Retire Ethereum and Solana Referral Programs

Proposal

To retire both the Solana and Ethereum referral programs on April 15th, 2023, or when the allocated DAI pool has been depleted, whichever comes first.

  • Unclaimed referral rewards will be open to be claimed until October 15th, 2023 after which all remaining LDO and DAI rewards will be returned to the DAO treasury.
  • Easy Track motion factories to fund Referral Program would be switched off in coming Aragon votes.

Reasoning

The suggestion to discontinue the referral programs is driven by a few key factors:

  • Both the Ethereum and Solana referral programs were not intended to run indefinitely, as they are not sustainable from a financial perspective. In terms of sustainability, user acquisition costs should not exceed 1 years of rewards, which is a standard benchmark for designing sustainable mature software services. Using this as a barometer, the ETH and SOL referral programs, as they are built today, do not meet that standard. See Ethereum’s public report and Solana’s public report for details.
  • With Ethereum withdrawals projected to be enabled by mid April, it is also necessary to end the Ethereum referral program because its current design would make it more easily abusable. This undermines the goals the referral committee had for the program originally.
  • Lastly, it is an opportunity to transition to a more sustainable growth-enabling models (e.g. potential revenue-sharing). Once a new model is defined, it will be put up for community feedback and proposal.

In summary, discontinuing both the Solana and Ethereum referral programs will allow the referral committee to reallocate resources more effectively to a more sustainable model in the future.

Unclaimed Rewards

For referrers that have not yet claimed their referral rewards, they will remain open for claiming through Rhino.fi for 6 months after retirement of the program(April 15th- Oct 15th). The referral committee will make an effort to contact and disclose rewards not claimed during that time. After October 15th, the referral committee will start the process of returning the LDO and DAI not claimed to the DAO treasury.

Summary

If this proposal is supported, the disbursement of referral new rewards for Ethereum and Solana will stop on April 15, 2023, or when the allocated DAI pool the Ethereum program has been depleted, and the referral committee will begin the process of returning to the Lido DAO treasury all unclaimed tokens in the referral program after October 15, 2023. Easy Track motion factories to fund Referral Program would be switched off in coming Aragon votes.

Discussion will be open for 7 days until April 7th. If there are no problems a snapshot vote will start April 7th and end April 14th.

Best,
frontalpha

Referral committee member

10 Likes

Disappointing, but understandable.

Is there any info regarding the followup (i.e. more sustainable) program that will follow?

3 Likes

While Lido contributors are working on a replacement there are no details or dates to share yet. Best I can do is say yes, Lido is working on it.

3 Likes

I think we have pretty good analysis on staker retention by Analytics team that can be used instead of a standard benchmark.

They will be missed, but we should consider efficiency first and provided reasoning is pretty valid. Thanks for flagging this!

I think it might be a good idea to have a general sum-up/overview/report on both of the programs, taking into account that the latest version of Referral Program for Ethereum was voted for and enacted only in December.

I think this may have sense in case we will consider Referral Program implementation for other chains in future.

2 Likes

Snapshot vote started

The Retire Ethereum and Solana Referral Programs Snapshot has started! Please cast your votes before Fri, 14 Apr 2023 18:00:00 GMT :pray:

2 Likes

That is exactly what is being thought about. Looking at how we can make a more sustainable program and expand it to other ecosystems.

3 Likes

Makes sense, thanks for working on moving Lido towards more sustainable practices.

2 Likes

Snapshot vote ended

The Retire Ethereum and Solana Referral Programs Snapshot has passed! :partying_face:
The results are:
For: 52.9M LDO
Against: 50 LDO

3 Likes

Thank you for your service.
:saluting_face:

2 Likes

Hello Everyone! I appreciate all the referrers that participated in the referral programs.

For Ethereum referrals: If you have not claimed rewards from https://app.rhino.fi/claim/lido-rewards they will be open for claiming until October 15th. After that all remaining rewards will be returned to the DAO treasury.

If you have any questions please feel free to dm me
telegram Telegram: Contact @frontalpha
Discord frontalpha#0210

3 Likes

On-chain vote intended to remove LDO and DAI factories from Easy Track registry (vote items 15-20) passed and was executed on the 30th of June

4 Likes