Toward Accountable and Strategic Funding in ENS

Service Provider Program Program Discussion and Admin
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:exclamation:This post is copied verbatim from my blog. The original can be found here: Toward Accountable and Strategic Funding in ENS

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Last week, I spent a significant amount of time reviewing all of the Service Provider applications and documenting my interpretations and opinions. That post can be viewed here: ENS Service Provider Program 2: Application Analysis.

Based on that experience, I believe the Service Provider Program in its current form is not a suitable mechanism for allocating significant resources. Instead, I think the ENS DAO should establish a small technical team to oversee how these resources are allocated, with delegates retaining a right of veto over any decisions made.

I believe this would be a better approach because:

  • It would minimise overhead for delegates.
  • Applications would be reviewed by people with appropriate technical expertise.
  • It would reduce conflicts of interest.
  • Funding flexibility would mitigate the current ‘all or nothing’ dynamic.
  • DAO delegates would maintain ultimate control.

Good Intentions, Flawed in Practice

Avsa has invested a significant amount of time into the development of the Service Provider Program. That, in itself, sets the ENS DAO apart from other DAOs - we have intelligent, passionate participants who are actively trying to build novel mechanisms for funding alternative development teams and improving ENS.

In developing this second iteration, a number of contributors have made real efforts to improve on the first version. The work that the Metagov stewards have done to formalise process has been outstanding.

That said, I’ve raised concerns throughout this process that most applicants haven’t meaningfully engaged with the discussion despite it having a direct impact on their chances of receiving over $300,000 each. In some cases, I believe applicants recognise the process is inefficient and are simply trying their luck.

The process also clearly has significant game-theoretical dynamics implicit in it’s design. Budgets have been changed simply because of the mechanism, and many applicants are having back channel conversations to discern what to ask for to optimise their chances. This, in my opinion, is ridiculous - we should be funding teams that will add value to ENS in excess of their cost. A good funding mechanism should not necessitate ‘tactics’.

Misaligned Incentives

I’ve spoken to multiple delegates over the past few weeks. Almost all of them say the same thing - this process is overwhelming .

I love @ensdomains and @ENS_DAO, and I’m proud to support the community as a governance delegate, but at some point it has become extractive to my mental health. If I’m expected to vette projects and vote there needs to be some remuneration. Passion wanes with no reward.

— superphiz.eth :bat::loud_sound::shield: (@superphiz) April 8, 2025

Many are time-poor, unpaid, and juggling multiple governance roles. The SPP adds another layer of work - one that requires significant technical knowledge to evaluate effectively, and yet offers no compensation or incentive to do so properly.

To all @ensdomains / @ENS_DAO service provider applicants who are in my twitter and TG DMs.

I hear you and probably almost all 28 of you messaged me.

If I got any questions on your proposal I will write you and ask.

I am really tired and have my plate full with work and there…

— Lefteris Karapetsas (@LefterisJP) December 11, 2023

On the flip side, applicants are heavily incentivised. A successful proposal could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding. Naturally, they optimise for what they think will win regardless of whether that aligns with what the DAO actually needs.

This also leads to performative participation. Teams engage just enough to stay visible or maintain relationships with delegates, especially in the weeks and months before the vote.

We shouldn’t be surprised by this. The incentives are misaligned from the start. We should be designing systems that acknowledge this reality and work around it.

A key part of that is proper technical review - the DAO should be making sure that what teams say they’ve done is actually true, and that what they propose to do is something the DAO actually needs.

Information Asymmetry and Overlap

Avsa recently mentioned:

Remember that the program rewards teams not projects and we implicitly trust them to change the project in light of new market conditions.

I note that amongst current applicants we have eight governance applications. Most of those teams are highly technically competent yet their applications have significant crossover.

One significant issue is that non-technical delegates may simply not realise the extent of the crossover - there is an information asymmetry which delegates are not incentivised to resolve.

I believe my own post was the first technical breakdown of the applications, and even that was relatively high level. Yet, without these kinds of deeper review, the program becomes a battle of presentation and positioning rather than substance or merit. My personal impression is that some of the longer applications attempt to obfuscate their lack of substance with their length.

Fundamentally… we don’t need 6 governance platforms. One well-selected and properly managed provider could meet the ecosystem’s needs more effectively. Two, perhaps, for redundancy.

A small salaried team with one explicit role would be well positioned to communicate directly with applicants to discern what sets their application apart.

Evaluation and Accountability

My position on this is simple - it is not accountability if no-one reads it, or cares.

There’s been a lot of discussion over the past year about accountability. Several Service Providers have gone above and beyond what’s required, posting quarterly updates and accountability reports. That’s fantastic but it doesn’t mean much if no one is constructively reviewing them.

Being frank, a number of delegates have said things to me akin to, "There are only three Service Providers that have actually done anything… ". A number of these statements were made mid-year. It thus begs the question, why did we keep funding those other six teams? The program allows for the DAO to cancel a stream based on poor performance, yet this power has not been used.

I would argue that this is a culture issue. I believe that the DAO has not created a culture that allows for dissenting or controversial opinion. This is not helped by the social politics involved - I know he/she is not delivering but they are a 'nice person '.

The ENS DAO is, in effect, a business. DAO participants should be incentivised to push for what’s best for the protocol, not what’s best for their relationships. We need a culture where disagreement is not just tolerated, but welcomed. It’s through disagreement and constructive conversation that better outcomes emerge.

In my view, this is part of a broader incentives issue that plagues the blockchain ecosystem. If the ENS DAO wants to set the standard for excellence we need to prioritise culture. We can’t simply do the same things and expect different outcomes.

The Two-Year Funding Blind Spot

One of the more obvious omissions in the current program design is the lack of any mechanism for delegates to express a preference between one or two years of funding for returning applicants - this is not a minor detail. A two-year commitment involves vastly different levels of risk and opportunity cost compared to a single year.

A lot of time and energy was spent on allowing delegates to express their opinion on basic vs extended scopes but this issue was not considered. As outlined above, this oversight is likely because people don’t have the time or incentives to get knee deep in the fine details of the program. Rather than simply saying 'Oh well ', we should pause (yes, again) and develop a program that considers this.

The DAO should be able to say, “We support this team, but only for one year ” or “We support them, but not at this scope. ” An independent technical panel would be able to flexibly make these decisions on the DAOs behalf.

Conflicts of Interest

Infrastructure

Lighthouse, Blockful, and Agora have each put real effort into building interfaces for the voting process. Their contributions will hopefully help delegates understand a complex system, and I genuinely appreciate the work they’ve done. But all three are also applicants for funding - In my view, this is a clear conflict of interest.

If we’re serious about legitimacy and trust, we have to bake that separation into the process. I believe that a technical body tasked with vetting and managing applicants should be made up of entities with no conflicts of interest - they cannot also be applicants, nor can they hold steward positions etc. In situations like this, they would coordinate the development of this infrastructure with external contractors.

Delegations

It is also worth acknowledging that ENS co-founders and original core contributors have significant token allocations that are disproportionately large when considered in the context of average voter turnout.

Recent delegations have in my opinion in many respects bastardised the integrity of the program and the DAO. There is an obvious conflict of interest when large delegations are made to entities heavily aligned with particular views or applicants.

I would implore anyone doing this or considering doing so to, at the bare minimum, be transparent about why. In my opinion these delegations should be withdrawn noting the precedent it sets - co-founders have allocations that exceed average voter turn out if fully utilised.

“We’ll Fix It Next Round” Isn’t Good Enough

One of the most common refrains I’ve heard throughout this process is some version of “We know it’s not perfect, but we will improve it next time.”

I don’t think that’s good enough.

We’re talking about allocating $4.5 million. These are not small grants. These are in some cases multi-year commitments that may represent the largest single source of funding a team ever receives. The idea that we should treat this as a learning experience and fix things later doesn’t match the scale of what is at stake.

This isn’t a new problem either. Many of the issues we’re facing now have plagued the ecosystem for a long time - lack of participation and a general absence of real accountability.

Conclusion

I believe that a good funding mechanism should efficiently and effectively direct funds to areas of genuine need . I believe the program as proposed does not achieve this.

Instead I believe a Technical Review Committee should be established. It should comprise of three independent individuals with a high degree of technical competency. They would be tasked with reviewing proposals and allocating funding. DAO delegates would have a right of veto over any decisions made.

I’d encourage others to share their thoughts and help refine this idea. If you disagree with this proposal or think there’s a better way, I’d love to hear it. The point isn’t to be right - it’s to make sure the DAO it’s limited funds efficiently, in a way that’s aligned with its goals.

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We appreciate @clowes.eth’s thorough analysis and thoughtful proposal addressing the challenges in the current ENS Service Provider Program. The observation that the existing all-or-nothing funding dynamic and lack of technical expertise among delegates create inefficiencies resonates strongly. We believe establishing a dedicated technical team with an appropriate compensation to review applications could indeed reduce overhead and improve the quality of funding decisions.

There are a couple of discussion points to make:

We must carefully consider the risks of concentrating funding authority in a small group. How will the DAO ensure this team remains accountable and transparent? Veto power by delegates is a good safeguard, but is it sufficient to prevent gatekeeping or capture? We’ve seen in other DAOs that expert committees can sometimes become bottlenecks or insulated from community feedback. We should prevent that from happening by setting up a right structure.

Another concern is whether this approach might inadvertently reduce applicant engagement with the broader community. If applicants perceive the process as a technical black box, will they still participate actively in discussions or seek delegate input? Encouraging open dialogue is crucial for alignment and trust.

We also wonder about the scalability of this model as ENS grows. Will a small team be able to handle increasing application volume without delays?

Overall, this proposal is a valuable step toward more accountable and strategic funding and we are in support of the initiative. We encourage the community to explore detailed designs for the technical team’s mandate, accountability mechanisms, and integration with DAO governance to ensure the best outcomes for ENS’s long-term development.

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Thanks for sharing this, @clowes.eth — your post sharpens a lot of what I was circling in my earlier reflections on SPP strategy. I agree with many of the core concerns you raise: delegate fatigue, lack of technical context, and the way incentives drift from mission-aligned coordination toward performative funding proposals.

Where your post pushes things forward (and I really appreciate this) is in offering a structural alternative: a smaller, technically proficient group making strategic assessments upstream, with the DAO retaining veto authority. That’s a meaningful shift—one that echoes what we see in protocol-level governance at places like Optimism or Arbitrum, where specialized working groups are empowered to act within clearly scoped domains.

In my write-up, I emphasized the need for clearer strategic coordination—a kind of pre-vote phase where the community agrees on what outcomes we’re optimizing for (e.g., resolver upgrades, governance infra, dweb utility, etc.). Your model could operationalize that direction: define a shared mission, then empower a team to assess which proposals best advance it.

That said, one point of contrast is how we envision accountability. I leaned toward an open strategic dialogue that includes ENS Labs, delegates, stewards, and contributors in defining yearly priorities. Your approach, if I’m reading it right, leans more toward expert-driven evaluations within a constrained mandate. Both are valid—maybe the real opportunity lies in combining the two: co-create the strategy in public, then resource a lean team to vet and execute it.

Thanks again for this—it’s the kind of discussion ENS needs more of. Happy to workshop this further if there’s appetite to turn it into a formal proposal.

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I replied to your proposal in the metagov call today, but I’m posting a short summary of it here for the benefit of those who weren’t present.

While I agree with most of your points, I disagree with this. Precisely because delegates are busy and overworked, they need to know that when we have discussion for a proposal, they vote on it, and it passes, that the proposal is carried out. Doing otherwise erodes the legitimacy of the process.

“But Brantly, didn’t you support the voting amendment proposals, which happened at the last minute?”
Yes, and some people (e.g. Nick) made precisely the above argument against them. But I supported the amendment votes because (1) the amendments were relatively minor (compared to what Thomas is proposing) and, most importantly, (2) they brought the voting rules more in line with the spirit of the program. It wasn’t a complete reconfiguration of the program, just some adjustments to the same basic program that improved how delegates expressed their opinions. Someone might say that what’s considered “small” or “in keeping with the spirit of the program” is subjective; fine, but that’s how I and most other delegates saw it.

But that’s not how I view what Thomas is proposing. What Thomas is proposing is a complete revision of the whole process. I support something like this for next year (after SPP2 voting is complete, I plan on posting a more detailed proposal on the forum for SPP3), but I think we need to follow through this year with the type of program we’ve already approved.

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Thank you for a thoughtful and relevant post, Thomas. I largely agree with your points here - it’s an unreasonable burden to put on delegates to expect them to rank 25+ detailed proposals objectively, and they’re not domain experts on what ENS and the DAO needs. A committee or working group is likely a sensible way to approach this instead.

There are a couple of areas where I disagree, which I’ll highlight below.

I don’t think this is a degree of flexibility that would be useful to add; it would further complicate matters without any attendant benefit.

In order to be eligible for a two-year stream, a team must have already completed a one year allocation. The DAO is thus re-electing them for a second time, showing a vote of confidence in their ability to deliver, backed up by at least a year’s evidence. In that circumstance, why would someone vote “yes, but only for one year”? If there’s question about the team’s ability to deliver on their promises, they shouldn’t be re-elected at all.

The exception here would be if the team is requesting a significantly larger budget, or proposing to do something entirely new. In retrospect the program should probably have some consideration for whether a team can qualify for a 2 year stream if their new ask is significantly larger than their original one.

I don’t think it makes sense to disqualify a service provider on the basis that they have, well, provided services to the DAO. That would put us in the rather absurd situation that we would be unable to fund any of the teams who have proactively worked to improve the DAO - and thus discincentivise proactive efforts. It would also place you in a position where any input into revising the service provider program is also a conflict of interest!

This also reflects, I think, a problematic attitude towards conflicts of interest. Unless a conflict is so pervasive that it would prevent a candidate from doing their job at all, conflicts should be dealt with by proactively declaring them, and recusal from votes that involve the conflict. Attempting to exclude anyone who may have any kind of conflict once again sets up a perverse incentive where we discourage our most ardent supporters from participating in the DAO.

This seems off-topic for the rest of the conversation here, but since you’ve raised it and it directly concerns me I feel compelled to respond.

Here’s a chart of delegated tokens since the ENS DAO launched in 2022:

Delegates and Delegations (All Time)
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Notice anything? Excluding the veto and the multidelegate contract, it’s pretty consistently down and to the right since launch. That’s been the general trend, and we’re rapidly approaching a point where it’s a danger to the DAO: the lower the delegation rate, and the lower the participation, the more vulnerable we are to both voting attacks and social pressure from parties with motivations that don’t necessarily align with the DAO’s. A longer term solution to this is needed, but in the meantime the deployment of the multidelegate contract finally makes it practical for tokenholders to selectively delegate some of their tokens to community members who have shown themselves to act with the interests of ENS and the DAO at heart.

Previously I haven’t delegated any of my tokens, but now that it’s practical to do so in limited quantities, I’ve chosen to delegate to a few individuals that I believe represent the best qualities of ENS. I’ve been careful to do so to a level that is commensurate with other delegates; 50k tokens is presently in the range of 25th - 30th in the delegate rankings, and is less than a quarter of the top delegate, fireeyes (whose own delegation is >85% from their own pre-launch allocation).

Here’s a list of delegates I’ve chosen to delegate to. If you believe any of them to be unsuitable of the trust I’ve placed in them, I’d like to hear why.

  • slobo.eth
  • daostrat.eth
  • obstropolos.eth
  • limes.eth
  • liubenben.eth
  • imtoken.eth
  • ethdotlimo.eth
  • governance.kpk.eth

If this kind of responsible and measured use of a limited number of my tokens to enhance the security and representation of the DAO isn’t what the tokens are for, I’d like to know your view - what are they for?

We’re not limited to “now” or “next round”. The DAO isn’t obliged to continue the service provider program in its current configuration for a moment longer than it serves its purpose. Both the delegates and the candidates would be better served by a calm reconsideration of the program than another sudden halt and subsequent rushed reimplementation.

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Thomas, thanks for sharing these thoughts. Quite a few of them resonate with me as true:

  • These applications and the context required to evaluate them makes it a very daunting task to ask of our delegates

  • The decentralized approach of this selection will likely lead to multiple teams being funded to perform the same work

  • The voting system and selection process has become extremely complex

  • There are strategies being used with applications that are less about the application and more about the theory of how to ensure best selection

  • The social pressure applied to voters to vote certain ways will undoubtedly be an issue

The challenge we have as a DAO is that none of these challenges emerged until after we saw the applications and the voting process, both of which were determined by a DAO vote, which doesn’t allow us much flexibility to address them.

That said, it’s incredibly valuable that we, as a DAO, continue to share opinions and discussions that are critical - of ourselves and our decisions - to continually ensure we’re doing the best we can.

I personally will take all of these points to heart, and I’ll keep them close at hand across the next week as the vote unfolds. Perhaps your thoughts will also lead others to examine the process as they vote this week.

I hope an outcome of this is a proposal to codify an administrative layer for the program. I don’t think the initial ENS DAO governance structure is well suited for this program. Not with existing providers and applicants inside the Working Groups and the social and network effects of the delegates and their relationships. We have legitimate issues with conflicts of interest - not because anyone is acting maliciously, but because we are a small community.
I don’t like adding more structures into the DAO, but distributing this much money requires some new thinking.

I appreciate your contributions to the conversation and collective conscience of the DAO. :pray:

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Hi Thomas, I agree with almost all of your points. Thanks for writing this. Dropping a few comments.

Not just technical expertise, but ENS-specific, business, investment, and other expertise.

This is true. And I take issue with it. You shouldn’t need to win a campaign to get the funding to keep contributing. I don’t feel comfortable, nor do I want to, spam Delegates every year to justify our work. And frankly, I don’t think Delegates want to be spammed either. But I have to say, this did give me the opportunity to meet some really amazing people, and I’m thankful for that.

It’s not just about whether delegates are technical; the issue cuts both ways. We built our entire product suite on the premise that Subnames are the best scaling strategy for ENS. But in recent conversations, I’ve noticed that highly technical delegates apparently “don’t get” subnames, while other, more biz-savvy delegates see them as a no-brainer for growth. This disconnect makes voting feel subjective and unpredictable.

I wrote a temp check - thoughts and arguments last week on why the current process is flawed. Wanted to post it, but it didn’t feel like the timing is right.

Maybe this should’ve been assigned to the metagov or ecosystem working group. I think the Service Provider Program perfectly lies between MetaGov and Ecosystem, so if it’s feasible, maybe a shared responsibility over something important is a way to go. Hopefully, this year there’s more accountability.

I agree with the sentiment here, but I wouldn’t change anything anymore for this year, certainly not introduce big radical changes.

I’m curious if you’d be willing to share - what’s your criteria for picking who to delegate to? Very glad to see some of the people receive these delegations, especially ETHLimo.

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Absolutely a valid concern that needs serious consideration.

I’d go as far as to push for everything this team does to be public such that delegates can track the process, and contribute as appropriate. I am very averse to black boxes.

I agree. We need to respect the time investment of delegates, and maintain the integrity of votes.

I think that this is the important bit. I believe that everyone’s intentions with the program is to efficiently allocate funds. There are certainly a number of people who do not agree that it will. Given the binary nature of the process a competent team with some great ideas might lose out completely because of the inflexibility of the program. I do not think that this is in keeping with the spirit of the program.

In my opinion there is at least one team that has great ideas that I would like to see supported but have not in my opinion delivered in Year 1. I discussed with them the reasons why, and based on that conversation would like to give them the opportunity to try again for one year.

Well, no… but the DAO could very easily hire parties external to the process to build this tooling to avoid the issue completely.

I accept that if we have incubated talent in a certain area within the DAO we should utilise that. We should reward consistency. A technical committee could for example reach out to governance providers supported by the DAO and manage the process of having them build necessary tooling.

I believe that this is relevant noting the program structure, and has conflict of interest considerations. I appreciate the detailed response and transparency - it adds a lot of context.

Whilst there is obviously no obligation to, I do think that this should have been communicated more clearly to the DAO/ecosystem because it does have significant implications for things like this, the Service Provider Program.

I can see from the data that delegation was trending generally down, and I accept the potential issues associated with a lower delegation rate. That said, my opinion is that a statement like “community members who have shown themselves to act with the interests of ENS and the DAO at heart” is incredibly subjective.

Of course, you have every right to use your tokens as you see fit but my point is that without clear communication of intent, external viewers don’t know what your intentions are with the remainder of your tokens. If you were to allocate all of your tokens that would be a danger to the democratic integrity of the DAO because that vote block would dwarf the totality of all other blocks.

Tokenomics are complex. While the FireEyes delegation is significant, it’s not so large that it nullifies the impact of other delegates.

Obviously contributions, and trust are personal and subjective - my opinion in that regard does not matter in this context.

That said, two of those entities are Service Provider applicants.

You previously stated:

This puts both @slobo.eth and @ethlimo.eth in a tough spot because these delegations are now co-mingled with their other delegations and/or their own token holdings. I don’t think delegations received in this manner should be usable to vote for oneself in a funding program.

This is a fair statement but the opposite also applies. Noting the above, if I were a competitor to the eth.limo service or Namestone I would be put off from applying for the program noting that they essentially have a 50k vote headstart.

I don’t have all the answers - this is an incredibly unique problem. I do think that having an open conversation about this would be incredibly valuable.

Generally, I believe it’s the DAO’s responsibility to delegate more of its tokens to active participants in the ecosystem, based on a well-defined ruleset. Of course, this comes with its own nuances and warrants thoughtful consideration.

I think that the tokens that you and other core contributors hold are instruments of structural influence. I think the way you use them, and communicate their use is hugely powerful for the integrity of the DAO. Holding them, not delegating them, and communicating that publicly is an incredibly powerful message to potential contributors that the ENS DAO is a democratic institution that people can participate in meaningfully.

Agreed. I wanted to post this in advance of the program noting that my views on this are independent of my own outcomes as an applicant. It sets the scene…

Having thought on this further I think it needs to be its own separate entity. I don’t think that this is in any way a part time role, and it has unique associated constraints. For example, I think an individual on this team should not be able to receive any other funding from the DAO and as such the compensation for the role should be commensurate with the opportunity cost (and the technical skillset required).

Closing Thoughts

Over the past 36 hours, I’ve learned a great deal. The MetaGov call and the discussion here have provided valuable insight, and I’m appreciative of those who reached out privately to offer additional context.

Despite having spent over 30 hours reviewing applications in depth, I’ve realised there were still important details in some of the applications that I missed. I will update my analysis accordingly when I get a moment.

I think this, in itself, highlights the core challenge that we face. I am looking forward to continued discussions on this over the coming weeks/months such that we can continue to improve DAO funding mechanisms :two_hearts:

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The idea that we’d disqualify the most qualified teams to build this tooling from receiving Service Provider funding, because they have already started building it proactively rather than waiting and applying, seems totally ridiculous to me, and I don’t think it’s a useful way to handle potential conflicts of interest.

I’d be happy to discuss this in more detail - but elsewhere. I don’t want to derail this important conversation about the governance of the service provider program and turn it into a debate over if and how founding team members can delegate their tokens.

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I agree that the current process needs reform, but I’d push back on the idea of a ‘technical committee’. It shouldn’t be just technical. Evaluating proposals purely through a technical lens risks missing the forest for the trees. Engineer-types are especially in danger of this blindspot. What we really need is a high-caliber ENS Strategic Capital Board composed of individuals who bring technical depth, market insight, and a track record of successful capital allocation in high-innovation markets. It’s not enough to know how to build something—you also need to understand why it matters, who will use it, and whether it’s the best use of limited capital. The ability to evaluate ROI (in both utility and protocol impact) is critical.

I’ve watched too many founders pitch beautifully engineered tech but fail to understand their market or users. ‘But we have feature X and Y and Z…’ No. That’s a pass. Funding should go to teams solving real problems—not just writing elegant code. The ENS DAO is effectively managing a $4.5M/yr venture fund. It needs reviewers who can go deep to spot technical failings just as well as a hollow value proposition.

The goal should be effective capital allocation—not just rewarding good intentions.

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Hi @clowes.eth

Large budgets as you point out deserve more scrutiny. Thanks for being bold and bringing this topic front of mind.

I agree with most of your points, but would add caution with regards to how the committee is formed and held accountable based on various experiences to date.

  • Result of months of work can end up being evaluated by a single individual; and in our experience pushback stems from personal bias or simply a lack of competency; or just plain laziness. Narrow channels like this can oppose decentralisation as a value.
  • Domain expertise in one area rarely captures the nuance needed to evaluate broad applicants, thus warranting a diverse pool of experts;

Personally I like to see a rotor of well-known, doxxed consultants empowered to produce impartial reports on the feasibility of proposals. Because work is seasonal and in the public domain it should be clear to judge the quality of output from these individuals.

Lets take a look at SPP2 though the lens of a hypothetical framework:

  • 25 unique vendors
    • 4-6 hrs spent on reviewing and clarifying scope.
    • 1-2 hrs meeting with vendors to iterate and clarify
    • 2-3 hrs reporting

At a market rate of 150-200 USD per hour the DAO would be spending 1650-2,200 to evaluate the claims in each proposal. Zooming out — I would argue that even if spend was 5k per proposal. Spending 125k to allocate 4.5M would seem reasonable. (~2.8%)

I would also argue that competent actors would be able to make very accurate decisions within those fixed bounds and should be motivated to do so accordingly.

Consider the following. How should the DAO fairly evaluate performance? Some may argue that this is too fine-grain detail but I would think that by not looking at the raw facts we are demotivating good actors.

* Alice reviewed 5 proposals with an average at 5 hrs per proposal. 0 appeals.
* Bob reviewed 5 proposals with an average at 10 hrs per proposal. 3 appeals.
* Charlie reviewed 5 proposals with an average at 7 hrs per proposal. 1 appeal.

At the end of the day, we need to lean into the fact that communicating online will be always be more error prone than it will be clear.

Therefore, real clarity is at best — always a few iterations away and processes should account for that.

I’ve also added some other general thoughts/feedback on the program below.

Domain‑Based Allocations

A challenge this round was lump‑summing the entire budget. One possible method to allocate strategic domains—say 30 % to revenue growth, 30 % to infrastructure, 40 % to R&D.

Domains and weights could easily be derived from a snapshot Vote and adjusted periodically.

A similar “binning and ranking” approach could avoid, for example, seven governance platforms fighting for dollars most delegates would rather see elsewhere.

Impeccable Agreements

The program’s goal, as I understand it, is to fund Service Providers (SPs) in “good standing,” proven by two years of operating history. If some vendors are falling short, evaluation should be unemotional and straightforward.

Here I lean on an abridged version of Impeccable Agreements. If you commit publicly, you must deliver—or promptly communicate any changes. By that measure, it should be obvious which SPs remain in good standing.

Inclusivity

I favor systems that weight input from as many contributors as possible. Some of the best insights come from “unknown” participants without a high social profile.

Excluding these voices is risky and defeats the purpose of decentralisation.

Information Overload / or minimal detail.

I spent considerable time and also found some thin technical details, but perhaps that’s a symptom of the process: applicants feel compelled to soften or pad their language for fear readers will disengage, which invites low‑quality submissions.

Possible remedy? Optimise for ongoing-refinement. Technically clarity, Strategic DAO alignment.

While the forums are a great place to get feedback we have seen little iterative feedback on the applications in public spaces.

Using ourselves as an example, we posted very early and asked for feedback, yet we can see that lots of judgments made without seeing clarification.

But perhaps this is symptomatic of the process.

Projects, Not Budgets

I have observed and agree with the delegates have expressed to prefer to fund specific projects, not blanket budgets.

I will expand on this later as I feel I have digressed a bit. Thanks if you read this far! :sweat_smile:

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