RetroPGF for Service Providers

Funding Operations
1

Hello!
I’m writing this on behalf of Luminara.

This is a RetroPGF proposal for Service Providers to recognize value they deliver and efforts contributed to sustaining Namada’s core infrastructure stack. The Namada network has relied on operators since its earliest days to offer robust, peer-to-peer asset-privacy infrastructure.

The Proposal

Scope

This RPGF considers the following services:

  • Namadillo interface
  • Namada Indexer
  • MASP Indexer
  • RPC

:warning: Please note: this RetroPGF does not evaluate IBC relayers. Teams running relayers remain eligible here for their other services. We see IBC relayer support as critical to Namada’s success, and it will be addressed in a forthcoming PGF proposal.

Recipients & Allocations

The total retroPGF allocation is 13.6M $NAM, distributed according to the groups and criteria below:

Category A – Core Service Providers

These providers operate multiple critical services reliably, forming the backbone of Namada’s infrastructure. Their continued commitment is essential to the network’s success.

Eligibility:

  • Services registered in the Ecosystem repo.
  • At least 2 services running properly as of the September 11th snapshot (available and on the latest version).

Allocation: 500,000 $NAM per eligible team.
Recipients:

5ElementsNodes	tnam1qx4ztg0ca0tu2aw056ksuek5y58tmg454shk6svw
Citizen Web3	tnam1qx6k7xv66y58jw2jngtt98x0r9k3wtljxqd7qe2l
Coverlet	tnam1q829u6jedv7y4yek2gfrh77qaz9qe3veduzkdyk4
CroutonDigital	tnam1qx64zytr93rjj23ztf32y2rnrxwlm9j6svyznxez
deNodes		tnam1qx2xz8ggmzgfgkj5n33fzumq3lept6hf7yqxcrex
EmberStake	tnam1q8qt5qy99fvuhltq3pg20k223crauw6phulv0kfj
Grand Valley	tnam1qyplu8gruqmmvwp7x7kd92m6x4xpyce265fa05r6
itrocket	tnam1q99e0kqh32q6s3f3mr0ds772edyg7862jgj23fhh
L0vd		tnam1q87f9g34lagl5e6y482fwtad7870rk4vzsqaq7mf
max-02		tnam1qxxp8yu7ceh7hymkclutkqwhlgcydqzjryflmx32
MELLIFERA	tnam1q8d8ypu5j88qqvx89grct795uap82dtlqvjqjh3h
Nodes.Guru	tnam1q9rq7p4wzy6fea96xs5sr8qnsxsfdr2zugfsvw2n
P2P.org		tnam1q8jrrf8s22cwd22yxhwc38tlvahplh2wyqjzl9gx
Palamar		tnam1q8re97lpfp5kmj5nu3t5sxvlp8yydnfjkuzw76dp
papadritta	tnam1qy8470ge8g608l69t0qt0g6ulmxnsckr9s74ew4j
shield-crypto	tnam1qyvc8n7ufmpan4yy3nemm3td2c6uff4m6s72g3eg
Sproutstake	tnam1q9hafe0nf5k7pnkcmzp4tezgux6v7a6r25yqfe60
Stake&Relax 🦥	tnam1q8a2xwh072herrmlgf06gvrhna775sqjuufnxydn
StakeUp		tnam1q96m7kwchdgzjk7dpvxkq3dxwzjhyjcggyuua5xf
Validatus	tnam1q8vztqtl5aknthxa3jezezr7amkgz3zp5vz82qe5
Wavefive	tnam1qy0zrla88txv244suxaruqgr9g74vr8vyufd8rp7

Category B – Additional Service Providers

These providers are not part of Category A, but their involvement has supported Namada’s growth, and we want to recognize that with a dedicated allocation.
Eligibility:

  • At least 2 services registered in the Ecosystem repo.
  • At least 1 service running properly as of the September 11th snapshot (available and on the latest version).
  • For teams not qualifying under Category A.

Allocation: 100,000 $NAM per eligible team.
Recipients:

Architect Nodes	tnam1qy43rawgevk9jcun495r9sn8pyu7yhxzhgph6e4g
Hadesguard	tnam1q8yksf6xqm6u8e2axhy7wyx0elslnh7tdsrp2y9m
Loser Boy	tnam1q9wgwx9zwmcawup0w2tdllt6pwyad87szuc4f7wq
Mandragora	tnam1q8sjkutd5kqwcc555wr77p9fjn66nuuqfuzzc3yc
OriginStake	tnam1q8hck7594xqw9dz35m8wwtgtvdxf4xn0mg908r8x
ValidatorVN	tnam1q8236gr76rrsluvq27j8mkma8u04hz0khszatckw

Category C – Core Team

In particular we want to recognize TuDudes, who we have regarded as a core Namada team that has specialized in dedicated Namada infrastructure services. They have operated services for the full Namada stack for all three networks–Housefire, Namada, and the recently sunset Campfire testnet. The TuDudes team took full responsibility for Campfire, which enabled testing against a fully featured version of Namada, which was particularly important during the phases of mainnet (since these features were not yet enabled on Housefire and Namada). TuDudes services have also supported the bulk of Namada user activity.

  • Criteria include outstanding uptime, innovative tooling, or exceptional support to the community.
  • Allocation: 2,500,000 $NAM
  • Recipient:
TuDudes	tnam1qya90eeuaxn47ajfjp08f8zzgjtmhy0lmyxn26gu

Services overview

Please find the overview of services and RPGF recipients here.

What’s Next?

We are targeting Thursday, September 18 to submit an on-chain governance proposal. If voters approve, recipients will receive their entire allocation immediately after approval.

This RetroPGF is just the beginning of services support. Moving forward, we will introduce quarterly ContinuousPGF proposals that reward top operators based on performance.

Because PGF introduces new $NAM into the token supply (forum link), it should be directed toward what Namada needs most. With many teams providing infrastructure services, our aim is to focus quarterly reward pools on a smaller number of teams that most reliably deliver excellent public infrastructure, enabling other teams to instead focus their efforts on the next set of key contributions.

We are currently defining this process and will soon present:

  • Parameters for ContinuousPGF,
  • An initial selection among historical operators,
  • A monitoring framework for all services registered in the ecosystem repo.

Going forward, service quality will likely be reviewed quarterly. At the end of each round, new top operators will be selected accordingly.

This system ensures that every team has a fair chance to participate and be recognized, while also leaving the option to step back if they prefer not to compete.

Closing Note

We’re grateful to have so many dedicated contributors supporting Namada’s mission for so long. Your commitment makes this ecosystem stronger every day.

We also look forward to highlighting new opportunities for community members beyond infrastructure, ensuring everyone has a chance to contribute where their strengths shine.

2 Likes
Namada Validator cPGF 1-Year Subsidy - 0.67% inflation
2

We are against this proposal for two main reasons:

-Teams simply hosting the namadillo interface are given 500k NAM, while the only team that build a custom Namada UI with an innovative and simpler design that should get at least several times that funding is not even included in the proposal. In addition to this, this same team was one of the few supporting for so many months the housefire and campfire testnet, running infra and relayers on both testnets and mainnet, everyone in namada is aware of this including @brentstone especially since we discussed ways we could keep supporting namada and we did all we could until the full mainnet launch. We even run our own indexer for the custom UI for better reliability

-Tududes gets by far the largest funding of 2.5M NAM which is a conflict of interest since he is part of the luminara team or knowable which is basically similar and led by the same person, which itself is suggesting this funding proposal

2 Likes
3

Quick thoughts:

  • 2.5M for TuDudes fully deserved
  • A full proposal for 13.6M only for infra providers meeting these specific criteria seems like a lot to me, especially considering what’s currently in the PGF wallet. I don’t disagree that infra providers have contributed in valuable ways, however, 500k per team seems like a lot when it’s 21 teams being rewarded. (I think some distinction between the teams listed might be a good idea, as some have been outstanding in service and been the decided go-to where we have sent people, and others have not)
  • In addition to my comment above, it is also the reality that several teams and inviduals (myself included) have been running various services (some published in repo and some not) and have had to dismantle those in lack of support and in view of cost. I lack some recognition of these parties as well. Giving 500k to the 21 parties who meet the criteria set forth there, while I am not directly against it, could be seen as imbalanced.
  • This should not be taken as me being completely against the proposal, but the items listed above make me wonder if there should be some amendments made.
  • We are giving away almost half the treasury with this proposal to a narrow segment of the community based on blanket criteria. I think some of this needs to be reworked.
6 Likes
4

I am against this proposal for several reasons:

**Not all service providers, especially interface providers, have the same quality of service . You can check Discord and see how many of these providers were often down, outdated, or not functioning correctly, compared to the few who delivered outstanding QoS. Rewarding all providers with the same amount is simply not fair.

**The proposal does not take into consideration the total amount of 13M in relation to the entire treasury . This is too much to be distributed at once. It would be better to split this amount into smaller allocations over a period of time, giving future service providers a fair opportunity as well. So this time we can lower the reward from 13M to just 4M

**We should learn from past mistakes and avoid distributing such a large amount in one go.Doing so would create additional selling pressure, which the current NAM price cannot handle.

So any amount will be rewarded should be unclocked part by part each month .

I am also quite sure that some providers are no longer delivering their services and would be more than happy to sell immediately.

5 Likes
5

With all respect to everyone mentioned, every time I see another proposal that ends up distributing tokens among the same circle of people, it feels like Namada is sliding toward becoming just another “neighbour chain” - useful mainly for the neighbours themselves.
Instead of broadening the base and attracting more token holders through various platforms or activities (even social ones, which I’m not a fan of), we’re doubling down on centralization. That doesn’t really help the chain grow or decentralize in the long run.

Also, those 13.6M NAM, where will they go? This is an instant, sudden drop to everyone from the list. Will they stake them? Will they hold them? I do not know, but with all respect again, without trying to blame anyone.
It is an instant sell, as for me, to get some revenue for the job done, literally means an instant token price drop again

4 Likes
6

How were these amounts decided?

Did the drop in USD valuation result in us now giving away more via PGF? Or are these amounts in your opinion justified in comparison with previous PGF proposals?

I’m not against any of the people being selected. I just find these amounts alot if I compare it with how we’ve judged work in the past.

I really hope we’re not doing the former (basing it on current USD valuation), because then we’re going to spiral the token to the ground and I couldn’t possibly see a bright future ahead for a healthy growth of this token in our ecosystem.

On the other hand, as for sirouk, I’m all for him getting this much. Cause I do think all he has done deserves a LOT.

2 Likes
7

this proposal is nonsense
nay vote is what should be there if this onchain

2 Likes
8

I also believe this should be reworked.

3 Likes
9

I think this is a very good question, and looking forward to understanding exactly how those amounts were arrived at. I agree that if it is a matter of looking at current usd-valuation and wanting to reimburse costs, I don’t think that’s sustainable from a pov of looking at total treasury vs. the very narrow slice of the contributors / supporters benefited from this proposal in a rather non-discriminatory way (ie criteria that do not account for the vast differences in quality / use).

2 Likes
10

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your feedback. I really value the points raised here, and I’ll take some time to reflect on them.
I’ll share an update that considers these insights while staying aligned with the core goal: fair recognition of the community’s efforts and contributions.

Your input is valuable, and I’m open to any further constructive feedback or alternative framing you might suggest.

2 Likes
11

We are actually providing more services than most validators mentioned above, we provide:

-Custom Namada UI with our own indexer for better reliability (if forks of namadillo are given 500k NAM, a custom UI should be multiple times more NAM, forking a namadillo can’t even be compared to the months of engineering work to build a custom UI)

-MASP and other Indexers

-RPC

-Not included in this proposal, but also we have been one of the few teams providing IBC relayers for housefire testnet and mainnet, and also running the housefire testnet and campfire too

Before we only added to that Luminara repo testnet and mainnet relayer infra, before making any announcements like this in the forum, you should first announce on discord and ping all validators to add the remaining infra we provide to the Luminara repo so you can review, not review without any ping and then not including some of the validators that actually provide the most infra for Namada

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1 Like
12

Ok, but here is the thing, if this proposal is a broad initiative for recognizing the community’s efforts and contributions, it should be much broader than infra providers. I think this is a secondary issue for me with this proposal, given the portion of the treasury proposed.

1 Like
13

For context this is actually the round 2 of the Namada Builders funding, the round 1 was here ( Namada Builder Allocations Round 1 - 2.05m NAM - #29 ) and it was 2M NAM to rewards just some Namada explorers. Now this second round is rewarding the Namada UI, and infra like masp indexers, rpc, other indexers, etc., with rewards for relayers in a future round 3. My key criticism with this round 2 proposal apart from the amounts of NAM decided is not including several top infra providers including us and this has to be fixed obviously. You should announce on discord and tag all validators to review the luminara repo and check if all their infra and services are included there, and then review but not before. We had added all our testnet and mainnet relayers already to that repo but we hadn’t included other infra there and other validators were in the same situation, so you should tag and ask validators on discord to review and add all their infra to that repo and after that do the excel review and selection to be fair and accurate, not funding some key builders just because some of their services were not yet included in some repo would be the fastest way to lose some of the best builders left in Namada

In addition, another two suggestions:

-Consider also snapshots around the period april-june for example, many were providing services and infra around that time and had to shut down their services due to costs and no compensation after the token launch, also consider the time period for running the infra, for example some maybe run infra for many months and had to shut it down in july, and some opportunistic launched infra a few days ago and were considered for the snapshot the 11th september, is that fair?

-As pretoro said, scope should broaden a bit and also reward some important and key community members

2 Likes
14

Don’t forget me this time ….

3 Likes
15

To be honest, and with all my respect to @CryptoDruide, this proposal is insulting and surreal, and we are against.

We have been one of the main infra providers since the very early stages, both on testnets and mainnet, and we fall in the secondary category? Only for a short span of time that infra hasn’t been available due to the failed token launch (how can I afford keeping such an infra if price of the tokens sinks?)?

What about archival snapshots? IBC relaying for three networks for several months, mainnet and Housefire and Campfire testnets?

This is becoming surreal… There’s a big difference between TuDudes proposed allocation 2,5M NAM, and 100k NAM allocation to us. We have been critical for the success of Namada, we have been one of core teams that made faster the road to mainnet and alleviated Heliax workload to be able to focus on Anoma’s develepment and inminent launch…

2 Likes
16

I think the amount of remuneration is greatly exaggerated. I think the TuDudes team should definitely be well rewarded, but even here I’m not sure about the proposed amount. As for the rest, 500k NAM is a lot. Let me remind you that the grants for developing explorers and maintenance amounted to 300k - 250k.

4 Likes
17

Totally agree - we must then revisit the amount given in such a proposal in such a time. Not judging by today’s eyes, but judging in the exact moment that the mentioned proposal was proposed in the forum, but with today’s numbers. I couldn’t even afford Shielded Live nor Undexer development/maintenance expenses after phase 5 due to failed token launch, and now, we are exaggerately rewarding most basic infrastructure that everyone can replicate in a short span of time getting 500k NAM without taking into account retroactivity? Proposing exaggerated amounts and proposing low amounts to key infra providers and core teams like us that made faster the road to mainnet and alleviated Heliax workload to now focus on Anoma launch? This is insulting and surreal guys, to be honest.@CryptoDruide @Gavin

1 Like
18

As is, I will be voting no.

I would like to hear from all recipients what they think they deserve and why

Thank you

3 Likes
19

Hello everyone,

Thank you for all the feedback. We are retracting this proposal.
It’s clear that before moving forward, we need to share and discuss the broader PGF strategy.

However, the intention to distribute network ownership to active contributors remains.
We’ll soon present the bigger picture, and then return with a series of clearer, better-structured proposals.

Next week, we expect to propose (off-chain) an initial framework for the annual budget allocation, which we expect to periodically evolve with the project’s needs.
We will invite everyone to review it and contribute before the next governance steps, so there will be time for discussion and validation.

Thanks again for your input and engagement. Questioning proposals like these is truly valuable to ensure that, together, we move Namada forward in the right direction.

7 Likes