title: < Replenishing the CoW Team Grant Allocation >
author: < @Kowrigan>
status: **Draft**
created: 2025/12/15
Edit Dec. 18,2025
Simple Summary
This proposal asks CoW DAO to:
- Replenish the CoW Team Grant Allocation with 5% of the total COW supply (50,000,000 COW) via a new four-year streaming allocation coming
from the allocation of the managed treasury in connection to the mandate of CIP-62CoW DAO Safe0xcA771eda0c70aA7d053aB1B25004559B918FE662; and - Authorise the Core Treasury Team (per CIP-62) to deploy up to $15M in stablecoins over time to buy COW on the open market and transfer those tokens into the Team Grant Allocation, targeting an additional ~5% of total supply (up to 50M COW).
The result is a 10% long-term incentive capacity for core contributors (similar to the previous CIP-76 request), but implemented as:
- 5% from
DAO treasuryCoW DAO Safe → streamed to the Team Grant Allocation, and - ~5% accumulated via market purchases.
This structure aims to maintain strong contributor alignment while directly addressing dilution and issuance concerns raised during the CIP-76 discussion and vote.
Motivation
1. Context: CoW Team Grant Allocation and CIP-76 feedback
Since the 2022 spin-off from Gnosis DAO, CoW DAO has relied on a Team Grant Allocation Committee (the “Committee”) managing a dedicated pool of COW to align long-term contributors with the DAO’s success. At TGE, the DAO approved a 15% team allocation managed by this Committee.
This program has helped attract new talents and grow the team from initially 22 to 46 members.
Over time, most of the initial grants have either fully vested or are close to vesting, and the team has continued to grow. The original Team Grant Allocations were structured as 4-year linear vesting and will largely terminate by February 2026, meaning that the initial pool is now almost fully exhausted. As detailed in CIP-76, only ~26M COW (~2.6% of total supply) remains uncommitted (excluding already-awarded but still vesting grants), which is not sufficient to support multi-year retention of existing contributors and the recruitment of new talent.
The initial proposal for a COW token top-up by the core team in form of CIP-76 (“Continued funding for development services – Service Agreement No 5”) failed, as many token holders expressed their concerns regarding COW token dilution and selling pressure for existing token holders in case the DAO approves the 100M top-up and expressed their desire to tie new incentives to buybacks / market purchases rather than only internal reallocations.
This CIP responds by proposing a hybrid token + buyback structure.
2. Why a renewed Team Grant Allocation is needed
CoW DAO’s mission is to make digital-asset trading provably fair, cost-efficient and MEV-resistant. Delivering on that in the coming years requires:
- Retaining and rewarding the core engineering, research, product, BD, design and operations talent that built the current protocol suite;
- Attracting new senior contributors in a hyper-competitive market (L2s, L1s, CEX spin-offs) where equity-like upside is standard; and
- Ensuring contributors have skin in the game and are incentivised to create long-term COW value, not just short-term cash flow.
Without a refreshed, clearly scoped Team Grant Allocation, the DAO risks:
- Losing key contributors as existing grants fully vest,
- Being outbid by better-funded ecosystems, and
- Mis-aligning incentives toward short-term contract work rather than long-term value creation.
3. Why this structure is different from CIP-76
The key differences compared to the rejected CIP-76 grant request:
-
Smaller immediate allocation
- Rejected CIP-76: single 100M COW streaming top-up (10% of supply) to the Committee.
- This CIP: 50M COW (5%) via streaming + a budget for market purchases of ~50M COW over time.
-
Half of the new incentive capacity is funded via market purchases
- Up to $15M in stables (from the DAO managed treasury under CIP-62’s mandate) is earmarked for buying COW on the open market (through market orders, OTC or through derivatives with Market Makers), transferring those tokens into the COW Team Grant Allocation.
- At today’s market prices (~$0.20/COW), ~50M COW (~5% of supply) corresponds to $10M, hence justifying a higher stable allocation that will be used until 50M COW are repurchased.
-
This hybrid structure permits to drastically diminish dilution risks while creating a constant buying pressure on the market.
Specification
1. Overview
This CIP establishes a Core Contributor Incentive Capacity of up to 10% of total COW supply for the next multi-year cycle, implemented as:
- On-chain Grant Streaming (5% / 50M COW)
A 50,000,000 COW streaming allocation fromCoW DAO main treasuryCoW DAO Safe to the Team Grant Allocation Safe over four years. - Market Purchase Program (target ~5% / ~50M COW)
A mandate for the Core Treasury Team (CIP-62) to use up to $15M in stablecoins to acquire COW from the market and transfer purchased tokens to the Team Grant Allocation Safe over time.
The amount requested is justified due to:
- 17 grants concluding in 2026, including the Founders, technical leads (FE, BE, Solver research, Smart Contracts), operational leads (Finance, People Ops) and BD and marketing leads.
- 18 other team members whose grants will fully vest between 2027 and 2029.
- New team members, to work on initiatives like internal solver running, BD and community management efforts, Foundation related operations like Treasury and Accounting.
2. Token allocation: 5% streaming top-up
2.1 Amount
- 50,000,000 COW (5% of total 1,000,000,000 COW supply) will be
transferredvested from theManaged TreasuryCoW DAO Safe0xcA771eda0c70aA7d053aB1B25004559B918FE662for the CoW Team Grant Allocation.
2.2 Vesting mechanics
-
The 50M COW allocation will be vested / streamed linearly over four (4) years via an AllocationModule attached to the DAO Safe, following the same pattern as CIP-76:
- Vesting start: 1770797115 UNIX time
- Vesting end: four years after the vesting start (duration of 126144000)
-
Until transferred to the Team Grant Allocation Safe, tokens remain under the direct control of CoW DAO, and unvested amounts can be cancelled by governance at any time.
2.3 Prohibited use of funds. Tokens may not be:
- Used for operational cash funding of entities,
- Re-sold by the Committee for stablecoins, or
- Diverted to non-incentive purposes, except by explicit future CIP.
3. Market Purchase Program: up to $15M → ~5% additional COW
3.1 Budget and scope
- The Core Treasury Team (per CIP-62) is authorised to use up to $15,000,000 equivalent in stablecoins (e.g. USDC, DAI, USDT, etc)
from CoW DAOto purchase up to 50M COW - All COW acquired under this program must be transferred to the Team Grant Allocation Safe and become subject to the same grant / vesting policies as other Team Grant Allocation tokens.
3.2 Execution guidelines
The treasury committee will retain flexibility on executing this transaction through open market orders, OTC deals or through private placement with Market Makers.
In the event that the Treasury Committee completes the acquisition of the 50,000,000 COW tokens at a price lower than the maximum budgeted amount, any unspent funds shall be automatically reallocated back to the CoW DAO Core Treasury Managed Treasury.
3.3 Reporting
- The Treasury Team will include a dedicated subsection in their regular treasury reports (per CIP-62) summarising:
- Total stables spent under this program,
- Volume and average acquisition price of purchased COW, and
- Total COW transferred to the Team Grant Allocation Safe.
4. Team Grant Allocation governance and guardrails
The Team Grant Allocation Committee will continue to administer individual grants, subject to the following principles (some already in practice, now made explicit):
4.1 Transparency
- At least once per year, the Committee will publish an aggregated transparency report including, at a minimum:
- Total COW allocated / still available,
- Number of grantees,
- Average vesting terms (cliff + duration).
- Reports will not list individual compensation details but must be sufficient for tokenholders to assess whether the program is aligned and sustainable.
4.2 DAO ultimate control
- CoW DAO maintains full control over unvested streams as it can reduce, pause, or cancel the streaming allocation via governance.
Rationale
1. Maintaining competitive incentives without over-issuing
A 10% multi-year incentive pool is designed to:
- Give CoW DAO enough runway to:
- Retain current Core Team members,
- Onboard new talents,
Using a 5% streaming allocation + 5% buyback target:
- Keeps the headline incentive capacity unchanged relative to CIP-76’s 100M request, but
- Splits the implementation between DAO
treasurytokens and market purchases, thus mitigating negative price impact of COW token.
2. Incorporating delegate feedback on dilution and buybacks
During CIP-76, several tokenholders questioned:
- The optics and timing of a 100M COW top-up,
- The potential sell-pressure over the next cycle, and
- The lack of a direct connection between new grants and market purchases / buybacks.
This CIP addresses those points by:
- Halving the immediate streaming request (5% vs 10%), and
- Committing to a structured buyback program that:
- Uses DAO stables to buy tokens from the market,
- Transfers purchased COW into the incentive pool, and
- Can be paced to market conditions.
It does not try to embed complex KPI formulas into the grant program itself, in line with feedback that “KPI-inside-the-CIP” is brittle and increases governance overhead without necessarily improving alignment. Instead, performance is reflected in:
- Who gets a grant at all,
- Size and duration of individual grants, and
- The DAO’s ability to terminate streams or adjust the program via future CIPs.
Execution
Note: The exact Safe transaction payload and Tenderly simulation link will be finalised prior to moving this CIP from “Draft” to the Snapshot phase. The intention is described below so that the community can review and comment on the structure.
Safe Transaction Data
(TBD)