SSV Verified Operators Committee

Summary of Proposal

Until now, it has been a manual process to opt into the list of ‘Verified Operators’, where an individual, entity or group has submitted a proposal and it has been up to the DAO to decide whether they are worthy of joining such list based on provided context.

The current methodology is difficult to scale, it is a linear process and at times can leave operators in the dark as there’s no clear line of communication to get on such a list. We plan to change this by delegating a working group to these activities.

Responsibilities

Recapping on the call-for-applications document, the responsibilities of the VOC will be to:

• Design a framework that makes it a straightforward process to become a verified operator, including clear and meaningful benchmarks to help evaluate applicant suitability.
• Ensure that the quality of operators continues to be of a high standard throughout their operations (e.g. reliability, performance).
• Standardize a process so that operators that do not consistently meet a specific list of criteria can be identified, warned, and if necessary removed from the Verified Operators list.
• Assess incoming verification requests on an ongoing basis, evaluating against the established framework, and providing approval or feedback.
• Report periodically to the broader community on work progress and deliverables.

The VOC will largely operate in an asynchronous manner, and aim to get standing calls in on a monthly basis. The first important milestone for the VOC is for a first draft of the framework to be shared with the DAO by October 2022.

The VOC will be presenting their findings and overall progress in a bi-monthly progress report on the SSV forum, in async format. This should be complemented by on-sync/video presentations and/or community AMAs around important milestones.

VOC composition

• Taiga [SSV Ambassador, @Taiga]
• Elias Simos [Rated co-founder, @eliasimos]
• Izzy [via Erebus Digital, Lido contributor as Master of Validators, @IsdrsP]
• GBeast [DAppNode enthusiast and community manager, @GBeastETH]
• BloxStaking

The budget

In order to get the proceedings in motion, we are asking the DAO to authorize a budget for the VOC. We are aiming for each member to be compensated at the equivalent of $1.5k pcm in SSV tokens or USDC. The expectation is that each member of the committee will be committing ~8 hours per calendar month.

We are requesting for the DAO to enable a budget of 56k USD in [SSV and/or USDC]. Payouts to VOC members will take place on a monthly basis (every 25th of the month) from the DAO to the VOC member designated addresses. For VOC members that choose to be paid out in SSV tokens, the exchange rate will be calculated as the 90day moving average of the SSV/USD rate, as referenced by Binance.

Bloxstaking will be excluded from the compensation set.

We propose that the DAO clears the budget for 6 months, with a checkpoint to be introduced at month 5 so that the committee can present its work and the DAO can clear further funding or propose adjustments moving forward.