[RFC] Senior Delegates Programme

[Raslambek]

Motivation

While Euler governance has seen continuous growth in community participation, governance has yet to realise its full potential. In particular, many proposals reach the voting stage without significant discussion, and Forum analytics indicate that only 23 DAO members have posted 10 or more replies over the past year. To create a truly decentralised governance model, it is important not only to open voting but also to incentivise active engagement throughout the process.

To this end, the Senior Delegates programme creates a framework to attract reputable, knowledgeable, and skillful contributors as well as motivating longstanding EulerDAO supporters. If successful, this programme will dramatically increase participation in all stages of the governance process, with special emphasis on the earlier stages of drafting and discussion.

Qualifications for Delegates

A Senior Delegate is a qualified EulerDAO member, elected by the DAO, who commits to consistent and thoughtful participation in DAO and protocol development.

Each Senior Delegate will be allocated 200 EUL per month.This allocation should be sufficient to align interests and incentivize participants’ time and effort, yet still allows for a large number of qualified contributors. Delegates would serve for 3-month terms, aligned with calendar quarters, with nominations and elections taking place in the month prior to quarter end. Any adjustments to allocation and other programme parameters, once approved by governance, would take effect at the beginning of the following term.

Note that while Senior Delegates would be expected to take a leading role in generating substantive discussions, the position would not confer any additional authority. Voting, delegation, and the overall governance process would continue to work as it currently does.

Application and Screening

Candidates would apply to become Senior Delegates by posting to a general delegation thread on the Forum. Applications must provide the following information:

1. A resumé or CV, including any experience in web3, DeFi, and DAO governance. Preference will be given to candidates with significant contributions to EulerDAO and/or the Euler protocol.
2. A short statement expressing the motivation to become a Senior Delegate.
3. Proof of an Active Delegate status.
4. Proof of prior participation in EulerDAO. Candidates must have voted in the lesser of 20 proposal or 80% of total proposals in the 90 days prior to application. Further activity, such as initiation or discussion of Forum proposals, will also be considered.
5. Proof of incentive alignment, in the form of one or more, owned addresses that collectively held 600 EUL during the 90 days prior to application.

Obligations

While Delegates are encouraged to participate as often and substantively as possible, at minimum, each delegate must fulfill the following obligations:

1. Vote on 80% of proposals active during their term.
2. Participate in discussions on the lesser of 3 proposals per month or 40% of proposals active during their term.
3. Maintain at least 600 EUL in a delegate-owned address during the span of their term.

Restrictions

In the interest of maintaining a compliance-friendly programme with the broadest possible participation, individuals meeting any of the following conditions will not be permitted to apply.

1. Individuals or entities sanctioned by OFAC, the US, the UK, or the EU.
2. Members or advisors of Euler Labs.
3. Major investors in EulerDAO, defined as holders of 1% or more of total circulating EUL.

Election Procedure

To ensure a smooth and timely first iteration of the Programme, applications for the first Election Panel will start at the moment this proposal is approved, and the application and voting period will last for 7 days.

Subsequent elections will be conducted by accepting applications for the Election Panel on a designated thread in the forums no later than 15 days prior to the start of the next election period. Members who join the Election Panel will be eligible for incentives, however, they will forfeit their eligibility to apply for the Senior Delegate Program. The selection of candidates for the Election Panel will be determined through a voting poll on the designated thread, with the top 5 candidates receiving the most votes being selected to be a part of the Election Panel.

Election Panel members shall review and evaluate all applications for the Senior Delegate Program in accordance with the guidelines outlined in this proposal and any subsequent iterations submitted by the Senior Delegates.

Delegate selection will take place as follows, organised and facilitated by the current Election Panel:

1. Within the final 45 days of each quarter, candidates may apply by posting to the designated Forum thread within a specified 7-day window.
2. The Election Panel will review all applications, and post (a) the list of qualified candidates and (b) a shortlist of 20 recommended candidates within 7 days of the application deadline.
3. Candidates will have 7 days to challenge decisions made by the Panel, which will maintain a discussion thread and respond to comments.
4. A 7-day voting period will follow, in which DAO members may vote for any 10 candidates on the qualified shortlist; candidates on the shortlist should abstain from voting.
5. The top 10 candidates by vote stake will then be selected as Senior Delegates.

During the first iteration of the Programme, Senior Delegates will propose a more detailed selection mechanism for the Election Panel, as well as any suggested changes to Delegate selection, no later than 30 days after their term begins.

Delegate Removal

Any EulerDAO member may propose the removal of a particular Delegate at the end of the current calendar month on either procedural or substantive grounds:

• Procedural grounds represent a failure to fulfill formal criteria, such as voting participation or stakeholder obligations.
• Substantive grounds capture any other violation of the obligations or standards expected of a Delegate. Proposals on substantive grounds should include a detailed explanation of which standards were not met and why.

After a 7-day voting window, the Delegate will be removed if a supermajority (60%) of votes favor it. If desired, the remaining Delegates or current Election Panel may propose a new Delegate to fill the post before the beginning of the next term.

Related discussions: eIP 38 Delegate Optimisations in Governance: 2 - Recognised Delegates

[jengajojo]

Thank you for this thoughtful post @Raslambek

I have some suggestions:

• It is not possible to token gate this forum, so I suggest running the election panel poll in discord. There is a question on who would be allowed to vote, in which case, we can integrate collab land to autoverify token holders and give them a role.
• How many folks can be part of the first election panel? I suggest max. 7 members
• On top of the fixed remuneration for Senior Delegates, I suggest adding a variable component. This can either be a function of the number of proposals or a simple coordinape round between the delegates.

@Raslambek

• Proof of prior participation in EulerDAO. Candidates must have voted in the lesser of 20 proposal or 80% of total proposals in the 90 days prior to application. Further activity, such as initiation or discussion of Forum proposals, will also be considered.
• Proof of incentive alignment, in the form of one or more, owned addresses that collectively held 600 EUL during the 90 days prior to application.

Have you conducted a survey to test if we can get atleast 10 candidates given this criteria?

[patria]

I’m still struggling how this program would incentivize higher engagement?

There’s only 23 active dao members that become active because they are into euler for whatever reasons

How to have more active people? → Let’s pay selected people and add more bureaucracy to have more active people?

This programs will just create power group within those 23 people.

Against this proposal

[Raslambek]

Hello @jengajojo, thanks for your feedback!

• It is not possible to token gate this forum, so I suggest running the election panel poll in discord. There is a question on who would be allowed to vote, in which case, we can integrate collab land to autoverify token holders and give them a role.

Good point. Tbh, I did not think about this aspect, so Im open to any ideas on how to do it better. Your suggestion looks good from the point of view that confirmed EUL holders will be allowed. On the other hand, there is a risk of gamification of the system (it is not difficult to create multiple accounts with 1 EUL). The pros for the Forum poll is that it is easier to identify active users and give them a vote. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that they poses at least 1 EUL. Those are more my thoughts out loud. As I mentioned, I did not come up with an ideal system and open for suggestions.

• How many folks can be part of the first election panel? I suggest max. 7 members

I was thinking about 5. with the top 5 candidates receiving the most votes being selected to be a part of the Election Panel

• On top of the fixed remuneration for Senior Delegates, I suggest adding a variable component. This can either be a function of the number of proposals or a simple coordinape round between the delegates.

I do not pretend to have the final word here and it should be a collective decision. But I would strongly oppose a variable component, at least for the beginning of the programme. My main question here is how to measure the profoundness of the contribution? For example, let’s take my latest [RFC] Convert FTT reserves to ETH and Bankless [RFC] Promote BUSD to Collateral Tier. With both of them seem to be meaningfully contribute to the protocol, if I had to say which one is better (in terms of profoundness, time and efforts spent, analysis made etc) and who should be rewarded more, I would definitely vote for Bankless. There is a number other examples of such kind. My main point is that it is quite easy to estimate quantity but very difficult to assess quality of the contribution.

Have you conducted a survey to test if we can get atleast 10 candidates given this criteria?

That is a very good question! Originally, I was thinking about making criteria more strict. But then I made a survey for the top-20 most active members of the Forum (the table was made some days ago, so maybe the list has slightly changed) and realised that some most active contributors will unlikely to join the selection campaign. In this regard I opted for more moderate requirements. Additionally, I can expect that this proposal will not passed easily, hehe, so active people who do not meet criteria atm, will be able to do that by the time the proposal is voted. Here is a piece of analysis I made. Probably it Will not give answers to all your questions, but hope it will bring light to the logic behind the criteria SD - Google Sheets.

[Raslambek]

Hey @patria ! Your concerns are legit indeed, however the picture might be more complicated as it might seem.

There’s only 23 active dao members that become active because they are into euler for whatever reasons

only 23 DAO members have posted 10 or more replies over the past year to be more precise. If u game a little with the Snapshot statistics https://forum.euler.finance/u?order=likes_received&period=all u will see that some of those 23 people used to be quite active at the beginning, but with time lost their interest. This resulted in the decreasing level of the pre-vote discussion. The same with Snapshot, majority of people does not vote regularly. Another problem of from time to time participation is that new people who participate in new RFC discussion usually do not know the “history” of the DAO. What I mean, when a new user comes to express his/her views, he/she does not know much about previous proposals, discussions and development. This results, imo, in not sustainable and comprehensive approach.
With this proposal I suggest that active people continue participating on regular basis with all the expertise they have within the EulerDAO and other DAOs.

How to have more active people? → Let’s pay selected people and add more bureaucracy to have more active people?

Unfortunately or fortunately, but people loose their passion with no compensation. It is just as simple as that. If u want someone to regularly and meaningfully contribute, u need to pat for this. Otherwise, it will be fragmented from-time-to time participation. The same argument is valid if we want to attract skilled people in the industry. Believe me, most experienced guys are not ready to work for free on a long distance.

Another aspect is recognition, for quite many people, groups it is important. One thing is u are a volunteer delegate, another thing is u are an advanced and recognised one.

[allthecolors]

@Raslambek appreciate your effort here, but at the same time you are pushing a boulder up a steep hill here without actionable feedback from @lemniscap . Even though we cannot see the full explanation for the ‘no’ vote on the Recognised Delegates eIP in their snapshot comment, their decision to unilaterally kill the proposal suggests that the reputational damage to themselves and to the DAO of weighing in so decisively was worth squashing the proposal from their perspective.

My experience with DAOs is that once an idea gets nuked by a large tokenholder, it won’t move forward without active engagement from that tokenholder, and such engagement can be withheld to finalize the decision without needing to defend it publicly. Unless they decide to stop ghosting this discussion, efforts to revise and resubmit the concept are a shot in the dark. Given the increased beaurocratic complexity of this proposal, I think I’d favor simply revisiting and resubmitting the Recognised Delegates eIP after a cooldown period instead of investing effort trying to convince the party with all the power here - and apparent disinterest in discussing it further - to a ‘yes’.

[patria]

Thank you @Raslambek for the thoughtful reply.

I’m quite afraid that we need to move towards the incentivizing contributor and still not super convinced this will result in the outcome that we expect.

The reason for inactivity would be something that we need to address deeper from the industry perspective before we compose the solution. Why no one cares about Euler? I think when we have the answer then we could compose something more comprehensive here.

sorry if the message coming too direct or anything lol, english not my first language so i just type directly what i have in my mind

[Matt_StableLab]

Views on Current Format

We believe it is important to have some form of compensation for delegates to bring in and keep high-value delegates in the Euler DAO. However, this implementation method is centralized and will gatekeep current and future participants.

Having an election council could cause centralization issues and cause delegates to lobby the election committee to receive compensation instead of their work determining compensation.

This incentivizes people to simply be likable and not voice dissenting opinions out of fear that they will not be selected by the committee or not be voted into the position if their views don’t align with large token holders.

Finally, It appears from the spreadsheet, with the current requirements, only 3 delegates would qualify to be senior delegates. Due to this, 20 candidates could not be chosen. Therefore the election committee is not needed.

StableLab’s Proposed Delegate Compensation System

We propose that for the first quarter of this being implemented, any delegate that has over 600 EUL delegated for the entire quarter participates in 50% of proposal discussions and votes on 80% of votes get paid 600 EUL at the end of the quarter.

There could then be quarterly votes to change the requirements to be considered a Senior delegate to adjust the number of delegates that would be projected to receive compensation each quarter.

This way, there is no gatekeeping of who can achieve senior delegate status. This would also save the DAO from also having to compensate the election committee and could allow more funds to be redirected toward helpful delegates.

If the DAO is worried that a permissionless system could cause too many delegates to qualify for compensation and lead to too high a cost. In that case, another method could be having a set amount that is paid to delegates each quarter. For example, 200 EUL x 10 senior delegates x 3 months = 6000 EUL per quarter paid to delegates. At the end of each quarter, this 6000 EUL could be evenly distributed to all delegates that met the requirements to be considered senior delegates. Then at the end of each quarter, if this amount is getting spread between too few or too many delegates, requirements to qualify could be adjusted.

[knightsemplar]

Thanks Raslambek. Covering some points below:

@Raslambek

Restrictions

In the interest of maintaining a compliance-friendly programme with the broadest possible participation, individuals meeting any of the following conditions will not be permitted to apply.

1. Individuals or entities sanctioned by OFAC, the US, the UK, or the EU.
2. Members or advisors of Euler Labs.
3. Major investors in EulerDAO, defined as holders of 1% or more of total circulating EUL.

I see no reason why 2 and 3 should be excluded. I’ve seen many DAO’s with team members and investors as delegates. In fact, I think it would be beneficial to have their presence especially at this early stage of the DAO.

@Raslambek

1. The top 10 candidates by vote stake will then be selected as Senior Delegates.

Personally, I think 10 is too many and I would propose maximum of 7.

I would also add that the compensation should be increased. There is a lot of work that goes into governance at Euler. I don’t think 600 EUL is enough at this stage.

Overall I think we need to iterate on this a lot before making any further eIP’s. I like the simplicity of @Matt_StableLab’s suggestion.

[knightsemplar]

@allthecolors

@Raslambek appreciate your effort here, but at the same time you are pushing a boulder up a steep hill here without actionable feedback from @lemniscap .

I tend to agree with @allthecolors here. The Sisyphus analogy is real. Until @lemniscap engages, we can’t really move forward.

[knightsemplar]

Your message isn’t direct at all, you make some valid points.

@patria

I’m quite afraid that we need to move towards the incentivizing contributor and still not super convinced this will result in the outcome that we expect.

Maybe not, but shouldn’t we try something? Most tokens aren’t used to vote. Delegation to aligned entities might encourage voting from larger players.

@patria

The reason for inactivity would be something that we need to address deeper from the industry perspective before we compose the solution. Why no one cares about Euler? I think when we have the answer then we could compose something more comprehensive here.

The problem stems from the token distribution. The majority is held by insiders who are reluctant to engage in voting/delegation. Liquidity is low and means new DAO members/investors are reluctant to join. Farmers farm and accumulate, directing their EUL to their gauges of choice (not participating in governance). Hopefully, with some liquidity, we can help one side of this problem. The rest is another problem.

[fig]

Hi guys - Fig here, from Flipside Crypto.

We’ve been watching Euler for a bit and are excited to get involved.

---

@Raslambek thanks for bringing up this subject.

We believe a clearer delegate construct may attract more productive discussions, engaged token-holders, and a brighter - more decentralized future for Euler.

As @Matt_StableLab notes, this initial parameter set may be a bit too restrictive.

Instead, we hope to advocate for a more formalized and streamlined delegate onboarding process and an upside for prospective delegate organizations or individuals.

As Governance exists, today - teams participate in DAOs for a few reasons:

• visibility - build brand awareness and create distribution channels

• compensation - covers delegates’ investment and resources allocation

• strategic initiatives - working with other DAOs and partners

Euler is garnering visibility (bullet #1) with speed and vigor. The next wave of quality delegates and higher participation requires more development on #2 & #3.

We’re excited to see this discussion progress and look forward to contributing in the future.

[juanbug]

I think from our perspective, this is a great way to get started and involved, but the application to be a senior delegate shouldn’t be so stringent. If someone received delegation, we think that is essentially them getting “voted” in by the original token owner.

We are in agreement with Matt from Stablenode and Fig’s comments (referenced below).

[RFC] Senior Delegates Programme

Views on Current Format We believe it is important to have some form of compensation for delegates to bring in and keep high-value delegates in the Euler DAO. However, this implementation method is centralized and will gatekeep current and future participants. Having an election council could cause centralization issues and cause delegates to lobby the election committee to receive compensation instead of their work determining compensation. This incentivizes people to simply be likable and n…

[RFC] Senior Delegates Programme

Hi guys - Fig here, from Flipside Crypto. We’ve been watching Euler for a bit and are excited to get involved. @Raslambek thanks for bringing up this subject. We believe a clearer delegate construct may attract more productive discussions, engaged token-holders, and a brighter - more decentralized future for Euler. As @Matt_StableLab notes, this initial parameter set may be a bit too restrictive. Instead, we hope to advocate for a more formalized and streamlined delegate onboarding process…

A lot of these points are shared. We propose a slight twist that we think worked well with Optimism. Have anyone with delegation and who meets communication standards onboard to be a senior delegate. Then, if they qualify for whatever rewards we decide on, they should get more or less EULER comp depending on their average delegated amount the last month. For Optimism, they classified into two groups, large and small delegates, with each qualifying group receiving different comp.