[EGG] Multi-EGG Continuity Grant Funding

Proposals
1

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tldr

  • Continue grant approvals to the Lido Contributors Group to advance towards hasu’s GOOSE, reGOOSE goals and preparation ahead of updates to deliver GOOSE-2
  • Development, audit and deployment of and Dual Governance (finalizing DAO Governance strategic initiative), along with preparing and enabling the permissionless CSM entry (continuing focus on Validator Set strategic initiative)
  • Maintain rollout and node operator onboarding for Simple DVT and CSM modules
  1. 11.1m DAI in grant continuity for the Lido Contributor’s Group (Best-before date: 2025-03-31)
  2. 8.5m DAI in grant continuity for Ecosystem Growth through Liquidity Observation Lab (Best-before date: 2025-06-30)
  3. 2m DAI in continuity for the Bug Bounty program (Best-before date: 2025-12-31) to be drawn down only in the event of payout events

Basic Data

Field Description
Proposal Name Multi-EGG Continuity Grant Funding
Which of the following GOOSE goals is your proposal advancing? 1: Lido has effective and decentralized governance, 2: Lido attracts the best validator set in the market, 3: stETH is the most used token in the Ethereum ecosystem
Proposed scope of work Engineering Coordination, stETH Core Protocol Engineering, Validator Set Engineering for the Staking Router, Alerting and Monitoring Tooling, Community Module, Governance Core Protocol Engineering, API & Components
Objectives Complete milestones relating to dual governance and new staking router modules, prepare for GOOSE-2
Total Budget Request and Best Before Dates 11.1m DAI through 2025-03-31, 8.5m DAI through 2025-06-30, 2m DAI through 2025-12-31

Multi-EGG

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Multi-EGG is:

  1. A 3mo grant request to complete all three of the GOOSE goals approved by the DAO earlier this year, namely deployment of dual governance and permissionless CSM whitelisting, maintaining rollout and node operator onboarding for Simple DVT and CSM modules
  2. A 6mo grant continuity request for Ecosystem growth
  3. A 12mo grant continuity request for the Bug Bounty program

Continuity for ongoing projects being outsourced to Pool Maintenance Labs Ltd., Argo Technology Consulting Ltd. or serviced by RCC, to collect functions relating to protocol execution, sponsorships and development support for the DAO. These existing contributor channels can mitigate present business continuity risks while advancing decentralised protocol governance.

This proposal would ratify the below budget request that will continue grantee funding through EasyTrack contracts into three multi-signature addresses

DAI 11.1m will be approved for the period Jan-2025 to Mar-2025, distributed across the below grant approvals.

Approval of a continuation of the previous grant to Pool Maintenance Labs Ltd., an independent not-for-profit staking advocacy and technical services company and existing contributor in the British Virgin Islands, transferred to a company-authorized 4/7 multi-sig wallet with signers listed below: 0x17F6b2C738a63a8D3A113a228cfd0b373244633D

adcv: 0xcC692077C65dd464cAA7e7ae614328914f8469b3
folkyatina: 0x75E01e1B7a4Ac280fB744A8153beE668A7e83abd
kadmil: 0x9A3f38AF97b791C85c043D46a64f56f87E0283D4
Azat: 0xA14BFfd91fb571bF1D9Bec70f273CAc13CA127Fa
krogla: 0x000000DfE832ccD7a4011a1Fca34602C9a598353
Elena_S: 0x07Bd812CF9c70538d78Cd4faaBbb5C1d8688d173
alxmrn: 0x444C7182bD7cd40f323Ba7A9b84d6B7564ccf5EC

Approval of a continuation of the previous grant to Argo Technology Consulting Ltd, an independent Panamanian software development company operated as a not-for-profit, funded through a company-authorized 4/7 wallet with signers listed below: 0x9B1cebF7616f2BC73b47D226f90b01a7c9F86956

adcv: 0xcC692077C65dd464cAA7e7ae614328914f8469b3
dgusakov: 0x992Ce4eEc8288274f60880c7770DdA265fCCe610
ShardYaco: 0x59d07dc34B135B17b87840a86BFF7302039E7EDf
Alex_L: 0xB339918e75664a07BB650513427559920C0A0F6C
Juan: 0xB8Dcad009E533066F12e408075E10E3a30F1f15A
Olga_K: 0xcb408B2c5e45E43DF0F3B2d665873F805D435598
Angelina_L: 0x30cE91EB74E56d0df97c78774B3ACa2144F6AD32

Approval of a continuation to fund the RCC 4/7 multi-sig wallet with signers listed below: 0xDE06d17Db9295Fa8c4082D4f73Ff81592A3aC437

Alex_L: 0xB339918e75664a07BB650513427559920C0A0F6C
irina: 0x8CeD94df9ddba8E38b6cb36639B6635F19Eb25C6
UniteTheClans: 0x81ca68f085282434D15c09619360D6513710a979
zuzu_eeka: 0x004812da927b5dcd07e7329609edd75e25d2d295
adcv: 0xcC692077C65dd464cAA7e7ae614328914f8469b3
Mol_Eliza: 0x21b82AA7149c8Fd0562E78b740937442FfD43094
Olga_K: 0xcb408B2c5e45E43DF0F3B2d665873F805D435598

If the proposal is approved, the first funding for disbursement to finance protocol operations would be requested from the DAO via EasyTrack motions.

Pool Maintenance Labs Ltd. 0x17F6b2C738a63a8D3A113a228cfd0b373244633D
Argo Technology Consulting Ltd. 0x9B1cebF7616f2BC73b47D226f90b01a7c9F86956
RCC 0xDE06d17Db9295Fa8c4082D4f73Ff81592A3aC437

Multisig signers & addresses may be rotated by specified multisig after signalling the change to DAO on the governance forum. Number of signers can’t be lowered, and the threshold must be at least 50% of the signers.

A further 8.5m DAI would be approved for Ecosystem growth to continue a previous grant to further liquidity incentivization, experimentation and research through to 2025-06-30.

A further 2m DAI would be approved for continuing coverage for exposure to the Bug Bounty program through to 2025-12-31. These funds will only be drawn in the event of a payout event.

At the end of the budget period, contributors will request new grant funding to propose advancing towards GOOSE-2.

Transparency

As with the previous EGG, a review will be held to recap on the progress to date and report on variances. Publicly available information on the state of the DAO economics continue to be available here.

12 Likes
2

Thank you for the proposal.
We have several questions and comments regarding the proposal and its implementation.

  1. Could you provide the reasoning behind the decision to adjust the core contributor grant period from six months to three months?
    While the funding amount seems consistent with previous levels, we would like to better understand the context behind this change.

  2. Would it be possible to share the budget with more detailed breakdowns?
    We believe that proper budget management is essential for ensuring the project’s long-term growth. Additionally, providing transparent information to delegates and other governance participants is crucial for making governance itself more robust, meaningful, and effective.
    For example, in this GRAPPA proposal, the comment mentioned leftover funds from EGG st2024 v2 and the existence of a hired security budget, which we assume is part of the previous EGG proposal. Providing clarity on such points would enhance the accountability and transparency of this governance process.

  3. Could you provide an update on the implementation status of st2024 v2?
    The previous report on budget utilization and progress from the EGG st2024 v2 proposal was highly insightful. A similar update this time, preferably with more detailed breakdowns, would be invaluable in facilitating more constructive discussions.

4 Likes
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Thank you for the questions:

  1. As mentioned in the proposal, this is a specific scope related to delivering milestones on CSM and dual governance
  2. GRAPPA is not in the scope of this EGG, as the comment mentions, the pilot is being supported by existing grants but future GRAPPA requests will come from independent EGGs
  3. Yes - apologies - public updates are a bit overdue on st2024 v2, will update the relevant thread as soon as possible. It would be helpful to understand what type of breakdowns you would find helpful beyond the ones already provided
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  1. One of the main ideas (well, as I get it, at very least) is in focusing on 1) delivering upon existing goals with projects close to finalization 2) “keeping the lights on” for Lido on Ethereum. There are two really big things Contributors are looking to deliver in the nearest time: deploying Dual Governance and switching the CSM to fully permissionless mode.
  2. In order to deliver upon valuestream projects, as well as continue NEW/NEC operations, Contributors contact and contract different third-party security-focused teams. NEC and Alliance happen to have 1) consistent stream of work with 2) pretty consistent “security criteria”, thus formulating the initiative and giving it a name (GRAPPA, in that case) seemed worthwhile. As mentioned, going forwards GRAPPA would (quite likely and at some point) have separate EGG; the current iteration doesn’t require extra funding, as it could be covered by a part of a third-party security contracting budget set aside in st2024 v2. Budgeting of security measures is a surprisingly deep thing in itself, which I can’t adequately and actionably cover in this thread.
  3. State of affairs going as an input into GOOSE-2 is a reasonably good recap of what had been achieved under st2024 v2: [Hasu's GOOSE-2 Submission] A Product Line Approach to Grow Lido’s Staking Ecosystem
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Seeing the key technical goals we’ve discussed are moving forward and will help strengthen the ecosystem long-term.

That being said, with over 50% of the budget allocated for just three months, I think it’s a significant spend :). How will the DAO track how companies like Pool Maintenance Labs Ltd., Argo Technology Consulting Ltd., and RCC use the funds to ensure the work gets done on time and within budget?

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Not super clear on what this means.

There are three separate EGG requests with different time frames. 100% of the budget requested in each is allocated to its designated purpose. I’m hopeful that EGG requests will be invested with minor variances. Please be advised that Bug Bounty is likely to be, and we should hope it to be, an almost 100% positive variance. We have some ideas about how to capitalize it more permanently and safely without having to renew the request every time.

Budget vs actuals tracking will be available on this thread for each budget item. As always, we invite the community to review our protocol economic report here. The DAO should be able to follow through additional post announcements and Aragon votes the progress delivered to execute some of the milestones planned against.

1 Like
8

Hi there! Correct us if wrong but this proposal sounds more like a budget extension for st2024 v2 but just for those specific milestones regarding Dual Gov and CSM + Ecosystem Growth and Bug Bounty. So maybe naming it st2024v3 would’ve avoided some of the confusion (at least for the Dual Gov and CSM piece)

On the reporting side the outlined scope of work would provide insights on how the budget is allocated assuming that that’s how the SOW was budgeted.

On a general level, it’d be interesting to build something like the LEGO reports but for EGGs and having some descriptions alongside the charts. Lastly, we’re looking forward to see the Ecosystem Grow budget unfold since it’s a huge part of GOOSE 2 so expecting recurrent updates on that end!

Thanks!

2 Likes
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We are entirely for the continuation of Pool Maintenance Labs (PML) and Argo Technology Consulting (ATC) operations to ensure business continuity risks remain low.1 Thank you @steakhouse for putting together this information.

Questions

  1. Is the decrease in DAI across 2024 H1 ($22.5m), 2024 H2 ($24.6m), and 2025 H1($21.6m) reflective of more efficient capital allocation?
    a. If so, what has Steakhouse observed that has contributed to higher operating leverage?
    b. If not, what is the reason for the contraction in DAI allocations through Ecosystem Grant Grequest (EGG)?

  2. Both EGG proposals from 2024 included a request for additional LDO to distribute to PMC. Is there a reason for the absence of additional LDO in the 2025 request, e.g. the conservative spending of LEGO rolling over to 2025?

1 “The business continuity risks here mean: the supply of talent, the supply of tooling, and the supply of infrastructure that support and develop the Lido ecosystem.” (Source)

Sources:

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Thank you both for your responses @steakhouse @kadmil.
If you don’t mind, we would like further clarifications on your answers.

  1. We understand that there is a focus on initiatives such as CSM and dual governance. However, what we were curious about is why proposals for the period after April are not being included here.

    • It seems reasonable that this EGG request includes expenses for CSM, dual governance, and other Lido on Ethereum-related costs.
    • To reiterate, our question is why other aspects are not being proposed at this time.
    • Just one assumption, but there may be an ongoing planning process internally, such as expanding new product lines based on the GOOSE-2 strategy. If that is the case, it would be greatly appreciated if those details could also be shared.

  2. What we were hoping to request was not so much about GRAPPA itself, but rather whether a more detailed breakdown of the overall budget items could be shared. We understand that GRAPPA is not included in this EGG.

    • Specifically, we are interested in information such as, for example, within the R&D section for “3. stETH as the most used token,” how much is planned for personnel costs related to actual development (e.g., 650k), audits (e.g., 700k), and tools (e.g., 50k).
    • We recognize that there may be privacy concerns that prevent the disclosure of details at the level of exactly how much is paid to whom, and we agree that such granularity is unnecessary.
    • To reiterate, appropriate transparency leads to healthy discussions and encourages participation from DAO participants. We are asking this question with the belief that it significantly contributes to improving the security and functionality of the DAO.

  3. We are looking forward to the release of the actual report on this. As Kadmil has shared, Hasu’s proposal provides a good qualitative explanation of the progress made. What we are specifically interested in here is the financial aspect, particularly the actual budget utilization.

  • As we mentioned previously, we have some concerns about the low budget utilization rate:
  • While we are not suggesting that a 100% budget utilization rate is ideal, we believe that accurately forecasting future needs, designing budgets accordingly, and conducting proper retrospectives are essential for promoting healthy project management and sustainability.
  • The idea for breaking down is described in the second section of this comment: “Specifically, we are interested in …”
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At the beginning I was also confused by the 3 months best-before date, but thanks for clarifying that it’s because at the end of these 3 months we expect to be done with

  • Dual governance
  • CSM becoming permissionless
    So a new EGG shall be put forth after these 3mo, focusing on GOOSE-2.

Considering that we’re so close to the two objectives above, can’t wait for seeing what’s going to be the deliverables presented for GOOSE-2!

There is one thing I still have some confusion about - and it’s more a clarification for my sake and maybe some others that might think the same than a real concern:
There is emphasis on the 3 different receivers of funds (Pool Maintenance, Argo Tech, RCC), but no breakdown on how much do each get. Should it make sense to allocate a specific budget to specific entities? What’s the reasoning behind bundling these under the 11M DAI ?

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Finally, another transparency note.

In the transparency section of these threads usually updates on the budget vs. actual expenditure are made, even broken down by vertical (often linked to a GOOSE):

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This covers financial transparency, but not necessarily transparency on the steps taken, outcomes achieved or simply research made. Since most of the research and the actions are actually captured in forum posts in here, could we also get links to the work that has been funded with these periods funds? Example, I know that I can follow the CSM post Community Staking Module - #75 by dgusakov for updates in the CSM, but it is quite hard to track down what other “Validator Research” has been done with this budget.

Probably the hardest part here is coordination of teams, as these reports are often presented by @steakhouse , which might not have this knowledge exactly, and the teams would have to offer the updates themselves in the form of providing the links to the projects touched by the budget.

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Gist is — the deliverables don’t fit nicely along the funds receivers, unfortunately, thus the single request across a number of deliverables and entities as receivers.

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As Lansky has already pointed out, the ongoing reporting is getting done in the updatable st2024 v2 thread [EGG] st2024 v2: Continuity Grant Funding to Achieve GOOSE Goals

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Another big thing to understand on a “mental model” level is: the significant portion of day-to-day things Contributors are doing is directed on maintaining and supporting existing protocol and governance. There’s a lot of infra getting built and tended to in order to have clear picture of what’s happening: from knowing how’s onboarding of the upcoming SDVT batch goes to figuring out month-over-month incentives for stETH to maintaining governance cadence (honest plug: like, check out “How to check onchain vote” instruction for Aragon #181 How to check the Lido DAO onchain vote #181 - HackMD) to providing the community updates on month over month spend, as well as maintaining general observability of the different protocol’s parts and processes (oracle / deposit security module / “market-level” monitoring, all the Dune dashboards https://dune.com/LidoAnalytical and above.

While Multi-EGG request calls out Dual Governance and fully permissionless stage for Community Staking Module as clear and visible “new deliverables”, I’d count on significant portion of the budget requested to be utilized on maintaining the smooth operation of all the protocol parts, continuing ongoing initiatives and, well, keeping the lights on as bright as possible.

2 Likes
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One more “lay of the land” comment (wasn’t remotely obvious for me at first, think would be useful context).

The significant portion of the “variable spend” is set aside for audits and over third-party security checks (GitHub - lidofinance/audits). In order to signal “potential scope” of the project (along with the ballpark of spend expected, in Contributors time and in audits and other security measures), Contributors use “Landscape” docs and ask the DAO for the sign of approval in form of the snapshot vote. Ideal budgeting of those isn’t attainable: 1) for one, you have to more of less develop the whole thing for audit costs and timelines estimates to be correct (and actually send the code to audit straight after that, as even with audit scope not changing the price and timing for audit could change with time); 2) given the EGGs have “best before” dates, if, say, audit kick-off is getting shifted from one “budget date cut-off” to another, the budget has to be re-requested. Given the audits are quite expensive, this leads to a visible variance in budgets requested for some calendar period / spend in that period.

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It seems to me that most of the comments in this thread show the need for better ways to organize and communicate budget requests and others. The EGG framework already helps to standarize the content within funding requests, but to be honest following up with things on the forum is a bit hard sometimes. Here’s a few notes on that:

First, the name of the funding requests change frequently, and they’re not intuitive. In this case, calling it a continuation of st2024 like @SEEDOrg suggested would’ve probably made more sense.

Given this funding request comes from one of the main contributors group, it’d be easier to find a more standard naming convention that included the name of the entity/group, year/period and other relevant information. I always thought the name st2024, even if not perfect, was a good start to improve the information asymmetry within the community.

Not only that, but reporting/keeping track is also complicated. Some proposals such as Community Staking Module, contain multiple sub-proposals and associated Snapshot/Aragon votes on a single thread (which imo makes it harder for less-involved community members to search and find that info on the forum) whereas these for example, even if continuations, are separated (and with, again, different names).

If I see the norm is clearly separating proposals, it’d hardly cross my mind to check a single thread for all proposals related to one initiative, and vice versa.

On another hand, funding requests for Pool Maintenance Labs, Argo Technology Consulting and RCC have previously been under the name Lido Contributors Group. I understand the name may not be appropriate anymore with contributions now being made from others such as the Lido BORG Alliance, or Community Lifeguards ourselves. But given that PML, ATC and RCC are often together on funding requests, finding another name would help create a better mental model for issues like @Lanski’s, regardless of how that group of contributors decides to organize internally.

Contributors have already all the information and understanding, but these small details can make a huge difference now that the community is growing quite fast with both governance and NO improvements (e.g. delegation and SDVT/CSM). This should, in part, solve itself as the community matures and finds its own culture to propose–but I think it makes sense to spend some time to think about this.

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These are all great points thank you @enti. Note taken for future EGG cycles in order to facilitate the task of parsing requests by delegates and token holders.

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Snapshot vote started

Please get your wallets ready to cast a vote :white_check_mark:, the [EGG] Multi-EGG Continuity Grant Funding Snapshot has started! The Snapshots ends on Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:00 GMT.

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Small comment from my side on why I think doing a bridge budget is a good idea.

In theory, I see the optimal governance flow work like this:

  1. GOOSE to set strategic direction (“what”)
  2. Concrete implementation proposals by contributors (“how”)
  3. Budget to pay for it

Cleary, this flow has several advantages:

  • contributors know how much they actually need to implement the strategy
  • LDO holders and their delegates know what they are actually paying for

As a result, the budget will be more transparent, realistic, and useful.

The EGG bridge funding allows contributors to wrap up GOOSE-1 priorities and develop a clear plan for GOOSE-2, which can then form the basis for a proper budget.

I voted yes on the initiative.

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I looked at the liquidity support thread and I still have questions about this grant.

  1. How much does LOL management cost for Lido?
    This is not clear from this proposal. What part goes to incentives and what to salaries?
  2. Are there any reports on the effectiveness of liquidity management?
    Does it make sense to continue doing this?
    What will happen if you don’t do this?
    Is there any understanding on this matter?
  3. Why is the amount of liquidity support exactly $8.5 million?
    Are there calculations somewhere?

It seems to me that in order to decide on the distribution of such a large amount of funds, it would be desirable to receive all the data in one proposal: reports, calculations and explanations.