The project team for Lido, the famous liquid staking platform mostly known for its development in the Ethereum blockchain, has posted a new DAO proposal to seek $1.5 million in funding to continue development on the Solana blockchain network. Otherwise, the support for Lido on Solana will gradually decrease and eventually end.
In a DAO proposal on Monday, September 4, the Lido on Solana team asked the community to approve a $1.5 million DAO funding over the next 12 months to sustain and elevate the staking protocol on Solana.
The Lido on Solana project team submitted a proposal to the Lido DAO community seeking financial support totaling $1.5 million; if financial support cannot be obtained, support for Lido on Solana will gradually begin to be discontinued. https://t.co/iIWHotmNOC
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 5, 2023
The proposal reads:
“We have made significant strides in both product and business development. However, to continue our efforts and take Lido on Solana to the next level, we seek financial support from the Lido DAO. This proposal outlines our achievements, financial standing, and the resources required to sustain and grow the project, as well as an alternative way that can be chosen.”
Lido on Solana Project is a Net Loss Until Now
The proposal to expand Lido, a multi-platform liquid staking protocol, to Solana was first submitted in April 2021 and received overwhelming support from LDO holders. The project came live on Solana mainnet in early 2022. The project allows Solana (SOL) holders to earn 6.8% APY through staking and rewards with stSOL tokens to be used for other Solana-based DeFi operations.
The Lido on Solna team, called P2P, began to take care of the project in March 2022, and since then, it has been responsible for all related tasks, including development, “bugfixes, analytical dashboards, bugs-bounty program support, new wallets, and DeFi protocols integrations, multisig and validator management, and other operational tasks.”
Per the proposal, the team has invested approximately $700,000 in the project and made significant product and business development achievements. However, revenue so far has been around $220,000, resulting in a loss of $484,000. Therefore, the team seeks financial support from Lido DAO to sustain and elevate the Lido on Solana project.
The P2P team asks for $200,000 per quarter to cover development expenses, $600,000 annually for marketing, and $100,000 annually to set up an industry-standard customer support service. The proposal asks for $1.5 million over the next year to sustain the project and capture more than 1% of Solana’s staking market share.
In case the proposal fails, the team proposes “starting a sunset process if financial support from Lido DAO is unavailable.” The voting will begin somewhere in the next 4 weeks. If the Lido DAO community votes against the proposal, the team will halt the new staking deposit on October 9, 2023, followed by the off-boarding of voluntary node operators on October 10.
Frontend support will be halted by October 2, 2024, and unstaking will only be available through CLI. In this scenario, the team asked Lido DAO for $20K monthly to support its technical maintenance efforts for five months, starting September 4. However, the team is ready to consider other options as well if they come along the way.
