Thanks everyone for the feedback. It’s clear we are looking at two sides of the same coin: Structure (Efficiency) and Value (Retention).
To@vumichien: Thank you for the breakdown and references to the Maker/Bankless models. I completely agree with your recommendation to prioritize Dynamic Base Pay first.
To @MasterMojo & @Bitchan: I also completely agree with your goal. At ~$70/month, the current rewards are symbolic and unsustainable for retaining high-quality contributors. The target tiers you suggested (up to $1,500 for high performers) act as the right “North Star” for where this DAO needs to get to.
However, we have a Budget Constraint we need to solve together before we can hit those numbers. Looking at the Treasury composition this morning, we are 94% weighted in SUMR (~$615k) with limited stablecoin depth (~$16k total in USDC/USDT/USDS/EURC).
Based on previous discussions, a model paying a $300 Base to all delegates plus a $1,200 Boost for top performers (assuming a 50% qualification rate) would result in a monthly burn of approximately $25,000.
Given our current reserves, and rewards would primarily be distributed in SUMR tokens. This presents two primary risks:
A $25k monthly sell-side pressure is significant relative to our current market cap.
Regular, large-scale liquidations by contributors could negatively impact the token’s price floor and overall treasury health.
We must bridge the gap between “Fair Pay” and “Treasury Reality.” Given the timeline for February rewards, I propose we form a Delegate Incentives Working Group to finalize the specific parameters for a Dynamic Base Pay Model.
Proposed Mandate:
Determine a sustainable monthly payout ceiling (e.g., standardizing rewards between $200–$300 per delegate) relative to the current Treasury runway.
Establish clear, objective thresholds that trigger “Low,” “Standard,” and “High” payout tiers to ensure fiscal efficiency during low-activity periods.
Explore integrating qualitative metrics (such as the Peer Recognition Score) into the incentive framework. The Working Group will assess data from parallel pilots to determine if/how these signals can replace participation-based proxies in future iterations.
Draft the SIP to transition the DAO to this updated model by Q2.
After 3-6 month of the initial program, the WG will conduct a performance analysis to ensure these incentives are driving high-quality governance before considering higher reward or compensations.
We are keen to facilitate this process, but we need diverse perspectives to ensure the framework is fair and effective. Anyone here would like to join this working group and help us finalize these parameters?
Sidebar: Quality Metrics (PRS) In parallel with the framework restructuring, we plan to launch the PRS Pilot as an independent experiment. We will track metrics in the background over the coming months and the findings will be shared in Q2/Q3 to provide data-driven insights for future iterations of the compensation curve.
My apologies for jumping into this discussion so late. I just wanted to share a few observations on Summer Governance based on the January 2026 period.
To kick off, I wanted to highlight what are considered some of the most prominent reasons for a DAO to employ delegate compensation. A quick AI prompt returned the following:
Improve participation (Low voter turnout)
Recognize Delegate Work (Reward for time-intensive tasks like proposal creation, deliberation, and informed voting)
Enhance Decentralization (Distribute power beyond whales)
From the above chart, we can see that we have very impressive participation metrics (averaging 432.87% of the quorum in January). This metric took a hit post-transferability, but levels still remain healthy. The drop in the last 5 votes can also be explained by the absence of StableLab’s voting block.
Recognizing delegate work is where, as @Curia highlighted, work needs to be done, as rewards are only distributed for voting participation as it stands. And as can be seen from the chart above, only 1 delegate (holds 150% of quorum) has been able to consistently hit quorum on all the votes in January. If this delegate were to stop participating, it would still require only 2 delegates on average to hit quorum.
Enhancing decentralization also needs significant work, as the current Nakamoto coefficient (minimum number of entities that would need to collude to control >50% of voting power) is only 1. But this is a tricky problem considering the amounts controlled by whale delegates.
My Recommendations
Determine what delegate rewards are meant to incentivize. What goal are we trying to achieve with delegate compensation? Things like participation are currently very healthy.
Improve decentralization: If the top 5 delegates don’t participate for whatever reason, quorum becomes much harder to reach. My suggestion here would be to run a delegate race, where treasury delegations are given to delegates who are active in governance but who have low voting power.
Dynamic pay as suggested by @curia. My suggestion here would be to allocate rewards based on the type of SIP. For example, voting on onboarding and offboarding of fleets and arks is considerably low effort, given that BA has usually already conducted sufficient risk analysis.
Cap rewards or delegates getting rewarded. Basically, create a mechanism to be able to more predictably budget delegate rewards.
Finally, I think we should look to reward proposal creation (successful ones). With DAO-managed vaults right around the corner, it is a good idea to reward delegates who can successfully suggest and integrate new yield sources.
Apologies for the very long post . As always, I am happy to help design/co-design any of the above frameworks and recommendations.
We are pleased to inform everyone that the Delegate Incentive Working Group (DI-WG) is now officially active. A huge thank you to @Raphael_Anode, @Sixty, @vumichien, and @BitChan for volunteering to join this initiative.
Over the past few weeks, we have been identifying the friction points in our current system. Based on the recent Community Calls and data analyses, we have to solve four key tensions:
Scaling governance compensation to actual workload
Treasury composition (High SUMR / Low Stables) requiring a new payment model
Centralization risks where only 1-2 delegates are needed to determine vote outcomes
Balancing “Attendance” vs. true "Contribution Quality”
During last week’s Community Call #11, we initiated an exploratory workshop to begin defining the DAO’s “North Star” regarding these incentives. We touched on questions regarding Delegate Vision, High-Value Contribution, Compensation, and KPIs.
While we gathered initial insights, we believe these decisions are too important to be made by a small group. We need broader consensus to ensure the new framework is robust and fair.
To ensure maximum collaboration, we are extending the workshop to this week’s Community Call#12. We will be doing a deep dive into the Miro Board to finalize our stance on:
what specific actions constitute “High Value” work?
how should the compensation mix be structured to align incentives without draining stables?
How should we measure workload to calculate the Base Pay?
How You Can Help We are asking for the community’s full attendance and support as we figure out the DAO’s next step.
Async Feedback: If you cannot attend, please add your thoughts to our Miro Board (https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVGB1VQ9M=). Your sticky notes will be treated with the same weight as live comments.
. As always, I am happy to help design/co-design any of the above frameworks and recommendations.