Proposal: Shutter DAO 0x36 funding Protocol Guild

Shutter DAO DAO Proposals
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Hey hey Shutter DAO 0x36! Cheeky from Protocol Guild here :saluting_face:

We’d be honored if Shutter DAO 0x36 would consider funding Ethereum’s core protocol work with 1% of the SHU token supply - i.e. 10,000,000 SHU tokens. This contribution would vest over 4 years directly to the individuals building and maintaining Ethereum’s core protocol.

This contribution would follow the dependency funding norms being built via Protocol Guild’s 1% Pledge. Participating projects include Ether.fi, Taiko and Eigenlayer, with more being announced soon..!

For more details about Protocol Guild’s mechanism and reasons to donate, please read on below.

Protocol Guild Overview

Protocol Guild curates a membership registry of Ethereum’s active L1 R&D maintainers, which today includes 184 individuals. This was started in 2021 and we’ve had 14 consecutive quarterly audits since then. The registry includes L1 contributors from the following teams;

  • Client implementations: Erigon, EthereumJS, Geth, Besu, Lighthouse, Lodestar, Nethermind, Nimbus, Portal, Prysm, Reth, Grandine and Teku
  • Research groups: Cryptography Research, P2P Networking, Protocol Architecture, Protocol Consensus, Protocol Prototyping, Robust Incentives Group, Stateless Consensus, TXRX and zkEVM
  • Coordination and support groups: Ethereum Cat Herders, EthPandaOps, Protocol Coordination, Protocol Security, Protocol Support, STEEL and zkEVM

Protocol Guild’s onchain mechanism includes an immutable 4-year vesting contract and Splitter contract which ensure that funding goes directly to these individuals - and thus, Ethereum stewardship - over the long term. All funding can be tracked transparently via our Dune dashboard.

Why Do These Individuals Need Funding?

The long-term health and security of our shared Ethereum infrastructure depends on the dedicated individuals who maintain it. Our recent report brought a critical issue to light: Ethereum’s core developers are undercompensated by 50-60% compared to their market value. This makes us more at risk of losing essential talent, while failing to attract the next generation.

While Ethereum’s L1 contributors are often values-motivated, we cannot rely on that alone to retain the top-tier talent necessary to advance the protocol and steward it for the decades to come. This work includes;

  • Maintaining and developing one of the 12 different execution and consensus clients: critical for maintaining Ethereum’s 100% uptime
  • Testing and security of any new protocol features: scaling the L1, scaling L2 data availability, and improving interop
  • Researching future constructions: post-quantum security, faster finality, zkEVMs

Protocol Guild’s aim is to ensure that the all-star talent building Ethereum has sufficient long-term financial support. Protocol Guild serves as an alternate source of funding which improves the financial incentives available to L1 contributors. In order to ship our ambitious roadmap, Ethereum must retain its talented individuals and attract new ones. A deep and consistent funding pool is better able to support a stable set of contributors.

What is the Protocol Guild Pledge?

The Protocol Guild Pledge was established in January 2024 to build norms around donating 1% of the native token supply of any project with a dependency on L1 Ethereum.

By donating tokens, core contributors end up with a basket of funds providing diversified exposure to the value being created in the ecosystem. This aligns core developer incentives with the Ethereum ecosystem’s long-term success. And, at sufficient scale, the Protocol Guild Pledge could create a sustainable and robust funding stream for Ethereum’s core protocol development, backed by the projects built on Ethereum.

However, to establish this norm, we need buy-in from across the ecosystem. Fortunately we’ve seen many different projects take the pledge, including Ether.fi, PWN DAO, Taiko, Credit Guild, Member, EthStorage, Sendit, Penjamin Blinkerton, Re.al, Puffer, Eigenlayer, Aligned, INTMAX, Shape, Yodl and Ascend. While we’re still orders of magnitude away from having enough funding to be competitive with other job offers in the ecosystem, we believe Ethereum’s ecosystem is uniquely aligned to fix this. Normalizing the 1% pledge is the best chance we have to get there.

Benefits for Shutter

  1. Invest in Shared Infrastructure: Directly support the security and scalability of the network Shutter and Shutter DAO 0x36 relies on.

  2. Gain Public Recognition:

  3. Be featured as a donor on Protocol Guild’s website and Dune dashboard, as well as during speaking engagements

  4. Dedicated blog and social posts, including anniversary shoutouts

  5. Joint livestreams and presentations

  6. Raise awareness of Shutter among Ethereum’s core contributors via our internal comms channels

  7. Attract Talent: Signal to the Ethereum developer community that Shutter DAO 0x36 values and supports foundational open-source work: a core norm of the broader community.

Disbursement Method and Schedule

Shutter DAO 0x36 will transfer 10,000,000 (ten million) SHU (0xe485E2f1bab389C08721B291f6b59780feC83Fd7) to Protocol Guild’s donation address (0x25941dC771bB64514Fc8abBce970307Fb9d477e9) on Ethereum Mainnet upon approval of this proposal.

Verify the address here: 3. Donate — protocol-guild documentation.

Protocol Guild’s donation address is an immutable vesting contract which trustlessly vests donated funds over 4 years. Vested funds get pushed into a pass-through wallet, which in turn sends funds to a splitter contract for distribution to the membership. You can read more about the smart contract architecture here.

Platform

Decent (this proposal will trigger an onchain transaction if passed)

Voting Options

Vote “Yes” to take the Protocol Guild 1% Pledge and transfer 10,000,000 SHU to the Protocol Guild Donation Address

OR

Vote “No” to not take the Protocol Guild 1% Pledge

OR

Vote “Abstain” if you do not have an opinion but want to help the vote reach quorum

Conclusion

Protocol Guild’s design as a funding collective for individual Ethereum maintainers ensures that the network’s ongoing evolution is sufficiently supported.

By continuing to build the norm of Ethereum-based projects taking Protocol Guild’s 1% pledge, Shutter DAO 0x36 will take a leadership position in ensuring that Ethereum network remains robust, while ensuring its ongoing evolution.

Looking forward to any questions / feedback / suggestions - if helpful, I’d also be happy to hop on a call for a live Q&A session!

Thank you for your consideration :heart:

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Quick update, we created a test transaction in Decent, to transfer 1 SHU to Protocol Guild’s donation address: Decent

The offer to hop on a call for a live Q&A session still stands :slight_smile:

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Hey all,

I want to start off by saying that I am a big fan of the protocol guild and would love to support it longer term. However, we currently have no revenue coming into the DAO and that seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, where as we do have significant recurring expenses. Given this, it seems irresponsible to donate funds from the DAO (or take on any additional expenses that don’t directly lead to revenue) otherwise we are just reducing our runway.

I would be happy to commit to donating a proportion of revenue once we have some and / or commit to review again if we are still around in a years time but at the moment it feels irresponsible.

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Thanks for engaging d0z3y!

I get where you’re coming from when you say you’re worried about the cash runway diminishing and jeopardising the DAO’s future. But we see it another way: by making your proportional share of a collective, token‑based commitment to fund Ethereum’s core protocol work (via the 1 % pledge), you are investing in the long‑term health of the Ethereum network. A robust infrastructure benefits all projects and can ultimately create revenue opportunities as the ecosystem thrives.

For what it’s worth, we realize we’re asking projects to make a sacrifice by taking the pledge. It’s not a small ask, which is why the list of pledge-takers remains lower than we’d like. Unfortunately, we’ve often heard potential donors say e.g. “come back to us once markets recover”, but waiting for perfect conditions is impractical given the urgent need for funding today. By establishing norms around Ethereum-based projects donating 1 % of their token supply, we can start addressing that gap.

The 1 % pledge is thus best seen as a proactive step that demonstrates leadership and a willingness to contribute to a stable future for Ethereum. By joining this collective effort, Shutter DAO 0x36 will help create a healthier ecosystem that, in turn, supports the long‑term viability of every project built on it - including Shutter DAO 0x36 itself :slight_smile:

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I agree and support this initiative.

Shutter’s long-term thesis is tightly coupled to Ethereum’s roadmap and adoption, so supporting core protocol contributors is a rational alignment move with bounded downside (time-vested 1%) and meaningful ecosystem upside.

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Thank you for the kind words and for the support @OGImpact :saluting_face:

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Fyi the proposal to send 1 SHU to Protocol Guild’s donation address was executed successfully, and a 4-year vesting stream was started!

You can see both here:

We conducted this test this to ensure there would be no issues if Shutter DAO 0x36 agrees to take the 1% Pledge!

Happy to answer any other questions or comments in the meantime! :blush:

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Hello again everyone! We’ve created the proposal to take the 1% Pledge on Decent:

On behalf of all Protocol Guild members, let me reiterate that we truly appreciate your consideration on this. By taking the pledge, Shutter DAO 0x36 would join a very exclusive list of projects who are building norms around funding Ethereum’s essential dependencies. With your support, we can secure the future of Ethereum :saluting_face:

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I voted no on this proposal.

Shutter is a poor project.

There are Ethereum staking projects, MEV bots, etc., that are printing money. Some of them are printing money by exploiting Ethereum users.

Shutter should not use its remaining runway to diversify. Instead, projects that are profiting for Ethereum should fund the future of Ethereum.

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Hey miohtama - yessir we’d love it if all projects profiting off Ethereum helped fund it’s core protocol work! I can assure you we’re in chats with as many projects as you can think of. But building those norms will require buy-in from the entire ecosystem, big and small. Thank you for engaging in the vote!

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Hello again everyone! The vote passed yesterday, we just executed it, and the 4-year vesting stream has started! You can check that here:

I want to thank you all SO MUCH for this unbelievable gesture - by taking the 1% Pledge, Shutter DAO 0x36 has truly stepped up as a leader in the space, establishing norms that will hopefully get us one step closer to sustainable funding for Ethereum’s core protocol work.

Next week we’ll have blog posts, Tweets and Twitter Spaces celebrating your pledge, will post those here as they get released! On behalf of 184 of Ethereum’s core protocol contributors, thank you again, your pledge is exactly why Ethereum is one of the most wonderful ecosystems in the world.

1 Like