[ARFC-Addendum] Update Merit for Round 18

Author: ACI (Aave Chan Initiative)

Date: 2025-06-27

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Simple Summary

This addendum proposes updates to the Boosters and reward structure for Merit Round 18. These changes are designed to reflect current market dynamics and improve the effectiveness of the Merit program.

Motivation

With Merit Round 17 concluding on June 30, this update ensures Merit Round 18 is aligned with current ecosystem conditions and incentives. The removal of outdated Boosters and the introduction of more relevant participants (e.g., DeFi Saver and Den users) aim to streamline alignment. Switching reward distribution from GHO to sGHO, along with moving to a weekly cadence, improves capital efficiency and encourages continued participation. The reasoning is because monthly generation was no longer relevant as there is no longer any cooldown on sGHO.

Specification

Boosters Update

The following changes will be applied:

• Remove the Diluters
• Remove the Migrator Booster
• Remove SAFE users from “Second degree aligned” Booster
• Keep DeFi Saver and add Den users to the “Second Degree Aligned” Booster

Reward Update

• Rewards will be now distributed in sGHO instead of GHO ⇒ easily auto-compound interest and direct distribution because there is no cooldown.
• Rewards will be now distributed weekly instead of monthly ⇒ the budget will be now 250k per week. The total annual budget will be at 13M per year (1M more than previous budget, due to calculations to adjust to 52 weeks in a year rather than 48).

Next Steps

1. Escalate this [ARFC-Addendum] proposal to a Snapshot vote for formal approval.
2. If [ARFC Addendum] is approved in the Snapshot phase, the proposal will be canon and changes will be applied to Merit Round 18.

Disclaimer

The Aave Chan Initiative independently proposes “Merit” without external compensation.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).