A Step Towards Idle Leagues – Dev & Treasury

🏛 Governance 🛡 Leagues
1

Authors

@Teo @william @Davide

Abstract

The Pilot League has been the first iteration of Idle Leagues, a self-directed, global, and increasingly decentralized organization. We then unveiled our plan for a nested subDAOs structure embodying different departments (communications, development, legal) one month later.

We are now proposing a structure that accommodates both a Dev League and a Treasury League.

Motivation

The best-performing teams are usually funded and sized for execution around a specific area of expertise and collaborate towards a common goal.

Pilot League’s members are currently skilled in business, technology, finance, and communications. This knowledge helped the committee to evaluate and spin off different types of initiatives during the last mandate. Despite that, many members act as Supervisors, and their availability is limited to an advisory role.

The need for a collective of active developers that work side by side with the Treasury League has been evident with the latest initiatives (IIP-5, LP staking, Bug Bounty program). These key contributors would speed up protocol development or on-chain governance operations and contribute by building out new ideas (e.g., actively working on the Gitcoin hackathon challenges). With a Dev League, each department can take care of its own vertical.

This post aims to show & discuss the committee composition, mandate duration, and compensation of both new Leagues with our community.

The goal here is to have Leagues as a building block of the Idle ecosystem, allowing us to steer the protocol through its various stages of development towards more innovative and socially useful functions.

Implementation

Dev League - Committee Composition

The Dev League could start as a restricted core team of builders that work either part-time or full-time on smart contract development, security reviews, and tech infrastructure.

Learning from the previous League election, we saw that the open positions should be flexible and not set in stone before the application window. Once candidates apply and define their time commitment, the committee composition might slightly change.

The suggested composition is:

  • Up to 2 full-time developers
  • Up to 1 Supervisor

However, depending on the number of applications and candidates’ time availability, the Governance could select 4 part-time devs or 2 part-time and 1 full-time dev (thus maintaining a 2 full-time devs structure). If the group works efficiently but still gets overloaded with tasks, the community/Leagues can launch a new application phase even during the mandate.

Mandate Duration

Inspired by the approach used for the Pilot League, we propose to have a 3-month mandate. It would allow our community to re-evaluate Leagues’ structure after three months and eventually add more specialized Leagues for the next batches.

Compensation

DeFi protocols are competing on attracting the best talent, and the compensation would need to be adjusted to it. IndexCoop DAO (whose TVL is comparable to Idle’s) rewards non-tech contributors with $60k + vested $INDEX tokens. Sushiswap took an iterative process for their hiring guidelines: in their final version 4.1, the community approved the “Indicative Salary Grid”, partially paid in stablecoins and tokens (Senior Dev: $180k-250k; Junior Dev: $ 80k-150k). Yearn and Pickle pays senior/core developers about $150k per year + vested tokens.

With that being said, this is a possible Dev League monthly compensation plan (full-time developers, for fixed salary composition see Mandate Total Budget section below):

  • Senior Dev level 2: $10-11k + 200 $IDLE
  • Senior Dev level 1: $8-9k + 150 $IDLE
  • Mid-level Dev: $6-7k + 100 $IDLE
  • Junior Dev: $4-5k + 50 $IDLE

Suggested monthly compensation (Supervisor) – 10% of Senior Dev level 1: $850 + 15 $IDLE

Seniority Guidelines

  • Senior Dev level 2: 7+ years of experience in computer science/software engineering, with 3+ years of provable experience in DeFi/Solidity development.
  • Senior Dev level 1: 7+ years of experience in computer science/software engineering, with 1-2 years of provable experience in DeFi/Solidity development.
  • Mid-level Dev: 3-7 years of experience in computer science/software engineering, with up to 1 year of provable experience in DeFi/Solidity development.
  • Junior Dev: Less than 3 years of experience in computer science/software engineering, with up to 6 months of provable experience in DeFi/Solidity development.

League Bootstrap Sprint

Selected applicants will enter a 3-week sprint phase, where they would receive the midpoint compensation for their seniority level. After this bootstrap sprint, Supervisors will define the final compensation package. In this timeframe, SVs have the right to upgrade/downgrade if it’s clear that the proposed seniority level is not matched.

According to the contributors’ profiles, the allocated budget for the 3-month League might vary in the range of $26.55k-68.55k + 354-1245 $IDLE.

Vesting Schedule

To foster talent retention, align developers to the future of IDLE and avoid job-hopping, the $IDLE bonus should be only accessible if the contributor continues to work for the protocol in the next mandate (in any League/role). This mechanism aims to incentivize contributors to apply for the next batch, starting a linear 3-month vesting for the token bonus once they get on board for the following League mandate. It also incorporates the fact that new developers may take time to learn better how IDLE works and that we want to reflect longer-term commitments and developer investment of their time in the compensation and ownership structure of the protocol.

Mandate budget

The Treasury League is entitled to manage grants and bounties, and the Dev League might assist them in selecting deserving candidates/projects. To avoid task duplication, the Dev League might not directly handle financial tasks.

Two focal points determine the budget:

  • Operating budget: contract deployments might be the most expensive task. Full audits require a larger budget and have to pass through the Governance. $20,000 in ETH might be enough for the 3-month expenses.
  • Salaries: the Treasury League should be in charge of payments and finance. This proposal does not allocate a budget to the Dev League for wages. This decision requires higher funding for the next Treasury League’s mandate.

Treasury League

Committee Composition

With the same lean approach proposed for the Dev League, a suggested composition is:

  • Up to 2 full-time project managers
  • Up to 3 Supervisors

Even in this case, the Governance could choose a team composition around this composition. This League deals with a broader range of tasks and a higher budget, and this structure proposes a more distributed key management.

Mandate duration

The proposed mandate duration is 3 months.

Compensation

In line with benchmarks reported above, suggested monthly compensation (full-time project managers, for fixed salary composition see Mandate Total Budget section below) are:

  • Senior PM level 2: $8-9k + 200 $IDLE
  • Senior PM level 1: $6-7k + 150 $IDLE
  • Mid-level PM: $4-5k + 100 $IDLE
  • Junior PM: $2-3k + 50 $IDLE

Suggested monthly compensation (Supervisor) - 10% of Senior PM level 1: $650 + 15 $IDLE

Seniority Guidelines

  • Senior PM level 2: 10+ years in web2 industries or 5+ in crypto, and 3+ years of working provable experience in DeFi.
  • Senior PM level 1: 7 years in web2 industries or 3 in crypto, and 1-2 years of working provable experience in DeFi.
  • Mid-level PM: 3-5 years in web2 industries or 2-3 in crypto, and up to 1 year of working provable experience in DeFi.
  • Junior PM: less than 3 years in web2 industries or less than 2 in crypto, and up to 6 months in DeFi.

League Bootstrap Sprint

The same way as in the Dev League, selected applicants will enter a 3-week sprint phase, where they receive the midpoint compensation for their seniority level. After the trial period, Supervisors will decide the final compensation package around the set boundaries. In this timeframe, SVs have the right to upgrade/downgrade or remove a PM if the skills do not match with expectations.

Mandate Budget

According to the contributors’ profiles, the allocated budget for this 3-month League might vary in the range of $17.85k-59.85k + 435-1335 $IDLE. The $IDLE bonus would be accessible with a 3-month linear unlock only if the contributor continues to work in the next mandate.

Two focal points determine the budget:

  • Operating budget: Pilot League managed 5000 $IDLE over a 2-month mandate, issuing grants and bounties corresponding to 50% of the allocated budget. With the next batch, frameworks and processes are already in place, and grant delivery should be quicker. The Treasury League could use the remaining 2,500 $IDLE + 5000 $IDLE as new budget + the $IDLE token bonuses allocated to contributors (in the 789-2380 $IDLE range)
  • Salaries: according to the final compensations, the Treasury should manage between $44.4k and $128.4k (half in $IDLE and half in ETH/stablecoins).

Contributors would receive their fixed salary in ETH/stablecoins and $IDLE. The preferred composition for the fixed salary is 50% in ETH/stablecoins, 50% in $IDLE non-vested.

Total Leagues Budget

The overall mandate budget could likely range from a minimum budget of ~7.8k IDLE and $42.2k (ETH/stablecoins) and a maximum budget of ~13k IDLE and $84k (ETH/stablecoins). The $IDLE component is evaluated with the current market condition.

The protocol can potentially self-sustain the budget via inflows – the FeeCollector moved 85+ ETH in 2 months of activity. Recent revenue streams are in the order of ~$70k-80k per month, and the Governance can use part of this flow to reward Leagues’ contributors. FeeTreasury alone is sitting on ~$63k in ETH and other assets.

Code of Conduct

Contributors involved in developing the protocol might handle sensitive information and could potentially use it to their advantage.

League members should have to refrain from sharing material nonpublic information to preserve the protocol’s integrity and avoid insider trading. According to the seriousness of the case, leaks of sensitive information and infractions that damage the protocol would be managed by SVs and the community.

Request for Comments

We are planning to initiate the Leagues’ application process by the end of next week. This post is an RFC for our community – if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, please drop a comment down below!

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Good to see IDLE is making the right steps towards bolstering the team to deliver on the vision and 2021 roadmap!

The comp seems in line with other projects, as referenced.

Apart from the 3-month time mandate, is there anything specific we are expecting these new reinforcements to deliver e.g., tranches, Eth Layer 2 or does that depend on the community vote etc.

Just wondering how we measure the success of the Dev and Treasury league for the 3-month mandate…

Apart from that, I’m all for building out the team! I might even put my name in the hat :slight_smile:

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:classical_building: A snapvote has been created to let the community choose if discuss more, proceed or not proceed with these parameters for the Dev & Treasury Leagues

:writing_hand: Time to cast your vote (here)

:calendar: The snapvote is open from today till April 23, 4PM (GMT+2)

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You raise good questions. Would love to hear more from the Pilot League Committee.

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My personal take to measure the success of any Committee is that the League should be able to add value to both the protocol and the community.

Sucess is building common understanding and evaluating the sentiment in the community and pushing initiatives and proposals forward in a productive way. Sucess is also to come up with solutions that address all concerns from the community and work towards a shared goal.

But the main success indicator I think is still TVL as well as the total number of users. Also, Utility should be taken into consideration as the growth and visibility of the protocol come from it.

So I would say community members can evaluate the success by checking all these indicators and activities/proposals pushed forward during the mandate time.

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About the metrics that we can use, certainly if the Pilot League has done a good job, the TVL and the number of users are key indicators; both should grow.

@Salome already said it: the Pilot League’s job is to develop the Idle ecosystem, which then includes an equal weight division between community development and the protocol.

As you have seen, during the Pilot League mandate, we not only managed some grants, but we took direct action on subjects that were closely related to protocol, such as LP staking.

From my perspective, I think that using (and showing to the community) OKR and publish reports can be helpful in the next mandate.

The roadmap for Idle is essential, but in a short term, like that of a 3-month mandate period, people would evaluate more goals planned and achieved (some of these may be added during the mandate as they are proposals that come from the community and may have more priority than other tasks already inside the box)

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Inspired by the AMA with @Teo and @emilianobonassi today on TRS and with a solid multi Leagues framework to lead development and implementation of the 2021 roadmap, I would like to jumpstart a discussion about what might come next in Idle Governance.

The existing Idle Governance Model was inspired by renowned protocols like Compound, Curve and Synthetix.

Today I would like to propose that the Treasury League Committee reaches out to Balancer (maybe @Fernando can help bring Jeremy Musighi to the discussion) , ElasticDAO, DXdao and other key players like OpenLaw and Otonomos to discuss not only possible B2B integrations but equally important DAO Governance integrations between protocols.
These open dialogs can shape the future and solidify Idle’s position as a DeFi Leader.

“DAO2DAO” relations and collaboration mechanisms research was pioneered by BlockScience and Curve Labs and PrimeDAO together with Balancer, recently developed their first DAO2DAO pool.

These DAO2DAO pools can be used to foster deeper cooperation between DAOs and some use-cases examples include:

  • Shared liquidity.
  • Mutual skin in the game.
  • Syndicate funding (joint ventures that fund a common goals).
  • Co-governance (DAO2DAO pool tokens can be used to govern the relationship between the DAOs and the products that are created as a result of the DAO2DAO collaboration).
  • Co-farming

ElasticDAO is inspired by Moloch + Aragon + PieDAO + AAVE. In the elasticDAO model each time someone joins a DAO, the tokens rebase up automatically, maintaining each member’s voting power and relative balance which means: money does not buy influence and work is equal to liquidity.

DXdao’s new Governance 2.0 system aims to achieve the best of both token and reputation-based governance systems. It requires both DXD (capital token) and REP (reputation token) to pass proposals. To achieve this each governance participant has a “DXD Influence” and “REP Influence” score.

Finally, on the topic of Governance, Wyoming has become the first state in the US to address the legal treatment of DAOs by applying a limited liability company (LLC) status (limiting individual liability).
This might bridge digital, distributed organizations and traditional corporate structure.

It’s important that the Treasury League Committee jumpstarts these discussions and reaches out to key players that can help shape the (near?) future of the Idle ecosystem.

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