I am voting abstain.
There are a few things that don’t convince me about this proposal.
The main thing is the structure of a single proposal for both delegates and contributors.
Even though DIP 2.0 distinguishes between the two, they should live under the same umbrella. These are very different dynamics: former is highly programmatic, and the latter is more subjective. We should have two separate programs with distinct oversight and metrics.
The second painpoint is the denomination risk (ARB vs stables).
Budgets and payouts are set in ARB, and the pool comes from ARB. That introduces high volatility but, above all, poor predictability for participants, especially if we’re closer to a top than a bottom in the market, and one could argue that this could be the case for the current one. In a severe bear market, payouts could become trivial, in the order of 30-50 dollar for constitutional proposals, relative to the intended incentive level. Yes, PM/OpCo can adjust quarterly, but that’s still reactive and limited by an ARB budget.
The third point is about payout sizing and predictability.
I’m personally neutral on the mechanics (proportional vs quadratic, and VP/total VP etc). There are many ways to do it. The real issue is predictability when payouts are ARB denominated. Over a 1 year program, ARB drawdowns could reduce the effective payout to levels that won’t move the needle, particularly for delegates with meaningful VP. While quarterly reviews helps, having USD denominated targets would better stabilize incentives.
As a secondary note, this lack of predictability might just kill the effort of the last few months made by SeedGov and the community itself to gather high VP but previously dormant delegates that might find themself not wanting to partake in voting.
On the Peer Assembly gating I’m neutral. But a gate for delegate rewards can exclude high-VP delegates from payouts and may create unintended secondary effects. I understand the intent, and I can think about lobbigy for example which we have historically wanted to be excluded by DIP rewards (not judging on the merit here just stating facts), but I’m not sure if there are other tradeoffs.
I would suggest the following adjustments
- Price payouts in USD to preserve incentive efficacy across different market regimes.
- Budget composition: have the budget in stables, or at least a 50/50 stables-ARB mix. PM/OpCo could decide month by month which portion to use. If sell pressure is a concern, stable-sourced payouts could be converted to ARB via buybacks just before distribution. A bit clunky and complex operationally, but doable.
- Separate the programs: run a delegate program, and a contributor program, with different structures, KPIs, framework and budget. Voting is mechanical, and payout up to some degree could/should be deterministic. Contribution can be quite subjective instead.
I am abstaining to still show support, some elements are imho worth saving such as nudge seasons, and there is a clear intent to try and fix previous things of DIP perceived by the broad community as either unfair or worth changing; that said, we are not hitting the proper target here, which is incentivising voting power on important proposals.