Lisk DAO Season 2

Proposals Funding
1

Executive summary

This proposal seeks funding for Season 2 of the Lisk DAO, aimed at accelerating the growth of the Lisk ecosystem across four strategic Social and Economic Intents. Season 2 will commence immediately upon approval and conclude on December 17, 2025. The total funding request is 2,225,000 LSK, in addition to the 1,700,000 LSK remaining from Season 1. Of the 3,925,000 LSK total budget, 3,750,000 LSK will be directly allocated to support builders and dApps on the Lisk Mainnet.

Motivation

This proposal aligns with the Lisk DAO Seasons Strategy and builds upon the success of Season 1. It marks a continued step toward the gradual decentralization of Lisk, transitioning operational responsibility and reporting from the Lisk core team to the Lisk DAO, thereby fostering a more open and collaborative ecosystem.

Rationale

Approval of Season 2 will ensure a structured and predictable six-month operational framework for the DAO, aligned with Superchain priorities, and will actively contribute to the ecosystem’s expansion and maturity.

Specification

Following the Lisk DAO Seasons Strategy, we propose the following setup and procedures for Lisk DAO Season 2.

Theme

The second season of Lisk DAO will focus on further aligning and expanding the ecosystem of Lisk builders and contributors while providing key resources and support to builders aiming to grow the usage and TVL of Lisk by building on existing and new initiatives.

We propose adopting the following theme: Lisk Season 2: Collaborations that drive real-world development and sticking to comperable intents as used in Season 1.

Intents

Intent Category Key Measurables
1) Make contributing to Lisk DAO engaging and rewarding. Social (A) Make Lisk ecosystem funding more transparent, (B) Increase governance participation and rigor, (C) Educate about the economics of L2s and the operations and benefits of a Community Treasury
2) Accelerate Lisk programs and builders. Economic (A) Support key programs and builders, (B) Make it simple to discover and engage with Lisk programs and apps.
3) Grow the TVL of Lisk Economic (A) Growth of non-LSK TVL during the season.
4) Increase Lisk’s contribution to the Superchain. Economic (A) Total revenue contributed to the Optimism Collective. (B) The total volume to and from Lisk in the Superchain.

Season Structure

We propose for two councils to exist in the first season of LiskDAO:

  1. LiskDAO Grants Council: Tasked with operating two programs, the Builder Grants and Ecosystem Incentives.

  2. LiskDAO Steering Committee: Tasked with advising, evaluating, and reporting on the Program Results.

LiskDAO Season 1,
LiskDAO Season 1,800×335 14 KB

Budget

The total budget for LiskDAO Season 2 is 3,925,000 LSK. The budget will be managed through this 3 out of 5 Superchain Safe with the 3 Steering Committee members and 3 Grants Council members as signers. Below is a breakdown of the budget per item.

Item Budget Fund Who selects projects? (Module I) Who evaluates impact? (Module H) When is impact evaluated?
Development and Infra Grants 1.25M LSK Lisk DAO Treasury Lisk DAO Grants Council Steering Committee Regularly throughout Season
Incubation and Acceleration Programs 750K LSK Lisk DAO Treasury Program Team Lisk DAO At the end of the Season
Ambassador Program 250K LSK Lisk DAO Treasury Program Team Lisk DAO At the end of the Season
Ecosystem Incentives 1.5M LSK Lisk DAO Treasury Steering Committee Lisk DAO At the end of the Season
Lisk DAO Operations 175K LSK Lisk DAO Treasury Steering Committee Lisk Team and Lisk DAO At the end of the Season

Season 2 Initiatives

LiskDAO Season 2 will focus on four initiatives.

Lisk DAO Development and Infra Grants: milestone-based grants of up to 150,000 LSK for projects developing new solutions and features for Lisk. The review will be based on the specific category of a project: Small Development Grant (under 50,000 LSK), Large Development Grant (up to 150,000 LSK), and Infrastructure Grant (up to 150,000 LSK). A rubric and review process will be created for each project. Grants requesting over 50,000 LSK will be subject to additional scrutiny and will require 3 out of 3 approvals to proceed.

Incubation and Acceleration Programs: A budget earmarked for contributing to the operating costs of the incubator and acceleration programs supporting the Lisk Ecosystem in Season 2. This budget will be allocated in collaboration with the Lisk team to optimize spending and build on existing partnerships.

Ambassador Program: Building on the success of the Lisk Pioneers program, Lisk DAO will take an increased role in enabling and supporting Lisk Ambassadors, a task previously executed solely by the Lisk team.

Lisk DAO Ecosystem Incentives: Onchain KPI-driven LSK incentives for live applications on Lisk. This can include programs such as Lisk Surge that reward dApp and users’ TVL deposits, and programs such as the Lisk Builder Rewards that reward dApp developers for the onchain usage of their applications. To be designed and reviewed by the LiskDAO Steering Council.

Grants Council Members The Grants Council of Season 1 will consist of the following members.

Role Member Prev Roles
Lead JashFi Lead at Superchain Eco
Member Ibrahim Lisk Builder who graduated from CV Labs
Member Filipe BD Manager at Lisk

Steering Committee Members The Season 2 Steering Committee will consist of the following members.

Member Current Role
LuukDAO Strategy at Superchain Eco
Jan Research at Lisk
Mona Governance at Lisk

Timeline
Start Date: Upon proposal approval
End Date: December 17, 2025 (aligned with Optimism Season 8)
Mid-Season Report: Due September 30, 2025
Post-Season Report: Due December 22, 2025

Action plan

Upon approval:

  • The Grants Council and Steering Committee will begin their workstreams.

  • Within one week, an updated Lisk DAO Hub will be launched to enable proposal submissions.

  • Regular updates and evaluation processes will be implemented throughout the season.

If the proposal is not approved, the remaining Season 1 funds after completion of approved payments will be returned to Lisk DAO.

11 Likes
2

Great!
I like that this consolidates season 1 intent while creating room for more participation through the ambassador engagement.

Development and Infra grant is also a nice addition that will reduce development time so builders can focus on shipping solutions.

Generally, I think this proposal is solid.

5 Likes
3

This proposal is very good to support sustainability

But in the future I think it’s better for lisk to create its own platform for how their impact is measured

Examples of using OSS(Open Source Observer) or other tools

2 Likes
4

I have a few questions regarding the payment. Why are the Lisk DAO Operations costs so high?

Who is the reward intended for? Who will receive it? What tasks will it cover?

2 Likes
5

Hi @grumlin,

The DAO Operations budget covers the personnel, development, design, and accounting resources required to run a Lisk DAO season.

Each proposal, at least 50,000 LSK is locked for the max duration by Superchain Eco to build up long-term skin in the game in the Lisk ecosystem.

The roles include program management, BD, 2 grant managers (lead + member), treasury and accounting, and marketing. Currently, these roles are split between four people from Superchain Eco: Jash, Ibrahim, Luuk, and Enrique (designer and developer, not visible in the proposal but helping in the back).

When we wrote the proposal, the 200k LSK for ops equaled about 80k USD for 6 months of 3 FTEs worth of work, which translated to about 4,5k USD per person per month, which is on the lower end of the industry standard. For example, a Grant Council contributor in Optimism would earn 6-10k USD per month.

Just like anyone in the Lisk ecosystem, our team takes on price risk in LSK. In the first season that led to our team earning significantly less than expected and worked for almost half the rate. This time, if the trend continues, it might result in our team earning a bit more in USD value, which we see as part of our contribution to LiskDAO. However, happy to debate if it’s better to agree on a fixed USD amount moving forward. Regardless, we would want to gain some LSK exposure.

4 Likes
6

We can’t really count on the price dropping — more likely it will rise — but let’s assume the current rate.

250k multiplied by 0.43 comes out to 107 thousand USD.

Your team could have 100 people for all I care — the question isn’t about the number of people, but about the number of man-hours spent on the work and the corresponding compensation.

Given that you have no more than 4.5 months of work left, that’s 107 / 4.5 = 23.8 thousand dollars per month. Assuming 480 man-hours per month (which I doubt — this isn’t your primary job, after all), I think at best you each spent 50–70 hours a month, meaning around 180 man-hours total per month. Even with full-time engagement, that would be $8k per person per month — which is way too much. Don’t confuse Optimism’s finances with Lisk’s.

Considering that this work should be handled by the Lisk team itself, not outsourced — or if it is outsourced, it should be funded directly by the Foundation — I will personally vote AGAINST it under these conditions. No more than 100k LSK should be allocated for compensation, and that would be fair. Only under those terms will I vote FOR. Even in the first round I was against the 150k for compensation, but that round was experimental.

2 Likes
7

Seeing Grumlin’s objections, I think it’s necessary to set the compensation value in USD, converted to LSK at the LSK/USD value on the day of the proposal. Then, we should agree on the weekly or monthly USD compensation. This would make it flexible, depending on how long the current season is. Throwing out an arbitrary number like 250,000 LSK might not be transparent enough.

With the 100,000 LSK proposed by Grumlin for 139 days (between August 1st and December 17th), at the current LSK valuation ($0.437), that amounts to around 2,400 USD per month for each of the four members.

4 Likes
8

Which game? Faet? I think that $4,500 per person per month is low for computer graphics specialists and programmers. We should reward them with some more LSK to make sure the job is done in high quality, also visually.

It seems that Grumlin is too harsh when it comes to team spending.

Why is such extreme transparency needed? Are we really going to check every penny these hard-working people get per month to keep the Lisk project going? I don’t think we should set a fixed monthly payment for them, because the Lisk price is constantly changing.

4 Likes
9

Thanks for sharing your perspectives, @przemer, @grumlin, and @wasabbi — it’s great to have open discussions like this.

  1. Running a Season involves much more than just the official start and end dates. For example, we’re still supporting Season 1 programs today. Writing a strong season proposal also takes significant time and effort. In reality, the engagement timeframe is closer to 6 months than 4.5.

  2. There’s a clear correlation between the resources provided and the quality of contributions received. Our team brings years of experience in these specific roles, along with added value from our Superchain Eco platform and dApps. Lisk notably benefited from this in Season 1 — for instance, over 38,000 of our Super Account users interacted with Lisk.

  3. Due to how proposals currently function in LiskDAO, it’s challenging to submit a USD-denominated proposal, as we only have direct token transfer options. In a future iteration, we could explore diversifying part of the LSK treasury into USD for payouts — though this will require additional planning and implementation.

We want the Lisk ecosystem to grow, and a reasonable budget is essential to do this effectively.

Proposal: We suggest reducing the Season 2 Operations budget to 200,000 LSK, with 25,000 LSK to be max-locked by our team.

5 Likes
10

This is very great because the overwhelming majority of funds are directly allocated to support dApps, infrastructure, and ecosystem incentives, showing strong focus on builder support and real ecosystem growth.

2 Likes
11

I support what you’re doing and I’m grateful for it. However, it’s still a large amount. As an alternative, I suggest keeping the same budget as in Season 1 — 150,000 LSK.

3 Likes
12

We value your input here, but reducing to 150,000 LSK at current LSK prices would require our team to be extra diligent with the hours we contribute, which could impact the quality of our deliveries, something we want to avoid.

What we can do is meet in the middle and reduce the ask to 175K flat.

Hopefully, we can increase collaboration among the ecosystem in the coming months and grow LSK to the point where the LiskDAO Ops budget can remain in the range of 150-200K LSK while increasing the impact season over season.

We’ve updated the proposal with the final 175k ops budget and aim to ping the Lisk team later today to get it up for vote. Hopefully we have your support!

4 Likes
13

Okay, you have my vote FOR!

5 Likes
14

You have my vote too
As little as it may be :+1:t2:

3 Likes
15

Something interesting smells around the corner :man_dancing:t3:

3 Likes
16

Great, happy we managed to get on the same page. We’ll submit this proposal next Monday when it has been up on the forum for the full 2 weeks per the guidelines.

6 Likes
17

Would love to see the outcome of this

2 Likes
18

Can’t wait for then​:oncoming_fist:t6::palms_up_together:t5::innocent:

1 Like
19

If grumlin is voting
I sure am voting :victory_hand:

2 Likes
20

Totally agree!
More collaboration, more inclusion. A handshake between Africa, LATAM and SEA.
I believe this is key to sustainable growth.

2 Likes