The past few weeks, there’s been a lot of discussion about the methodologist program - demonstrating community initiative, autonomy, and desire to improve processes.
The original Index Methodologist Program (laid out here) was devised by Set and DeFi Pulse in the spirit of attracting and rewarding high quality partners for tangible contributions to the Coop. As a reminder, the key terms were:
- 7.5% of all INDEX tokens allocated to the program with rewards distributed over 18 months
- Rewards are distributed pro-rata monthly based on the total fees contributed to the cooperative by the methodologists’ indices
Given the singular focus of the DeFi Pulse Index, Index Coop community members have raised valid concerns including lack of competition, lack of clarity regarding methodologist definitions, and fear of methodologist capture. From these concerns came thoughts of modifying the terms of the original program.
For any partner, conducting business with a DAO is already fraught with uncertainty. Partners are subject to an unusually public product development process and an inherently uncertain & political process when it comes to final product approval to the Index Coop.
We can not dominate the structured product business without the help of partners. Part of building this trust with partners is showing that the Index Coop is a high integrity environment. We want to show that Index Coop commitments are reliable enough to build a significant business around.
Given the desire of the community is to focus on growing the pie together, building a long-term working relationship with existing partners, and there being a lack of IIP passed, the Index Methodologist program will be honored and continue as originally planned. We feel confident that the Methodologist program will be a key leverage point in our ability to attract the best partners and brands in crypto.
In addition, the concerns brought up by community members are being addressed through:
- The Creation of the Product Addition Proposal Process: Where there is now a clear process in which new products are added and there is a definition for the desired characteristics of a methodologist. This process will be the foundations in which new methodologists like CoinShares and TokenTerminal will go through.
- Discussions of Long-Term Community Incentive Programs: In addition to monthly treasury rewards given to community members doing real work, there are now ongoing discussions / thoughts about rewarding committed community members sizable protocol token upside in a manner not too dissimilar from traditional company stock incentive plans.
Ultimately, we hope to foster an environment where community members and partners can all feel valued and have their concerns / needs listened to and addressed. This has been a great test of everyone to find common ground and achieve mutual goals that benefit each other.
Now that DPI is in a solid position, we are excited to see what other products we can launch and build for the users of DeFi. The Methodologist program will be a key part of that strategy. Our collective creativity, technical excellence, high-quality partners, and operational execution will be necessary in achieving our vision of becoming the largest on-chain asset manager.