We believe in doing everything we can to support the communities we invest in. This post is an introduction to our Rocket Pool token delegation program, the start of our investors providing our voting rights to future leaders to make the Rocket Pool protocol the best it can be.

Thanks to a16z for leading the way with an open-source token delegation program. We decided we should copy and improve upon their model as best we can. Our goal is to improve Rocket Pool’s community through social integrations with trusted institutions and talent.

Regenerative Web3 Ecosystems

Here is how our expertise and web3 stack can be used to empower future leaders in universities today. We’ve started with three universities that our team is affiliated with today.

Why Does this Matter?

We agree that crypto is about permissionless innovation or said in other terms, crypto is about removing middlemen.

Crypto is about removing gatekeepers.* It’s this property that differentiates it from traditional web services, and allows it to remain open, neutral, and fair… *

The end result is an open protocol* sitting outside the control of any one person or company, continuing to run as designed and remaining open to anyone who wants to use it.*  @Jeff Amico

We want to help Rocket Pool get to its end result of becoming a public good resource that enables anyone to stake ETH with their own private keys securely in a decentralization and trustless manner.

To get there, we’re channeling the hunger for knowledge of blockchains in students today along with the support from visionary professors to enrich the Rocket Pool community with more expertise and knowledge than we can provide on our own.

Beyond supporting Rocket Pool with new ideas and talent, we want to also help guide open-minded individuals who are willing to put in work to receive experience and opportunities available nowhere else.

When I was in university, some ~10 years ago, I had only been exposed to crypto via the Silk Road and Bitcoin pizza memes with the same vibes as this Salem Ilese NFT; (side note and humble brag, I own one of her Crypto Boy NFTs that originally supported women’s rights and now secondary sales support the artist #iykyk).

Rocket Pool Token Delegation

Now to the good stuff. Here is how we are rolling out our token Delegation program with continuous iterations.

Today, we have the skeleton for the thriving ecosystem of token delegates that we foresee ahead. What this means is that we currently have three token delegates, one for each university that is voting on each Rocket Pool proposal via our own Snapshot voting page.

Monthly our teams meet to review our research on the latest upcoming proposal for Rocket Pool and then we vote on-chain with the results of the token delegates' decisions.

• Here is the University of Cincinnati’s lead token delegate @regexbuster's analysis of Rocket Pool’s current open proposals.

• Here are StakeRocketPool’s monthly meeting notes for our Rocket Pool token delegation program.

We take these on-chain vote results and then we vote on-chain on Rocket Pool’s own voting page.

Eventually, we will move towards the 100% full token delegation, but to start we are taking baby steps. Any and all feedback is appreciated on how we can improve so please do share with us if you have any thoughts.

What’s Next

We plan to keep improving upon our token delegation program and onboard more delegates over the next quarter.

Our token delegation program also aims to improve governance decision-making in the Web3 and DeFi ecosystems, contributing to the development of a more decentralized and inclusive financial system.

We aim to strategically empower as many open-to-work students as possible so that we can scale hands-on learning and professional development experience for undergraduate and graduate students interested in Web3 and blockchain technology.

Please reach out via our Twitter or via our website’s contact form to apply to participate yourself or recommend your university to get involved with shaping the future of Ethereum, aka ultrasound money, along with us.

Thank you.