[RFC] Reserve Delegate Program Trial Run

Governance & Research
1

Reserve Delegate Program: Proposal for a First Run

Building on the governance delegation discussion started by @nevin.freeman, @zeb, @Raphael_Anode, and @blue

TL;DR

A three-month pilot delegate program for Reserve. Twelve recognized delegates selected through a community race on confetti.win, with the top twelve earning $250/month in $RSR for active governance participation. Index DTFs excluded from the initial scope. Designed to be simple, learn fast, and lay the groundwork for a more mature system.

Why Now?

The case for delegation has been made well in the preceding discussion. ABC Labs holds significant voting power across DTFs. That power can be distributed to committed community members who are already paying attention and display profound care. The optimistic governance system currently in audit will reduce the burden on delegates, but also makes it more important that trusted, attentive govnernors are in position to veto harmful proposals when needed.

The goal here is to recognize the people already doing the work, giving them real power, and seeing what happens. It is imperative that added bureaucracy is kept to a minimum.

Goals

What success looks like by end of H1 2026:

  • A functioning delegate cohort is actively governing the included DTFs with high participation rates.
  • Governance proposals consistently receive informed votes with public rationales.
  • The community has a clear picture of what works and what doesn’t in Reserve-specific delegation.
  • Increased transparency and accountability, as well as decentralization of voting power.

What success looks like by end of H2 2026:

  • The program has evolved based on learnings from the pilot, mainly around compensation, scope, and structure.
  • Delegates are not just voting but actively championing DTFs and contributing to ecosystem growth.
  • A credible path toward delegate compensation tied to ecosystem value (revenue share) is in place or under serious design.

Scope: Which DTFs Are Included

Included in the initial program (yield DTFs with >$1M market cap):

  • ETH+
  • eUSD
  • USD3
  • bsdETH

Excluded from the initial program: Index DTFs (CMC20, LCAP, etc.)

This is a deliberate choice. As @Ham pointed out, the governance flow on the largest index DTFs isn’t sufficiently transparent for a delegate program to function well right now. Basket rebalance proposals are posted and voted on before benchmarks are made publicly available, forcing governors to rely entirely on third-party trust that the rebalance is correct.

That said, bringing index DTFs into the governance fold is a worthy goal. Making their governance transparent and legible to outsiders could itself be a meaningful project for a future delegate cohort. For this first run, we keep it to products where delegates can directly evaluate what they’re voting on.

Delegate Selection: A Community Race

Delegates will be selected through a delegate race on confetti.win or Snapshot (see poll), open to anyone holding RSR. This approach has the advantage of being engaging, fun, and community-driven while still reflecting real token-holder preference.

How it works:

  1. Candidates self-nominate by posting a delegate introduction on the forum in the Delegates category: who they are, their background with Reserve, why they want to be a delegate, and what they bring to the table.
  2. The community votes via confetti.win or Snapshot. Anyone holding RSR can participate in the selection.
  3. The top 12 candidates become Recognized Delegates and receive delegated voting power from ABC Labs across the included RTokens/DTFs.
  4. These 12 are eligible for the compensation scheme described below. This will be tracked with a Google Sheet using verifiable data from Discourse and on-chain voting.

ABC Labs should abstain from the delegate race to avoid the perception that delegates are hand-picked. The point of this exercise is to let the community decide. ABC Labs’ role is to implement the outcome: delegate the tokens to the people the community selects.

Why 12 recognized delegates? It’s large enough to distribute power meaningfully and get diverse perspectives, but small enough that each delegate has real influence and the program is manageable to monitor.

What Delegates Do

For this initial run, the job is straightforward:

  1. Vote on DTF governance proposals such as basket changes, parameter updates, contract upgrades for the DTFs they are delegated on.
  2. Post a rationale for every vote in their delegate thread on the forum.

That’s it. It’s simple and it’s a starting point. Everyone knows what’s expected. Active community members are already doing this. This program is making it formal.

With optimistic governance coming online, delegates will shift from “vote on everything” to “watch everything, veto what’s bad.” This is a different skill which requires consistent attention rather than periodic action. The accountability metrics below are designed with this in mind. For optimistic governance delegates will express why they didn’t veto and what they liked about a proposal in their rationals. Voting becomes necessary only when proposals are lacking and need a veto.

Compensation

Base compensation: $250/month in $RSR.

This is a modest, socket-level amount meant to recognize the real time governance participation takes not to make delegation a career. It’s in line with the reality that professional delegate compensation across DeFi has collapsed and that mercenary incentives do more harm than good.

Performance requirements to receive compensation:

  • Minimum 90% vote participation across all proposals on delegated products.
  • 100% of votes cast must include a posted rationale in the delegate’s forum thread.
  • Meaningful forum engagement, measured by read time and likes received. Read time is quite evolved and a good proxy for whether the delegate is actually present and contributing to discourse, not just showing up to click buttons will be tracked.

Consequences for underperformance:

  • After one month of failing to meet requirements: a warning.
  • After two consecutive months: undelegation and removal from the recognized delegates tier.

Delegation Amounts

ABC Labs will determine the total stRSR to delegate per included DTF based on current quorum requirements. The specific amounts should be proposed by the ABC Labs ops team (@Griffin, @Max) based on current quorum thresholds and existing stake distributions.

Delegation should be distributed across recognized delegates rather than concentrated. The exact split, whether equal across all 12, weighted by race ranking, or some other formula is an open question worth community input. For the first run, we look at multiplying existing stake to honor commitment to Reserve.

Duration and Review

The initial program runs for three months.

At the end of three months, Anode publishes a review covering delegate participation rates, rationale quality, forum engagement, and any governance incidents. The community then decides if they want to continue, modify, or wind down the program.

Short terms were recommended by both @zeb and @Raphael_Anode for a first iteration. Three months is long enough to generate data, and short enough that course correction happens soon.

Monitoring

Anode monitors delegate performance as part of their existing governance facilitation grant. Metrics tracked:

  • Vote participation rate per delegate
  • Rationale posting
  • Forum read time and likes received

Monthly performance summaries are published on the forum for transparency.

What This Program Doesn’t Do (Yet)

This first run is deliberately narrow. Here’s what’s out of scope now but on the roadmap:

  • Compensation as a function of delegated RSR (revenue share). Where staking revenue generated by delegated RSR flows to the delegate. This has the advantage that delegates earn only if the products they govern generate real value. Not practical for a three-month pilot, but it should be the north star for compensation design in future iterations. Open question here is whether this would be true for all delegation, or just ABC/CC originated delegation.

  • DTF championing and ecosystem growth. The original eUSD champion program is the blueprint here. A delegate who goes beyond governance to actively grow the pie for all stakers through analysis, outreach, liquidity increases, or education is creating real value. @ham’s work on ETH+ is the gold standard example. Future iterations should include a larger compensation component tied to this kind of contribution, with delegates choosing approaches suited to their skills. The goal should always be: grow the ecosystem.

  • Index DTF governance. Once index DTF governance processes are transparent enough for delegates to independently verify proposals, they should be brought into scope. This could itself be a project for the delegate cohort.

veRSR and protocol-level governance. When veRSR or similar mechanisms come online, the scope of delegation expands to protocol-level decisions like directing RSR platform fees, managing the contract registry, voting on milestone-based emissions. This is still pretty nebulous, offering delegates something to improve and expand on.

RToken holder veto power. @blue raised the Lido-inspired model where holders of an RToken itself could veto governance decisions, separate from RSR governance. This is worth exploring but adds complexity beyond what a pilot should carry.

Open Questions for Community Input

Before this goes live, input is needed on a few specifics:

  1. Delegation distribution: Should all 12 recognized delegates receive equal delegation, or should it be weighted (e.g., by race ranking, by existing stake, or by some other factor)?
  • Equal delegation
  • Ranked by race outcome
  • Ranked by previous RSR stake
  • Other (comment below)
0 voters
  1. Candidate eligibility: Should there be a minimum tenure requirement (e.g., RSR staked for at least three months) to be eligible as a candidate? Or does the race naturally filter for committed community members?
  • No tenure requirement
  • Forum account older than 1 year
  • Forum account older than 2 years
  • Forum account even older
0 voters
  1. Should the program itself be ratified via Snapshot vote? @zeb made the case that structural governance decisions should involve RSR holders. Others have noted that since ABC Labs is voluntarily delegating its own tokens, a formal vote may not be necessary. Where does the community land?
  • Vote on this RFC via Snapshot
  • Forum poll is fine
0 voters
  1. Per-DTF or cross-DTF delegation? Should delegates be delegated on all included products, or should they choose which DTFs they want to govern? Specialization has benefits, but adds compexity
  • Per DTF delegation (delegates choose DTFs)
  • Same delegation across DTFs
0 voters

Which tool should the program use for the delegate race?

  • Use confetti.win
  • Use Snapshot
0 voters

Support the Running the Delegate Program Trial Run? (public vote to remove Sybils, if necessary)

  • YES, do it
  • NO, not yet
0 voters
4 Likes
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Thanks for putting this together, for your kind comments regarding my contributions to ETHplus and for acknowledging my current concerns regarding Index DTFs @Raphael_Anode.

I’m in strong support of the proposal. I’d just like some further clarification on compensation.

  1. Your TLDR states $500/month to the top 6 delegates but the body of the proposal only suggests $250/month base compensation to all 12 delegates.

  2. Your 4th open question considers cross-DTF delegation. How do you see compensation working in regard to this? I agree that a delegate should only govern where they feel comfortable but if that’s only only the USD side of the yield protocol should they receive equal compensation to a delegate who is happy to participate in governance across the whole yield protocol. I think sometimes equal compensation might be indicated based on the skill level of the delegate but concede this is complex and I don’t have a perfect answer at this stage.

3

Fixed it. Thanks for spotting it.
We decided against a competition to make it more inclusive and encompassing. The competition was an initial idea I had.

1 Like
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Thanks again @Raphael_Anode for this request for comments, here are mine.

Some aspects here I have already given my opinions on before, so will focus on new details instead.

Starting with what I already wrote yesterday before the comment of Ham. Regarding the initial $500 for the top 6 voted delegates, which has been edited since. Will just share my thoughts on the idea itself although to be honest, I am not really sure yet of what I think of the idea. It might create some form of incentive to try to be in the top 6, which I can imagine is good. Perhaps not during the very first run, as the delegates haven’t performed their duties yet, but from the second voting round on it could be a good thing. Don’t know if $250 really moves the needle for anyone though. You took it out, so for the first trail it isn’t suggested anyway, for a follow up I might see the benefit.

“ABC Labs should abstain from the delegate race to avoid the perception that delegates are hand-picked. The point of this exercise is to let the community decide.”

I am actually totally fine with ABC voting. But what I have advocated for so far is that I want this to be open to any RSR holder, which includes ABC and all others. An exercise of the whole RSR community together.

Then regarding the polls.

For this first trial round I support equal delegation, as it might otherwise introduce unforeseen consequences.

Candidate eligibility wise, time in crypto moves fast, having a minimum of a year seems too long for me. 3 months however is something I would support. As it means a potential delegate has seen a full cycle in the forum pass by. So didn’t vote on this one as my choice is not included.

If RSR holders are not even bothered to vote on this trial, why bother with the rest of the plan? Then let ABC labs empower some long term handpicked community people they have recognized and those chosen get to earn from the staked RSR on their respective DTFs they govern. Might sound rough, but I do feel this should be a two-way street. If RSR holders aren’t interested at this base level, perhaps we should take that as a lesson.

And lastly, I read up on Confetti. From what I see it would include RSR holders needing to buy tokens and gamifying it with a reward pool plus giving the pool creator 5% of tokens spent on buying votes. To me this seems like a whole new dynamic that RSR holders are not familiar with and I don’t know if this is what the Delegate Program Trial needs now. So I am voting in favor of Snapshot.

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5

Many thanks for drafting this proposal! I am very much in favor of this and have completed the poll questions in the mean time. I have voted on many proposals so far, but quite often with the feeling it did not truly matter and/or make an impact. This proposal, if implemented, brings us a lot closer to true decentralization of governance and will make it a lot more important and valuable to govern. Think it is wise to for now exclude Index DTFs - the governance and proposal/voting cycles (and even the mandate) is not always clear to me and would benefit from further shaping and sharpening before taking it to the next (governance and decentralization) level.

2 Likes
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Thank you. Confetti is very configurable in how you use it. You can run monetized competitions where people win who vote for winners (kind of like a prediction market) or not.

What I think can be an issue is that it’s new tooling and I have had the experience that this reduces uptake a lot.

Snapshot is familiar to anyone in the space.

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The hardest part of starting anything new up is starting it up, getting going. Love that this is framed as trial run we can learn from. It wont be perfect but it still be material progress over yesterday’s approach.

I support the proposal and my poll votes tend to lean toward minimum viable simplicity.

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Thanks for coming up with this proposal. I see it as a huge step in the right direction, so let’s do it!

The only thing I’d like to add is that I don’t think forum membership is a good indicator of candidate eligibility. If we were to introduce some form of entry barrier (which I’m not a fan of), it should either be tied to actual on-chain voting participation or - at a minimum - to holding an RSR staking position.

1 Like