[GIP-001] Conclude Season 3 and reassign the remaining SEED

Summary

Season 3 has failed to reach the same heights as previous seasons, and is set to run through the year, significantly longer than prior seasons. This is a proposal to conclude Season 3 on August 13 at 12:00 pm UTC and reallocate the remaining SEED tokens to more growth-oriented community initiatives. This proposal passed a TEMP CHECK in the Garden townhall. This is a Garden Improvement Proposal to vote on the same.

Objective

Redirect Season 3 SEED rewards into high-value opportunities to promote growth and maintain stability.

Motivation

The Seasons program is intended to experiment with different user incentive strategies. While Season 1 and Season 2 brought tons of attention to Garden and resulted in upticks in protocol metrics, it had a few critical flaws:

1. Users being diluted and value of points decreasing throughout the duration of the program.
2. Supply shock from SEED reward distribution after both the seasons.
3. Attracting short-term airdrop farmers not aligned with Garden’s long-term growth.

Season 3 addressed these issues by eliminating points and offering SEED cashback (100-150% of fees), with the goal of making Garden effectively free to use. It has also been more sustainable than previous seasons as each SEED rewarded to users created proportional volume in the system. The partner quests in Season 3 have also been pivotal in getting our foot in the door with a lot of projects, spreading awareness about Garden, and building trust for future integrations. Despite generating $66M in volume over 2 months—lower than previous seasons but driven largely by legitimate users—only 665k of the 5M SEED reward pool has been utilized. At this rate, Season 3 risks extending until the end of the year. This means that Season 3 rewards could take months to unlock and the program could potentially hinder project growth.

Specification

1. End Season 3 on August 13 at 12:00 pm UTC.
2. Continue partner quests with a 25k SEED budget reallocated from the Season 3 reward pool.

Vote

Gardeners who have staked SEED on Garden can vote on this proposal. Each 2100 stake grants you a vote, multiplied by the staking multiplier (based on your lock-in period).

Useful Links

• announcing seasons: reap what you sow
• garden: introducing $SEED
• $SEED staking is live: let’s get growing!
• seasons: what’s next?
• get ready for season 3: cherry blossom