Grants Oversight Council
The goal of the Grants Oversight Council is to ensure progress toward Eigenlayer’s growth through the responsible allocation of EIGEN that have been earmarked for Community Initiatives. In order to achieve this in a community-legitimate, transparency-balanced manner, the Grants Oversight Council must ensure:
- The Initiatives are aligned with the best interest of the community stakeholders
- Grants Team’s Transparency Reports are consistent with Approval Criteria as defined in the Grants Oversight Council Charter
- Grants Oversight Council members publicly and regularly communicate council reviews, decisions, and any potential conflicts of interest
Duties
- Review and verify detailed Transparency Reports
- Publish a redacted, public version of a Grants Team’s Transparency Report with evaluation notes, or a notice to forum.eigenlayer.xyz, which includes why it is unable to approve for publication When needed, perform due diligence on a Grants Team’s processes and outcomes
The Grants Oversight Council adheres to EigenLayer’s current governance process, as defined in the Grants Governance Process.
Council Members
The Grants Oversight Council is composed of three independent external members sourced from the greater EigenLayer community. The initial cohort of external members is:
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Bernard Schmid is the co-founder of Areta, a leading digital assets investment banking firm. Areta focuses on M&A, capital markets, and onchain activities, and has facilitated over $200 million in transaction volume. Within its onchain team, Areta has designed and led several capital allocation and grant programs for leading DeFi ecosystems such as Uniswap and Safe.
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Brittany Laughlin led Stacks Foundation as Executive Director ('20-'24) and Board Chairman ('24-today), transforming it into a top 30 blockchain project with $10M in grants and 250,000+ community members. She launched Stacks Governance, Community Working Groups, and the Grants Program. Focused on crypto and community, she's the host of Chainmakers Podcast, taught DeFi at Cornell Law School, and invested in top Crypto companies like Coinbase, IPFS, and Stronghold as an investor at USV and Lattice Ventures.
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Yuan Han Li, Blockchain Capital
Yuan Han Li is a Partner at Blockchain Capital, where he has been a key contributor to the firm’s investment and thesis development efforts since joining in 2021. He works closely with the firm’s portfolio companies and DAOs across the crypto ecosystem.
Blockchain Capital, founded in 2013 as the first venture fund dedicated entirely to blockchain technology, provides entrepreneurs with the capital, domain expertise, and strategic support needed to build world-class companies. The firm has been involved in the EigenLayer ecosystem since 2022 and led the Series A financing for Eigen Labs.
The official Grants Oversight Council charter can be found here. Under this first charter, appointments to this council shall confer a one (1) year term, unless modified by the Board. This council membership may rotate based on expertise needed for strategies. Council members may be removed or replaced by the Foundation at any time. The Foundation may fill vacancies on the Grants Oversight Council from time to time.
Conflicts of Interest
Prior to exercising voting authority, the Grants Oversight Council must review the relevant facts and determine whether or not a material conflict of interest may arise due to business, personal or family relationships of the Grants Oversight Council members, their employees or their affiliates, with persons having an interest in the outcome of the vote.
If a material conflict exists, the Grants Oversight Council must take steps to ensure that its voting decision is based on the best interests of the Foundation and is not a product of such conflict, including the recusal of any conflicted Grants Oversight Council member from voting.
Grant Oversight Council Operations
Each member of the Grants Oversight Council will be allocated an on-chain Hat, a ERC-1155 token, to signify their role and authority as a council member. The Grants Oversight Council does not issue or allocate EIGENs, propose, issue or execute Grants, or custody funds, but council members will publicly communicate council reviews, decisions, and any potential conflicts of interest on forum.eigenlayer.xyz. In addition to their evaluation notes, the council members will attest to their approval of the Transparency Reports with a ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘abstain’.