SLURP-49 | Proposal for 1 Year Extension of NAILs Role

SLURPs
1

Summary

This proposal seeks the approval of the stake.link Council to extend the tenure of the current Network Aligned Individual Liaison (NAIL) representative, for an additional year. Since the initial approval of SLURP-23 a year ago, this role has been instrumental in driving key operational, strategic, and community-oriented initiatives for the stake.link protocol. I propose continuing this dedicated engagement, at an adjusted compensation rate of $4,000 per month in SDL from the DAO treasury.

Rationale

The past year has been a period of significant growth and evolution for stake.link. As the inaugural NAILs representative, I’ve had the privilege of contributing to the protocol’s development, consistently moving us closer to becoming a smoothly operating and sustainable business. My efforts have primarily focused on the peripheral yet critical work necessary to solidify our foundation.

Over the last year, we’ve witnessed a breaking number of SLURPs come to fruition, fostering an environment where community discussions are at an all-time high, paralleled by a significant increase in stLINK mints. A pivotal achievement has been the formal establishment of stakedotlink LTD, a crucial step towards institutionalizing our operations. Furthermore, we are in the final stages of integrating vital services requested by the DAO, such as optimizing our fiscal year budget through the integration of H&T’s financial management services. These advancements collectively affirm that the protocol is in a significantly better position than it was a year ago.

Specifically, I’m proud to have directly contributed to:

  • SLURP-27: The first SDL OTC deal, which demonstrably strengthened our treasury and the protocol’s strategic partnerships with third parties.
  • SLURP-26: The DeFi PoL fee, a key step in optimizing our liquidity provision strategies.
  • SLURP-47: The introduction of stPOL, further expanding our ecosystem’s capabilities by offering a new LST.

Beyond these specific proposals, my role has organically expanded to encompass crucial operational and governance responsibilities, ensuring the smooth functioning of the DAO’s core mechanisms. This includes:

  • Overseeing the governance voting process for the Council, ensuring transparency and efficiency in governance decisions.
  • Managing the DAO’s multi-signature wallet, actively proposing transactions and coordinating with relevant stakeholders for timely approvals. This is vital for treasury management and protocol operations.
  • Developing and maintaining a hands-on approach with our node operators, treating them as key stakeholders, keeping them consistently updated about SDL developments, and exploring potential further collaborations. This direct engagement fosters stronger relationships and aligns incentives within our ecosystem.
  • Managing Stakedotlink’s social media presence, from Twitter posts to providing direct support to the community via Telegram and Discord.

While we’ve celebrated many successes, it’s important to acknowledge areas where challenges arose. The non-launch of the Metis LST, for instance, was a significant disappointment. However, the reasons for this were external, primarily stemming from the Metis Foundation and its strategic launch partners’ pivot in their LST strategy, which regrettably impacted our planned deployment, and not due to internal efforts or shortcomings on our part.

Looking ahead, my primary focus for another term will be to push even harder on DeFi integrations. This area has proven to be more intricate and demanding than I initially anticipated, requiring sustained effort and complex relationship building. Nevertheless, we’ve cultivated strong connections within the DeFi space in the process, and I am confident that these will bear fruit as we aim for live integrations with major lending and borrowing protocols like AAVE. The continued dedicated attention of a NAILs representative is crucial to navigate these complexities and unlock the full potential of stake.link’s composability within the broader DeFi ecosystem.

The request for an adjusted compensation of $4,000 per month reflects the proven value delivered over the past year and the increased scope and complexity of the responsibilities moving forward.

As the inaugural NAIL, I’ve demonstrated a deep understanding of stake.link’s unique needs and have consistently executed critical tasks, from strategic deal-making to operational streamlining. The successful implementation of multiple SLURPs, the establishment of stakedotlink LTD, the integration of essential third-party services, and the hands-on management of core DAO functions like Snapshot voting and multisig operations, represent a substantial return on the DAO’s initial investment in this role.

Furthermore, the strategic pivot towards aggressive DeFi integrations represents the next crucial frontier for stake.link. This work is requiring and a proactive approach to a rapidly evolving landscape. Achieving successful integrations with top-tier protocols like AAVE, which directly impacts our TVL, liquidity, and overall utility, demands a higher level of dedicated engagement and expertise. This compensation adjustment aligns the remuneration with the strategic importance, demonstrated performance, and the market value for a full-time, high-impact role within the Web3 and DAO ecosystem.

Role and Responsibilities

The core responsibilities outlined in SLURP-23 remain central to this role, encompassing DeFi Integrations, Council Election Management, stake.link DeFi Monitoring, DAO Representation, and Governance Coordination. For the upcoming year, there will be an amplified emphasis on:

  • DeFi Integrations: Dedicated efforts to secure and manage integrations for stake.link protocol tokens (stLINK, wstLINK, SDL, stPOL, etc.) across various DeFi platforms, with a specific focus on lending/borrowing protocols to enhance on-chain liquidity depth and utility.
  • Strategic Ecosystem Expansion: Identifying and pursuing new opportunities for stake.link within emerging Web3 ecosystems, leveraging established connections to foster collaborations, such as new LST offerings.
  • Continued Operational Flow: Ensuring the seamless execution of all DAO operations, from managing liquidity pools and incentives to overseeing governance proposals and treasury-related tasks, including the continued oversight of Snapshot voting and multisig transactions.
  • Stakeholder Relationship Management: Proactively engaging with node operators and other key stakeholders to ensure alignment, communication, and exploration of new collaborative opportunities.

Compensation & Term Plan

It is proposed that the compensation for this role be adjusted to $4,000 per month, to be paid in SDL tokens from the DAO treasury at the end of each month. The proposed extension for this role will be for an additional one-year term.

Conclusion

The trajectory of stake.link over the past year demonstrates our collective momentum. My tenure as a NAILs representative has allowed for dedicated focus on essential operational work and strategic initiatives, contributing significantly to the protocol’s position today.

I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to continue serving the stake.link DAO and working towards its vision of a truly self-sustaining decentralized autonomous organization. Looking forward to your approval for continued progress.

1 Like
3

Lock him in for another year team :call_me_hand:t4:

4

Hey everyone, I wanted to share my thoughts here.

I really appreciate the work being done and the positive feedback from the Core Contributors. That said, I’m not fully convinced a raise is warranted at this stage, and I’ll try to explain why.

From my perspective, and based on what I’ve read so far from others community memebers, there hasn’t been enough visibility, communication, or tangible impact to justify it. The expectations set when the NAIL role was created were pretty clear: strong BD efforts, especially on the DeFi side, and meaningful community-facing coordination. So far, we’ve seen a half-baked AAVE integration and a SLURP from Folks Finance, both of which are very based. However, it’s also not entirely clear to me to what extent these were directly driven by Tokenised. Beyond that, things still feel a bit underwhelming after almost a year.

For example, while the stMETIS initiative didn’t take off due to issues on the validator side (outside of stake.link’s control), it still felt like there was no clear overarching strategy to drive DeFi integrations or growth around it. And nothing has really been shared around the upcoming stPOL either.

On a positive note, I’m glad to see Tokenised has been initiating treasury multisig transactions. That’s definitely a responsibility that needs care. However, it’s also worth pointing out that most of those transactions will eventually fall under the responsibility of H&T once they begin fulfilling their contractual role. Hopefully that starts soon, since they’ve already received several payments since mid-March (totalling over $40K), but so far I haven’t seen signs of the promised work. That’s a separate concern of course, but it’s important context.

Also, the DAO should remain the one ultimately responsible for this role. While it’s clear Tokenised is working closely with the Core team, and I trust their intentions, I don’t think we should be in a position where the community has to rely solely on their word to assess whether the role is justified. Even if LinkPool and the DAO are well aligned today, putting all the accountability in the hands of one party could lead to incentive misalignments.

That said, I do want to acknowledge that this is the first time we’ve had someone in the NAIL role. It’s a multifaceted position and I’m sure there’s a lot happening behind the scenes that isn’t always visible to the community. Still, I think that’s exactly why regular communication is so important. For example, the Twitter account has also noticeably slowed down in activity since Matías stepped away, which is likely another area where community-facing presence could be strengthened.

Here are some ideas that may improve this SLURP if the community sees any value:

We could introduce regular public updates (even just monthly bullet points) so the DAO has a clearer picture of ongoing efforts. A shorter 6-month term could also help, aligned with the Council voting cycle, allowing the community to signal whether the role should continue without needing a new SLURP each time. And regarding the proposed salary increase, I’d suggest deferring it until there is clearer, measurable progress and stronger community engagement.

I think the NAIL role is extremly important and has a lot of potential. I want it to succeed. I just believe that for that to happen, we need more visibility and structure around it so that the whole DAO feels included, informed, and aligned.

Since there hasn’t been much community engagement so far on this SLURP, I think the best way forward is to vote a Temp-check so the DAO can express its position. If you’re planning to vote, it would be very helpful if you can leave a comment here before or when voting, especially if you think the SLURP just needs adjustments.

:backhand_index_pointing_right: TEMP CHECK

We’re all in this together :nail_polish:

6

While I agree with the idea of sharing regular bullet point updates, whether monthly or quarterly, I think some of the concerns raised lean too heavily toward a purely monthly results-based compensation model. That doesn’t seem entirely fair, especially considering the inherently slow pace of some integrations. Governance processes at the protocol level can often take far longer than people anticipate.

At times, I get the sense that some criticisms come from a limited understanding of what business development actually involves, unironically reinforcing your point about the need for better communication. That said, it’s also true that many meaningful deals require a degree of discretion while they’re still in progress. Criticism is healthy, but I get the impression that some of it arises from expectations that don’t fully account for the complexity and timescales involved in BD work.

For those reasons, and because I want to offer a vote of confidence to our current NAIL representative, I support this SLURP as it stands.

7

First of all, very much in favour of this proposal and the efforts that @Tokenized2027 has been leading.

In terms of taking on a BD role for the DAO, there isn’t many people such as Tokenized who are proactive, want the role and want to take on more ownership to drive more opportunities while understanding DeFi and SDL extensively. I understand frustrations around the lack of visibility and comms, I would just summarise that by saying that any initiative that has been worked on such as the PoL incentives, Aave, Folks Finance, Metis Launch etc, have all had Tokenized’s involvement. He often comes with perspectives that the core team have not thought about and will always have the community in-mind with the long-term health of the protocol.

Like with anything in Web3 and DeFi, pretty much all of these BD discussions and opportunities are driven in small TG groups between parties. Until a working relationship is secured, which in most cases takes a long time, then speaking about any of this work before the fact is often detrimental. I like most people would argue whether this is a good thing, but there isn’t real current alternative. Even in most large protocols, the DAO forum posts are a realisation of many months of behind the scenes work between parties that take months or even years to complete. Aave is a clear example of that, to where we spent a good amount of time leveraging networks to speak to large delegates before raising the temp check and giving all relevant parties notification that we was going to be pursuing an wstLINK listing. Without that, the temp check would have been dead in the water since all of the early research and risk analysis wouldn’t have been done.

Ultimately, we have limited resource. J’s time is split very thin as he leads all of the BD & strategy efforts within LinkPool as well as taking on SDL. LinkPool’s efforts are equally as important as the company still pays substantial expenses for building the protocol MoM to which the DAO is not in a position to pay for. Having a dedicated resource that is well placed to only think of the DAO is especially important with this context.

With J’s leadership, more leads and relationship management will be handed over to Tokenized to give him more ownership which in-turn will give him more freedom to seek new opportunities. With that in mind and at this point in time, push back of this proposal may deter Tokenized or anyone else in the future from taking on more DAO work as there’s an arguably unreasonable expectation of deliverables which isn’t driven from a lack of work. I think a lot of people in this community would be surprised at the types compensation packages that are pretty common within this industry in for these types of roles. Not using this as an argument to there being less transparency or reject what is being asked, but to give more of an understanding of the way things are as they are currently.

There was significant amounts of planning that went on for the Metis launch. We had a very strong connection with their foundation and spoke to every DeFi project on their chain that was relevant to GTM strategy. For example, everything was planned with Hercules around go-live.

H&T have been doing the DAO’s books since the start of the agreement and have played a pivotal role in everything corporate around the DAO. As it stands, we will be providing public quarterly reports starting with Q2 onwards.

1 Like
8

Appreciate you and @Sinbua jumping in. Always good to get direct input from OGs and core contributors.

I’ve now got a clearer picture of what the NAIL role is about. What’s absolutely clear to me.. is that Linkpool has been putting a massive amount of effort and resources into SDL. So if what Linkpool needs is someone to help take on parts of that load and execute on things you’ve been handling yourselves, then honestly, you fully deserve that support and more. I’m all for the DAO stepping in to make that possible.

That said, I still think part of the current disconnect comes from a lack of updates. Not even asking for reports or metrics.. just simple, high-level signals so the community has some visibility (heads-up to @Asymmetric the GOAT, on that one). When SLURP-49 came out most people had no clue what the role involved day to day. That vacuum makes it easy to project anything: that he’s working nonstop or juggling five jobs or surfing. People just don’t know and that’s a problem in itself.

Small feedback loops go a long way. Even short updates help align expectations and let others in the community step in. If the focus is on X, Y, Z.. someone might have a contact or insight that helps move it forward. That’s where this becomes a positive-sum game imho

Fwiw back in the day, @SethVdL asked questions on TG, got pushback, and felt ignored. That discouraged participation and we shouldn’t lose people like that. I’m glad he still follows the forum, but we need to create space for people to feel safe adding value. And again, that feels like something the NAIL could help enable.

I’m sure there’s a lot happening behind the scenes, not everything has to be public and I get that. But if this role is meant to support decentralization and DAO alignment, then visibility and occasional check-ins are key. Nothing fancy, just clarity.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together

Thanks again for all the work being done, and for keeping the convo open. Will wait to see snapshot results but I’m happy to vote yes and move forward. Send it @Tokenized2027 :nail_polish:

1 Like
9

No sense in trying to fix what’s not broken. If the dynamic works for the team then it works for me. I vote we keep him, and raise the pay if the team finds it valuable enough to justify it.

10

I appreciate this sentiment and also would like to see more public updates. I would just also say that the council community seats are paid positions and have access to the internal Slack with direct access to the team and Tokenized who primarily work from there. If there’s more of a need for knowing what is being worked on at any given in time, then the community seats should also take onus on getting as much information as possible to to which it is relayed back, as currently there’s minimal involvement other than concerns raised on this forum.

1 Like
11

The community seat is a difficult spot to be in. For the team, the work and progress seems obvious. For the seat and the community, it often feels disconnected and left in the dark. The reality is probably somewhere in-between. Ari successfully operating in that gray area for years makes him the GOAT, and my inability to not get irritated by the perceived lack of communication is why I had to step away from keeping tabs on daily operations. To Ari’s point, getting pushback on transparency, updates, and accountability (even when it feels unwarranted to the team) is community morale killing. That probably sounds harsh, but it was my reality and it appears Ari feels bits and pieces of that as well. Once I removed the implied pressures of needing to rep the community, I probably started to notice more of the challenges the team faced.

Regarding the Slurp itself, I ironically tend to agree with Jonny, Ari, and Tokenized. Meaning, I think an increase is warranted based on the work completed and especially Jonny’s point about this industry’s normal compensation package. Yet, I 100% agree with Ari’s questioning the value perception to the community regarding tangible impact and communication.

It’s kind of a shitty situation we put ourselves in with one person (who adds a ton of value) needing to justify funding for a role and a community rep needing to publicly question that value because the results aren’t as obvious as the team might think. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the community seat in general? The DAO and legal landscape is everchanging and maybe our current setup is not the best one moving forward for peak operational efficiency. Whatever we do, we cant lose Ari though.

1 Like