CIP-83: Renewing Team Grant Allocation with Performance-Linked Milestones

Simple Summary

This proposal asks COW DAO to:

• Replenish the CoW Team Grant Allocation with a base of 5% of the total COW supply (50,000,000 COW) via a four-year linear streaming allocation from the DAO treasury.
• Establish a Performance-Based Incentive Tier of up to an additional 10% of total COW supply (100,000,000 COW), unlocked in four equal tranches (2.5% each) upon reaching specific protocol revenue milestones using either USD or ETH-denominated revenue targets
• Implement a Valuation Cap on performance rewards, ensuring each milestone reward is capped at a maximum value of $25,000,000 USD to protect the DAO in high-growth "bull market" scenarios.

If all milestones are reached, the incentive capacity equals 15% total (150,000,000 COW); if growth stalls, the program remains limited to 5% (50,000,000 COW).

Motivation

CoW DAO’s initial team allocation (15% at TGE) has been highly effective, growing the team from 22 to 46 members. However, as initial 4-year grants vest by February 2026, the available pool is nearly exhausted (~2.5% remaining).

While the previous CIP-76 was rejected due to concerns over dilution and a lack of market-linked incentives, this revised proposal creates a direct link between contributor rewards and protocol success. By shifting a significant portion of the requested allocation to KPI-based triggers, we align the team’s upside with the DAO’s revenue growth, while the dollar-value cap addresses concerns regarding excessive payouts during market rallies.

Dual USD/ETH targets protect contributors in a bear market (ETH target can still be hit). But in a bull market, a fixed-token tranche could become excessively valuable. Therefore each KPI tranche is capped to a maximum USD value at unlock time.

Specification

1. Core Contributor Incentive Structure

The total incentive capacity is set at up to 15% of the total COW supply, divided into two distinct categories:

1.1 Base Allocation (5% / 50M COW)

• Amount: 50,000,000 COW.
• Mechanics: Linear streaming over four (4) years via an AllocationModule attached to the COW DAO Safe.
• Governance: Tokens remain under DAO control until streamed; unvested amounts can be cancelled by governance at any time.

1.2 Performance-Based Allocation (10% / 100M COW)

Additional allocations will be triggered based on CoW Protocol’s Annualized Revenue, calculated as Revenue RunRate, meaning the monthly reported revenue in CoW’s Dune dashboard times 12.

To protect the team against bear market volatility and the DAO against bull market dilution, milestones are met by reaching either a USD or ETH revenue target. Each reward is capped at a maximum USD value.

Milestone	Revenue Target (USD)	Revenue Target (ETH)	Reward Amount	Reward Value Cap
Milestone 1	$38M	12k ETH	Lesser of (25M COW) or ($25M USD value)	$25M
Milestone 2	$56M	18k ETH	Lesser of (25M COW) or ($25M USD value)	$25M
Milestone 3	$85M	27k ETH	Lesser of (25M COW) or ($25M USD value)	$25M
Milestone 4	$126M	40k ETH	Lesser of (25M COW) or ($25M USD value)	$25M

• Reward Calculation: At the time a milestone is reached, the reward will be the specific COW amount (25M) unless that amount's market value exceeds $25M USD. In that case, the amount of COW issued will be reduced to equal exactly $25M USD in value, based on the end of month CoW price as reported by Coingecko or similar public price feed.
• Catch-up: If at any evaluation date CoW meets a higher milestone, all unclaimed lower milestone tranches may be unlocked in the same cycle, each still subject to its own USD cap.
• Mechanic: All KPI tranches are funded by transfers from the CoW DAO Managed Treasury into the Team Grant Allocation Safe (same destination as the base stream). In the event CoW DAO Managed Treasury does not have sufficient funds to cover a Milestone, CoW DAO Managed Treasury will request transfer from the CoW DAO Safe.
• Treasury Clawback: In the event that any of the four milestones are not reached within the 4-year duration from execution of this CIP, the tokens allocated for those specific milestones shall remain in the treasury and the authorisation for those specific rewards will expire.

When the Core Treasury Team believes a milestone is achieved, it must publish a “Milestone Report” containing at minimum:

• the annualised computation, and the resulting USD AR and ETH AR,
• methodology and data sources,
• the intended Safe transaction(s).

Rationale

Balance certainty + accountability

A base stream ensures retention/hiring continuity (minimising governance overhead). KPI tranches ensure token issuance scales with success.

** Dual targets (USD or ETH) = cycle resilience**

This avoids penalizing real market-share growth in bear markets where USD revenue may lag while ETH-denominated throughput remains strong.

USD cap = tokenholder protection in bull markets

This prevents the “windfall” scenario where a fixed 25M COW tranche becomes disproportionately valuable due to price appreciation.

Execution

Safe Transaction Data (intended structure)

To: 0xcA771eda0c70aA7d053aB1B25004559B918FE662

Value: 0

Data: 0x610b5925000000000000000000000000d2d2946402c60d1c97195fa22ead21812e1ff25d

{

"version": "1.0",

"chainId": "1",

"createdAt": 1767890320560,

"meta": {

"name": "Start Vesting Transactions Batch",

"description": "A transaction that batches together multiple calls to the allocation modules for starting vesting positions"

},

"transactions": [

{

"to": "0xcA771eda0c70aA7d053aB1B25004559B918FE662",

"data": "0x610b5925000000000000000000000000d2d2946402c60d1c97195fa22ead21812e1ff25d",

"value": "0"

},

{

"to": "0xd2D2946402c60d1C97195fa22eaD21812e1ff25D",

"data": "0x02a861a6000000000000000000000000486c2b52ffbed401b16ce39b7ab9e2ebf56d650f0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000