Continue Alliance BORG activities through 2025 in line with approved guidelines
Basic Data
Field
Description
Proposal Name
Alliance BORG 2025
Which of the following GOOSE goals is your proposal advancing?
Lido Alliance BORG is a Cayman Foundation organized to endorse, amplify and stand behind builders driven by the same vision of decentralized validation, and a universally accessible, censorship-resistant Ethereum. Advancing mainly “Expand stETH’s Ecosystem with a Diverse Product Line” from GOOSE-2
Organization description
Cayman Foundation authorized through a DAO vote, currently serviced, following Borg approval, by Captain Nemo
Proposed scope of work
Scouting, research, due diligence calls, coordination with Lido contributor organizations and Alliance partners, initial discussion, application support
Objectives
Expand Alliance to 8+ total members, Support growth and adoption of stETH within existing Alliance set
Total Budget Request
$300k
Best-before date
31-Dec-2025
Substantiation for request
The Lido Alliance initiative launched last year and has already succeeded in enlisting projects that subscribe to Lido’s values and support the growth of the Lido ecosystem. Current DAO-approved members include:
Relative to the $125k request approved for half a year, the BORG has incurred expenses of approximately $100k so far, largely related to setup and administrative fees which are not expected to recurr in 2025, and a further $25k earmarked for incurred expenses related to third party engagements
The budget request is intended to cover:
Operational overhead
Administrative expenses, director fees, software infrastructure
Growth initiatives and project discovery
Outreach and primary sourcing of high-potential projects, ongoing support to existing members and
Evaluation and pipeline management
Due diligence screening, external security ratings and advisory
Composition of request:
$200k - third-party service contracts for full-time contributor team, third-party due diligence support and other agencies
$25k - administrative expenses
$75k - operational overhead necessary for execution, including marketing engagements and communication
Slight increase of $50k relative to original expectations behind higher than expected projected expenses for comprehensive security due diligence on prospective applicants
Goals
Plan to expand Alliance to 8+ total members by end of 2025 provided we can guarantee:
Lido Alliance is one of the coolest things to come out of Lido recently
I’m excited to see that one of BORG’s main goals is to support the wider adoption of stETH in DeFi projects and apps. This will open up more partnership opportunities and help grow the Lido and stETH ecosystem in the long run.
I see the budget has increased, but it makes sense given the longer timeline. The allocation seems reasonable, especially for third-party services and development.
Overall, I’m in support of this proposal because it focuses on sustainable growth for Lido’s ecosystem and creates more opportunities for collaboration and growth within the community.
yey! I’m happy u like the Alliance and will do my best to help it grow Lido ecosystem.
Blockchain world IMO have much better option to be collaborative vs web2 world, especially due to it’s transparent nature and public code.
With that in mind Lido ecosystem growth in my mind is much better by making skin in the game partnerships vs M&A approach.
that way u build with partners that have their autonomy while u are preserving defensive mechanism in case things go south in future for that particular partnership.
I’ll try soon to ship some stats for this year and 3 projects that joined the alliance and mutual impact of it.
anyhow, I’m always open for feedback and opinions so pls don’t hesitate to ping <3
Echoing @Ignas everything looks good. The budget is quite reasonable and it’s nice to see the BORG model in action.
(It does make me wonder whether we need to include LDO more as a focus).
Thank you so much for the proposal and we support this.
Hasu’s GOOSE-2 submission outlined a strategy to expand the adoption of stETH through product line diversification. We believe that the Lido Alliance can achieve similar objectives by leveraging external resources, making this proposal an excellent complement to GOOSE-2’s vision.
Projects like Mellow Protocol already demonstrate exciting potential for future growth, and this proposal’s budget allocation appears reasonable given its ambitious yet achievable goals.
We look forward to seeing how the Lido Alliance continues to drive the ecosystem forward!
Thank you for sharing @Nemo and we are also eggcited about the progress and development with Drop, Mellow and recently Bolt.
While we have no strong concerns with the budget request, wanted to sound out a potential improvement for the goal statements that could be made more specific or performance oriented. Especially around your goal on expanding stETH ecosystem through product line expansion and a open validator market. What does success look like for these for “exploring collaborations”?
I’m not sure if the team has considered a more KPI/milestone based proposal with incentives on top of a base budget but it could be appropriate in this scenario?
Hey! Congrats on the website (and the thoroughness of the application form).
We are also supportive of the alliance since it’s certainly a key component of GOOSE 2 and also happy to see the BORG in action. Budget wise we don’t have any major callouts but just wanted to echo @Nansen on having some sort of reference KPI in order to leverage performance.
Also curious on knowing how GOOSE 2 has shaped the BORGs approach to stETHs expansion or what high level considerations do you have prior actioning your scope of work. Any insight on this would be valuable and help to visualize how GOOSE cascades into specific actions.
hey, yes def KPIs are in there I’m yet debating with myself what should be my alfa and what not
but joke aside, % of stETH growth via alliance members is one of the KPIs. am still doing last assessment and will update it.
as for validator question, what I wanted to say new opportunities that bring more work and incentives to validator set and with that better apr for stETH. so basically one of the things I would love to see is more alliance members that have influence on apr
