4 months to add more items. Since launch they have given no status updates on the forum, and I don’t see any noted in Ecosystem WG minutes either. We still have no idea of sales figures, and I don’t think the DAO has received any revenues from the store.

servais.eth / web3explorer.com

No. Although the budget ask is at the low end, $100k is still a substantial amount of money, and I don’t believe a dApp directory advances ENS enough to justify the fee.

Alphawallet

No. Alphawallet is a valued supporter of ENS, but as described in Key Criteria, supporting projects that build on ENS - rather than build ENS - is out of scope for the service provider stream program.

ENS Like Protocol

No. A difficult choice, but I believe this is too niche for a funding stream.

Namespace

Yes. $200k is a reasonable ask, and the team has a track record of delivering.

Gnosis Guild

No. I value Gnosis Guild’s work, and believe they are deserving of public goods funding, but as described above, tooling for the DAO is out of scope for the stream provider program. $600k is a large ask, too.

GravityDAO

No. DAO tooling and services are out of scope, and I’m skeptical of the value of this proposal anyway.

ENS Vision Forge

No. Improved developer experience is important, but I believe other teams can do a better job delivering it. I have concerns about the ENS Vision team’s alignment with ENS’s public-goods driven mission.

Blockful

Yes. Blockful have made some valuable contributions. Combined with the endorsement from Alex and others, I think they’re well worth funding.

web3domains.com

No. This proposal has no concrete deliverables.

dAppling

No. The existing product is cool, but what the team has proposed to work on doesn’t justify the $400k price tag.

ESF Tools

No. There are many other teams focusing on subdomain issuance, and the proposed work streams are too vague and without concrete deliverables.

StableLab

No. I would love to see a great DAO procurement platform, but building DAO tooling is out-of-scope for provider streams.

The Interceptor

No. This looks like a great UX improvement, but it’s only tangentially related to ENS and thus is out-of-scope.

Tally

No. I hugely value Tally and the work they do, but DAO tooling is out-of-scope for provider streams.

ENS Anti-Abuse Tools

No. It’s not clear to me what the end goal is here; a reporting tool for malicious domains with no associated action seems of limited use.

Wildcard Labs

Yes. I want to see more teams building on EVM Gateway and CCIP-Read, and Wildcard Labs have already demonstrated their ability to deliver. $200k is a reasonable ask.

eth.limo

Yes. $500k is a large ask, but eth.limo deliver a huge amount of value to the community.

wayback-machine.eth

No. This is a valuable project, but I believe the $200k can be better spent elsewhere.

Referrals powered by generalmagic.eth

No. Other providers have referral system proposals that I believe are superior, and I have my reservations about General Magic’s performance.

unicorn.eth

No. I like this proposal, and the budget is reasonable, but a lot of other projects are working on similar ideas, and I have concerns about the team’s performance.

Ethereum Follow Protocol

No. I think EFP could evolve to become a valuable component of the distributed web, but it’s out-of-scope for provider streams.

resolverworks.eth

Yes. Slobo is a long-term DAO contributor who has already demonstrated his ability to deliver by launching Namestone. The focus on onboarding newcomers to the space is valuable and will help drive adoption. The requested budget is high, but I believe Slobo has the capability to build a team that will put the resources to good use.

1w3.eth

Yes. 1w3 are making building a decentralised website as easy as building a traditional one, and I want to see them continuing to do that.

Edit: Changed my votes on ENS Vision Forge and Blockful.

brantlymillegan · December 6, 2023, 4:22pm

Voting Report: brantly.eth

Scope question
As discussed in this thread here, the program rules explicitly make provision for projects like EFP (see 9.3) and Alex who wrote the rules said he intentionally left eligibility criteria open/vague. Nick’s interpretation of scope is much more restrictive than the program’s rules. Of course, delegates may vote for whatever projects they want for whatever reasons they want, but I don’t want other delegates to think that Nick’s interpretation of scope is what the rules say.

Votes

Currently, I intend to vote for at least the following (ordered by how they appear here):

I’m still considering a few other projects to vote for, so who I vote for may expand.

Case for these projects:

Namehash Labs
Have already shown themselves to be very capable with the contributions they’ve already made, with lots of great work planned going into the future.

ENS Vision Forge
ENS Vision has been one of the most important projects for the ENS protocol. They’ve proven themselves capable of shipping tools that help ENS. I look forward to their continued work with a focus on open source tooling.

eth.limo
No brainer. They have and continue to contribute massively to the ENS ecosystem. Cloudflare’s unreliable gateway service and ENS Labs’ mismanagement of eth.link would have left the community in a bad place except that eth.limo came to the rescue. Their service has lots of ongoing costs, and they have more great work to do. Fully support. Wish I could increase their funding request.

Ethereum Follow Protocol
I’ve made the case in our application. Reminder that my vote here does not include any of my own personal $ENS tokens, only votes delegated to me. Even recently, people have delegated to me saying they did it to support my efforts. It would be strange to disenfranchise those who most support my work for ENS.

resolverworks.eth
They also have years of proven track record, and I look forward to what else they can do.

AvsA · December 7, 2023, 2:57pm

I think it’s a good idea to share my reasoning too, so I will also do it.

On Voting Strategy

The voting system is an approval voting. The reason we did not pick something like Range, Star or Ranked Choice voting is mostly because these are not yet supported on Snapshot (Snapshot does allow Ranked choice, but then you must rank ALL candidates, which doesn’t really work with such large amounts of candidates). That does mean that as a voter with a lot of weight I need to think more strategically. On approval voting, approving all candidates simply pushes the baseline up and results in the same as not having voted at all, and it means that if you “approve” on candidates that are already ahead it might hurt other candidates you prefer but that haven’t made the cut.

So I will put my vote in separate sections of support which are a way to express my uncertainty regarding which of those I will actually put on the ballot.

Strong Support:

Blockful

I’ve met Alex Netto on a workshop at EthBrazil 2022 when he was still a student. We then started collaborating on ideas on how we could improve the ENS base contracts to save gas and improve the user experience by doing single-transaction registrations. He surprised me in all aspects. I’ve seen him drop out of university to create a small dev shop dedicated full time to blockchain development and I’ve seen it grow to a 9 people team, doing mostly ENS related work. While Blockful never had a “product” release, they have been involved in developing smart contract work for Namehash and many other clients. I have 100% confidence that they will deliver a great value for their $300k.

Namehash

I have been following Namehash development closely for over a year and was lucky enough to have a demo of their ENS registration website last year and I was blown away. They are also doing the smart decision to make most of their innovations for their website into modular libraries that others can use, like NameKit and NameGuard, meaning that great experience can be integrated into many other apps. Whenever I pick a project, I ask myself if that team could push ENS forward on their own, if a meteor struck all other teams: I have no doubt that Namehash could.

Resolverworks

Slobo.eth has been an incredible steward for ENS and I have been following his work since Nftychat, an attempt at making ENS the core of a social messaging platform. While his proposal is the most expensive of all the asks, I think it’s worthwhile.

Support

This is a section for projects that I support, but for which my vote might depend on external factors, like which projects are more likely to win.

ETH.limo

While we always talk on how ENS was created to replace 0x134… address types into more readable names, hashes for content, like IPFS or Swarm (for which we had integrated early versions way back in the Mist days) were as important as the names. While the vision for a fully decentralized web – where devices access content not by going through a central server, but by downloading it in a P2P fashion from other devices – seems to be less fashionable, I still believe in that vision and hope to keep supporting the pieces that will make it possible. And Eth.limo is such important piece. One criticism I would make on their proposal is that it seems much more focused on supporting the current eth.limo infrastructure rather than building news tools that will increase the adoption and support of decentralized websites.

Unrugabble

Premm.eth is a great member of our community and creating support for L2 names and Account abstraction is very important.

Wildcard Labs

Stevegachau is a long time ENS contributor. They have a good track record, and they have a very decent ask for the value provided.

ENS.Vision

ENS Vision is the second largest ENS domain registrar so it makes sense to support them. Their proposal is however about Forge, a single product which is interesting but of limited use for the ask price. And after their very softball interview with the CEO of Unstoppable Domains, I would love if they clarified their position on UD collaboration.

Projects I support but don’t think fit Service Providers

There are some great projects that are Service Providers Candidates. However I don’t think they fit what I believe is the goal of the Stream selection, which is to pick great teams that can improve the ENS system. Instead, they are great projects on their own that either support or promote ENS in many ways.

The following projects are ones I would strongly encourage the new Ecosystem stewards to add as candidates for grants (not necessarily in the requested amount) but for which I don’t think are good fits for service providers.

Tally
Ethereum Follow Protocol
Gnosis Guild
The Interceptor
Wayback Machine
Unicorn
Alphawallet

Unsure

Namesys, 1w3, ESF and Handle are projects that on the surface seems interesting although much of the proposed work intersects a lot with what other teams are also proposing. As mentioned, in an approval voting system, giving away too many votes dilutes your own voting impact and can decrease the chances that a project you prefer will be selected. I will commit to make deeper look on their proposals to make a decision.

Remaining

I would prefer not to criticize projects in this post. The remaining projects are some who vary from "looks like a good but there are other better teams building similar stuff" to “I don’t get that at all”.

matoken.eth · December 7, 2023, 8:17pm

Voting report, matoken.eth

A few delegates with large votes asked my analysis of the submissions (as someone who has been working at ENS labs for over 5 years as a dev). Rather than giving my own picks, I categorised the submissions and ranked (1-5 where 5 is the best) each within the category so that it aids delegates to pick their choices based on what aspect of ENS protocol they want to advance.

Submission categories

Each category is listed in the order of importance (the justification to follow).

L2 & Offchain subnames

While L1 subname makes ENS easier to obtain, the need to pay gas on L1 is still a big hurdle. Offchain resolver is currently a popular way to issue subnames without any gass with the drawback of the ownership of the names being centralised. The more decentralised way to issue subnames (aka “L2 integration”) is still actively underway and more resources will help accelerate the time to the market.

Contenthash/dweb

Contenthash allows users to set ipfs/swarm hashes so that users can host sites without relying on centralised entities. Though this is one of the killer use cases for ENS, less than 10% of the ENS names currently sets contenthash and is currently under utilised.

dev toolkit

Multiple projects have been developing tools to enhance existing ENS contract API and frontend libraries (either making it easier or more secure) helping more Dapps to integrate with ENS. Done it successfully, this could potentially increase the number of integrated ENS apps which is one of the key strengths of ENS name service as opposed to other competing projects.

.eth registration improvement/referral

There are a few projects proposing to introduce a referral program for boosting .eth registration through UX improvement and referral program. If done correctly, this could boost the ENS protocol revenue.

L1 subname

Subnames (eg: makoto.argent.xyz) allow users to obtain ENS names without paying a registration fee on L1, making it more crypto beginner friendly. When surnames are issued on L1 using NameWrapper, the names are NFT with the ability to burn the parent’s power to make it “unruggable”.

The importance of categories.

“L2 & Offchain subnames” is the most important focus in my opinion (L2 is my focused area so I am a bit biassed) and being unable to deliver it until the next bull market will make ENS obsolete against competitors most of which are in the more gas cheap chain. The runner-ups are the categories that directly improve the utility and integration effort of ENS. .eth registration fee is critical to the sustainability of the protocol but only becomes effective once ENS’s utility is maximised. Though L1 subname is useful, I find it least important due to my biases towards L2 initiative.

Special category, “If a meteor strikes the next ENS Labs team retreat, will these projects be able to keep the ball rolling?””

As the proposer of the streaming initiative stated here, the initial intention of the proposal was to create more of a “shadow cabinet” where these teams can potentially replace ENS labs when we stop serving the expected duty. This means that the team must know how to tweak and customise core ENS protocol by developing custom resolvers, registrars, spot bugs, and so on. The focus is mainly put on their understanding of the ENS protocol and the ability to make modifications at smartcontract level.

Ranking

I only list 3 or above which are worth considering for the votes. You can examine my full report at

L2 & Offchain subnames

5: Unruggable, resolverworks.eth
4: Wildcard labs, NameSys
3: Blockful

Premm from unruggable has been actively contributing to the discussion of the layer 2 strategy. Slobo.eth of resolverworks.eth runs https://namestone.xyz which is one of the key players on offchain based subname issuance.

Contenthash/dweb

5: eth.limo, NameSys
4: 1w3.eth
3: dappling

dev toolkit

5: Namehash
4: Blockful
4: ESF tool
3: ENS anti-abuse
3: ENS vision forge

I marked down “ENS vision forge” not because of the lack of the tracking record but because the company itself has received VC funding and therefore other projects need more funding. If funding source is not to be considered ENS Vision Forge should be marked as 4

.eth registration improvement/referral

5: Namehash
4: Blockful

L1 subname

5: ESF tool
4: Namespace
3: ENS vision forge

Special category, “If a meteor strikes the next ENS Labs team retreat, will these projects be able to keep the ball rolling?””

5: Unruggable = Premm has spotted various bugs on NameWrapper and actively contributing to the discussion of L2 smart contract architecture
5: ENS vision forge = ENS vision has developed its own bulk registration logic.
4: NameSys = [NameSys has provided their own version of grassless resolver using IPFS as backend])(NameSys.eth · GitHub)
4: Blockful = Alex has contributed to the experimental implementation of adding referral into the ENS contract
3: Wildcard labs = stevegachau.eth has created various l2 name service using offchain resolvers under Wildcards Protocol · GitHub
3: ESF tools = hodl.esf.eth has previously developed custom NFT subdomain controller

Out of scope

Any governance-related projects (eg: Tally, StateLab, Pairwise, GnosisGuild, GravityDAO) should be out of scope
ENS-like protocol and EFP build on top of ENS but not directly enhance the feature of ENS itself
Alpha Wallet and Interceptor may indirectly improve ENS but not directly integrate with ENS

Flags

Even though it is not disallowed, delegates should be aware that these projects have the advantage of voting for themselves (unless they abstain).

Ethereum Follow Project = the core member brantly.eth is top 3 delegates (169k, 16.9% of necessary threshold) and cory.eth is top 18 delegates (60.3k, 6.03 % of necessary threshold) according to Tally | ENS delegates.
Blockful = the core member alextnetto.eth is top 8 delegate (106.23k , 10.62% of necessary threshold) according to Tally | ENS delegates .
Unicorn.eth & Referral Ambassador, Pairwise = the core member griff.eth is top 12 delegate (94k, 9.4% of necessary threshold) according to Tally | ENS delegates . GeneralMagic has also submitted three projects but didn’t state how to work around when two projects receive grants

simona_pop · December 13, 2023, 8:45pm

SP VR:

As clarified by @nick.eth at the start of the thread - to qualify for operating as a provider, a project must not only utilise ENS but also actively enhance ENS*. A good portion of the shortlist play valuable roles within the broader ecosystem and it is important to note that not allocating votes to them is due to their proposals being outside the scope of this specific EP.

*this enhancement can be nuanced dynamic to a degree

Voting Strategy Overview

My aim was to balance the impact of shortlisted projects with their funding requests, taking into account both the significance of their current contributions to the ENS ecosystem, their projected scope of work and the efficiency of their budgeting effort.

Selected Projects
(I have chosen to present them in no particular order vs sliding scale in terms of support)
A great tl;dr of all proposals is here
Blockful ($300,000 p.a.):
- Why: Great to see the evolution from a student-led initiative (thanks for that insight @avsa) to a dedicated blockchain development team (we should cover this in the ENS DAO Journal). Their focus on improving ENS base contracts for efficiency and user experience has proven very meaningful. I feel they are on a promising trajectory to offer valuable contributions.
NameHash Labs ($600,000 p.a.):
- Why: The work on ENS registration tools and services - notable of course are the modular tools like NameKit and NameGuard that create a broader application potential within the ENS ecosystem. Solid delivery track record was also key in my consideration.
resolverworks.eth ($700,000 p.a.):
- Why: A consistent contributor with a very thorough proposal focused on ENS labs’ resource enhancement, L2 rollout, and subdomain infrastructure. The ongoing commitment of the team and well scoped out proposal would justify their higher funding level.
eth.limo ($500,000 p.a.):
- Why: Key to decentralised web access, already playing a critical role in ENS’s utility and infrastructure since 2021. Consistent delivery track record in line with the ask so happy to support them in continuing their work.
Unruggable ($400,000 p.a.):
- Why: Their significant ongoing technical contributions, especially in L2 support and account abstraction, are vital for ENS’s security and infrastructure. Add Prem´s reputation (and ENS Fellow status) and technical expertise to this and it´s an easy decision combined with the financial ask.
Wildcard Labs ($300,000 p.a.):
- Why: Long-term contributors with a solid track record in ENS development including tools like Avatarsync, ensregistry, ENS-Redirect, Optinames, and the Wildcards Protocol.The request is very cost effective given their history of consistent contributions.
ENS Anti-Abuse Tools ($100,000 p.a.):
- Why: Addresses a critical need for maintaining the security and integrity of the ENS ecosystem. Their focus on safeguarding ENS against abuse is an essential piece for the ecosystem’s health and trustworthiness. Less technical but I do believe diversity is important and the ask is the lowest in the lineup so an opportune combination for experimentation.
1W3 ($500,000 p.a.):
- Why: Providing a no-code interface together with customisable templates and enhanced content integration features has actually led to notable user adoption, with 1500 users creating over 2000 websites. The ENS Website Resolver Chrome extension and ENSrecords.xyz add to the overall usability of ENS domains so I felt the ask and the continuation of work is justified.

Mild outliers:

unicorn.eth ($200,000 p.a.):
- Why: This is slightly out of scope but it does blend traditional web applications with ENS. Broadening ENS’s appeal and usability is something that´s always on the table so better bridging between the two webs is one endeavour we shouldn´t really forget about.
Ethereum Follow Protocol ($500,000 p.a.):
- Why: Again, slightly out of scope here but it does add a unique dimension by building a social graph for ENS users. The project has the potential to again enhance the ENS community’s engagement and interaction and the team does have a good track record in delivery.

Edit: I did adjust my initial vote to include two other projects (all reflected here)

lefterisjp · December 14, 2023, 11:56pm

Serious issue with timing

So first off let me start with a complaint which I also echoed in Twitter. Giving out 3,600,000 USDC and having ~10 days to review all 28 projects in detail as people that do not work fulltime for the DAO is impossible.

And at the same time as the working group elections, which means delegates already had work to do on top of this.

I am here at 01:00 at night with less than 10 hours remaining and I have spent way too much time on this already. I don’t feel I have analyzed the applicants enough, and I am out of time. No more days left, I need to go to sleep and voting can only be done now so I am burning the midnight oil.

My voting reasoning

I will try to explain why I voted or why I did not vote for a project with a short text per project. (copied Nick’s template)

Scope

Before that though let me explain why I am not voting for many of the projects, even though I may find them cool, I may believe they can do good etc.

Most of the projects have failed to read and/or understand the criteria for project qualification.

Development of alternative open-source front-ends for diverse audiences or platforms.

Maintenance of developer tools, such as SDKs, to facilitate ENS integration into various applications.

Implementation of a referral program, complete with necessary contracts and outreach for successful execution.

Proposals for enhancements to ENS base layer contracts for a more refined experience or to facilitate cost-effective batch transactions.

Creation and support of improved tools for ENS names’ interoperability with decentralized storage solutions.

Development of novel off-chain trading experiences for names or innovative NFT trading experiments to broaden ENS’s appeal.

Exploration of untapped platforms or entirely new applications for ENS.

That means if you are building DAO tooling, governance tooling, ENS adjacent tooling, conflict resolution mechanism and and and … you are off topic.

The point is to enhance ENS. You are supposed to work with the ENS team and the DAO to enhance the protocol and its tooling.

My votes

Conflict of interest is a really serious issue and the only way to not hit it is to not participate as an applicant or not vote as a voter. You can ask people who want to support your project to temporarily redelegate to someone else.

hidayath.eth · December 15, 2023, 7:34am

Hello @lefterisjp
Firstly, thank you for raising issues observed in the voting process.

However, your comment regarding 1W3’s relevance in the service provider stream is quite surprising. The ENS homepage clearly states, “Decentralized naming for wallets, websites, & more.” Given this, it’s surprising that you view 1W3, the only project solely dedicated to expanding and simplifying website capabilities within the ENS ecosystem, as off scope. 1W3 has enabled 1,500 ENS community members to create over 2,000 websites. Doesn’t this directly align with ENS’s stated purpose?

Clearly, 1W3 is not only on scope but a vital contributor to the ENS ecosystem. If you are questioning the relevance of websites as a utility in ENS, then perhaps you might consider using your significant voting power of 123K to propose removing ‘websites’ from the ENS homepage.

Coltron.eth · December 15, 2023, 9:03am

Voting Report: coltron.eth

Summary

This post outlines my rationale for voting in the service provider selection. The primary factors I considered were:

Capable of continuous evolution and enhancement of the ENS system; and
Offer a good cost-benefit; and
Have a majority focus and dedication toward improving the Ethereum Name Service protocol or system.

The first two points above were taken from the instructions announcing EP 4.9.

I concede that even with these instructions, this assessment is weighted toward my subjective opinion as a delegate. It was challenging to ascribe an objective, uniform rubric for assessing the many qualified proposals.

Assessing from a cost-benefit perspective was nearly impossible. The size of the service provider request alone was insufficient as a metric for determining possible value. I tried to avoid a knee-jerk reaction on solely the amount requested and looked at the technicality, team size, and how fully committed the teams were as service providers. Cost per team member was a helpful starting point. In some cases, the costs were extremely high in the smaller teams, but these may be more technical roles. There were also varying levels of commitment for the teams as a service provider. The dedication ranged from financial incentive that implied they would be less than part-time committed, while others explicitly stated they were fully committed to the role.

An additional challenge was that these service provider nominations were not required to have promised deliverables. This is a possible critical failure of the process. I recommend that the selected providers lock in at least some explicit goals. We need them to be able to assess success when, in one year, we inevitably discuss renewals. The time for this is before we disburse payments.

Overall, I’m excited that this program exists. Still, I would reduce any haste that may be present, as expressed by other delegates, and take the time to onboard these service providers intentionally.

Support

Listed alphabetically, the following service providers are those that I express support for and would like to succeed in their nominations:

Blockful

Requested Budget: $300k
Rationale: I would like to see more work focused on contract-level and developer-related improvements. Blockful is a relatively newer team, but Alex Netto has been involved in the community, and I believe he understands the needs of ENS. Further, I trust that he will provide value for the amount requested.

eth.limo

Requested Budget: $500k
Rationale: This team has been enabling the eth.limo gateway operation since 2021. This service has helped provide valuable functionality to the ENS system, and I would like to see this continued formally. They have an impressive track record of continuously delivering improvements.

Namehash

Requested Budget: $600k
Rationale: I have only recently become aware of Namehash. This is a strong support because they are 100% focused on improving Ethereum Name Service. I would like to see them continue developing Name Gaurd, which helps provide in-app alerts for malicious name interactions and develop a method for ENS referrals.

Resolverworks

Requested Budget: $700k
Rationale: We need a more diverse availability of front-ends to register, manage, and interact with ENS domains, specifically sub-domains. This nomination has a high ask, but considering the scope of full-time work, team needs, and @slobo’s ability to manage and deliver, I am confident that this Service Provider selection will be valuable to the ENS System. @slobo has been an invaluable and dedicated individual seeking to improve ENS.

Unruggable

Requested Budget: $400k
Rationale: Premm’s past contributions have already been highly praised, and I would like to see him onboarded as a formal service provider. His dedication to ENS and technical insight have been valuable in the past, and he should be actively supportive moving forward. I want Premm and his team to continue his AA and L2 work and support protocol-level contributions.

Wildcard Labs

Requested Budget: $200k
Rationale: This team is promising both increasing adoption and functionality, and has a track record of previous involvement building for ENS. Considering their familiarity with the ENS Ecosystem and it’s needs, and their stated full-time committment they would be a good fit for a service provider stream.

Total Budget Supported: 2.7M

Summary of Selected Providers

Provider	Request	Team Size	Per Member	Commitment	Other Clients
Blockful	$300,000	3	$100,000	“Full-time”	Yes
eth.limo	$500,000	4	$125,000	“on call 24/7/365”	Not clear
Namehash	$600,000	15	$40,000	“Day and Night”	No
resolverworks.eth	$700,000	6	$116,667	“Full time”	No
Unruggable	$400,000	2.5	$160,000	“Full-time”	“Exclusively focused”
wildcard	$200,000	2.5	$80,000	“Fully Committed”	Not Clear

Note: Part-time Represented as 0.5.
Note: If team-size provided as range provided, went with highest number.

Not Supported

My basis for exclusions is as follows:

Amount requested did not match value delivered.
Building on ENS, but not clearly a service provider. Grant worthy!
Governance or DAO Tooling work. Grant worthy!
Data insufficient to make an accurate judgement to allocate >100k USDC for the following year.

AvsA · December 15, 2023, 2:56pm

Thanks for your vote in this Lefteris!

I agree with you and I can promise the next vote will NOT be concurrent with the steward elections – as a metagov steward I will not run them in December again but ask the 2025 term to have in in the Q2 of 2025. Because it’s a stream, all current providers will be still receiving payments until the day of the next EP