HoS Funding Proposals in Dec 2025/Q1 2026

House of Stake Governance
1

Why We’re Hitting the Gas on NDC Funds, and pause on temporary NF grants.

Hey HoS Community,

As the Head of Governance, I am genuinely energized by the enthusiasm around the House of Stake (HoS)! We see great proposals starting to form, and we’re all eager for HoS to start making a real financial impact.

Here’s the rundown of where we are and a critical strategic move we’re making:

Building Our Foundation

We’re currently working hard to finalize the HoS Constitutional Documents. This is the core body of policies that ensures our governance is stable and legitimate for the long haul. At the same time, we’re seeing the first requests for funding proposals arrive, a great sign that the community is ready to build!

The Current Financial Picture

Let’s be real: HoS doesn’t have its full, independent treasury set up just yet.

However, the NEAR Foundation (NF) has already stepped up with temporary grants to fund validator and veNEAR locking rewards (HSP-002/-003). This is 100% in line with our goal: boosting veNEAR lock-up to increase the legitimacy and power of the HoS system.

Full Focus on NDC Funds Transfer

After some discussion with NF, we’ve mutually agreed to focus all our energy on the NDC funds transfer instead of going after more small grants for HoS proposals.

We are temporarily pausing new HoS funding proposals until the NDC funds transfer is complete and our full treasury is online.

This decision is based on several key factors:

  • Avoid Administrative Delay: Securing an individual grant from NF for each new HoS proposal would require navigating a lengthy legal and compliance process. This timeline is uncertain, and there is a risk that a decision on an NF grant could conflict with the eventual HoS community vote outcome, resulting in duplicated effort.
  • Efficiency and Speed: We have concluded that directing all our focus toward the NDC funds transfer is the most efficient path forward.
  • Accountability and Independence: The successful transfer of NDC funds is the key to granting HoS full fiscal flexibility and self-accountability. This action is foundational to establishing HoS as a truly autonomous and legitimate governance body.

What this Means in Practical Terms:

  • For proposals already submitted (with a funding ask): These proposals are on hold, we will continue the process (e.g. Screening Committee review) once the NDC funds are available, following the proposal process definition.
  • For any future proposals (with a funding ask) submitted: These proposals will not be approved for voting until the NDC funds are transferred. The process will continue once the funds are available, following the proposal process definition.
  • If an existing proposal removes its funding ask: We will consider this an altered proposal. The process will restart with the forum feedback period, so please post the altered proposal on the forum.

This whole strategic focus is all about getting the resources we need to run the NEAR ecosystem ourselves, full legitimacy, full impact, ASAP.

We really hope this clears things up for everyone, especially the proposal authors and delegates.

Keep an eye out for the voting info on the NDC funds transfer - scheduled for Q1/2026 - that’s the big step to getting our own treasury set up!

5 Likes
2

Thank you very much for the updates. Personally, I would avoid using the funds to finance any projects other than those that directly support the decentralization of NEAR and the development of the House of Stake itself. For example, transitioning NEAR DevHub into the House of Stake, or creating an independent HoS SMM team.

In the meantime, may I ask: there are about 11 proposals pending in the Proposals thread, and most of them do not require any funding at all. When will they be put up for a vote?

My second question: is there any plan to reduce the NF’s share in HoS governance (which currently stands at 75%)? Many endorsed delegates are not fulfilling their duties. Lane previously had a plan for gradual decentralization, but it seems nothing is progressing there. Are there any updates?
And thank you again for focusing immediately on the most important task approving the foundational documents. This is extremely important.

3

Regarding the idea of an independent SMM team: as far as I remember, your main concern was that SMM should not be part of the Community squad responsibilities. However, recently the Community squad has fully shifted its focus to working with NEAR Legion, where they’re doing excellent work that takes up almost all of their time.

At the moment, SMM for House of Stake is handled by the Core Team, mainly Maxwell, with support from HackHumanity, including myself. We’re doing our best to approach this professionally, and personally, I don’t think allocating additional funds to create a separate SMM team would be a justified expense. Wouldn’t you agree?

That said, if you have counterarguments or alternative suggestions, we’d be glad to hear them.

2 Likes
4

This is great news — the degens from the Community Squad have finally started doing what they’re actually good at.

Regarding the SMM team, the idea is that it should be:

  1. Accountable — with monthly public reports on the forum;

  2. Professional — for example, you personally have excellent experience;

  3. Diverse in composition — the golden formula is: 1 person from NF, 1 person from an NF-funded project, and 2–3 independent community members.

1 Like
5

4. Censorship resistance and transparency — I’m concerned that we currently have 13 ?proposals pending, yet the SMM team only covers the ones that are favorable to NF.

6

That’s up to the proposal authors, and the screening committee.

I don’t see any open pull requests in the proposals repository. That’s the next step for a proposal author who wants their proposal to go up for vote. Once the proposals are merged, the author may submit it for a vote, pending screening committee approval.

The process is outlined in HSP-001 and in this work in progress doc.

7

Well, you actually said three weeks ago that you were preparing a simple instruction on how to do it. But something went wrong.

8

Nothing went wrong. The “simple instruction” is exactly the “work in progress doc” that I linked above. Other team members have been reviewing it and it should be on the main site soon!

1 Like
9

there are about 11 proposals pending in the Proposals thread, and most of them do not require any funding at all. When will they be put up for a vote?

Thanks for the question @Dacha. Cross-posting our thread from Telegram here:

It’s important to address a common misconception: “Non-financial” proposals are not inherently faster, easier, or better.

Every proposal has two types of cost:

:one: Funding cost — the financial ask
:two: Attention cost — the capacity needed to support, implement, and sustain the outcome
(e.g., legal input, engineering support, coordination, and community involvement, which is limited!)

So our fundamental evaluation is always:
Does this proposal meaningfully advance our North Star, and can we realistically support its success right now?

That includes:

  • Is the timing right for implementation?
  • Can we absorb and operationalize the value created?
  • What is the tradeoff in funding and attention?

Regarding the proposals currently pending:

Some are out of scope for the moment, e.g., transferring the Head of Governance role to HoS.
I’m hired by NF for 12 months to enable that transition. The transfer will become very relevant again in 2026.

Others are valuable governance improvements, e.g.,
• HSP: Due Diligence Team under the Security Council
• HSP: Transition to an elected Screening Committee
These are important, but they shouldn’t be voted on in isolation.
They must fit into an integrated governance roadmap with clear priorities and budgeting.

Why?

Prioritization is strategy

Right now, both funds and capacity are limited.
(And yes, if you ask why we don’t already have this roadmap: HoS is lacking budget to make an informed decision on a roadmap yet.)

We can’t spread ourselves thin across initiatives without delivering tangible results.
We need focused momentum, and coordinated sequencing.

Practical path forward

:one: Ratify the constitutional documents
:two: Review a comprehensive HoS DAO Ops roadmap, with priorities and budget, coming Q1 2026
:three: Vote on the priorities and move forward with community alignment
:four: Execute accordingly, including decentralizing the Screening Committee when the community confirms the timing and tradeoffs

Bottom line

We must choose what matters most and sequence it deliberately. That’s how HoS becomes effective, and how we build trust through execution.

3 Likes
HoS - Hack Humanity Highlights of the Week 20251210
10

Agree with you on this, @AK_HoG , we need to prioritize getting our foundation groundwork set up, to allow us to build for the upcoming year. I support your priorities list above in the practical path forward. For me, having some structure of what we are doing (getting us set up) seems the best approach as a strategy, rather than single scope initiatives.

2 Likes
11

Hi @AK_HoG , thank you so much for this update, and I 100% support your recommendation to focus first on obtaining the NDC funds. Without the control of the funds, we are not really a DAO. Not only for efficiency sake but autonomy.

Since I’m newer to the DAO and I know that there is quite the historical trail of forum posts about these funds over the last couple of years, can you provide some more details of the current stop gap issues that you’re trying to resolve and any targeted timeline for success? Also, I’ve heard so many different discussions of the value of these funds over the last couple of months, so I’m unsure of what is the correct total value of these funds that we’re trying to secure?

1 Like