# Expectations for DIP 2.0: accountability, outreach, and measurable outcomes
**URL:** https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479
**Category:** Delegate Platform
**Created:** [April 22, 2026, 4:37pm UTC](https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479 "2026-04-22T16:37:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@katernoir](https://research.lido.fi/u/katernoir)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2026, 4:37pm UTC](https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479/1 "2026-04-22T16:37:13Z")
I was planning to post my opinion to the proposal thread of [DIP 2.0](https://research.lido.fi/t/establish-a-public-delegate-platform-and-delegate-incentivization-program/7858/81) when it was live as I felt the expectations for DIP changed over its lifetime, but unfortunately didn’t have time back then to properly consolidate my thoughts and put together a structured response. I know the proposal has already been accepted and I am not lobbying against it, but after talking with some people, I still felt it was relevant to share my opinion and start a discussion around it - so we make it clear what is the expected outcome for this program that the DAO is paying for.
Now that DIP 2.0 is moving forward as a standing governance mechanism, I think it makes sense to ensure the expected outcome is still the same we had when we originally started it. The original goal of creating a public delegate platform and a framework to incentivize delegates’ work was to increase [active voting participation, improve the quality of discussions and feedback, and activate new tokenholders](https://research.lido.fi/t/establish-a-public-delegate-platform-and-delegate-incentivization-program/7858#p-16568-motivation-1) in governance via delegation. Those are - in my opinion - still the right goals, but I believe only the first of the three is currently actively fulfilled.
1. **Active voting participation should be measured clearly**
2. **Discussion quality needs to be visible, not assumed**
3. **Outreach beyond the forum**
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### Author:  [@katernoir](https://research.lido.fi/u/katernoir)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2026, 8:15am UTC](https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479/2 "2026-05-18T08:15:03Z")
Pushing this thread in hope to see some delegates replies
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### Author:  [@katernoir](https://research.lido.fi/u/katernoir)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2026, 11:13am UTC](https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479/3 "2026-06-17T11:13:33Z")
Second push here…Still hoping to get some feedback / response on it
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### Author:  [@Nansen](https://research.lido.fi/u/Nansen)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2026, 8:10am UTC](https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479/4 "2026-06-26T08:10:57Z")
We broadly agree with the direction here. Our starting point is simple: we want Lido and LDO to succeed, the products to win, and the token to follow. Governance is how the DAO steers good decisions toward those goals, and we contribute where we can add value to that.
On participation, a lot of the flow is technical or design work that does not need a full governance vote, beyond a sense check that there is no improper use of funds and that the usual checks and balances hold. Those are better streamlined through committees with clear scope and oversight, which keeps the DAO’s attention on the decisions that actually move the protocol. Participation is healthy, and we would not judge the program on vote counts alone.
On measurement, we agree it is worth trying more of what you suggest and the metrics should be fairly easy to compute. Beyond that, we would treat the broader set of measures in a start, stop, continue spirit, tracking them over a few quarters to see what is working, what is not, and what to carry forward. Used that way the data informs the direction of DIP and governance rather than acting as fixed KPIs. Ultimately, the goal is continuous improvement, not perfect measurement. If the program successfully attracts and retains top-tier delegates while maintaining governance quality, overall participation should naturally optimize toward something of a “Pareto optimal”.
Your second point, on discussion quality, is fair, and it should be visible. We would set the bar as quality over quantity. The DAO is better served by the delegates with real insight on a given topic weighing in than by everyone commenting on everything to clear a participation threshold. Depth on the subjects a delegate actually knows is worth more than broad but thin coverage.
Outreach is where it gets interesting and for us it sits across governance, product, and customer. Nansen is a governance delegate, a user of Lido’s products ([see our stVault here](https://lido.fi/stvaults-products-overview/nansen-eth-vault)) and holds stETH for treasury purposes, so we see these decisions from both sides. Where there are critical votes or material changes to Lido or the program, we have and are happy to put our reach and distribution behind getting them in front of a wider audience.
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### Author:  [@polar](https://research.lido.fi/u/polar)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2026, 3:34pm UTC](https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479/5 "2026-06-27T15:34:51Z")
Hello @katernoir + DAO members,
I thought it might be useful to give my perspective as a somewhat old timer in DAOs and Crypto broadly. I am generally of the view that with DAOs it is best to be conservative. This is because my recent experiences in DAOs has been quite negative. For example, Scroll DAO simply became centralised by its creators not long back, ENS is currently in a tailspin about potential capture and there are many more tales one could tell.
All this is to say that Lido is one of the few DAOs I know that actually functions well. In fact, I sometimes say to people that Lido could probably be considered a DAC, in the original definition of Larimer. There are a number of reasons why I think this is probably the case:
- Lido’s teams and committees are close-knit, seasoned, and often operate like companies do (but without the stuff HR department slowing them down).
- These teams are broad support and buy in from the DAO members. Not complete buy-in, which would be weird but by DAO standards it is a relatively peaceful atmosphere.
- There is Cypherpunk cultural alignment that is also embedded (e.g. dual governance, CSM, etc.). It is extremely difficult to secure this. It is rare and frankly one of the main reasons why I participate in delegation.
Which brings us to the question of delegation. It is a little bit of a mini-miracle, probably attributable to the culture, that Lido is not beset by professional delegates. Whether individual or formalised. There is a fairly varied set of mostly independent folks represented. There are some delegation houses but 8 of the top 10 are individuals. In my own case, Lido is the only DAO that I am an active delegate with in 2026. Bar a couple of smaller projects.
One potential effect of introducing KPIs, metrics, etc. is that you slowly lose the independents. I am myself an academic. So a full-time job. Alongside my own small engagements elsewhere. Nonetheless I quite enjoy the fairly intensive voting process and cadence here. Because we
need to understand the forum post, we need to understand the audits and we need to understand the technical implementation. And this has given me fairly extensive insight into the governance process and Lido’s offerings over time. In the past with DAOs I also enjoyed doing this but basically had to dis-engage when KPIs, etc. became too onerous. What tended to happen to these DAOs is the professional outfits stepped in. These are often teams, a little more industrial and, I suspect, often supportive of these measures because they know independents can’t keep up. So there is some danger here methinks. The somewhat informal nature of governance here is to my mind its strength.
However, I do think we could do a better job of outreach. Perhaps delegate rationales should also appear on some social media. So we’re leveraging our followings to show how active Lido DAO governance is. And can encourage folks to get involved. How to get more delegations is its own issue that involves charming large holders to be less passive.
Overall I suppose I am now of the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ school of DAOs.
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### Author:  [@katernoir](https://research.lido.fi/u/katernoir)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2026, 3:41pm UTC](https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479/6 "2026-07-02T15:41:00Z")
Thank you both (@Nansen and @polar) for taking the time to respond. This is exactly the kind of discussion I hoped this thread would start.
I think one important distinction is getting lost. I am not advocating for strict, per-delegate KPIs. I agree they are easy to game, and I would much rather see fewer, high-quality contributions than people posting “we voted Yes because…” simply to satisfy a metric. Rigid KPIs often shift attention toward what is easiest to measure instead of what creates the most value.
In fact, I completely understand the concern that introducing more individual metrics could discourage exactly the kind of independent thinking we want. I can relate to that personally. I am one of the most active voters of the DAO since day 1, have enough delegated voting power to be eligible for DIP, and deliberately chose not to participate. The reason is simple: I did not want to commit to producing a guaranteed level of output in exchange for compensation. I prefer contributing when I genuinely believe I have something valuable to add.
Where I think we differ is that I’m looking at DIP as a funded DAO program rather than a collection of individual delegates. Anyone can participate in governance without being part of DIP. But once the DAO decides to allocate roughly $300k per year to a program, I think it also has a responsibility to periodically evaluate whether that spending is achieving the outcomes the program was created to deliver.
That is why I don’t think this discussion is really about whether delegates have another full-time job or whether governance participation should remain informal. Outside of DIP, I completely agree that it should. But once compensation is involved, the relationship changes. The DAO is no longer simply encouraging participation; it is funding a program with a specific purpose. Just like any other funded initiative in the DAO, there should be some reasonable relationship between the cost of the program and the outcomes it produces. That doesn’t require rigid KPIs, but it does require a shared understanding of what success looks like.
My original point therefore remains the same. DIP was introduced with objectives such as increasing voting participation, improving governance discussions, and expanding outreach to tokenholders. I think voting participation has clearly improved, but I’m less convinced we’ve seen the same evidence for the latter objectives. If the priorities of the program have evolved, that’s perfectly fine, but then I think we should update those expectations explicitly. Otherwise, we should discuss how we evaluate whether the original objectives are being achieved. What I would like to avoid is continuing to fund the program without being clear which of those two situations we’re in.
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### Author:  [@semp\_re](https://research.lido.fi/u/semp_re)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2026, 8:09pm UTC](https://research.lido.fi/t/expectations-for-dip-2-0-accountability-outreach-and-measurable-outcomes/11479/7 "2026-09-10T20:09:50Z")
Three questions here, and I can only speak usefully to one.
On measuring participation: I track Lido daily as part of a nine-protocol comparison. Between 5 August and 4 September, Lido had the highest delegate engagement rate of the nine — measured as a rate, it looks good.
The headcount underneath tells a different story. Across the last 30 closed proposals, the median number of votes cast is roughly 52. Across the last 90, it is 77. Across the last 200, 66. So recent participation sits below the longer-run level.
I want to be careful about what that does and does not show. Those windows are not aligned to the start of the program, and I am not attributing the movement to DIP either way. Proposal mix alone could explain a good part of it. But if the question is whether participation has improved, the raw counts do not currently show that, and they are checkable against the Snapshot API by anyone here.
The wider point: a rate can look healthy against a narrow eligible base. Fifty-odd people is a small number deciding for a protocol this size. Quorum stability and broad participation are different outcomes, and the program is currently reported against the first one.
On delegation growth I cannot help. I do not track Lido at delegate level. The distinction drawn above — LDO delegated to public delegates versus LDO delegated on Aragon overall — has to be measured deliberately, and I do not measure it today.
On the objection that KPIs would crowd out independent delegates: the distinction that resolves it is katernoir’s own. Measuring whether a funded program delivers is not the same as scoring individual delegates. The first is accountability for spending. The second would push toward professionalisation, and that would be a loss.
Disclosure: I run ChainSights, which does governance analytics commercially. Not pitching anything here.