Lido Ecosystem Grants Organization (LEGO) — Framework Update 1 October 2025

Proposals
1

Summary

This proposal introduces several updates to the Lido Ecosystem Grants Organization (LEGO) framework, reflecting operational learnings and spending patterns over the past two years.
The changes aim to optimize fund allocation, simplify the budget structure, and refresh the LEGO Council composition for continued efficiency and accountability.

If voted for, these changes will take effect on 1 October 2025, 00:00 UTC.

Motivation

LEGO has consistently supported ecosystem initiatives across research, development, and community growth. More details about grants’ history can be found in LEGO Quarterly Reporting.
Having reviewed LEGO’s activity and spending data, the LEGO Council identified several proposed adjustments to improve efficiency and ensure better accuracy budgeting wise.

Proposed Changes

1. Adjust Quarterly Budget

  • Before: $500,000 per quarter
  • Going forward: $250,000 per quarter
  • Applicability: effective for grants initiated after 1 October 2025, 00:00 UTC

Rationale:
Historical spending data shows LEGO’s actual quarterly disbursements rarely exceeded $250k.
Reducing the quarterly cap will maintain sufficient flexibility for grantmaking while ensuring closer alignment with observed utilization levels.

2. Budget Composition — USD-pegged Stablecoins Only

  • Remove the LDO token allocation, maintaining the LEGO budget solely in USD-pegged stablecoins (e.g., USDC, USDT, DAI on Ethereum mainnet), subject to availability and compliance.

Rationale:
Over the past two years, less than 2% of LEGO grants were disbursed in LDO.
Given this low demand, moving to a stablecoin-only budget will streamline accounting, improve predictability of grant values, and simplify fund management.

3. Personal Grants Pool of $15,000 per member

  • Each LEGO Council member may approve small grants up to an aggregate of $15,000 per calendar quarter, within program tiers (previously - 15,000 LDO split into 20% LDO and 80% DAI or another USD-pegged coin).
  • This is an authorization limit only (not an entitlement or personal fund)

Rationale:
Aligns individual pools with the total budget of the program.

4. Dissolution of LEGO Nominees

  • Discontinue the LEGO Nominees program, as introduced in this proposal;
  • Exception: For the avoidance of doubt, grants approved prior to these updates under the prior framework are unaffected (including approvals made in October 2025).
  • Return unused Nominee-specific pools to the Lido DAO treasury.

Rationale:
Participation from Nominees has remained limited, with few proposals routed through their individual channels.
Consolidating evaluation and funding decisions under the LEGO Council will simplify governance while maintaining transparency and effectiveness.

5. Update to LEGO Council Composition

  • Replace Sam K with zuzu-eeka as a LEGO Council member.
  • Update relevant multisigs/signers to reflect this change without altering existing signature thresholds; existing approvals remain valid.

Rationale:
This update ensures continued engagement, operational continuity, and balanced representation within the LEGO Council.

Specification

If approved, this proposal will:

  • Reduce LEGO’s quarterly budget allocation to $250,000 in stablecoins;
  • Use USD-pegged stablecoins only (no LDOs) for LEGO;
  • Discontinue the LEGO Nominees program and return all unused Nominee funds to the DAO treasury;
  • Appoint zuzu‑eeka to the LEGO Council in place of Sam K and update relevant multisig signer sets;
  • Reflect these updates in LEGO’s public documentation and operational repositories;
  • No changes to be made to LDO Easy Track contracts (please see Mainnet | Lido Docs) for now so LEGO could be able to meet Q4 2025 requirements of Delegate Incentivization program.

Compliance & Non‑Binding Notes:

  • No obligation to award any grant; all awards remain discretionary and subject to budget, program terms, and compliance (sanctions/AML/eligibility checks).
  • No employment/partnership/joint‑venture/agency or fiduciary relationship is created by this proposal.
  • Grantees are responsible for their own tax/legal obligations.

UPDATE

Added a point into Specification regarding LDO Easy Track continuation for Delegates Incentivization program.

6 Likes
3

Snapshot vote started

The Lido Ecosystem Grants Organization (LEGO) — Framework Update 1 October 2025 Snapshot has started! Please cast your votes before Fri, 07 Nov 2025 16:00:00 GMT :folded_hands:

4

This framework strengthens control design, enforces budget discipline, and enhances operational efficiency — all indicators of a maturing financial governance structure. We voted FOR.

From a financial control perspective, this update represents a mature evolution of budgeting practice within the Lido ecosystem. Controls exist to be tested; they are mechanisms for accountability and consistently hitting or nearing budget thresholds should be viewed as a healthy signal, driving evaluation of grant allocation, process efficiency, and strategic impact.

Secondly, streamlining program structure and simplifying disbursement logic (e.g., standardising to USD-pegged stablecoins) improves operational efficiency and aligns with sound treasury management standards. Good stuff!

1 Like
5

QQ: What’s the reasoning for paying in USD.. and not LDO? Why was it an option prior?

Would not distributing LDO create more token holders who can participate in governance? Or is there an assumption they would sell 100% of that amount for stablecoins anyways?

6

Hi, just dropping my two cents here. Based on what I’ve generally seen, LDO grant distribution doesn’t really affect the amount of LDO in governance, it mainly changes how much sits on CEXes. Sad but true. Additionally, feels like the most rational move now is to release as little LDO from the Treasury as possible, at least until NEST is in place. That’s my take, but I believe @Alex_L has smth to say here too.

7

Thanks for this question @Leuts!

Originally LEGO indeed started with only LDO budget pool, but pretty soon it became obvious that although in theory it should’ve support better LDO spread and governance participation - it didn’t.
Most of grantees requested grants nominated and disbursed in major USD stable coins, because it’s easier to estimate and plan work using USD nomination (each work per grant usually involves costs, bared mostly in USD), especially when we talk about grants bigger than a pebble (spanning for several mos of research, development, testing and frequently involving costly infra). So matching grant inflow with expense required for the project is the first reason.
Second reason is that for LEGO itself having budget nominated only in the token of higher volatility it also becomes a challenge to track and exercise budget control adequately.
Third - as stable coins are more popular it’s also more operationally heavy to have swaps for every other grant here and there.
In result - most LDOs end up being immediately swapped for stable coins, part of them stay at CEXes.

1 Like
8

Thanks for the response!

I believe in most circumstances these operational complexities can be overcome and fundamentally LDO should be used when possible for incentives. I am quite curious (and sadly don’t know, but from my personal experience and at Aragon we keep and delegate tokens as long as we can that we earn via a grant) what the rate of hodl & delegate exists in other grant programs that give out native tokens.

@Jenya_K could be worth looking into! It’s a bit frustrating we have a struggle to get LDO voters/delegators/reach quorum and yet don’t use these types of programs to try and chip away at the problem.

But I know how complicated this can get and respect the decision and will vote yes. A higher priority for most projects including Lido should be cost savings and simplicity.

Thanks again!

3 Likes
9

I wrote a line about this discussion on my delegate thread but it’s actually more topical to drop it here:

To expand, we could even do an on-top-of-the-stables LDO chapter to the grant that projects could opt-in that only vests after participation in 3 or 4 governance cycles?

2 Likes
10

Snapshot vote ended

The Lido Ecosystem Grants Organization (LEGO) — Framework Update 1 October 2025 Snapshot has reached a quorum and completed successfully!
The results are:
For: 55.4M LDO

:white_check_mark: Winning option: For

1 Like