Love to see the conversation around Collective Reward, as we have done some research on this program and think our findings could add value to the discussion for further development.
While we support this proposal, as outlined in our rationale below, we feel that in the long term a 90% cap may not lead to a meaningful change in the Collective Reward system but it is a good first step.
From what we found, there are 2 main points:
1. Incentive is still driven by reward %, not impact
The current program is designed in a way that encourages builders to attract backers by customizing their reward share, not by how much impact they create for the protocol. This is where we see a gap for improvement.
For example, adding an impact score next to the reward % could help backers evaluate both:
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how much reward they may receive
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how much value this builder brings to Rootstock
To answer @DAOstar_gov question. There are currently 18 active builders in the Collective Reward program. The reward share ranges roughly from 20%–75%, (None of the builders allocate more than 80%.) If we calculate the average, it is around ~57%, which shows that builders are generally balancing incentives between themselves and backers, rather than pushing toward extreme allocations.
So based on the data, high allocation behavior is not common at the moment and it echoes our earlier point that the 90% cap acts more as a guardrail in case builders over-allocate their rewards, which the current data does not indicate is happening in practice.
We also conducted a survey with several builders and found that most of them do not pay much attention to this Collective Reward mechanism, as their main focus is still on building their projects for the grants they received.
2. The Collective Reward is still early in adoption
If we look at the data, there are only around 2.3% of total RIF supply staked in Collective Rewards (23,135,985 / 1,000,000,000). Although the program started in late 2024, reward distribution visibility begins around October 2025 (Cycle 24), giving roughly 4 months of observable growth data.
Cycle 24 (Oct 3, 2025)
Total backing: 18,612,491 RIF
Rewards distributed: $163,476
Cycle 32 (Based on research we completed about a month ago)
Total backing: 23,135,985 RIF
Rewards distributed: $250,485
Total backing increased by 4.52M RIF, representing approximately 24% growth over 4 months.
If the trend continues to grow at this rate annually, simple annualized growth would be around ~70% (24% × 3 four-month periods). Under that scenario, total backing could increase from 23M RIF to roughly 40–45M RIF within 12 months, meaning staking participation could move from 2.3% to around 4–5% of total supply.
The data show growth is positive but gradual. The majority of RIF supply (97.7%) remains inactive. It has not yet reached broad RIF holder adoption.
Our take is that awareness is still low. Most holders either don’t know Collective Rewards exists, or they know about it but don’t fully understand how it works. The yield is not clearly visible, and there is no simple, transparent APY displayed on the dashboard. If users have to calculate returns themselves, most simply won’t do it. As a result, the incentive may not feel compelling enough.
To improve this, the program needs more visibility and clearer communication.
Our suggestions would be:
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Promote it more actively on social media with consistent updates and simple explainers
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Show clear examples like: “How much estimated would you earn staking 10K, 50K, or 100K RIF?”
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Add a transparent estimated APY directly on the dashboard
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Introduce bonus multipliers for long-term staking (e.g., 3-cycle or 6-cycle locks)
Hope this adds meaningful value to the conversation!