Score Management Committee - 6 Month Extension and Continued Funding

Governance Governance Proposals
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Proposal: Score Management Committee - 6 Month Extension and Continued Funding

  • Status: FINAL
  • Receiver Entity: The Score Management Committee Multisig
  • Title: Score Management Committee - Extension of Operations and Funding Request for Second Term (H1 2026)
  • Author(s): @swiftstaking, @kamikazechaser, @thylacine, @clemens, @dee
  • Type of Request: Score Management Committee Operations Extension
  • Funding Request: 45,000 (60,000) cUSD

Overview

This proposal seeks to extend the Score Management Committee’s operations for an additional 6-month period (October - March 2026) and requests funding to continue the critical work of maintaining validator scores and community RPC infrastructure on the Celo L2 network.

The Score Management Committee was established as part of the Great Celo Halvening Parameters proposal (CGP-169) and has been successfully operating since the hard fork. Following the initial term and the successful extension with expanded committee membership, we now propose continuation of these essential services with business-as-usual operations plus targeted improvements.

This proposal represents the continuation of proven, high-quality infrastructure management that has demonstrated consistent reliability and community value over the almost 30 weeks of operation.

Proposal Description

The Score Management Committee has completed approximately 30 weeks of successful operation, maintaining critical infrastructure for the Celo validator ecosystem. This proposal requests funding to continue operations for the next 6-month period with the current five-member committee structure.

Continuation of Core Services:

  • Weekly score maintenance for all validators with timely reporting
  • Operation of 5 separate backend monitoring instances
  • Maintenance of community RPC infrastructure and load-balanced endpoints
  • Transparent weekly reporting and dispute resolution
  • Public code repository maintenance
  • Execution of slashing for non-compliant validators when required

Planned Improvements detailed in follow-up proposal:

  • Continued development toward full automation of score-keeping software
  • Release of revised rulebook within 3 weeks of approval
  • Core smart contract governance proposal with updated slashing penalties
  • Enhanced monitoring and reporting capabilities
  • Improving epoch change reliability

Rationale

Proven Track Record

Over the first operational term (~30 weeks), the Score Management Committee has demonstrated:

  1. Reliable Operations: Maintained scores for all validators consistently, with timely weekly updates as described in the original proposal

  2. Adaptive Rule Improvements: Updated and re-communicated score rules to ensure fairness and accuracy:

    • Modified downtime counting to use elapsed time rather than uptime, preventing unfair penalization of partially elected validators
    • Added “isSyncing” JSON RPC check to identify nodes unable to serve transactions
    • Implemented 30-minute out-of-sync rule for marking nodes as “down” to maintain network quality
    • Provided visual updates on Vido for transparency

  3. Security Enforcement: Successfully tested and executed slashing for the first time on L2 after smart contract upgrades, removing at least one group that never configured RPC

  4. Infrastructure Maintenance: Maintained 5 separate backend process instances with code publicly committed to repository, including weekly score query scripts

  5. Community Service: Maintained community RPC website and load-balanced endpoint for ecosystem benefit

  6. Collaboration: Continued discussions with Marek and cLabs team

  7. Dispute Resolution: Handled community concerns professionally with only a single dispute from Refi Colombia (a reduction request with no actual error in scoring)

Continued Need

The validator scoring and RPC monitoring system remains essential for:

  • Maintaining network quality and reliability
  • Ensuring fair reward distribution based on performance
  • Providing transparent accountability for validators
  • Supporting the broader Celo L2 ecosystem infrastructure

The committee’s work directly supports network health and provides critical infrastructure that enables proper validator incentive alignment.

Previous Term Performance & Value Delivered

Over the past ~6 months (first term), the Score Management Committee operated with a $60,000 cUSD budget and delivered measurable value to the validator ecosystem:

  • 144 validators penalized for substandard uptime performance
  • $46,602.85 cUSD in enforced reward reductions

This enforcement ensured fair validator economics and maintained network quality standards, with penalties covering 3/4 of the committee’s operational budget.

Current Term Budget Request

For this 6-month extension, we are requesting $45,000 cUSD ($1,500 per member, down from $2,000), demonstrating our commitment to aligning with community budget priorities while maintaining the full five-member decentralized structure and continuous service delivery.

Proposed Changes

Transaction 1: Funding Transfer to Score Management Committee Multisig

Description: Transfer funds (45,000 60,000 cUSD) to the existing Score Management Committee multisig wallet for 6-month operational continuation

Destination: 0x765DE816845861e75A25fCA122bb6898B8B1282a (cUSD contract)

Function: approve(address spender, uint256 value)

Arguments:

  • spender: 0x68ce71d4CECA3003701ca6844D9a345925407455 (Score Management Committee Multisig)
  • value: 45000000000000000000000 (45,000 60,000 cUSD)

Value: 0

Budget Breakdown

Committee Compensation:

  • 5 committee members Ă— $2,000/month Ă— 6 months = $60,000 cUSD
  • 5 committee members Ă— $1,500/month Ă— 6 months = $45,000 cUSD

Budget Allocation:

  • Monthly operational expenses per member: $1,500 $2,000 cUSD
  • Infrastructure and monitoring costs: Included in member compensation
  • Total 6-month budget: 45,000 60,000 cUSD

This maintains the established compensation structure from the original proposal, ensuring continuity and fair compensation for the committee’s ongoing responsibilities.

Deliverables and Timeline

Ongoing Deliverables (Weekly)

  • Weekly validator score reports published to Celo Forum
  • Score updates executed via multisig
  • 24-hour dispute period management
  • Uptime monitoring and data collection

Near-term Deliverables (First 3 Weeks)

  • Revised rulebook release with clarified scoring criteria
  • Governance proposal for updated slashing penalties
  • Smart contract updates (if approved via separate governance process)

Medium-term Deliverables (6 Month Period)

  • Continued automation development for score-keeping software
  • Regular infrastructure maintenance and updates
  • Community engagement and support

Reporting

  • Weekly public score reports on Celo Forum
  • End-of-term summary report detailing achievements and metrics

Committee Composition

The Score Management Committee consists of the following members (as established in previous proposals):

Current Members:

  1. @thylacine
  2. @clemens
  3. @dee
  4. @swiftstaking
  5. @kamikazechaser

Multisig Details:

Open Source Infrastructure Contributions

The Score Management Committee supports a diverse set of open-source tools maintained under the Celo Community GitHub organization. These tools provide transparent, decentralized, and verifiable infrastructure for validator uptime tracking and RPC access:

  1. celo-community/rpc-uptime-data
    The default open-source backend for validator uptime tracking, built on the Vido monitoring tool by Atalma.

    • Provides REST API, Redis caching, and MySQL database for uptime and performance metrics of Celo Mainnet and Baklava RPC endpoints
    • Serves as the main backend data source for community dashboards, including Vido
    • Operates across multiple instances, duplicated by committee members to ensure redundancy and multiple independent data sources

  2. celo-community/neptune
    A completely independent uptime tracking and performance visualization tool developed and operated by one committee member.

    • Offers an alternative approach to uptime analytics separate from the Score Management Committee’s core uptime backend
    • Provides community-driven monitoring and transparency, enabling validators and developers to independently review network health

  3. celo-community/rpc-proxy
    An open-source RPC Gateway Proxy enhancing reliability, decentralization, and performance of RPC access.

    • Built on Optimism’s proxyd dependency, supports high-throughput request routing with load balancing across community RPC nodes
    • Deployed via Docker Compose for ease of use and maintenance by validators and community members
    • Automated updates of elected RPC servers on the proxyd backend are currently in testing

Together, these projects reflect the committee’s commitment to open infrastructure, resiliency, and community participation, minimizing dependency on any single uptime solution and enhancing the robustness of Celo’s validator monitoring ecosystem.

Verification

Voters can verify this proposal by:

  1. Reviewing Past Performance:

    • Examining 30+ weeks of weekly score reports on Celo Forum
    • Confirming consistent, timely operations

  2. Checking Committee Infrastructure:

  3. Confirming Previous Proposals:

  4. Validating Multisig:

Risks and Mitigation

Identified Risks

  1. Committee Member Availability: Risk that committee members become unavailable during the term

    • Mitigation: Five-member structure provides redundancy; multisig can operate with subset (3/5) of signers

  2. Technical Infrastructure Changes: Potential L2 protocol changes affecting monitoring requirements

    • Mitigation: Committee has demonstrated adaptability with multiple rule updates during first term

  3. Automation Implementation Delays: Development toward automation may take longer than anticipated

    • Mitigation: Manual processes remain operational; automation is enhancement, not requirement

  4. Budget Sufficiency: Fixed cUSD amount may be affected by operational cost changes

    • Mitigation: Compensation structure proven adequate during first term; infrastructure costs manageable

Risk Management Approach

  • Maintain transparent weekly communication with community
  • Continue proven operational procedures while implementing improvements
  • Keep code and processes publicly documented
  • Engage with cLabs and community on any protocol changes

Future Work and Improvements

The committee proposes the following improvements during the second term:

  1. Automation Development:

    • Continue development on existing score-keeping software toward full automation
    • Reduce manual intervention requirements
    • Improve reliability and consistency

  2. Governance Updates:

    • Release revised rulebook within 3 weeks with updated scoring criteria
    • Submit core smart contract governance proposal with refined slashing penalties
    • Incorporate learnings from first 30 weeks of operations

  3. Community Engagement:

    • Continue transparent weekly reporting
    • Maintain responsive dispute resolution process
    • Provide regular updates on automation progress

Success Metrics

The committee will measure success through:

  • Operational Metrics:

    • 100% on-time weekly score updates (continued)
    • <24 hour dispute resolution response time

    • 99% uptime for monitoring infrastructure

  • Development Metrics:

    • Rulebook revision published within 3 weeks
    • Smart contract proposal submitted within 3 weeks
    • Measurable progress toward automation (quarterly updates)

  • Community Metrics:

    • Dispute volume and resolution satisfaction
    • Community feedback on transparency and communication
    • Validator engagement with scoring system

Useful Links

Appendix: Technical Implementation Details

Monitoring Infrastructure

The committee operates:

  • 5 independent backend monitoring instances for redundancy
  • Custom software based on Vido by Atalma
  • Automated uptime tracking with “isSyncing” detection
  • 30-minute sync lag detection for node quality
  • Weekly aggregation and scoring calculations

Scoring Methodology

Current scoring rules (subject to revision in updated rulebook):

RPC Uptime Score Action
80% - 100% 1.00 Full rewards
60% - 79% 0.80 Reduced rewards
40% - 59% 0.60 Reduced rewards
20% - 39% 0.40 Reduced rewards
0% - 19% 0.00 Slash eligible

Workflow Process

  1. Monitoring: Continuous uptime tracking via 5 backend instances
  2. Aggregation: Weekly score calculation based on 7-day performance
  3. Reporting: Sunday publication of score changes on Forum
  4. Dispute Period: 24-hour community challenge period
  5. Execution: Multisig transaction to update on-chain scores
  6. Documentation: Public record of all actions and decisions

This proposal is submitted for community consideration and feedback. The committee welcomes questions, suggestions, and discussion during the review period.

EDIT1: Added section Open Source Infrastructure Contributions
EDIT2: Lowered the amount per post, moved to Final state
EDIT3: Added section Previous Term Performance & Value Delivered and Current Term Budget Request

5 Likes
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Following discussions in the recent governance call and understanding the current budget priorities and discussions around tokenomics, the Score Management Committee has decided to maintain the current five-member decentralized structure rather than reducing the team size to three members. We believe that a 5-member committee provides stronger decentralization and security, requiring any 3 of 5 approvals (3/5 multisig) instead of just 2 of 3 (2/3 multisig) in a smaller team.

More importantly, the committee operates five independent scoring services running in parallel, each managed by different members. This multi-instance setup provides multiple sources of truth, resilience, and transparent validator scoring.

To align with the tighter budget environment, we propose lowering the monthly compensation from $2,000 to $1,500 per committee member for the next 6-month term. This approach preserves the full five-member committee and maintains decentralization benefits while adapting to funding realities.

While this adjustment means reduced funding overall, we remain fully committed to:

  • Continuing core validator scoring, uptime monitoring, and dispute resolution services without interruption;
  • Progressing on automation development, though at a slightly slower pace due to limited resources.

We appreciate the community’s ongoing support and collaboration and look forward to continuing to serve the Celo network with transparency and accountability.

3 Likes
3

Thanks @swiftstaking and team for the proposal, at my end this proposal is fulfilling all the requirements:

  • Post a proposal in the Celo Forum and leave it for discussion at least for seven (7) days.
  • Present Proposal in a Governance Call and address the feedback received: Proposal was presented during Celo Governance Call #79 | Oct 23rd, 2025.
  • Addressed feedback received during Governance Call.

With the above said, from my end the proposal is ready to move into the voting phase when proposer wants to move forward or consider is appropriate.

:bangbang: Remember Current Celo Governance Overview & Procedures

To proceed to the submission and voting phase at least two Celo Governance Guardians must post explicitly that the proposal fulfills the requirements to be able to move into the Voting Stage in the proposal thread on the Celo Forum.

Remember next steps

  • Submission of PR to Celo Governance Repository
    Proposers needs to fork the Celo Governance Repository and add a PR including the proposal .md file and json file.
  • Approval of PR by Celo governance Guardians and merge into main branch of Celo Governance Repository.
    Celo Guardians are responsible for conducting a comprehensive review of every Pull Request (PR) to ensure that there is complete alignment and consistency between the final proposal posted in the forum post and the specific files that are being requested to be merged.
    This review process is strictly technical in nature, focusing solely on verifying the authenticity and good faith of the proposers. It does not involve any personal opinions or biases regarding the merits or content of the proposal itself. To maintain the integrity of the Celo Governance repository, it is mandatory to obtain approval from a minimum of two Governance Guardians for each PR before it can be merged into the main branch.
  • OnChain Submission of Proposal
    After PR is merged into main Governance Repo the proposers needs to fork locally the Celo Governance Repository and submit the proposal onchain using the guidelines described in the Celo Docs.

CC: Governance Working Group (@annaalexa @Wade @0xGoldo)

4

Thanks @swiftstaking and team for the proposal, as a Governance Guardian this proposal is fulfilling all the requirements. You are good to submit onchain

1 Like
5

@0xj4an-work Was having trouble with our PR. I’m still not sure what the issue is, could someone clarify before we propose on-chain?

6

PR Just merged. You are good to go submitting OnChain Proposal.

1 Like