[IP] eUSD Rev Share with RToken Champion

Electronic Dollar (eUSD) eUSD RFC
1

Summary

My name is Tom Sawyer and I go by 0xTomSawyer online and I have been a Reserve Ecosystem contributor since March of 2023 where I began putting the pieces together of what would eventually become High Yield USD.

Based on my learnings with hyUSD and other RTokens in the ecosystem, I have started to concentrate some of my efforts into eUSD. Over the past few months I have spent a lot of time writing up proposals and moving these proposals through the governance process to make improvements to eUSD. I have also created an X account and online brand presence for the Electronic Dollar, currently the account has over 300 followers. It is extremely important to educate the X world about eUSD but also inform people about the opportunities that exist in DeFi. ABC Labs is collaborating with several protocols and products with integrations for eUSD. Putting together threads about Morpho incentives or posting about the incentives streaming to the eUSD/USDC pool helps to amplify the work that ABC Labs is doing.

This proposal would direct 3% (in RSR) of the eUSD revenue distribution externally to a wallet that I control. This 3% would represent a form of compensation for my continued leadership in governance and brand building across multiple RTokens in order to amplify the work being done by ABC Labs. For eUSD to find its deserved place in the market, it needs someone working close to full-time to amplify social presence and focus closely on basket composition.

Current Revenue Share:
stRSR: 92.2%

Proposed Revenue Share:
stRSR: 89.2%
External: 3% (in RSR) to 0x1c8fA333e3f136bc07D7487aF88EC778d160ad8E

Abstract

The proposed proposal, if enacted, would allocate 3% of the revenue in RSR to the following address: 0x1c8fA333e3f136bc07D7487aF88EC778d160ad8E from the stRSR revenue. This proposal will not interfere with the ongoing monthly adjustments to the Rev Share Proposal with FinTech Apps.

Problem Statement

An RToken requires a person or entity to look after it closely, and the Electronic Dollar does not have this. Because no one person is closely looking after eUSD, this has led to eUSD needing several improvements. As a result, over the past few months, I have written 8 governance proposals and have seen them through to execution. The impact of 8 proposals is significant, these proposals have not only made eUSD a better product but more specifically has increased the yield profile of the collateral basket and decreased the cost to mint. These improvements are a value add for both the RSR staker and the eUSD holder.

After the Electronic Dollar launched, there was no initiative to build a brand presence online. In July 2024, I started building an audience for eUSD with the X account electronic_USD. This account is dedicated to bringing forward different opportunities that exist in DeFi surrounding the Electronic Dollar.

Rationale

I believe that I can be the leader that will closely look after eUSD in benefit to both RSR stakers and eUSD holders. The past several months can be used as a gauge to determine if my work in governance and on X is impactful enough to garner the support of the RSR staker in this proposal. I will continue my work on X and in governance to bring proposals forward to governors. I plan to continue doing research to bring to the governors the best basket compositions for eUSD. I will continue growing the X account by amplifying the work that is being done at ABC Labs. Building the brand presence online for eUSD will be impactful in the long term to amplify the social presence of eUSD throughout the DeFi world.

Risks

The risk is lowering the overcollateralization, but can eUSD afford this?

The overcollateralization has been oscillating between 85% and 100% depending on several factors. There is enough room to share the 3% without compromising on safety or drastically lowering the overcollateralization where it could potentially negatively impact the eUSD holder in an emergency situation.

The goal is safely growing eUSD, and I want to make that close to a full-time focus for me. My continued work for the eUSD governors wont take away from the other work that I am doing across the Reserve Ecosystem.

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  • Yes, I am for this proposal
  • No, I am against this proposal
0 voters
5 Likes
2

Tom is as dedicated a contributor an RToken could wish for. He has personally consulted me countless times to help move different RTokens forwards and has always paid attention to my thoughts while considering the best path.

Having Tom working in the ecosystem near fulltime would be very helpful and it is right that he should recieve something for his efforts. I am hopeful that this sets a positive example for the rest of the ecosystem to emulate - good governance is an extremely time consuming endeavour.

eUSD is a perfect candidate to be the engine of this proposal. An additional revenue split for the foreseeable future is likely to have limited material impact on the overcollateralization of the asset.

This can be examined later by the DAO if desired. This is an extremely simple change to make (and unmake if later desired) that I anticipate to bring outsized benefits relative to its costs. I support it and look forward to reading (ideally bimonthly) progress updates as Tom embarks on this new journey.

Full support.

8 Likes
3

I am in favor! I think this is reasonable and also sets a good precedent for RTokens to compensate very active contributors.

Thank you Tom for all you’ve been doing, your contributions do not go unnoticed!

9 Likes
4

I am in support of this proposal. I have noticed Tom bringing forward several proposals for eUSD to ensure it is properly configured, and these proposals haven’t necessarily been surface level. He’s been putting in time to make sure eUSD has the safest and highest yielding basket it possibly can.

If you are not in support of this proposal, I think looking back at the previous proposals and the amount of interaction Tom has had with eUSD, could be a way to convince yourself otherwise.

I give my support with two caveats:

Tom, I would like you to carry the torch forward on the split of the eUSD yield to a proper pool to incentivize liquidity. The Curve USDC-eUSD pool was the last mentioned, but it was never finalized, despite several discussions with Reserve team members.

That you also take over the fintech yield split proposal pipeline. This needs to be streamlined and consistent. I have talked to you about this, so you know what this means.

2 Likes
5

I am in support of this proposal as Tom contributes an enormous amount of time and effort to the Reserve ecosystem. Since no-one else is ‘championing’ eUSD, then it benefits stakers and holders to have someone look out for the best basket and minting fees to make eUSD as attractive as possible to both parties.

As this is a governance proposal in itself and is subject to further proposals much loke the revenue allocation to fintech wallets based on eUSD share, it would make sense to have some KPIs returned each month on hours spent on eUSD for example to be able to judge that the contribution is ‘washing it’s face’ as it were. This is merely an idea and is not mandatory, but I think people will want to see some tangible return on the allocation.

1 Like
6

Tom has been an unwavering advocate for RTokens. He’s also a terrific, humble human and friend. However, this proposal appears to conflate governance responsibilities with educational marketing for eUSD.

Voting “yes” would be the easier path, but I think we should work toward a more intentional outcome for eUSD and the broader ecosystem.

Governance and education marketing require distinct compensation and workstreams—they involve fundamentally different skill sets. Now is the time to take a proactive, holistic approach to eUSD’s needs, leveraging this opportunity to attract more talent to Reserve.

I fully support compensating Tom as an ecosystem governance delegate and believe Reserve should establish a program to formalize the efforts of its super-governors. Many protocols implement similar strategies to foster ecosystem governance participation. Since eUSD already has a compensation mechanism for RSR stakers and governors, introducing an additional revenue carve-out feels misplaced. Instead, I propose the Reserve ecosystem nominate and handful of governor candidates who meet certain activity-criteria and receive a monthly RSR stipend, which they can stake for yield. This governance delegate program will generate stronger network effects and more meaningful outcomes than solely addressing a single contributor’s revenue stream at this time. StableLab is an expert on delegate programs and should be consulted.

Regarding education, I’d like to gain a deeper understanding of the eUSD education strategy, its milestones, and its timelines.

  • What personas and use-cases are eUSD targeting?
  • How are prospective users of eUSD being educated?
  • How are contributors like Sentz and UglyCash, the main drivers of eUSD’s TVL, supported monthly?
  • What part of the education strategy is working, and what’s not?
  • How does eUSD plan to engage on different platforms? e.g. prioritizing Google’s 3 billion MAUs versus 𝕏’s 0.6 billion?
  • There should be a regular accountability cadence published to assess and adjust the strategy, whether through simple AARs or something like AlphaGrowth’s quarterly or weekly reports in the Compound community.

Also now might be a good time to start thinking about inviting growth education specialists (AlphaGrowth, Scrib3, etc.) to propose complementary solutions to the existing efforts of Reserve community and ABC Labs.

I would like to see more debate on the two topics above, (1) a governance delegate program and (2) eUSD education strategy, milestones and timelines, before voting my eUSD stake on this topic. It would also be great to see Sentz and Ugly Cash weigh in on the RFC.

Thank you for considering.

**CORRECTION Oct 16 2024: replace Google’s 3 billion MAUs with the Internets 5.3 billion MAUs. About 9x larger than 𝕏. Content optimized for web gets scraped by Google/Bing/AIs.

7 Likes
7

I’ve been broadly in favour of it, and after thinking on it the last few days, more certain of it.

I think back to all those previous AMAs, how Reserve (well, Confusion Capital and ABC) want to be able to demonstrate that the platform’s permissionless - it’s such an easier narrative if/when (:crossed_fingers:) Reserve is big to say simply: “Well, we’ve never deployed an RToken - the platform’s just there as an agnostic tool”

And if you follow the reasoning down, then outside of some team nudges and advice, that good faith argument continues up until the point they’re directly paying someone to deploy or govern.

Maybe small incentives, even small grants are all cool and follow that good faith argument, but at some point it stops holding true if team incentives become bigger than that.

And at the same time, you need someone pushing RTokens, they’re not going to grow themselves - or maybe better to say you need someone constantly pushing the snowball to start with.

Whatever Sentz and Ugly Cash are doing, it’s going to be around growing their audience, not pushing eUSD out there (and that’s cool, that’s their priority).

All the work of simply talking to exchanges for listings, turning up at conferences, doing social or hunting partners - that’s all necessary work to be done which won’t happen if no-one does it.

It’s got to be done, and as a decentralized stablecoin, it’s got to come from stakers/governors.

And if our hope of eUSD growing is from either no-one doing the work, or Tom doing it alongside whatever the day job is… It’s just a missed shot on goal.

So I’m going to vote in favour of it. I’d rather take the punt, and a few listings or a few canny moves on the Defi side would pay for itself.

If Tom wants to do it, and be able to buy more time to do it, I’m in - if it grows the pie, it’s a win all round.

I say Tom, because he’s been demonstrating he can do it for a year (look at USD3 m-cap for example). I think it’s a good idea for the right person, and that’s Tom from everyone available on the radar.

Someone said it would be about $3,000 a month? To put a smart cookie on to the purpose of building eUSD up? I lean it’s a decent bargain of an experiment.

3 Likes
8

Although this is already the case on hyUSD (for example), I don’t think this is the right way to remunerate someone who is involved in developing the eUSD.
Experimentation is fine for a couple of minutes, but at some point, it’s up to the fin-tech companies to take action to increase the adoption of their application and therefore the eUSD marketcap.
There’s a grant program for these things.

For me, that’s a no.

4 Likes
9

I am fully seeing and highly appreciating the relentless effort Tom puts in governing and evangelizing RTokens specifically and Reserve in general. Rewarding him for that is a no-brainer for me. I do object to using eUSD yield that would otherwise go to RSR stakers for this. Incentivizing and rewarding people for their excellent contributions can be done using (a small part of the) the consistently unlocking of a-little-bit-less-than 50% of the RSR supply, My understanding was that that is acutally one of its purposes. So a yes from me for rewarding Tom, but a no to the proposal.

4 Likes
10

On a financial level I think compensating out of emissions makes sense early in the life of Reserve, though keep in mind that later on (in a success scenario) emissions will be worth less than RToken revenue streams, so it will definitely make sense for RTokens to compensate various functions directly over time, even if not now.

The challenge about compensating with emissions in our current setup is that the tokens would be coming from Confusion Capital. In general we aim not to construct arrangements that create too much centralized control – we want those participating with RTokens to be free from any direct influence of Confusion Capital or ABC Labs, to make their own decisions from their own judgement. In a future setup where RSR emissions are allocated by a different body than CC, this would no longer be an issue. Smeddy explained this angle well above.

So I would propose that roles like this occasionally receive 1-off grants from CC that do not create any sort of ongoing control relationship, along with receiving ongoing revenue shares with the RTokens they relate to, and if/when emissions allocation is decoupled from Confusion Capital, that ongoing compensation from emissions for roles like this be reconsidered.

2 Likes
11

For me Tom definitely needs to be rewarded. His dedication have taken the Rtokens to another level. But why another 3% taken out of stakers rewards? Can we not find him another way for him to be rewarded? Or even hire him by ABC Labs or CC for those purposes?
3% is very little right now but if eusd gets adopted by some fintechs and ABC Labs and Ugly Cash grows the MC by Billions ( a man can dream ) 3% will be a lot of money.
Feel like stakers are being left behind … and I won’t be surprised to see Rtokens not sharing any revenue with stakers.

12

I’m voting NO on this IP, but whether it passes or not, I hope some of the feedback sticks.

The Reserve ecosystem thrives when it embraces transparency and accountability. This is a collective responsibility, especially when it involves funds sourced from RSR stakers. Imo it’s vital that we establish a clear communication framework—one that transparently outlines what we’re gaining from these expenditures, what is or isn’t working, and most importantly, allows for stakers to directly feedback into the process.

The current USD3 revenue share doesn’t align with this principle, and neither does the proposed eUSD share in this RFC. I hope that can change.

I resonate with @Mallo point: "KPIs returned each month on hours spent on eUSD, for example, so we can judge if the contribution is ‘washing its face.’”

As I mentioned above, I’m seeking a deeper understanding of the eUSD education strategy—its milestones, and its timelines. Someone taking a revenue share from eUSD would be a great person to own this.

@Smeddy, I love the energy in your post, but it assumes Tom will handle everything (and, in a way, discounts the efforts of others working behind and in between the scenes). I recommend open discussions on strategy and review receipts on what’s working, and explore ways to support those executing these efforts. If someone is taking a revenue share of eUSD, they would be a good candidate to lead such discussions, or at the very least, publish a periodic report to these forums. I will include examples in a follow up post.

I also agree with @LeVic that this should be structured as a grant rather than a RToken rev share, especially given the absence of a public eUSD strategy or a transparent review process. This would align with @nevin.freeman stance on a one-off grant (if I’m interpreting his post above correctly). Based on the insights from @R72 and @Fernando , it seems a one-off grant is a more suitable route for the eUSD community.

Why is this important? Accountability done in the open is a powerful teacher. It not only raises the bar for current contributors but also attracts healthy competition that may help us push even further for higher quality outcomes.

Related—I believe it’s not a matter of “if” external service providers will hunt RToken TVL and push for governance moves in their favor, but “when.” We’ve already seen this with contributors like Ham, Frax, and Stader, who significantly improved ETH+’s safety and yield. As marketing and risk agencies likely follow suit—especially as a RToken’s TVL surpasses $100M—now is a good time to preemptively improve transparency, accountability and discourse. By doing so, we can set a higher standard for aligned contributions and our incumbent contributors can galvanize their position for years to come.

2 Likes
13

Building on my earlier post, I believe it’s valuable to share examples of strategy formats, timelines, and budget requests. While the proposals I’m referencing are six-figure requests—well above what @Tom_hyUSD is asking—they offer solid guidance on structuring future submissions:

Most of these requests do follow a similar format, especially in how they structure their goals and allocate resources. Here are a few commonalities:

  • Purpose and Scope: Every proposal locks in on the core objectives—educate, engage, or market and often includes some target metrics.
  • Deliverables: Clear outputs in exchange for the funding. Videos, workshops, articles—tangible outcomes. What is being contributed? How will it land?
  • Budget Breakdown: Dollars are mapped. Content creation, research, promotion, events, etc. Get the community excited about whats being created, maybe some of them will chip in to help?
  • Engagement Strategy: How do you capture attention? Who are the personas? Why do they care? What’s the message, the distribution, the key metrics? Nail these down. You cannot hit a target you cannot see.
  • Prior Success/Learnings: Receipts matter. Show the wins, failures, and outcomes to build trust and turn the ask into a educated investment and co-ownership.

For anyone in the Reserve community needing support in drafting such proposals, I’m happy to offer guidance and connect you with additional resources as your plan solidifies.

2 Likes
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Ok final post today.

@Tom_hyUSD 's original proposal above navigates both marketing and governance, and I’ve already suggested how to frame compelling marketing budget requests. For anyone aiming to take on a larger role in governance, I recommend implementing an effective receipts format and a strong feedback loop to keep the community informed on governance votes and impacts.

EzR3aL, currently the largest independent delegate in the Aave DAO, holds nearly 200,000 AAVE in voting power. Token holders delegate to him because they trust his judgment and prefer not to track governance proposals weekly. However, they value having a reliable, centralized platform where they can quickly catch up on key decisions.

His Delegate Platform (EzR3aL Delegate Platform - Delegate Platforms - Aave) is updated multiple times a month, sometimes even weekly. This ongoing forum post not only strengthens Aave’s SEO but also offers easy asynchronous access for anyone who wants to stay informed. The forum format is especially powerful, fostering bi-directional feedback where public questions and interactions create a compounding network effect.

Last words:
The receipts and feedback loops I mentioned in this and above posts not only enhance transparency and accountability, but they also serve as a guide for others on how to contribute effectively. Many people may want to engage with the Reserve ecosystem but don’t know where to begin. By creating a more inviting and inclusive community, the faster and bigger we can all grow together. All aboard! :saluting_face:

p.s. additional context on why Forums vs Twitter/X:

  • Twitter/X comments = Good for whats happening now, but terrible UX for discovery later (most people dont even know about Advanced Search). Also more trolly, less reasoned responses.
  • Forums = high-intent users with semblance of attached repuation, past eustress, and searchable history indexed by all search & AI engines. Perfect place for lngform discourse and reasoning. 10x the surface discovery area of Twitter/X, thanks to web search engines and AIs (that cannot easily index Twitter/X).
1 Like
15

Doesn’t look to me as the proper way of rewarding users. eUSD success is mainly coming from Reserve investment, and therefore, people working for this success should be part of this investment, with classic freelance agreements etc. Happy to vote on a freelance agreement, but not willing to go down the road proposed here.

1 Like
16

Thank you for the deep research here. Just for context, I want to point out that Aave has delegate compensation well north of @0xTomSawyer’s proposed compensation. StableLab as a smaller delegate than EzR3al receives around 6k / month.

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@rspa_StableLab I would be a supporter of a Reserve delegate program fairly offered to @0xTomSawyer and the community-at-large, requiring some periodic proof of work receipts on contributions, with compensation right-sized to governance talent aspirations and Reserve ecosystem TVL.

Aave Orbit delegate program and Arbitrum’s delegate program look like interesting templates to consider.

2 Likes