I’ve written about this several times, but I wanted to share my thoughts again, as I’m genuinely enthusiastic about on-chain governance structures and the Lido protocol.
I have no issue with Labs providing incentives to knowledgeable contributors to support their decision-making process.
However, I believe this mentality toward DAO governance could ultimately lead Lido DAO to a structure where the delegate set is concentrated among a few whales, participation rates hover just above quorum, and governance becomes effectively centralized around Labs, with little real representation of token holders.
Token holder representation is the most crucial element, as it directly ties the value of the governance token to the protocol itself. Buybacks are a weak and often ineffective mechanism for aligning token value with protocol success, something the DAO industry has demonstrated many times.
Without incentivizing all active delegates, regardless of size, and without encouraging token holders to delegate, neither the diversity of delegates nor overall participation is likely to grow, resulting in a low-value and misaligned governance token.
And the most promising, yet at the same time unfortunate, thing about Lido DAO is that its governance framework is not being fully utilized, despite being one of the best in the industry for tying token ownership to protocol ownership.
I am generally in favor of this proposal and willing to join the Delegate Oversight Committee Multisig with an address 0x6402f26ae319b4edB6c4D459D437Fe274dE29f20.
Although I propose moving the eligibility snapshot date from the 15th of the quarter’s middle month to the day the first voting slot actually begins each quarter, so that the eligibility determination point better aligns with the quarterly voting cadence.
I agree with you and also think that direction you describe is the right one
At the same time, I see things a bit differently in a few areas.
I don’t think governance is centralized around Labs. Lido has independent, high-reputation delegates, people like @polar, @Lanski, and @Leuts, who are not controlled by Labs and have their own voice in the industry. That independence is real, and it’s a core strength of the current program.
I’m also cautious about paying all active delegates just for participation. Broad, automatic compensation can create an extraction dynamic and attract actors optimizing for rewards rather than impact. Paying for presence doesn’t guarantee value. I support strong compensation for delegates who deliver sustained, meaningful contributions. But I lean toward recognizing that impact individually, for example, through targeted grants, rather than paying everyone by default.
On incentivizing tokenholders to delegate: I agree participation must grow. But I’d prefer to treat LDO holder incentives as a separate design question from delegate compensation.
I genuinely value you as a delegate and hope you stay involved. The challenge is designing incentives that increase representation without diluting DAO value.
I appreciate the thoughtful response and the work you and the committee have put into strengthening governance stability through DIP. I also agree that broad automatic compensation without safeguards can create extraction dynamics.
My thinking is less about paying for presence and more about how we allow the delegation market (shaped directly by LDO holders through their delegation decisions) to price delegate value over time. I understand that broader LDO holder incentive design is a separate discussion, so I won’t expand on that here.
The ≥1M LDO threshold creates a binary eligibility cliff. A delegate with 800k LDO and strong engagement currently has no path into the incentivized set, while someone just above the threshold fully qualifies. Over time, fixed cutoffs can reduce competitive pressure and slow delegate market evolution.
Rather than expanding compensation indiscriminately, I wonder whether a more graduated structure could be explored in the future, one that preserves strong incentives for established delegates while allowing high-performing mid-sized delegates a clearer growth path.
My main concern is ensuring that mechanisms designed to stabilize governance today do not unintentionally reduce its elasticity over time.
Proposal makes sense to me! It’s been an honor to support the Lido community for the last 1.5 years here on this mission
For this program, I believe it is at a mature enough stage to pass on the torch, excited to have @Kate_Alekseeva and @nikita.p. This will also be a very healthy proof point to demonstrate continuity of a program like this.
One process issue I want to flag is that publishing delegate vote rationales mainly in separate delegate threads fragments discussion too much.
Instead of keeping arguments and clarifications under the main proposal threads, opinions get spread across many individual pages. That makes governance harder to follow and weakens deliberation quality.
At ENS DAO, where I am also a delegate, most substantive feedback is posted directly under the relevant proposal threads. I think that structure is more productive and keeps governance discussion easier to follow.
Main proposal threads should remain the primary venue for discussion, while delegate threads can mainly document final positions.
