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.
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
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.
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!
Thank you @rspa_StableLab 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Eligibility Criteria
Adjustment Mechanism
Payment
Process
This is V1.0 - Your Input Matters!
