HSP-003: veNEAR Holder Rewards Program

House of Stake Proposals
22

To clarify the economics, HSP-003 does not result in any net new inflation. The funding for this is coming out of the HoS treasury, which is funded from two pre-existing sources: funds being transferred over from the old NDC trust, and new issuance that’s been flowing into treasury.near (0.5% of total issuance) since genesis.

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I appreciate the feedback on marketing as well here, that’s an interesting perspective. It feels a little orthogonal to the purpose of this proposal, however, and I’d encourage a fresh proposal that speaks specifically to a marketing budget.

3 Likes
23

Treasury spend will create inflation, as it is new NEAR entering the economy. I’m down for making the spend, but we should still be aware that every spend lowers the NEAR price, so there needs to be strong upside somewhere too. Which there is here.

The purpose of the proposal, as I see it, is to get people to stake into veNEAR, for a variety of reasons.

The only way they will do that is if they know about it, marketing is the MOST critical function to make that happen. Good marketing will be required in fact! Of course we need to do the mechanical change here to raise the APRs to compete with defi APRs… but without good marketing, we are being inefficient with the spend.

That being said, I’m going to abstain in this vote for now, I do think this proposal will be good for the community, and probably there will be some coordination with the main marketing team for NEAR to promote this… I just wish there was a clear marketing plan in place to go along with it.

Marketing is critical in this industry, and we have a lot of great things to talk about! But look at meme coins! Tokenomics is less powerful than marketing in this industry.

3 Likes
24

We vote FOR this proposal.

We support the proposal because we believe it’s difficult to organically bootstrap the delegation without such initiatives based on experience in other DAOs that we’re involved in. It also strategically leverages the recent reduction in NEAR staking APY to make veNEAR incentives competitive. By offering a clear, time-bound rewards program, it aims to bootstrap participation in the House of Stake, potentially increasing governance engagement and long-term locked NEAR. The proposal is structured as a pilot, allowing for community feedback and adjustment before any long-term commitment, which aligns with prudent governance experimentation. However, we also believe this should be a temporary measure and more considerations to achieve a long-term solution to the governance token delegations.

25

The Decision version of this proposal passed a few days ago. I just updated the status of the canonical copy from Voting to Final: proposals/HSPs/hsp-003.md at main · houseofstake/proposals · GitHub

1 Like
26

will it work for stNEAR/LiNEAR/rNEAR as well?

27

The migration of 60M NEAR into veNEAR to strengthen decentralized governance could be highly effetctive! However, as people mentioned before me, the distribution mechanics is unclear and mercenary participation is not insignificant. For this reasons, more metrics should be integrated for the “Delegation Selection” (e.g: Ecosystem Footprint Score: ISSUE: Delegate Selection Transparency and Metrics )

I believe that these metrics can help to migrate these 60M NEAR with more accuracy and thus properly strength the decentralized governance !

1 Like
28

Update on program progress below:

TLDR:

  • HoS Rewards tracking is now available using this dashboard! Results are updated daily at 12:15am Pacific Time.

  • Progress is being made with incentives driving new participants and NEAR locking into HoS.

  • Room for improvement is evident, program would benefit from greater efforts to incrase large holder adoption and engaging proposal activity in HoS.

    Program owners are working together to improve the program, and more updates will be posted to update the community on strategy of veNEAR adoption. More details below:

Background

House of Stake (HoS) went live on October 13th, 2025, introducing a new on-chain governance and delegation framework for veNEAR holders. Following the launch, HoS rewards (HSP-003) went live on December 19th, 2025.

At the start of the rewards program, HoS had the following:

  • 341 participants
  • 3.677M NEAR locked

This update provides a brief overview of how the campaign has progressed since launch and highlights key metrics.

Impact Summary

Since the launch of the rewards program, incentives have generated:

  • 103,508 additional NEAR locked, bringing the total NEAR locked in HoS to 3.78M. This represents a 2.8% increase in NEAR locked.
  • 31 new accounts participated in HoS, bringing the total number of HoS participants to 372. This represents a 9% increase in the number of participants.

Key Stats

To date, 20,755 NEAR are claimable as rewards to accounts that have locked NEAR in HoS (not necessarily claimed). The table below highlights the accounts with the largest rewards by locking their NEAR in HoS.

Account ID veNEAR Delegated To NEAR Rewards Earned
717e23c9f60bbbdda4b1b9118a1a7e095320940219645d7fdd55b801af8a7f82 hos.slimedragon.near 2,439
21a075b68b8fb9ff01942c1f052c2dec984d8a833191f29db700d7a298f5f624 vadim.near 2,436
ffef0feba237d91dd78c61c41e692456afc757ce55eb04e6ba374494ccd14505 vote.mob.near 2,436
spareuni818.near N/A 1,617
0df78d0bbb77808cc8bb7afba092e184dd0cf8caf3e89af2295ac62d95ee9d63 vinibarbosa.near 1,221

ROI

Total claimable rewards can be used to calculate a return on investment (ROI) by dividing the new NEAR locked by the claimable NEAR rewards. The ROI remains positive, but modest at 499%. Assuming an incentive budget of 280K, ROI would need to increase 4x to reach the critical target of 10M locked NEAR in three months.

Additional Near Locked as of 26th Jan '2026 103,508
Total Claimable NEAR Rewards as of 26th Jan '2026 20,755
ROI per NEAR 499%

Rewards Claimed Versus Total Claimable Rewards

Total claimable rewards sum up to 20,755 NEAR but only 43% of these rewards have been claimed, yet. This means that once users have locked their NEAR into House of Stake, they do not return to the platform to claim rewards.

On Chain Claimable NEAR Rewards as of 26th Jan '2026 20,755 NEAR
Claimed as of 26th Jan '2026 8,931 NEAR
% Claimed over Claimable rewards 43.0%

Insights

Retail vs Whales

Whales are defined here as users who have locked at least 25,000 NEAR into the House of Stake. Using this definition, 20 whales are currently participating in HoS.

As previously noted, incentives resulted in an additional 103,508 NEAR locked and 31 new participating accounts. While the number of accounts increased meaningfully (+9%), total NEAR locked grew by only +2.9% Of the 31 new accounts, only 2 qualify as whales under the definition above. The recent growth has been driven primarily by smaller holders rather than large holders.

Furthermore, the total NEAR locked in HoS represents less than 1% of total NEAR supply, providing additional evidence that large holders (whales) have yet to participate meaningfully in HoS. This highlights a key opportunity for the program: expanding participation among larger holders will be critical to increase total NEAR locked in HoS meaningfully.

Proposals to Drive Activity

A large portion of claimable NEAR rewards is yet to be claimed. One potential explanation for this is that users are not engaging with the HoS website to claim their rewards after locking their NEAR. Historically, user engagement with House of Stake has been closely tied to governance proposal activity.

As shown in the chart below, NEAR locking spikes in the periods leading up to proposal end dates. This correlated behavior makes sense; the more opportunity that is interesting to the ecosystem being routed through HoS, the more HoS adoption will occur. Should this correlation continue, high-value proposals will act as a key catalyst for growth and participation.

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To date, the following experiments have been observed:

  • Changes to NEAR locked with proposals, but absent incentives
  • Changes to NEAR locked absent proposals, with incentives

Changes to NEAR locked in the absence of proposals suggest that incentives alone are not effective at increasing NEAR locked. Recently, a proposal was introduced to establish a sustainable financing program for MPC node infrastructure. This creates a period over the coming weeks during which both proposals and incentives are active simultaneously. This period can be used to evaluate whether incentives drive incremental growth in NEAR locked beyond what is observed during proposal-only periods.

The hypothesis is that proposals act as a catalyst, giving users a reason to engage with House of Stake. Incentives are expected to increase NEAR locked only when paired with an active proposal, meaning incentives amplify proposal-driven demand rather than creating demand on their own. Gauntlet will continue to monitor response to incentives during this period with active proposals in HoS.

Next Steps

  • Gauntlet to revisit program effectiveness and methods of improvement with the Near Foundation and the House of Stake owners to inform program strategy. This includes efforts to understand feedback from larger holders better to increase whale adoption.
  • Gauntlet will continue to publish the performance of this campaign monthly to the forums.
2 Likes
29

Thank you for the analysis. I would like to add some additional context that may be relevant when interpreting the recent changes in NEAR locked.

First, the recent increase in the number of delegates was largely driven by a task initiated by the NEAR Foundation for NEAR Legion degens.. As a result, this increase appears to be campaign-driven rather than organic growth caused by incentives.

Second, I believe that a meaningful and sustained increase in staked veNEAR is unlikely until House of Stake demonstrates a higher level of decentralization. At the moment, governance influence and operational control appear to be highly concentrated around the NEAR Foundation. This concentration may limit the effectiveness of both incentives and proposals in generating long-term, trust-based participation.

For these reasons, changes in NEAR locked during this period should be interpreted cautiously, as they may reflect coordinated actions rather than structural demand for participation in House of Stake.

3 Likes
30

Very helpful thank you for the analysis.

I’m new to House of Stake. Recently I locked and staked a meaningful amount of NEAR and stNEAR (meaningful for a regular person, anyway). I’ve supported NEAR for years and I’ve never stopped stacking. I also delegate across a range of validators, and I’ve got mates who’ve done the same for a long time.

Bear with me I’m a bit tired but here’s my main point:

It can sometimes feel like NEAR doesn’t fully embrace the “buy, stack, and stake” crowd. There’s a big, untapped group of supporters like me who aren’t builders or devs. We’re busy living life, we’re not trying to become contributors in a technical sense but we’re committed long-term and want to support the ecosystem from the sidelines in a meaningful way.

With HOS, I only moved over a fraction the portion that made sense for me to unstake, withdraw, and lock with you. But I genuinely think you’d attract a lot more capital (and more long-term whales) if incentives and onboarding felt more open and community-friendly.

Related to that: I’d love to see more endorsed delegates and a clearer path for new delegates to join. When it feels like an insider “boys club,” it can be off-putting even for people who have plenty of tokens and want to bring others in. For example, my friends would delegate to me… but if there’s no realistic path to becoming an endorsed/recognized delegate, what’s the point?

That’s my two sats.

Much love to everyone building and shipping — I appreciate every person who makes NEAR better day after day. Keep going.

1 Like
31

Yeah, most of this so called NEAR-Legions Degens is driven by the task, and would unstake if they had finished it, without actually participating in forums or any form of discussions.

The task only encourage ppl to “Delegates your veNEAR, or announce oneself to be the delegates”, where most of this degens opt the first options.

Currently we have less than 1% coversion for this activities for new delegates to speak out on behalf of the House of Stake, but i hope it would be a good step for a better decentralizations on NEAR.

I really don’t like what it sounds like, but I really want clarity proposal needs to be discussed first before the actual send as Proposal, or there are certain metrics/ kuorum that need to be fulfilled for a proposal to be announced.

Ill be learn more regardings this matters, i might missed out many things on HoS.

2 Likes
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Background

House of Stake (HoS) went live on October 13th, 2025, introducing a new on-chain governance and delegation framework for veNEAR holders. Following the launch, HoS rewards (HSP-003) went live on December 19th, 2025.

At the start of the rewards program, HoS had the following:

  • 341 participants

  • 3.68M NEAR locked

This update provides a brief overview of how the campaign has progressed since launch and highlights key metrics.

Impact Summary

Since the launch of the rewards program, the following changes have been observed:

  • 1.12M additional NEAR locked, bringing the total NEAR locked in HoS to 4.79M. This represents a 30% increase in NEAR locked.

  • 45 new accounts participated in HoS, bringing the total number of HoS participants to 386. This represents a 13% increase in the number of participants.

Key Stats

To date, 30,852 NEAR are claimable as rewards to accounts that have locked NEAR in HoS (not necessarily claimed). The table below highlights the accounts with the largest rewards by locking their NEAR in HoS. Rewards are earned by the account that locked the NEAR, regardless of where voting power was delegated.

Account ID NEAR Rewards Earned veNEAR Delegated To
717e23c9f60bbbdda4b1b9118a1a7e095320940219645d7fdd55b801af8a7f82 3,615 hos.slimedragon.near
21a075b68b8fb9ff01942c1f052c2dec984d8a833191f29db700d7a298f5f624 3,608 vadim.near
ffef0feba237d91dd78c61c41e692456afc757ce55eb04e6ba374494ccd14505 3,608 vote.mob.near
spareuni818.near 2,396 N/A
0df78d0bbb77808cc8bb7afba092e184dd0cf8caf3e89af2295ac62d95ee9d63 1,808 vinibarbosa.near

ROI

Total claimable rewards can be used to calculate a return on investment (ROI) by dividing the new NEAR locked by the claimable NEAR rewards. Currently, the program ROI is 3,580%.

Metric Value
Additional Near Locked as of 6th Feb '2026 1,104,367
Total Claimable NEAR Rewards as of 6th Feb '2026 30,852
ROI per NEAR 3,580%

Rewards Claimed Versus Total Claimable Rewards

Total claimable rewards sum up to 30,852 NEAR but only 49.6% of these rewards have been claimed. This indicates that most users do not return to claim their rewards at the moment.

Metric Value
On Chain Claimable NEAR Rewards as of 6th Feb '2026 30,852 NEAR
Claimed as of 6th Feb '2026 15,328 NEAR
% Claimed over Claimable rewards 49.6%

Insights

Proposals Continue to Drive HoS Activity

In the HSP-003 program update published on January 23, 2026, Gauntlet highlighted an emerging relationship between user engagement on House of Stake and governance activity, noting that NEAR locking consistently spikes in the periods leading up to proposal voting deadlines.

Since that update, HSP-007 has been introduced, with voting opening on February 5, 2026. In the week preceding the start of voting for this proposal, newly locked NEAR increased by more than 1 million NEAR. This behavior is consistent with prior observations and provides additional support for the hypothesis that governance proposals act as a primary catalyst for user engagement and NEAR locking on House of Stake.

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Voting Windows Trigger Concentrated Locking Activity

Voting for HSP-007 began on February 5, 2026. As noted in the previous section, the amount of locked NEAR increased by nearly 1 million in the days leading up to the start of the voting period. This increase was driven by two accounts:

Account Locked Date NEAR Locked
cc96f55848f0ac487f1a185e72df91d33ec13b608fc8eb90d15dbd1bf363c807 February 2nd, 2026 499.9K
4783b54876253b1f79e3241c11d683223d186ad217178927fcbd2fff2f646172 February 3rd, 2026 499.0K

Together, these accounts locked approximately 999K NEAR in new stake prior to the vote. One of the accounts belongs to SVRN, the author of the HSP-007 proposal. Both accounts ultimately voted in favor of the proposal. By contrast, several large pre-existing holders of voting power, including vote.mob.near, hos.slimedragon.near, and vinibarbosa.near, voted against the proposal.

This highlights an important pattern: proposals can drive concentrated deposits rather than broad participation from existing stakeholders. The increase in locked NEAR appears to have been strategic and vote driven, rather than organic network wide growth.

Whale Update

There are 18 accounts in NEAR House of Stake that have locked more than 100K NEAR. This is 4.6% of the total HoS users. This number needs to go up, and Gauntlet has identified key NEAR holders to address using the below logic.

  • Top token holders for liNEAR and stNEAR

  • Excluded contract addresses and filtered the wallets that are owned by external users

  • Checked if there are any transactions done by the account in the last 90 days

  • Ranked based on the total balance (primary) and transaction count (secondary)

Expanded Proposal and Incentive Cycles Enable Formal Impact Testing

With observed data spanning periods of (i) no proposals and no incentives, (ii) proposals without incentives, (iii) incentives without proposals, and (iv) both proposals and incentives active simultaneously, we are accumulating enough data to statistically evaluate the marginal impact of incentives relative to governance activity.

This structure enables a quasi-experimental comparison of locking behavior across distinct regimes. Specifically, we can estimate baseline locking trends, isolate the incremental effect of active proposals, measure the standalone contribution of incentives, and test whether incentives amplify proposal driven participation when both are active.

By comparing changes in locked NEAR across these states, we can statistically assess whether incentives generate meaningful additional locking beyond what is driven by governance engagement alone. If incremental locking during incentive only periods is limited or statistically indistinguishable from baseline behavior, this would suggest that House of Stake growth is primarily proposal driven rather than incentive driven.

Next Steps

  • Gauntlet to enable statistical framework to evaluate marginal impact of incentives on HoS growth

  • Gauntlet to revisit program effectiveness and methods of improvement with the NEAR Foundation and the House of Stake owners to inform program strategy. This includes efforts to understand feedback from larger holders better to increase whale adoption.

  • Gauntlet will continue to publish the performance of this campaign monthly to the forums.

7 Likes
33

HSP-003 Incentive Effectiveness & Rewards Program Close

TL/DR

  • The HoS veNEAR rewards program (HSP-003) went live on December 19, 2025 and since then, provides participation incentives for governance-locked NEAR.
  • Roughly 83% of total locked NEAR in this program originates from just 15 large locking events, nearly all occurring during active proposal periods.
  • Average daily locking is materially higher when proposals are active, regardless of whether incentives are live.
  • Incentive only periods (no active proposals) do not show higher locking intensity than comparable non-incentive periods.
  • Structural product constraints (conversion friction and fragmented staking integrations) limit the addressable supply of NEAR that can seamlessly enter House of Stake, reducing the potential impact of incentives.
  • Recommendation: In the absence of empirical evidence that HSP-003 independently increases locked NEAR, incentives should be suspended in their current form and only reconsidered if redesigned to directly reinforce governance driven locking.

Background & Context

House of Stake (HoS) went live on October 13, 2025, introducing a new on-chain governance and delegation framework for veNEAR holders. The HoS veNEAR rewards program (HSP-003) went live on December 19, 2025 and since then, offers governance participation rewards on locked NEAR.

Prior analyses by Gauntlet identified governance proposals as a primary driver of increases in locked NEAR. In periods without active proposals, incentives alone did not appear to meaningfully increase the amount of NEAR locked in House of Stake.

Since launch, the system has moved through four distinct operating regimes defined by the presence or absence of incentives and active governance proposals:

  • No proposals active, no incentives active
  • No proposals active, incentives active
  • Proposals active, no incentives active
  • Proposals active, incentives active

The existence of these regimes creates a natural framework to evaluate the marginal impact of incentives while controlling for proposal activity. With sufficient time now elapsed in each state, a structured comparison across regimes is now feasible.

The purpose of this document is to determine the effect of HSP-003 incentives on changes in locked NEAR, distinguish that effect from proposal-driven locking behavior, and assess whether continuation of the incentive program is justified based on observed outcomes.

Proposal Activity as A Driver of NEAR Locked

For this analysis, an active proposal period is defined as the time between when a proposal is first posted to the forum and when voting concludes.

HoS participants must have their NEAR locked before voting begins in order to be eligible. However, users can lock NEAR either in anticipation of an upcoming vote or in response to a proposal once it has been introduced. As a result, changes in locked balances during proposal windows may reflect deliberate strategic positioning around governance activity rather than routine participation.

There are currently 5.29M NEAR locked in HoS. Of this total, more than 4.3M NEAR, representing roughly 81 percent of all locked supply, originates from just 15 large locking events. All but one of these events occurred during an active proposal period.

The concentration and timing of these large locking events indicate that growth in locked NEAR within HoS is not gradual or continuous. Instead, major increases in locked NEAR are closely associated with live governance periods, suggesting that proposal activity plays a central role in driving large scale participation.

Date Active Proposal Locking Account NEAR Locked
2/2/2026 Yes cc96f55848f0ac487f1a185e72df91d33ec13b608fc8eb90d15dbd1bf363c807 499,997
2/3/2026 Yes 4783b54876253b1f79e3241c11d683223d186ad217178927fcbd2fff2f646172 499,028
12/14/2025 Yes 21a075b68b8fb9ff01942c1f052c2dec984d8a833191f29db700d7a298f5f624 439,019
12/14/2025 Yes 717e23c9f60bbbdda4b1b9118a1a7e095320940219645d7fdd55b801af8a7f82 439,019
12/14/2025 Yes ffef0feba237d91dd78c61c41e692456afc757ce55eb04e6ba374494ccd14505 439,017
10/29/2025 Yes spareuni818.near 291,520
10/20/2025 Yes 0df78d0bbb77808cc8bb7afba092e184dd0cf8caf3e89af2295ac62d95ee9d63 220,005
10/20/2025 Yes 76c32ebe82e58f283f1dc9ff456c57d4489ea23b0cb6a89d4de602b5ca54c14c 219,980
10/30/2025 Yes linear-gov.sputnik-dao.near 205,671
10/19/2025 Yes a268c8c425fc6e2574a07301ca6c10db196aa559b3d3cbbc02e6370c61d33f38 200,099
10/19/2025 Yes 26945c364a2551a9521ca19b010205aee183a8c864503d8debd3ce3bfeb58416 200,002
10/20/2025 Yes 2c494a5c5ca9fd8c442b9260b79f77644222e30efd475ca5bdc3d4ac9b009cc4 200,000
10/17/2025 Yes bcc328f40ca071af1b91a6a82a238358f9eeedf2aac0bbf954d01a0bfc8f58f5 144,946
2/23/2026 No aurora_hos.near 120,002
10/30/2025 Yes mrsergey.near 102,835

The table below summarizes the number of observations in each regime, along with the total and average daily change in NEAR locked. The average daily change provides a normalized measure of locking intensity across regimes with different durations.

Periods with active proposals exhibit substantially higher average daily increases in locked NEAR than periods without proposals. When no proposals are active, daily locking is modest, and the presence of incentives does not correspond to higher average increases. In fact, the average daily change is lower during incentive-active periods than during periods without incentives.

This pattern reinforces the view that proposal activity, rather than incentives alone, is the primary driver of meaningful increases in locked NEAR.

Regime Number of Observations Δ NEAR Locked Δ NEAR Locked / Number of Observations
No proposals active, no incentives active 11 201,021 18,275
No proposals active, incentives active 39 212,853 5,458
Proposals active, no incentives active 56 3,476,218 62,075
Proposals active, incentives active 29 1,037,516 35,776

While the table summarizes average differences across regimes, the time series visualization provides additional context. Visually, all material step increases in total NEAR locked occur during active proposal periods. Periods without proposals show comparatively limited movement, reinforcing the conclusion that governance activity coincides with the largest increases in locked balances.

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Recommendation

Taken together, the event level concentration, regime level averages, and time series evidence point to a consistent conclusion: increases in locked NEAR are overwhelmingly concentrated in periods with active governance proposals. The largest step changes in locked balances occur during proposal windows, and average daily locking intensity is materially higher when proposals are active.

Importantly, this does not imply that incentives can never influence locking behavior. However, within the observed sample, there is no empirical evidence that HSP-003 incentives generate a measurable incremental increase in locked NEAR on their own. Periods with incentives but no active proposals show comparatively modest changes, and incentive active periods do not exhibit higher average daily locking than comparable non-incentive periods.

In addition to the lack of measurable impact, there are structural and product level constraints that likely limit incremental locking irrespective of incentives:

  • User flow complexity within the House of Stake application may reduce conversion efficiency. The pathway between staking, acquiring LSTs, and locking for veNEAR introduces multiple onchain actions and steps that can increase friction.
  • Fragmented staking integrations constrain addressable supply. Users who have staked NEAR into contracts that do not issue transferable tokens cannot directly route their position into House of Stake. They must first unstake (subject to time delays), then restake or lock within House of Stake. This creates additional operational and financial friction likely suppressing marginal participation.

These structural constraints suggest that even a well calibrated incentive may struggle to produce measurable incremental locking if the conversion pathway is operationally complex or inaccessible to a significant portion of staked NEAR.

In the absence of empirical evidence that standalone incentives drive incremental locked NEAR and given the presence of identifiable product level frictions, incentives should be suspended in their current form. Governance proposals appear to be the primary driver of governance participation growth within House of Stake, and continuing incentives without measurable incremental impact risks deploying rewards without measurable governance impact.

Before reconsidering incentives, priority should be given to addressing structural constraints: simplifying the locking pathway, improving UX clarity, and expanding integrations so that staked NEAR across major contracts can be seamlessly routed into House of Stake without requiring full unstake cycles.

Future incentive programs could then be redesigned to directly reinforce governance participation, align incentives dynamically with proposal activity, or target specific participation behaviors. However, based on the evidence to date, locked NEAR growth appears proposal driven rather than incentive-driven, and incentive programs should remain paused until both structural frictions are resolved and clear incremental impact can be demonstrated.

Following this analysis, Gauntlet won’t propose continuing the veNEAR rewards program in its current form. The program will conclude as originally scheduled on March 19, 2026, marking the end of its three-month testing phase.

After March 19, 2026, no new locking rewards will be available for collection.

Participants who locked NEAR for governance participation may claim any outstanding programme rewards until June 17, 2026.

veNEAR Rewards Funding plan vs. actual rewards paid
Total Rewards requested as part of HSP 3 proposal 280,682 NEAR
Total Rewards Claimable by the Users (estimate until March 19) 81,814 NEAR*
Rewards claimed so far 15,557 NEAR*

Note: These figures reflect governance participation rewards, not financial returns

Resources:

Rewards Contract: rewards.hos-dao.near

3 Likes
House of Stake 2.0 – Season #1 Mandate & Updates
WITHDRAWN: HSP-XXX: Establish House of Stake Operational & Proposal Co-Funding Budget for 2026
34

Clarification on Claim Window

This post is to clarify until when rewards are eligible to be claimed.

Below are the current campaigns and their claim windows:

Campaign Id   Claim Start                     Claim End
1             Jan 03 2026 03:58:46 GMT        Apr 02 2026 12:31:23 GMT
2             Jan 19 2026 23:41:02 GMT        Apr 16 2026 13:15:28 GMT
3             Feb 02 2026 09:43:30 GMT        Apr 29 2026 21:34:15 GMT
4             Feb 14 2026 21:58:01 GMT        May 14 2026 15:04:19 GMT
5             Mar 20 2026 00:00:01 GMT        Jun 18 2026 00:00:01 GMT

Each campaign has two parts:

  • a reward window (when rewards are earned)
  • a claim window (shown above, when rewards can be claimed)

For example:

  • Campaign 1 rewards were earned between Dec 18 → Jan 2
  • These rewards can be claimed between Jan 3 → Apr 2

If you locked in early (e.g., before Jan 2), you earn rewards across all the above campaigns given in the table.

Important: Campaign end dates are claim deadlines.
You should claim your rewards before the deadline to avoid forfeiting any unclaimed rewards.

5 Likes
35

The data here is clean and the conclusion is hard to argue with, it is clear that proposals drive locking, incentives don’t.

The concentration numbers confirm the structural concern. 15 locking events account for 83% of all locked NEAR. The pilot successfully attracted capital but failed to attract participants. Those are different things, and any redesign needs to optimize for the second.

The regime analysis is the most useful part of this report. The four-regime framework (proposals x incentives, on/off) gives HoS a repeatable evaluation methodology for future experiments. The counterintuitive finding (incentive-only periods performed worse than non-incentive periods) this deserves deeper investigation. One hypothesis: the incentive signal may have attracted passive yield-seekers during quiet periods who locked small amounts and never participated in governance, while the non-incentive period locking was driven by stakeholders with genuine governance intent. If that’s true, the incentive mechanism was selecting for the wrong behavior.

On the UX friction point. Gauntlet correctly identifies conversion complexity (staking → LSTs → veNEAR lockup) as a bottleneck. But I would push further: even with a seamless UX, the fundamental question is whether there are enough consequential decisions flowing through HoS to justify the opportunity cost of locking capital. Right now, most proposals are constitutional documents (important, but not economically meaningful to individual stakeholders). The moment HoS starts making funding allocation decisions, treasury deployment, or protocol parameter changes, you’ll see a natural uptick in locking because the governance power has real economic value. The UX matters, but the decision pipeline matters more.

We can learn three very important things from these findings.

  1. Tie rewards to governance actions, not just locking. Reward voting, delegation activity, proposal authoring, and forum participation. A locked token that never votes is deadweight, not governance participation.
  2. Reduce the minimum lock duration or offer tiered options. Some stakeholders want to participate but won’t commit to long lockups. A 3-month lock with lower voting weight alongside a 12-month lock with full weight would expand the addressable participant pool.
  3. Publish a governance decision roadmap. If people can see that HoS will be making material funding decisions in Q2-Q3 2026, they’ll lock NEAR in advance to have a seat at the table. The incentive is the decision power itself. Rewards should be a bonus, not the primary motivation.

The 81,814 / 280,682 spend ratio is actually a positive outcome from a treasury perspective, you got data without burning the full budget. The question now is whether HoS uses that data to build something better.

3 Likes