OIP#1 Building and Enabling Staking for the OBOL Token

[Stakesaurus]

Thanks for incorporating our feedback.

The 6-months time-bound issuance will allow us to reassess the best path forward using actual data from the concerns expressed by everyone. e.g., delegate concentration, fragmented liquidity, depeg risks etc.

As an Obol Delegate with sufficient voting power, I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

[jeronima]

It took quite a bit of time to deal with the complexities of translation and understand everyone’s opinion))
How wonderful it is when there is an experienced team and discussion.

As a Obol Delegate I believe that we are ready for the vote

[Curia]

Thank you @coolhorsegirl and @Toma-ObolAssoc for spearheading this proposal and incorporating valuable community feedback, I appreciate how this proposal strikes a balance between sustainable incentives and practical utility:

• I believe adjusting the allocation to 0.33% of the OBOL token supply over six months is a thoughtful move. It offers us an opportunity to measure the impact of this initiative, and provide a pathway to sustainable approach to staking rewards that fits well with our long-term token economics.

• I’m keen in the concept behind stOBOL as a liquid, yield-bearing token. This means we can tap into DeFi opportunities without giving up our governance power—plus, the auto-compounding feature is a big win in maximizing returns for users.

• The two unlock options—Simple Unlock and Unlock and Stake with One Click—really lower the barrier for us. It’s a practical change that can reduce sell pressure and make it easier for everyone to engage with the protocol right away.

As an Obol Delegate with sufficient voting power, I feel this proposal is well-crafted and ready to move to a vote.

[coolhorsegirl]

Hey @marc_blockshard, cheers for the questions! Will respond to each:

When stObol is sold, does the delegation to a specific delegate remain active? If so, can the new holder of stObol change the delegate?

The stOBOL is no longer delegated. The new holder can change the delegate to whoever they want.

If the delegate cannot be changed, this design could risk persistent concentration of voting power among a few delegates who received outsized support during the airdrop. However, even if delegation can be changed, I’m unsure whether most stObol holders would actively change their delegate, which would still lead to persistent concentration of voting power.

The delegate can be changed.

Good point about concentration. If voting power starts to concentrate over time, Obol governance can fix it by changing the staking incentive. Obol can change staking to add eligibility rules. e.g. only stakers delegating to an active delegate would be eligible for rewards. They could also add a bonus for smaller delegates to incentivize participation.

Does delegation involve a locking period? If so, how long is the lock? If staking Obol requires a long lock-up period to make it liquid, stObol may lose its peg to Obol—similar to what has been observed with LSTs for veTokens that require extended lock-ups.

No locking needed, for the reason you described: veLSTs are vulnerable to de-peg events.

[atomicwhale]

Apologies for the late discussion.

I would like to understand the staked Obol (stObol) better:

• Is the staked token stObol fully liquid on day one? Has a time lock period for stObol been considered, e.g. only stObol locked for a certain period of time is eligible for voting? A fully liquid stObol is prone to market manipulation/gaming.

In general, I am supportive for this proposal.
I think the initial 6-months trial will allow us to reassess and adjust according to market conditions and governance participation.

[stefa2k]

@atomicwhale

Is the staked token stObol fully liquid on day one?

Yes, @coolhorsegirl explains this in the proposal itself:

@coolhorsegirl

This proposal enables a liquid and yield-bearing token, stOBOL. When a Token Holder delegates and stakes their OBOL, they receive stOBOL, which auto-compounds staking rewards. stOBOL can be used across DeFi protocols, allowing Token Holders to retain opportunities in DeFi and restaking while staying engaged in governance and enjoying the OBOL staking yield.

This added utility will act as a supply sink for the OBOL Token at unlock, reducing the sell pressure.

@atomicwhale

Has a time lock period for stObol been considered, e.g. only stObol locked for a certain period of time is eligible for voting? A fully liquid stObol is prone to market manipulation/gaming.

@Toma-ObolAssoc 's answer:

@Toma-ObolAssoc

I don’t think this is an issue linked to this proposal. This concern is true for all onchain voting mechanisms leveraging delegations. I haven’t seen this play out in larger DAOs like Arbitrum much so I wouldn’t be too concerned for the Obol Collective at first but we will monitor the situation and adjust if relevant.

[Max5593]

I have carefully studied all the information including the discussions. The mechanism of work is clear to me.
I believe that this proposal is ready to be submitted to a vote on the network.

[coolhorsegirl]

OIP#1: Building and Enabling Staking for the OBOL Token is onchain!

Voting starts in 12 hours.

Tally | Obol Collective | OIP#1: Building and Enabling Staking for the OBOL...

[coolhorsegirl]

Staking Update

We wanted to share an update on the progress of staking for the OBOL token. Here’s where things stand:

• The initial audit by Offbeat Security has been completed. We will share the full report once we’ve addressed all necessary fixes.
• The public security contest has wrapped up, and judges are currently evaluating the findings. Once this process is complete, we’ll implement any required fixes. You can check out the contest details here: Cantina Competition.
• The public repositories for staking contracts can be found here:
  • Staker
  • stGOV
• Staking is set to launch alongside the OBOL token unlock, expected next month (April 2025).

We’ll continue to keep the Obol Collective updated as we finalize security improvements and move toward launch. Thanks for your support, and feel free to message me @coolhorsegirl on Telegram with any questions.

[Dellia]

Planning to stake some of my $OBOL allocation on Bitget launchpool to increase my earnings. Earning passively has become so much easier especially for holders and as a strong supporter of OBOL ecosystem, i might as well increase my holdings.

[coolhorsegirl]

Excited to announce that stOBOL has launched! You can now stake your Obol on Tally at this link: Tally | Obol Collective Stake.

From the announcement post,

stOBOL is a liquid staking governance token built specifically for the Obol Collective. When you stake OBOL through the Tally platform (stake.obol.org), you receive stOBOL — a yield-bearing token that represents your staked position while preserving your full governance power.

View the stOBOL token contract here.

[cp287]

Another issue I noticed during the OIP-4 vote: only OBOL balances were counted, while stOBOL balances were ignored.

How can that be, when OIP-1 explicitly says:

@coolhorsegirl

stOBOL — a yield-bearing token that represents your staked position while preserving your full governance power.

To me, that statement is misleading. In OIP-4 our delegates’ stOBOL clearly carried zero governance weight, so “full governance power” was not preserved at all.

[zwanzger.eth]

@cp287 how did you get to that Impression?
When I voted the other day, my vote count was about 174k. Which corresponds my number on Dune Dashboard https://www.dune.com/vistawtf/obol-governance
Admittedly I am not totally certain that the Dashboard counts stOBOL, but I do think so.

[enti]

@zwanzger.eth

Admittedly I am not totally certain that the Dashboard counts stOBOL, but I do think so.

We’re tracking the delegation events themselves. It does not matter if the delegation was madre through an intermediary contract like stOBOL, the full amount of delegated power will always be shown.

[raf]

@cp287

In OIP-4 our delegates’ stOBOL clearly carried zero governance weight, so “full governance power” was not preserved at all.

Hi, we’re working on ways to make the Tally UI more clear about how your governance power passes through to your delegate. Do you have time for a short call to look at our new interface? You can DM me on these forums or on telegram (@rafso) to set up a call.

More generally, if you delegate your stOBOL, the voting power of the underlying OBOL goes to your delegate.

[cp287]

@raf

Do you have time for a short call to look at our new interface?

Thanks for the invitation, but I’m not in a position to consider participating in a user interview without compensation. When compensation is offered, I do take pricing into account. This is generally considered standard practice.

[cp287]

@zwanzger.eth

how did you get to that Impression?

That’s a great question.

I knew that we had received about 30k within the RAF1 and were staking them from an address ending in 9385, as we have long term plans to participate in the Obol ecosystem. I then went to the page: cp0x's Delegate Profile, selected “Received Delegations” (by the way does it do onchain tracking all the time? I often have the page take half a minute to load when requesting my delegates), and saw the following picture when sorting by votes:

the top address had ~84k obol when the vote started
the #2 address had 3603 obol when the vote started

Next, I checked the voting power that was counted in the vote (92.02k), counted the sum of all delegates that are displayed in the interface, got the same 92.02k, checked that the 30k Obol received was received and staked before the start of this vote, and concluded that our stOBOLs were not counted.

Today I dived a little deeper into the problem myself.

I couldn’t even assume that the top address was a staking contract. It doesn’t show up in the interface in any way. And of course, since the staking contract is just a proxy vote transfer contract, it’s not the contract that should be listed in the delegators, but the addresses that staked to it.

I.e. I now realize that:
a) stOBOLs are indeed counted in the vote;
b) the Tally interface is misleading and specifies the staking contract as delegator. The delegating address is the address that staked the stOBOL to the staking contract, not the staking contract itself, and this should be explicitly stated in the interface so that the delegate has the ability to understand who is delegating to it without having to go directly to the contract and look that up.

TL;DR.

1. The strength of the staking obol votes counts for voting;
2. Tally is misleading about your delegators by showing the staking contract as a delegator instead of the actual addresses that delegated to you.

[raf]

Thanks for digging in and for posting this report. That’s valuable feedback for us.

You’re right, the “Received Delegations” tab only shows delegations one level deep, which is the staking surrogate contract. It would be more useful if it showed the ultimate source of the voting power, the tokenholder who staked their OBOL. I’ll put that on our roadmap as we continue to improve the staking interface.

[Toma-ObolAssoc]

Hi @cp287 we have updated the docs page to be more clear that stOBOL IS being counted in the voting power and working with Tally as per @raf 's message to improve the UI.

Staking & stOBOL | Obol Docs

[cp287]

Hi @Toma-ObolAssoc !

Thanks, now it is more clear!