Stargate Foundation Update

General
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An Update on the DAO Process

In recent weeks, StargateDAO has undertaken a series of focused discussions on key governance matters - namely, the proposal and voting process, treasury allocation, and the formal role and authority of the Stargate Foundation. This message outlines the DAO’s governance structure and the Foundation’s responsibilities, reaffirming our commitment to transparency and effective decentralized stewardship.

First, it’s worth recognizing the real progress made by StargateDAO and the Stargate Protocol over the past 37 months. Launched in March 2022 to tackle the competitive bridging landscape, Stargate has grown into the largest bridge in DeFi. Despite a crowded and fast-moving market, it stands out not just in scale, but in reliability - having never lost user funds or experienced a critical bug. That’s still true today, and it’s something no other protocol in its category can claim.

Simultaneously, the StargateDAO has grown immensely since its early days. Many of the first proposals came from a small group of core community members. Now, proposals are regularly submitted by some of the most successful teams in crypto: teams that want to build on, for, and with Stargate. The voting body has also become incredibly diverse. Stargate has long been the largest DAO on Snapshot, with the highest voting participation.

The Stargate Foundation recently proposed an updated governance process to reflect the DAO’s evolution. However, discussions during Community Calls and among core contributors made it clear that some members are unclear on how governance currently works - particularly regarding the binding nature of DAO proposals. This message restates the existing, valid governance process to ensure everyone is aligned.

1. Quorum for StargateDAO Snapshot Proposals

Stargate uses off-chain governance via Snapshot, an intentional design choice driven by the protocol’s multi-chain architecture. With $STG and veSTG deployed across seven chains and contracts live on over 70, coordinating on-chain governance would introduce unnecessary complexity. Until infrastructure like LayerZero’s lzRead is more broadly adopted, Snapshot remains the most effective and inclusive governance solution for Stargate’s scale.

In fact, some members of the Stargate leadership spend over 20 hours a week maintaining and deploying the protocol, and we estimate that would 3x if we used fully on-chain governance. (More on this soon).

Snapshot allows for relatively lightweight governance: a 7-day discussion period on the Discourse forum, followed by a 3-day off-chain vote, and then implementation by the Foundation. This approach has benefits, but we also recognize it is ultimately not on chain.

For example, when the DAO approved deployment to Cronos zkEVM, the Foundation was later asked by the Cronos Core Team to delay the rollout. Had this vote been onchain, it would have been implemented immediately. The DAO had no insight into this decision or the communication behind it. That’s the sort of disconnect we want to fix.

Regarding quorum, Stargate’s Snapshot and DAO voting were heavily botted and sybilled in the past. When the new governance process was introduced, the Foundation proposed a quorum of 1,500,000 veSTG (+/- 20%) during an initial 90-day period. While this quorum was discussed on Community Calls, it was never formalized or publicly shared. As a result, some recent proposals with <1,200,000 veSTG were implemented - below the proposed quorum. We acknowledge that this lack of public communication was a mistake.

Having now seen 25 proposals over the past 10 months, we believe 1,200,000 veSTG is a sufficient quorum to ensure meaningful participation without stalling progress.

For clarity, going forward: proposals that do not reach 1,200,000 veSTG will not be implemented. Additionally, proposals must receive at least 70% YES/FOR votes to be enacted by the Foundation.

Below is a list of all proposals that have gone through Stargate’s governance since the introduction of the new governance process. It includes both successful and failed proposals (failure defined as <70% approval rating). The Foundation would like to call attention to the proposals that received >70% approval rating, but below 1,200,000 votes, and were implemented. They are highlighted in the final column.

Action Item: The Foundation is recommending that the DAO opine on the ratification of these proposals.

The discussion around this will take place on this Forum post.

Proposal Title Approve/Yes No Abstain (if applicable) Total # Votes % Yes Under scrutiny
StargateDAO Governance Process 1,300,000 40,200 1,340,200 97.00% N
Integrate with Sei Network 1,300,000 49,600 1,349,600 96.32% N
USDC Pool on BNB Chain 839,600 4,400 844,000 99.48% Y
Stargate on Soneium 688,800 3,400 692,200 99.51% Y
Integrate with LightLink Network 569,600 10,300 46,200 626,100 90.98% Y
Stargate Deployment on Unichain 789,200 4,400 793,600 99.45% Y
Stargate Deployment to Sonic 539,300 25,100 564,400 95.55% Y
ETH Pool on Mode 1,200,000 16,500 1,216,500 98.64% N
RFP Request: Comprehensive Data Dashboard 781,900 N/A 781,900 100.00% Y
Stargate Foundation Budget (Nov 2024 - October 2025) 1,300,000 24,700 0 1,324,700 98.14% N
ETH Pool on the Hemi Network 513,200 23,400 13,500 550,100 93.29% Y
Stargate Deployment to Gnosis Chain 898,300 25,800 6,100 930,200 96.57% Y
Final Data RFP Vote - Choice of Artemis Options 710,000 N/A 710,000 100.00% Y
Stargate Deployment on Conflux 393,400 293,300 686,700 57.29% N
ETH Pool on Manta Pacific 790,300 16,700 807,000 97.93% Y
Stargate Deployment on Hedera 404,000 656,500 1,060,500 38.10% N
Stargate Deployment on Abstract 984,300 178,100 1,162,400 84.68% Y
[Fast Track] HEP-1: Hydra Expansion Program 1,000,000 310,300 1,310,300 76.32% N
StargateDAO Treasury Consolidation Proposal 2,200,000 2,800 2,202,800 99.87% N
[Fast Track] Deploy USDC.e/HONEY Liquidity on BeraSwap 1,100,000 23,800 27,500 1,151,300 95.54% N
ETH and USDC pools on Cronos zkEVM 381,500 30,300 33,600 445,400 85.65% Y
Deploy STG liquidity on Kodiak Finance on Berachain mainnet & Make Kodiak the STG hub on Berachain 1,300,000 5,700 15,600 1,321,300 98.39% N
Stargate Integration Proposal: Swell L2 ETH Pool Deployment 1,300,000 4,900 3,200 1,308,100 99.38% N
Deploy WETH/wstETH LP liquidity on Jellyverse on Sei 301,000 7,400 453,100 761,500 39.53% N
Fee Distribution Revamp 644,400 1,900,000 16,400 2,560,800 25.16% N
Balanced earnings distribution: Increasing Value Accrual for STG Stakers 2,600,000 8,700 5,800 2,614,500 99.45% N
Stargate Integration with Espresso Network 712,400 17,800 5,100 735,300 96.89% N

2. StargateDAO Governance Process

There should be estimated timelines and clearer expectations by all DAO members for when proposals are implemented after a successful vote. In the past, timelines have ranged from days to months- always with context and reasoning, but not always transparently communicated.

From now on, the timeline for successful proposals implementation will be within 30 days of Snapshot approval. If implementation is delayed due to technical or business constraints, an explanation should be provided via the Discourse forum.

As an example: if a proposal passes that instructs the Foundation to deploy Stargate to “MegaETH,” but MegaETH mainnet isn’t live after 30 days, the Foundation will simply update the DAO and explain the delay.

3. Foundation Team Member Voting

There’s been recent discussion around whether Foundation team members should be allowed to vote on DAO proposals. Foundation team member participation may be very favorable. The reasoning is twofold: team members are naturally aligned with the Protocol’s success, and they should be able to stake their earned $STG to show long-term commitment to the DAO.

Currently, however, there is a strict internal policy that prohibits Foundation members from staking or voting. Given the nature of our work, team members often have access to material non-public information (MNPI) that could impact token price or protocol development. This policy is designed to protect everyone involved.

One can reason that Foundation team members are already well aligned with the long-term success of Stargate- both through vested incentive packages and because our careers and reputations are tightly tied to the Protocol’s future.

The Foundation welcomes any feedback on this update.

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Just a brief comment for now; I’ll add more later and/or edit when I can give it more thought.

There are tried and tested corporate governance procedures that may be replicated for decentralised autonomous organisations to work effectively. As Stargate matures, we may look to adopt similar.

It’s not uncommon for employees, executives and directors to be able to benefit from vested equity and share in dividends from a for-profit entity. As we use vote-escrowed mechanisms for governance and profit-share calculations, we may want to reconsider staking restrictions for employees. It may also lead to better long-term decision making and risk management.

Employees and directors who hold vested equity should be able to vote on corporate governance matters, no different to employee shareholders or directors who can vote at monthly board meetings, annual general meetings or on shareholder resolutions. Employees and directors likely have significant holdings that should be represented in key decisions. A vote does not mean that commercial-in-confidence information needs to be disclosed.

There are some proposals that should adopt additional governance best practices where there are conflicts of interest. That just needs a formal and/or informal abstain from voting. It’s no different to corporate rules that restrict CEOs from voting on their own compensation due to conflicts of interest.

A Quorum of 1.2m votes is too low. At current prices, it’s equivalent to $200,000 STG staked for three years (or $7,600,000 STG staked for one month). For a protocol processing $5B in transactions a month, and a critical piece of the crypto ecosystem, it’s not adequate. Low participation or low engagement with some proposals may be rectified by increasing the vote escrowed participation by vested employees and directors.

Finally (for now), some accounts with smaller veSTG holdings may prefer to delegate voting stakes to employees or directors over independent stakers. The speed of development across crypto can make it difficult for non-industry participants to keep up with each new chain or crypto innovation. Delegating to employees or directors may be preferable for the long-term interests of Stargate rather than uninformed voting.

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Still against the idea of team voting- the Foundation holds enough control as we stand, there’s virtually no benefit to lockers by allowing this. Saying team is aligned with protocol is just not a very good reason, the latter (team members wanting to lock long term) is an issue to be dealt with by itself, IMO

All this creates is even more distrust and community voice to be heard less, just less friction for Foundation to have more control. There is a reason team members haven’t been able to vote thus far, and should continue to be the case

This “DAO” already operates far too centralized, accepting team votes is just another step deeper into this trend. Firmly against this idea.

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for clarity here, do “abstain” votes count toward quorum? and do they count against the “yes/for” vote ratio?

as for team voting, I agree that it is not a good idea for a number of reasons, not least is that public perception will be difficult to manage, it’d require MUCH higher transarent reporting requirements on what the DAO members do with their own free time (in terms of getting wined and dined, what tokens they are invested in outside of STG, etc), and to me feels overall like it’s asking for more trouble than it’s worth.

There are hybrid solutions and different ways of thinking about how to do voting in a “DAO” though. I’ve thought about this a lot over the past couple weeks and have shared some of these thoughts with the leadership of Stargate and separately some other entities that would care how Stargate turns out.

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Thanks for sharing this update. I have been a longtime Stargate holder, and while I haven’t been very active in governance, I have continuously staked my STG in return for rewards (in hopes that one day they will be a lot higher than they are currently). I saw that this proposal was posted and wanted to share a few thoughts/concerns I have here.

While I haven’t been heavily involved in governance, I’ve closely followed the protocol’s development and feel that some recent and historical issues merit open discussion:

1. STG token performance: Since August 2022, the STG token has depreciated significantly (from $1 to approximately $0.17) despite increased network activity and growing volume/fees. I feel like I keep seeing stats on X shown about how Stargate has seen all time highs for transaction volumes, yet have not been seeing this reflected in the reward payouts or STG token price. This suggests that the amount of rewards paid out have been insufficient to incentivize long-term holding and prevent dumping. Instead, the team appears to have either done nothing for two years, or worse, prioritized their own interests over the DAO.

2. Delays in reward distribution:** I know a few other users have pointed this out, but there have been significant delays to reward distributions (both for veStakers and for some of the protocols that Stargate has given incentives to (Boyco, Aptos). In the case of Aptos, the delay of over 14 months to enable reward claims is pretty concerning.

3. Governance alignment: Based on the details in this update, there appears to be some disconnect between the current actions of the team and the original DAO guidelines. Whether this is due to a lack of awareness or deliberate deviation, it creates uncertainty around governance processes and accountability.

All of these issues put together have made me question the team’s interests and capacity to deliver. I personally haven’t seen any answers as to why there have been severe delays to veStaking rewards each month, or why the Aptos and other claims took so long. Was it just forgotten about or purposely ignored? I don’t personally have enough STG to put up a proposal to demand the team to step down, but personally I’d like to see more culpability by the team and for those responsible for the clear negligence here to step down and resign.

Almost three years of continuous price decay is enough, let’s not make it four.

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I would also like to add here that maybe some key restructuring is also needed. I think that there needs to be a lot more transparency over who the people on the team are, what their background and experiences are that makes them qualified to run this over $1bn protocol. I think that Stargate has grown a lot in the past few years, and it may be time that the protocol be passed over to some more steady and seasoned hands. From personal experience, it is a very different skillset building a start-up from 0 to $100m, and running a multi-billion dollar company.

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Don’t forget it was a very small team for some time. The team size is increasing, operational processes are getting tightened up and they are building for growth.

It’s a very exciting time.

Like I say to everyone, stake for 36 months and you don’t need to worry about the token price.

In three years, the price will reflect its immense value to the industry

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