Introducing Recognized Delegate Compensation 🏦

[Raphael_Anode]

Rootstock Collective is blessed to have high-agency, heavy hitting delegates representing its community and token holders.

A group born out of the Collective Shepherds that has consistently stepped up to give ample feedback on grants and governance development. A tight squad of luminaries from the DAO space.

Now the time has come to reward these contributors with a simple and effective compensation scheme.

Introducing the Rootstock Collective Delegate Compensation.

Starting in October, with the first payout in early November.

Objective

To incentivize active participation and thoughtful governance among Rootstock Collective delegates, while keeping compensation fair, transparent, and aligned with industry standards.

---

Eligibility Criteria

Delegates will qualify for compensation if they:

• Vote in at least 90% of polls each month.

• Provide written rationales for at least 90% of their votes.

• Ranked by engagement and amount of stRIF delegated.

---

Compensation Structure

Based on benchmarking across other DAOs (Optimism, ENS, Aave, Uniswap, Gitcoin) and Stablelab’s analysis, we propose a tiered model.

• Base Tier (3 delegates) - $1,000
• Top Tier (3 delegates) - $1,200 - $2,000

Determined monthly via Stablelab Google Sheet

---

Adjustment Mechanism

• Compensation tiers will be reassessed monthly based on a Google Sheet by StableLab, generating a transparent delegate scorecard.

• This dynamic structure ensures rewards track real engagement and prevents “coasting.”

---

Payment

• 100% in $RIF calculated via a 14-day moving average price of $RIF

---

Process

• During the first week of each month, StableLab will update their Delegate Scoreboard Sheet

• StableLab will produce a proposal to send delegate compensation to qualifying delegates

• Delegates to vote on this proposal

• On-chain execution and multi-send from the DAO’s treasury

[tamlerner]

Dynamic Competition - Spots Rotate Monthly

Reminder! The 6 paid delegate spots aren’t fixed. Every month is a fresh opportunity <3

If you’re one of our 12 verified delegates and you’re consistently showing up, voting, and engaging, you can earn your spot in the top 6.

This month’s top performers might not be next month’s - it keeps everyone engaged and rewards sustained effort over time. No one gets to coast!

This is V1.0 - Your Input Matters!

As Raph mentioned, this is our starting framework. We want to hear from you:

• Are the metrics right?

• Should we adjust the tier structure?

• Other ways to improve our engagement?

Drop your thoughts below! We’re building this together and your feedback shapes where we go next.

[Manu]

I think this is a very good initiative. Reviewing proposals takes time, and as long as there’s an objective criterion to measure the work done, I believe it’s fair to provide financial compensation for it. The proposed amounts also seem reasonable to start with.

[404Gov]

Thank you for introducing the Recognized Delegate Compensation program. We appreciate its simple design and the healthy competition fostered by keeping the six paid delegate positions dynamic rather than fixed. We look forward to actively participating and contributing to the program’s evolution!

[PGov]

Thank you @Raphael_Anode for the proposal and kicking these discussions off. We believe especially for v1, this setup is easy to understand and does a good job at encouraging some healthy competition.

[Curia]

We supports the introduction of the Recognized Delegate Compensation program, We see this is a crucial step toward fostering a more active and thoughtful governance culture within the Rootstock Collective. The program’s goals align with the findings from our recent analysis of delegate activity over the past four months (covering 29 proposals), which validates the core problem this initiative aims to solve. While quorum is consistently met, our findings highlight a significant opportunity for deeper engagement:

• Low voter participation: Excluding bots, proposals see an average of only 16 unique voters.

• Concentrated Engagement: Engagement is highly concentrated within a small group of delegates. On average, the active delegates who post rationales have cast 19 votes and written 14 rationales out of the 29 proposals. However, this group is small: only 8 delegates consistently post rationales, with just two of them voting on all proposals while also providing rationales for each.

These findings strongly affirm the proposal’s decision to make voting participation and written rationales core eligibility criteria. This correctly targets the key behaviors that need encouragement.

However, we believe there’s an opportunity to enhance how delegate “engagement” is measured, particularly regarding the feedbacks and discussions that happen before a proposal goes onchain. As observed, only 3-5 delegates typically provide comments and feedback during the discussion phase for these grant proposals. We see this pre-vote collaboration as a key merit that is crucial for strengthening proposals and believe it should be explicitly incentivized.

To better capture and incentivize this crucial activity, we propose refining the engagement metric by creating a composite score. This approach, inspired by models like Obol’s, would combine multiple factors to provide a more transparent and comprehensive measure of a delegate’s contribution. This score could combine factors such as:

• Number of proposal discussions joined

• Like received (from verified accounts)

• Attendance in governance calls

Integrating what we define as a “good merit” into a composite score would make the evaluation of engagement more transparent and fair, further enhancing the tiered compensation adjustments mentioned in the proposal.

We suggest launching this compensation structure as proposed, but with the addition of a pilot for this composite “Forum Score”. It could start with a small weighting in the overall evaluation to gather data on its effectiveness. This approach allows us to observe its impact on delegate behavior and refine it for future iterations.

Given our experience as a oracle and data provider for Scroll Governance Contribution Recognition and Obol Delegate Reputation Score, we would be keen to help conceptualize engagement into such a score.

[DAOplomats]

Recognizing the commitment required for high-quality governance is a crucial step for the Rootstocks’s long-term health. The monthly reassessment will keep participation sharp and prevent delegate stagnation by rewarding the most consistently engaged members, which is a net positive for the ecosystem. As a V1.0, it’s a balanced and strong starting point.

[tamlerner]

OCTOBER 2025 - Results are in!

The Recognized Delegate Compensation Program continues to strengthen the Collective’s governance flywheel — rewarding delegates who show up, vote, and actively contribute to Rootstock’s decentralization journey.

Here are the top engaged delegates for October

Gold Tier Compensation: 1500 USDRIF
Silver Tier Compensation: 1000 USDRIF

Massive thanks to all our delegates for their ongoing participation and thoughtful inputs across proposals! Your time and consistency are what keep this DAO moving forward.

Next step → the payment proposal will be posted on-chain the 3rd of November via the Rootstock Collective dApp for community and delegate approval, followed by fund transfers.

Full transparency. On-chain accountability. Collective growth.

[tamlerner]

DECEMBER 2025 - Year-End Results are in!

The Recognized Delegate Compensation Program continues to deliver - incentivizing the delegates who consistently show up, vote thoughtfully, and push Rootstock’s decentralization forward.

Here are December’s top engaged delegates!

Gold Tier | 1500 USDRIF
ChronoTrigger, Tané, 404 Gov

Silver Tier | 1000 USDRIF
Curia, DAOPlomats, Ignas DeFi

---

Huge appreciation to all our delegates for closing the year strong. Your continued participation and quality governance contributions are the foundation of this DAO’s momentum heading into 2026.

Next step → The payment proposal will be posted on-chain via the Rootstock Collective dApp today, the first week of January 2026 for community and delegate approval, followed by fund transfers.

Full transparency. On-chain accountability. Strong finish to the year.

Here’s to scaling this flywheel even further in 2026.

[tamlerner]

JANUARY 2026 - New Year, Strong Start!

Kicking off 2026 with solid governance momentum - the Recognized Delegate Compensation Program continues rewarding delegates who show up consistently, vote thoughtfully, and drive meaningful contributions to Rootstock’s decentralization.

Here are January’s top engaged delegates:

Gold Tier | 1500 USDRIF
Axia Network, DAOStar, Tané

Silver Tier | 1000 USDRIF
Curia, DAOPlomats, Ignas DeFi

---

Massive appreciation to all our delegates for maintaining quality participation as we enter the new year. Your consistent engagement and governance contributions are what keep this DAO’s flywheel turning.

Next step → The payment proposal will be posted on-chain via the Rootstock Collective dApp the first week of February 2026 for community and delegate approval, followed by fund transfers.

Full transparency. On-chain accountability. Strong momentum into 2026.

Let’s keep building.

[Axia]

Hello everyone, I’m dropping in to leave some feedback on delegate compensation after digesting Messari’s Q4 Rootstock Report.

I want connect the report back to governance.

Specifically: what more can delegates do to support and accelerate the initiatives Rootstock Labs is already advancing?

Right now, delegates are primarily responsible for reviewing builder grant applications. That’s valuable work and helps move the ecosystem forward. But as the Collective matures and the market and the BTCFi landscape evolves and continues to change rapidly, it likely makes sense to activate and incentivize delegates to contribute into other high-leverage areas that drive measurable ecosystem growth.

For example, in a recent forum discussion, I asked @Francisco what support delegates could provide to Infrastructure Ventures. His answer was clear: liquidity introductions.

@Francisco

From delegates ‘liquidity intros’ are our highest request to ensure retail users don’t face slippage as we scale.

That aligns directly with Messari’s Q4 report: liquidity on Rootstock is still concentrated in a small number of protocols.

Other governance-relevant takeaways from the report:

• Institutional narrative is strengthening, but converting that into durable onchain growth remains the core challenge
• Revenue pressure remains
• Infrastructure and security execution improved
• User activity and liquidity softened QoQ

I’m proposing we create an additional pathway for delegate contribution, where delegates are incentivized not only to review grants, but also to initiate strategic work in Rootstock’s highest-impact areas. For this to be effective, these efforts should be tightly aligned with RootstockLabs either directly or indirectly through designated liaisons such as @tamlerner @eleanor @sascha.collective and/or the Anode team @Kaf_Anode @Raphael_Anode, so we avoid duplicating work and focus delegate capacity on high-value initiatives. RootstockLabs has the deepest visibility into ecosystem priorities and is already driving many of the key initiatives underway so they can help assess what work they need support on or what work they don’t have bandwidth for and delegates can lead and/or support.

One practical example: the TABConf discussion surfaced a broader issue — the Collective has had conversations around conferences and hackathons before, but without a clear strategy, the conversation didn’t progress beyond early-stage discussion.

In short, delegates should not become complacent, and the DAO risks stagnation if grant review remains the only incentivized contribution.

I hope this perspective resonates and helps spark a constructive discussion.

[DAOstar_gov]

This is a great discussion point that is both timely and needed - thank you @Axia for putting this forward!

As we are seeing in other DAOs (i.e. Scroll DAO comes to mind) there seems to be a positive trend beyond delegates just providing forum discourse and voting, which we agree, is very important for grants, but this should allow for delegates to really make an impact.

We agree that this should be a joint discussion with RootstockLabs team (and Anode team) to focus on the greatest impact, however, instead of having RTLabs not only identifying the top 5 priorities (for example) + ways to participate, we would suggest that any proactive “projects/pilots” are created and driven by the delegates.

In otherwords, instead of waiting to have the RTLabs to identify their priorities and then how the delegates can help, we should be driving this - with our own ideas (like your post of the TABConf discussion). Looking forward to continue to developing this idea.

[Curia]

This is an interesting topic: “What can delegates contribute more to Rootstock beyond reviewing grants?”

We think first we need to identify the priority of the Rootstock Collective. Then we can create initiatives that align with those priorities.

So our question is:

What does Rootstock need right now?

• More awareness?

• More liquidity?

• More projects?

Right now it feels a bit scattered for delegates. We don’t have clearly defined priority tracks. Without alignment on top ecosystem needs, it’s difficult to mobilize delegates toward measurable impact.

Linking this to your initiative Idea/Sentiment Check: Rootstock Participation in TABConf8 Conference it’s good that you raised this discussion. It could be one of the priorities if Rootstock wants to increase awareness and attract more builders to apply for grants.

One thing we’ve been researching that might add value to this conversation is Collective Rewards program.

Currently:

• 23,135,985 RIF is staked in Collective Rewards

• That’s only ~2.3% of total 1B RIF supply

• Around 97.7% of RIF remains inactive

From Cycle 24 to Cycle 32:

• Backing grew from 18.6M to 23.1M RIF

• +4.52M RIF (~24% growth in 4 months)

Growth is positive but still gradual. Adoption has not yet reached broad RIF holder participation.

So maybe another priority could be:

Should we onboard more RIF holders to the program and stake their RIF?

Before creating additional delegate contribution tracks, maybe we first need alignment on:

• What are the top 2–3 priorities for Rootstock in the next 12 months?

Once that’s clear, we can design initiatives that are directly aligned — instead of everyone pushing in slightly different directions.

[Raphael_Anode]

From the perspective of governance facilitators: Additional initiatives beyond the agreed scope of delegate work are of course a sight to behold. DAOs are place for permissionless participation. They sit a the far end of permeability where basically anyone can walk in and participate to provide value.

The right approach to think about this is to distinguish value accretion from extraction, in my opinion.

Is there value accruing to Rootstock?
If so, how do delegates share in the actual value created?

An excellent example here is the Aave Chan Initiative that brought in multiple millions in revenue for a modest price tag. They started to provide value, and then got funds from the DAO.

In my opinion the way to approach additional participation is by having a very well formed and proven course of action for how to accrue value to Rootstock Collective, then actually start producing that value, and then getting a cut of that, as is right.

Rootstock is a fantastic product with a tight flywheel for mutually beneficial value creation. Let’s buidl.

[jengajojo]

@Axia

I’m proposing we create an additional pathway for delegate contribution, where delegates are incentivized not only to review grants, but also to initiate strategic work in Rootstock’s highest-impact areas.

This is an interesting discussion and I completely agree with @Axia here. I wonder if its possible for delegates to independently lead initiatives which compliment the strategies being worked on by the Labs team. However this does require some sort of ‘approval’ from the Labs team, hence delegates independently proposing and venturing into ideas maybe engaging in terms or participation but not as impactful in terms of bottomline metrics.

@Raphael_Anode

An excellent example here is the Aave Chan Initiative that brought in multiple millions in revenue for a modest price tag. They started to provide value, and then got funds from the DAO.

The ACI example is really interesting. ACI has had a long history working with the AAVE Labs team and was able to leverage this knowledge into product evolution and growth. I wonder if someone from the Labs team at Rootstock could be more actively suggesting priorities for the DAO in the consequent months.

[Axia]

Thank you to everyone who has already provided feedback. I’ll let this post simmer on the forum for longer before responding with insights. Please keep the comments coming!

[DAOstar_gov]

We totally agree with your comments, @Raphael_Anode regarding providing real value. We believe that what @Axia is truly asking is a strategic question to the DAO: "what do we want to become when we grow up ", and how can delegates help drive this vision?

We did some research on ACI that you mentioned in your comments, and discovered the current Aave Labs/ACI/Aave DAO “debacle”. Lots of lessons for any DAO to be learned, however, what really stood out to us (and what you also mentioned), was about always verifying an action or decision against your “North Star/Litmus test” , to check if this program/grant/project/goal provides value to Rootstock.

ACI said it best in their recent Aave Forum post

We’re paraphasing its meaning into - “what are you delivering?, what will it cost?, and what is the return?” and our addition, and “how much did it move the needle?” (cited source: Aave Labs: $86 Million, 23% of the Token Supply, and this is their Track Record - General - Aave)

Regardless, of how we go about it, this conversation should eventually evolve from talk to action, even baby steps (i.e. pilot) to test a theory. While we agree with @DAOplomats comments about not creating innitiatives without alignment from RTLabs on ecosystem objectives, we don’t agree that we need “approval” from RTLabs on the right strategies or awaiting on them to provide the priorities.

As we commented in the Idea/Sentiment Check: Rootstock Participation in TABConf8 Conference post, that DAO strategic objectives may not be same as Labs/Ecosystem objectives and that is OK - the DAO’s objectives can compliment the latter’s and expand into areas that they cannot.

[Ignas]

Thanks @Axia for raising this. I agree with @Raphael_Anode that any new initiative should be clearly defined, strategically aligned, and focused on creating real value for the DAO. If delegates can demonstrate impact, then compensation can follow.

Beside that, a simple step we can take now is increasing marketing awareness through recognized delegates. Social posts, educational threads, and consistent communication about Rootstock can gradually build user understanding and support long term growth.

We could consider treating this as a bonus incentive for delegates who go beyond their core duties. Velora tried this approach by adding bonus rewards to their delegate program (even though it’s currently paused). It could be a useful reference point.

[ChronoTrigger]

I think @Axia raised something important here that deserves more focused discussion besides compensation mechanics.

My understanding of the OP was the core question: what strategic contributions can delegates realistically make beyond grant review, and which of those would actually move the needle for the ecosystem?

@Francisco naming liquidity introductions as the highest-value ask from delegates is telling. That’s not a governance task, it’s a network-driven contribution. And it highlights something we haven’t fully explored: each on their own way, the delegates bring professional networks, industry relationships, and in some cases significant public reach that the Collective isn’t activating in any structured way.

Consider that we have delegates with deep institutional relationships, others with meaningful distribution on crypto Twitter, and others with direct operational experience in DeFi, tokenization, stablecoin, payments, finance, banking, mining, or infrastructure. That collective surface area is arguably more valuable to builders than the grant funding itself, especially during bear markets when liquidity dries up and visibility becomes survival.

I’d suggest we map out what high-leverage contributions actually look like. A few that seem concrete enough to build around:

Liquidity introductions for grantees scaling onchain, as @Francisco flagged. Strategic introductions to institutional partners, exchanges, or integration targets. Amplification and distribution support for builders launching products. Conference and event strategy with clear objectives tied to ecosystem KPIs, building on the TABConf or Ipe Village threads.

Some of these require coordination with Rootstock Labs team to avoid duplication, which I agree with. But the framing should start from “where do delegates have unique leverage that Labs doesn’t” rather than “what other tasks can we add to the delegate job description.”

I’d be curious to hear from other delegates what contributions they’re already making informally that could be formalized, and from Labs where they see the biggest gaps that delegate networks could fill.

[tamlerner]

FEBRUARY 2026 — Results Are In.

The Recognized Delegate Compensation Program keeps printing. Another month of delegates showing up, voting with conviction, and moving Rootstock’s decentralization flywheel forward.

Here are February’s top engaged delegates:

Gold Tier | 1,500 USDRIF DAOStar · ChronoTrigger · Axia Network

Silver Tier | 1,000 USDRIF Tané · DAOPlomats · Curia

Massive respect to every delegate who stayed locked in through February. Your on-chain participation and governance contributions are not just boxes ticked — they are the bedrock of a credibly decentralized DAO.

Next step → The payment proposal will be posted on-chain via the Rootstock Collective dApp this week for community and delegate ratification, followed by fund transfers.

Full transparency. On-chain accountability. The flywheel does not stop.

Onwards to March.