[DRAFT] Creation of the Celo Delegate Program

Ecosystem
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This is a draft proposal to start a Celo Delegate Program to promote governance participation and increase the resiliency of Celo Governance.

Abstract
This proposal suggests leveraging 5M CELO controlled by the Celo Community treasury to support an initial Delegate program with up to 10 delegates.

Background
Many onchain Governance systems and DAOs struggle to maintain a healthy governance system with active participation. Different reasons, including custody limitations, legal restrictions, voter apathy, and lack of bandwidth, influence the number of high-context governance contributions to these systems.

Compound, one of the larger DeFi DAOs, was recently shaken up by a sizeable unexpected proposal that moved 5% of the tokens to a single team multi-sig. Due to the majority of voters not being active, the proposal passed despite nearly all stakeholders (besides the group that submitted it) considering it not aligned with Compound interest (read more here). The Compound situation highlights again the significance of nurturing a healthy Governance system that can make decisions in line with the organization’s priorities.

Celo has one of the oldest onchain Governance systems that manage many elements of Celo, from its core protocol upgrades to Celo Community Treasury spending decisions. The Celo governance system also includes the CGP approvers, who ensure proposals execute as intended.

While stable overall, with a high degree of approval relative to the submitted proposal, significantly since CGP115, the following elements of Celo Governance could improve:

  • Increasing the average forum feedback

  • Increasing the number of voters (currently 50-100)

  • Increasing the average CELO votes cast (currently ~10-20M)

  • Increasing the voter argumentation, as the current most significant voters don’t share their reasoning

  • Increasing voter transparency, as the most significant voters don’t have a name attached to them

It’s also interesting to note that since inception, it has never occurred that a proposal didn’t pass due to receiving more No votes than Yes votes. In the current setup, stakeholders are incentivized not to vote on a proposal they may consider unfavorable and hope that the proposal will not reach a quorum and fail.

This approach’s limitation is that it’s hard to understand stakeholders’ appetite for decision-making. Not reaching a quorum without specific feedback leaves much room for speculation and doesn’t provide a better understanding of whether and how this proposal could still be relevant for Celo.

With the launch of Celo Mondo, a Staking and Governance App, it is now possible to delegate voting power through a simple UI. The solution also makes it easier to understand which delegates are active and follow along with all Governance votes.

To further strengthen Celo’s Governance and improve Celo’s governance operations and its resilience, this proposal aims to start a Community treasury-powered Delegation program that allows up to 10 delegates to receive 500k-1M CELO delegated to their account to participate in Governance actively.

Proposal Details
This proposal suggests utilizing 5M CELO controlled by the Celo Community Treasury to create a Locked Celo position in a 6/10 multi-sig (H2 Stewards + Guardians) and delegate its voting power to ten (10) different Celo Delegates through the Celo Mondo dApp based on a public application process and stakeholder-driven vote.

Voting Share breakdown
Up to 10 delegates will each receive 500K CELO delegated to them for a maximum of 5m CELO.

Application Process
To apply for the Delegate program, an individual will have to:

  1. Request their profile to be added to the Celo Mondo application by submitting a pull request to this Github.
  2. Potential delegates must propose their candidacy to the community by creating a personal delegate thread in the Delegates Category (to be created) following the format outlined below. Only complete applications will be added to the Voting Process.

Delegates should follow the following Candidate Proposal Template:

Introduction

Briefly introduce yourself and provide some background information on yourself, including:

  • Link to Celo Forum Summary:
  • Link to Delegate Account in Celo Mondo:
  • Delegate Celo’s address:
  • Socials Links:

Experience and Expertise

  • Describe your relevant experience and expertise, especially in decentralized protocols and Governance.

Motivation

  • Reasons for wanting to be a Celo delegate:
  • Past Contributions to Celo:

Goals and Vision

  • Share your vision for Celo and how as a delegate you plan to contribute to that vision and achieving those goals.

Selection Process
A committee of three individuals who deeply understand Celo Governance will review the delegate’s applications and provide a holistic overview of the Celo ecosystem.

The committee will review all applications based on merit and fit to make a final suggestion of 10 delegates which will be put up for a vote through a regular CGP to formalize.

Delegate Responsibilities
Delegates should agree and commit to a list of responsibilities that they are undertaking in this important role, including:

  • Familiarizing themselves with the Celo governance process and ecosystem,
  • Sharing feedback and engaging in discussion on the forum with proposals in the request for comments stage,
  • Voting on a minimum percentage of proposals (at least 80% of the last 10 proposals at any point).
  • Keep a delegate thread on the Celo Forum where they explain their past votes.

Delegation Period
While the delegate allocations are initially assigned until December 31st, 2025, it’s important to note that this is not set in stone. At any point, a proposal can be submitted to reallocate the voting power controlled by Celo Governance, ensuring a flexible and adaptive governance process.

Delegate Rewards
As the importance of active delegates is clear, many DAOs are looking for the right process to reward active participation. First, we propose including the Delegate contribution in the upcoming Celo Citizens Round to reward individuals with vested CELO contributions.

If successful, we can imagine running more cyclical Citizen Rounds to reward the most active Celo delegates and stakeholders.

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Happy to Introduce Myself as the first delegate.

You can find me in the following link and consider delegate to me your voting power I will try to do my best always :arrow_right: Celo Mondo | Staking & Governance for Celo

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This is a good proposal. I believe this will increase the number of active participants in the governance process. The SETUP 4 is more balanced.

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Thanks a lot for this proposal @LuukDAO

Now that Celo Mondo is released, delegation on Celo can finally level up governance partecipation and resilience.

The Governance participation demands effort and resources, leading to the emergence of McKinseys of Governance together with DAO Politicians.

I quoted your words here because I want to remark the importance of these points and I believe a delegation program would definitely help in improving each of these elements.

To this points I would add:

  • Very few actively participate in governance.
  • Absent incentives, very few vote on governance issues.
  • Sometimes delegates face risks for which they are not compensated.

Paying delegates - paying for a healthy outcome - is very reasonable IMO.

I’m also in favor of #SETUP 4 for the first cycle of the proposal. I feel 5M Celo and 10 delegates is a good starting point.

Although I would be proud to be a delegate for the Celo Governance, I also see how my current roles could constitute a conflict of interest.

For this reason I believe, is very important to have strong boundaries and rules in place about who can apply for the delegates program to avoid the formation of voting power clusters and the centralization of it. What’s your opinion about it?

I would also feel more comfortable having the multisig that manage the Celo locked position, controlled by the current CGP approvers.

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Hey @LuukDAO,

This is a great approach for mitigating potential Celo governance failures in the future.

I was wondering if you also thought about adding compensation or rewards (could be retrospective) for delegate participation in governance as in the case study of Compound adding more delegates won’t always solve the problem of voter apathy or lack of incentive to participate in a DAOs democratic governance system.

Just an idea!

Hope many potential delegates submit :palm_tree:

Bless Airu

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Hey @0xGoldo to add to your reply,

I believe it would be a great exercise for potential delegates to express transparency around potential conflicts of interest/affiliations when applying for this position. This could be a great addition to the Candidate Proposal Template as mentioned here:

Some ideas to add to the draft @LuukDAO

Great additional feedback @0xGoldo

Bless Airu

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Hi Luuk :wave:

It seems we were thinking in the same direction! I was just submitting my profile to the delegation program in Celo Mondo before you posted this proposal. I have some concerns and clarifications regarding the proposal for the Celo Delegate Program:

Clarification on the “Celo Community Treasury”

Who is the “Celo Community Treasury”? As far as I understand, the Celo Community Fund is the Celo Community Treasury and it is controlled by On-Chain governance. It would be helpful to clarify this to avoid any confusion.

Accuracy of Proposal Outcomes

The statement, “it has never occurred that a proposal didn’t pass due to receiving more No votes than Yes votes”, is not accurate. Here are some examples:

Concern on Power Concentration

It appears there is a contraction of powers attempting to encompass everything related to Celo Public Goods. It’s important to remember that the Celo Public Goods initiative supports public goods and funds its own programs, but onchain governance is still managed by the Celo Guardians. This governance or this Celo Delegation Program to improve governance shouldn’t be within the scope of CeloPG.

Suggestion for Program Leadership

Considering the direct relationship with the governance process, perhaps this program should be led by the Celo Guardians rather than being managed under a 6/10 multi-sig (H2 Stewards + Moderators). The Celo Guardians’ direct involvement in the governance process makes them well-suited to oversee this initiative.

Thank you for considering these points. I believe addressing them will strengthen the proposal and ensure alignment with the community’s governance structure.

Best :raised_hands:

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Thanks for your input!

Conflict of interest: As Celo Governance is still relatively small, there will likely be many cases of potential overlap, which we can’t avoid. I think the best approach is to have each Delegate clearly articulate all possible conflicts and leave a comment on how they deal with it case by case. I’ve personally done this in SafeDAO and Celo by, for example, not voting on a Proposal I’m personally connected to.

Compensation: I like using Retro rewards for Delegate rewards. Optimism did this for their latest Seasons and programs, and the outcome felt fair. As suggested in the draft, I think the best starting point would be to include Delegates in the Citizen Retro round in October to reward them for the first months of activity. Maybe after November/December, we can look into fixed/flexible cUSD rewards for Delegates?

With most people expressing support for #SETUP4 (which is my preference), I think we can move with that unless someone makes a specific case for another solution.

When it comes to the selection process, while I would like to get this started sooner rather than later, I do feel that some form of at least allowing Celo Community Funded teams to claim a voting badge would be beneficial, as that maybe also result in some of them wanting to become a Delegate and thinking about Governance more. I would still favor keeping the claiming timeframe for the voting badges relatively short (for example, the one week we suggest in the draft)—I’m curious what others think about this.

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It’s great to see you submitted your profile!

Celo Community Treasury = Celo Community Fund; it’s a different name for the same thing. In the industry, “Treasury” is used by nearly all groups and helps better express what it represents, IMHO, as “Fund” may suggest it’s an investment vehicle.

Proposal Outcomes: These are fair examples, although Abstain votes greatly outweigh “Yes” / “No” voting here.

Concentration of Power: I’m doing this as LuukDAO, a Celo token holder and Celo Builder. The role of the CeloPG Stewards, in this case, would be to execute based on the vote outcome (lock the tokens through a Safe and delegate based on the outcome) as it’s one of the more active signing committees of Celo currently with a relatively high number of signers.

I disagree with the sole right of Guardians to work on and lead governance improvement. I spent significant time and energy (4+ months) on Governance and Treasury updates with CGP115. I believe any Celo Governance participant has the right to draft and propose updates to Celo Governance.

Program Leadership: Agreed that including the Guardians in this effort would be a good move. Given you’re part of both the Moderators and Guardians group (and so is Lorenzo) - do you think it’s best for both groups to be involved or only the Guardians? Either of the options (6/10 with Mods) or (7/11 with Guardians) works for me.

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Yes, although, as expressed in the draft and comment to @0xGoldo, I think the best way to issue the first rewards is to kickstart them by including delegates in the October Celo Citizen Retro Round.

Even being paid a fixed amount doesn’t always result in better outcomes and real commitment.

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I’ve spent the past 9 months trying to understand all the nuances and priorities in the Celo Ecosystem as thoroughly as possible. Celo Gather helped to accelerate my understanding and network within the Celo Ecosystem. Now that I’m leading Celo Europe, I am interested in playing the role of Delegates! I find this proposal a good step in the right direction to increase active governance participation. This excites me to get more involved and provides a path for interested and active members to have a stronger voice within the ecosystem governance.

Setup Preference:
After reviewing the different setups and selection processes outlined, I believe that Setup 4 stands out as the best starting point. This setup provides a controlled environment to launch and test the program, with the flexibility to expand in the future based on initial learnings and outcomes.

Selection Preference:
I believe the approach of choosing delegates by three individuals with a deep understanding of the ecosystem, followed by a vote of approval through CGP, is a good fit. This dual-checkpoint system ensures that the selection aligns with the broader ecosystem’s interests while leveraging the expertise of seasoned members. The only change I would make here is making the selection committee a group of five instead of three. It balances centralized expertise with decentralized approval, maintaining integrity and trust.

Extra Nuances:
Some other points that I think are relevant to revisit after the first pilot are incentives, but you’ve already addressed this. While I don’t believe incentives need to be present from the start, they could be attributed retrospectively or, as you mentioned, through Celo Citizens Round. However, we must be careful that people don’t vote merely to get rewarded. Introducing the requirement for delegates to articulate their decisions through, for instance, a delegate forum is an excellent starting point to combat this.

Overall, I’m looking forward to hearing from the other community members and can see the value this would add to the legitimacy of our ecosystem and governance.

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To be clear with this comment,

I know and value the efoorts you have done with governance, thats why you started the Celo Public Goods Initiative, but the Celo Community Fund is still managed by On-Chain Governance and supervised and facilitated by Celo Guardians (Formely known as CGP Editors) and I also have been working in this and improving Governance at the Celo Community Fund level.

My concernas about the Concentration of Power is the matter that you are proposing to take out from the Community Fund 10M Celo and sent them into a Multisign managed by H2 Stewards of Celo Public Goods (Not Governance Stewards) + Moderators, I personally don´t think Moderators scope is about Governance, more alligned is to have a Multisign including Celo Governance Guardians (3) and Governance Approvers (9).

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Thanks for the proposal @LuukDAO, I think it will go a long way to making Celo governance more decentralized.

I would prefer ecosystem individuals however, to be the delegates, rather than DAOs and other groups who rely on the very governance they would be managing. BananasDAO will never vote No for anything pertaining to AppleDAO because they want AppleDAO to vote for BananasDAO when it’s their turn to go to governance. I guess this can also happen currently, (and with individuals), but at least with individuals I think there’s a stronger case for contrarian views that can be personally explained and commented on in the forums, rather than the “average” vote of a large funded DAO that has a strong incentive not to rock the boat.

It’s a small network and I don’t expect the individuals who put their hands up not to have existing ties to various entities. However if everything is disclosed, and in their application they make it clear how they would vote, and even declare an abstention policy for conflict of interest votes, I think it would make for a more vibrant culture of discussion.

I like the Gitcoin airdrop model where you had to answer some basic questions and choose your delegate for your votes from a pre-vetted list before getting the tokens. Not that we are planning an airdrop here, but the model of having representative governance voting built in, and giving a nice menu where you can select the individual you think might best represent you, was a great UX experience.

I would propose we simply have a thread where those who want to be delegates introduce themselves and the top N (loosely voted on by emojis or a once-off Snapshot vote simply for this purpose) of this group get added to the Celo Mondo delegates list. I don’t think being in any of the pre-existing groups should be a starting point for candidacy. We should be optimizing for diversity and clarity of thought, and too many of the funded DAOs have broadly similar aims and work output that will vote as a bloc.

Would also propose some rules:

  • A delegate must aim to vote on every proposal with a three-strikes and you’re out policy where the votes will be re-delegated to another candidate
  • A delegate must ideally comment on every proposal even if it’s “this looks great, I’m supporting this”, just a minimum level of engagement with the idea.
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Thank you very much for raising the issue around logrolling and quid pro quo. Also, I expect delegates to give a crystal-clear reason why they are making any decision via a comment on the proposal, not just ‘this looks great, I’m supporting this.’ Just to let you know, I have observed that there is a pandemic of lazy consensus amongst delegates in Web3. Probably because they don’t get paid, and in the words of a popular Web3 governance delegate, ‘Web3 is notorious for asking people to give their precious time for nothing.’ If there would be any incentive in the future as proposed by @LuukDAO, then there should be accountability and a minimum level of engagement and quality feedback on proposals. Another thing I believe is that delegates should not only be responsible for voting but also helping proposal submitters understand how they can improve their proposals instead of just saying ‘I won’t be voting yes on this.’

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In terms of conflict of interest, delegates should refrain from voting or commenting on proposals with a conflict of interest. Just by commenting, it could send the wrong signal to other delegates and change the outcome of the vote. In as much as we want transparency, engagement and commitment, we should be careful of people who would attempt to game the system.

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I’m generally open to that setup, although, as always, I’m taking a pragmatic approach.

If Governance Approvers want to take on this responsibility and can do so promptly, I agree they are the better stakeholders to manage this.

Given that Guardians, Mods, and Stewards are most active on the Celo Forum, I see them as the simplest, most trustworthy set to coordinate with.

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I agree, I would prefer delegates give clear reasoning as well, I was just proposing a bare minimum level of interaction. Mandating they must give more than just “yes” is a great idea.

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This makes sense, but have they all signaled they are interested and have the availability to do so? I love that there are some engaged people in the forum who consistently turn up with thought-out questions and feedback, and I don’t want to sideline these people.

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They could/should just vote Abstain and say “I’m Abstaining from this governance vote because I’m a director of project XYZ and the vote is to continue funding this project” or whatever.

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As @Thylacine mentioned, I cannot speak for other Celo Governance Guardians, but from my perspective and based on my experience, as well as the plans we are considering within the Governance Guild, I believe we would certainly be willing to take on this responsibility, given the alignment with our roles and activities.

I think that with @Wade, @0xGoldo, and the involvement of some Governance Approvers, the management and delegation of these funds could be handled smoothly.

That said, it’s important to approach this with the right level of care. Celo has been in development for over four years, and decisions like these deserve thoughtful consideration. Since not everyone checks the forum daily, it might be beneficial to allow a reasonable period for discussion. This proposal was posted just five days ago, so there might be value in taking a bit more time.

Perhaps proposals like this could remain open for discussion and initial feedback for at least fifteen (15) calendar days, ensuring everyone has the opportunity to weigh in.

One thing that crossed my mind is the potential impact on the Celo Community Fund’s balance, which would be reduced by more than 50%. While I understand this is about delegation and won’t affect the price since the CELO tokens aren’t being sold, it’s worth considering how this significant reallocation of community funds fits into our broader strategy—especially in light of the recent approval of the Celo PG H2 proposal, which involved around $1 million.

Additionally, I think it’s important to consider feedback from the community. My approach to a delegation program would focus on allowing anyone to propose themselves as a delegate in Celo Mondo, with the community then delegating their votes to whomever they choose.

The amount of votes each person receives from the community could serve as an indicator or signal for deciding to whom the delegation proposed in this initiative should be granted.

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