Thanks @alexsotodigital. Great points!
On your questions:
- What should CKR achieve?
For me, the priority should be helping the DAO make informed decisions that serve the longterm interests of CTX holders. Retaining experienced delegates and bringing in new people can both support that, but increasing the number of paid participants should not be the objective by itself. We should first identify the work that needs doing.
From what I’ve seen, relatively few newcomers express interest or become active in Cryptex governance, even with a rewards program in place, so I appreciate you joining this discussion. Before expanding the program, I’d like to understand whether the main barrier is onboarding, a lack of clear opportunities to contribute, or simply limited interest. Those are different problems and may need different solutions.
- Should established contributors and newcomers be supported differently?
Yes, learning the context and delivering work are different things. Newcomers need accessible information, clear opportunities and someone to help them get involved. Personally, I have been involved in governance from the beginning and I’ve onboarded a few delegates. I have always tried to welcome newcomers and help them understand the bigger picture when they’re interested in contributing. I also take your point that valuable work happens before a vote. My earlier suggestion of an onchain-only program was about reducing overhead, not saying that research, coordination and proposal development have no value.
- Could some resources support coordination and onboarding?
I understand why you haven’t found a clear place to contribute. From what I’ve seen, there isn’t a clear shared work agenda connecting delegates with the core team’s activities. Participation mostly revolves around reviewing proposals and voting, while anyone wanting to contribute beyond that generally has to initiate something themselves. This is a longstanding gap I see between the core team and the DAO community.
Regular working calls could help us identify what we can actually do together, rather than just receive updates. Before allocating funds to coordination or onboarding, I’d like us to define those priorities, the responsibilities involved and what support would be needed.
On Task Force compensation, I want to be clear that I think @SEEDGov should be paid for the work they have done so far. My concern is how we structure and fund the program going forward. Separating administration, delegate contributions and analytics would help us assess what each actually costs.
For this CKR proposal specifically, I’d like to see a breakdown of the costs, clear objectives for the next season and an assessment of previous results: how many new delegates became active, whether they stayed involved and how participation changed. This could be a useful starting point for the analytics work being discussed.
At first glance, CKR seems to have done more to encourage active governance participation than staking rewards, although I’d like to test that against the data. I advocated for higher staking rewards in Season 2 and the community approved them, but from what I’ve seen, the amount of CTX staked has since declined rather than increased.
That does not necessarily mean the rewards had no effect, since withdrawals and other factors also matter. But it is worth reviewing whether we are attracting and retaining participants, increasing delegated stake or mainly rewarding existing activity.
Both programs aim to encourage governance participation, although they serve different roles. That’s why I think we should evaluate their results before deciding on further funding.
As you may have seen, I’ve been vocal both here and on Discord about treasury discipline and being careful with the DAO’s remaining resources. That is why treasury runway is directly relevant to this thread: we are considering another CTX allocation from a finite treasury.
Longer term, I’d like these programs to be funded by revenue actually available to the DAO, rather than repeated allocations from its finite CTX treasury. Until then, I would prioritize essential work and preserving capital.
I support building a stronger governance community. I just want the scope and compensation to match the resources we actually have.