There are many reasons why RockLogic, which I’m the managing partner of, doesn’t get included in the Extra Tier, which we applied to. We got Lido’s validators slashed due to improper processes in combination with a client bug. We emphasize building open source and public goods instead of looking for direct deposits to Lido. And sometimes I’m a pain in the butt. I always recommend solo staking. I also try to avoid conflict of interests, especially getting into politics, specifically government, of a DAO we’re heavily involved with & reliant on. And this is the case here: Being a curated set NO and shaping the DAO we work for falls most definitely in this category.
Nevertheless, I’m out of words to describe how surprised I am about what entities were chosen mostly in Extra Tier. And what entities were left out. Not a single public-goods heavy entity in the Extra Tier despite fitting the description.
CSM was built to decentralize and diversify Lido, helping solo stakers, etc. But then, Extra Tier’s build solutions to centralize CSM, undermining its efforts to incorporate a broader range of operators.
Extra Tier operator got slashed. A successfully passed vote in favor of this proposal would be a strong signal to node operators.
DAO governance is important and rewarding those showing up, propose changes, working actively on understanding those proposals and finally vote! It’s a lot of work. However, these efforts should be rewarded separately. Separation of duties and avoiding conflict of interests is a major part of a DAO, otherwise we’ll see decline in service, increased costs, corruption, basically what we see in most modern first world countries nowadays. Then the DA leaves the O on its own.
I already found it hypocritical to state the strong need for Lido DAO to build up the treasury, currently Lido DAO got USD 227m, in the “thoughts”. There are several operators building a ton of value for Ethereum, indirectly benefiting Lido DAO. These operators lose 30% of their income from Lido. Lido staking is now at over 29%. Even with the vote against restricting Lido’s inflows in the past DAO voters need to be aware of the impact Lido sets with these cuts on the staking landscape and on the funding of current as well as future projects of some of the curated set operators. Lido is more than just a staking pool; it shoulders a huge responsibility of Ethereum.
I recognize the need to lower fees. The staking market has become highly competitive and there are salespeople flooding every event trying to convince potential customers who are wealthy or not to put their capital in their pools. Lowering fees should be done in a safe way.
Give entities time to build up some treasury to handle dips like April 2025 properly. 6 months would help tremendously and would cost a tiny fraction of the treasury. Abrupt cuts can lead to instabilities due to node operators cutting also their costs, resulting in less quality, less security. With less staff it’s difficult to run bare-metal or heavily diverse client combos. Morale as well as loyalty will suffer, given the transparency and reasoning of the current proposal.
Professional node operations done right are costly. Staffing, hardware, regulations, ISO27001/SOC2 costs vary greatly where the company is registered and scale. Medium to small node operators will be hit disproportionally harder than large enterprises, resulting in even more centralization.
As a node operator this sounds more like a threat than a chance. The current proposal wasn’t discussed in any way with us NO other than a form post framed as “thinking openly”. Our Extra Tier application wasn’t discussed with us. Maybe we’d be even fit for Extra Tier, but we don’t even know how the scoring works due to lack of transparency and the questions were left very open to interpretation. I must expect RockLogic to be squeezed in even lower tiers with even less fees very soon. Maybe to a point where it doesn’t make sense for us to continue with Lido, especially evaluating stVaults.
Ethereum is a success because of its integrity. Because of its focus on privacy, inclusion, innovation, security, trustless products, resilience, and I probably come up with 20 more if it weren’t Sunday today (as of time of writing). This proposal is cutting deep into the cashflow of those builders, advocates, hidden champions, technological leaders, …
Vote against this proposal.