Authorize $5M DAO Treasury Allocation to Lido Earn ETH and USD Vaults

TL;DR

This proposal requests a "skin-in-the-game" one-time $5M DAO Treasury allocation (requested in stETH equivalent) into the planned new Lido Earn vaults: Lido Earn ETH Vault and Lido Earn USD Vault. The purpose of this allocation is to:

• Establish visible commitment by having LDO token holders allocate a fixed portion of Treasury funds into the planned Lido Earn vaults alongside users under the same conditions, sharing the same upside and downside with transparent alignment.
• Support Lido Earn growth by reducing trust friction for new depositors and reinforcing transparency by making alignment and incident response posture verifiable on-chain, thereby increasing trust in Lido Earn vaults and enabling it to scale sustainably over time.

The proposal also introduces operational controls, including a first-loss mechanism that allows DAO-held vault shares to be burned (up to 100%) in severe, confirmed incident scenarios. This mechanism is intended to absorb losses in defined incident cases, thereby reducing the impact on other vault users.

The authorization is strictly limited to vault allocations and necessary execution costs. No funds may be used for incentives, marketing, grants, or operational expenses. This allocation is separate from the 2026 Ecosystem Grant gRequest (EGG) budget, and is not covered under its scope.

For full proposal details and Security Audit Reports, please refer to the Research Forum. Detailed information about the upcoming vaults will be published on Lido Docs closer to the official launch date.

Proposal Overview

Authorize a one-time $5M DAO Treasury allocation (requested in stETH equivalent) for deployment into two planned new Lido Earn vaults: Lido Earn ETH Vault and Lido Earn USD Vault, transferred by Growth Committee to a Liquidity Observation Lab-controlled multisig via Easy Track motion under the mandate described in this proposal. Under the proposed structure:

• Current Meta Corp (wholly owned subsidiary of Lido Alliance BORG), mandate owner - responsible for:
  • proposing allocation parameters and overseeing implementation within DAO-approved mandate conditions,
  • determining actions once predefined triggers occur (see "Mandate-enforced controls") and instructing the Growth Committee to execute them,
  • publishing reports.
• Growth Committee ("GC"), executor - responsible for:
  • acting based on decisions made by Current Meta Corp, within DAO authorization and the scope of the approved mandate,
  • executing deposits, withdrawals, conversions, and Mandate-enforced controls.
• A total of $5M (requested in stETH equivalent) is authorized for allocation, measured at prevailing market rates at the time of execution of the Treasury withdrawal by GC.
• The requested $5M will be allocated exclusively to two upcoming vaults, Lido Earn ETH Vault and Lido Earn USD Vault, in the amounts of $3M (allocated in wstETH) and $2M (allocated in USDC), respectively. Reallocation to any other vaults would require explicit DAO approval.

Allocation mechanics

• Treasury assets under this mandate are withdrawn via Easy Track to a Liquidity Observation Lab-controlled multisig, which acts as an intermediary before the assets are allocated into the respective vaults.
• The allocation may be deployed in tranches for risk and operational reasons.

Rewards

• Allocated funds earn the same returns as any depositor in the respective vault, net of vault-level fees and execution costs (e.g., swap fees and gas) incurred in allocating or withdrawing funds. Returns are variable, not guaranteed, and loss scenarios are possible.
• Accrued rewards are held in the Liquidity Observation Lab-controlled multisig as vault share token price increments until remitted to the DAO Treasury.
• To avoid quarterly operational burden and increase the capital efficiency for the DAO, it's proposed to retain all rewards for compounding and remit them to the Treasury only if needed within the annual budgeting process.

Hard use restriction

Treasury allocation assets may be used only for:

• deposits/withdrawals into the above-mentioned Earn vaults
• conversions/swaps required solely to execute those allocations
• necessary execution costs (e.g., swap fees and gas)

Treasury allocation assets must not be distributed to any third parties, and must not be used for incentives, marketing, grants, sponsorships, or operational expenses.

Mandate-enforced controls

• 1% loss pause: If a ≥1% mark-to-market loss (per vault) is suspected, further DAO Treasury allocations to the affected vault are paused. The suspected loss undergoes verification, and an incident update is published on the forum within 7 days (or marked as pending if confirmation is contested; sensitive details may be withheld). The pause remains in effect until a false-positive confirmation or a DAO override.
• First-loss mechanism: If a ≥1% loss is confirmed, Current Meta Corp may, at its sole discretion, instruct GC to burn DAO-held shares in the affected vault (up to 100%) to socialize losses through the DAO position and increase the share price for remaining depositors. Once instructed, GC will execute burn action manually or via the designated contractual functions as they become available for a given vault. The burn is documented in the incident update (execution may precede publication if time-sensitive).
• Escape hatch: In the case of confirmed material risk, DAO exposure may be withdrawn using standard vault mechanics (no preferential redemption).

DAO governance override

• This authorization may be amended or revoked by a DAO governance vote at any time. If revoked, no new allocations may be made, and the DAO vote may instruct that any existing allocations must be withdrawn from the vaults through the standard withdrawal process (without preferential redemption), subject to available liquidity, and returned to the DAO Treasury.
• The DAO may explicitly override any mandate-enforced control action via governance vote.

Reporting

On a quarterly basis, Current Meta Corp publishes (with GC-provided context):

• allocation by vault (current positions)
• % deployed vs undeployed (end-of-period)
• rewards in the vault share token price vs total losses (if any) by vault
• net rewards remitted to the DAO Treasury (if any)
• any mandate actions taken, with links to incident updates

Next steps

A vote "For" indicates agreement with this proposal. If "For" wins, the following steps will be taken:

• Funds will be earmarked for allocation.
• Allocations will be executed in accordance with mandate restrictions and deposit-readiness requirements.
• Continuous controls monitoring and a quarterly reporting cadence will be established.

A vote "Against" indicates disagreement with this proposal. As the range of potential concerns or remediation options may vary, a vote "Against" entails further discussion to determine what specific actions, if any, should be considered and potentially brought to a subsequent vote.