HSP-026: Establish House of Stake Operational Budget for July 2026 – June 2027

Establish House of Stake Operational Budget for July 2026 – June 2027

Frontmatter

hsp: 026
title: Establish House of Stake Operational Budget for July 2026 – June 2027
description: Defines the operational budget required for House of Stake to function as a Treasury Governance Engine, covering governance operations, legal compliance, treasury management, and execution capabilities.
author: House of Stake Head of Governance (@AK_HoG)
discussions-to: https://houseofstake.org/proposals/cmpzypaux0008og10wn7elqij
status: Draft
track: Decision
type: Simple Majority
category: Operations
stakeholders: NEAR tokenholders, House of Stake Foundation (HoSF), proposal authors and stakeholders, NEAR Foundation (NF), NEAR ecosystem
created: 2026-06-04
requires: House of Stake 2.0 Mandate Update, House of Stake Constitutional Documents and House of Stake Foundation legal documents

Abstract

This proposal establishes the operational budget for House of Stake (HoS) for the next 12-month operating period, enabling it to function as an independent governance institution and NEAR’s Treasury Governance Engine.

The budget focuses on governance operations, legal compliance, treasury management, and execution capabilities, ensuring that House of Stake can operate securely, transparently, and effectively.
It does not include costs for personell, product development, or any other cost items not listed in this proposal.
These costs have not been subject of a tokenholder vote and will continue to be covered by NEAR Foundation (NF).

House of Stake is proposing a lean operating model that scales with governance demand: we establish independence in areas that are core to House of Stake’s mandate, while leveraging existing NEAR Foundation infrastructure and services where appropriate.

Budget Overview

Operational Budget:
196,000 USD + 60,000 NEAR

Upon approval, this proposal authorizes the Head of Governance and the House of Stake Foundation to deploy the Operational Budget as outlined in this proposal.

Any unused funds will remain in House of Stake’s treasury.

Context

House of Stake is entering its next phase: becoming an independent institution responsible for governing NEAR’s economic policy and treasury.

To fulfill this role, House of Stake must establish the operational capacity required to execute governance decisions, manage treasury operations, ensure compliance, and operate securely.

This lean operating model scales with governance demand: we establish independence in areas that are core to House of Stake’s mandate, while leveraging existing NEAR Foundation infrastructure and services where appropriate.

Problem

House of Stake currently lacks its own dedicated operational infrastructure and budget.

Without this:

• Governance decisions cannot be reliably executed
• Treasury operations remain dependent on NEAR Foundation
• Legal and compliance risks increase
• Transparency and accountability are limited

Approach

This proposal establishes a minimum viable operational budget.

It focuses on:

• Infrastructure only where necessary
• Efficiency over duplication
• Execution capability over complexity

Lean Governance

This is the first proposal to fund House of Stake operations from its own treasury, and it is intentionally lean.

Our product is legitimate, transparent, and well-informed decision-making in the best interest of NEAR. As long as governance activity remains limited, the operational structure supporting it should remain lean as well.

To preserve treasury resources, House of Stake will leverage existing NEAR Foundation capabilities where appropriate, including:

• Software and operational licenses
• KYC/KYB infrastructure
• Payment rails
• Data and analytics
• Legal support

At the same time, House of Stake will maintain independence in areas core to its mandate:

• Legal compliance and financial reporting for the House of Stake Foundation
• Treasury management and transaction security
• Governance, operations, and IT support where independent capacity is required, or where NF resources are limited

This approach balances operational independence with efficient use of treasury resources.

Updated Operating Budget

The revised annual operations budget is:

196,000 USD + 60,000 NEAR

This represents approximately 23.16% of the original budget request in April.

Unlike previous versions, this proposal covers a full 12-month operating period rather than the remainder of 2026.

Our Principle: Governance Should Breathe

These changes reflect a simple principle:

• We do not build infrastructure that is not needed
• We create systems that can grow and shrink with demand
• We introduce mechanisms because they serve the ecosystem, not because governance frameworks are expected to have them
• We keep costs low while remaining ready to scale when activity returns

End-to-end Value Hypothesis

Objective

• Start establishing independent infrastructure in a lean, cost efficient way
• Enable reliable execution
• Ensure compliance and security

Outcome

• Lean governance institution
• Spending discipline
• Executable decisions
• Functional independence
• Transparent reporting

Dependencies on pending/upcoming proposals

• None

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIs

Execution Reliability: ≥95% of voting processes completed end-to-end on schedule; with financing and ops support in place.

Transparency: 100% of required reports published in full and on time; 100% of delays communicated with clear updates within 48 hours.

Compliance Readiness: 100% adherence to legal, regulatory, and reporting requirements (including Cayman Foundation obligations); zero compliance breaches at HoS Ops team.

Security Robustness: 0 security breaches impacting treasury funds or governance/data infrastructure.

Reporting Cadence

Quarterly: Comprehensive report covering KPIs, budget usage, treasury status, operational performance.

Yearly: Full annual report, including audited financial report, on-chain records, vendor disclosures, and overall performance.

More details see section “Milestones & Implementation Plan”

Technical Specification, Budget & Resources

Budget Breakdown

(all figures in USD/NEAR '000)

Applies to a full 12-month operating period.
All estimates are intentionally tight and include no contingency buffer.
Some software, service, and license agreements may extend beyond July 2027 due to annual contract terms. Where such commitments can be covered within the approved budget, they are considered authorized under this proposal.
Should additional funding be required, House of Stake will coordinate with NEAR Foundation where appropriate and return with a separate proposal for tokenholder approval.

Buffer & Risk Management

The operational buffer has been removed.

NEAR Foundation has confirmed it can support genuine emergency situations if required.

Any additional operational costs resulting from future funding proposals should be included, justified, and approved as part of those proposals directly.

HoS Skin-in-the-Game (Co-Funding Pool)

The Skin-in-the-Game mechanism has been removed from this proposal.

This is not because the mechanism itself lacks merit. Rather, at this stage it remains unclear whether, when, and to what extent protocol revenues will be distributed through House of Stake in the foreseeable future.

Rather than implementing a mechanism without a clear use case, House of Stake believes it is better to revisit the concept when ecosystem conditions justify it.

Backwards Compatibility

No protocol changes.

Security Considerations

Mitigations include:

• Treasury management through dedicated custody infrastructure
• Independent compliance and financial reporting
• Legal oversight
• Transparent reporting
• Dedicated governance and operational support
• Use of established NEAR Foundation infrastructure where appropriate

Stakeholders

• NEAR tokenholders
• House of Stake Head of Governance, team and Foundation directors
• Proposal authors and stakeholders
• NEAR Foundation
• NEAR Ecosystem

Milestones & Implementation Plan

• June 2026: Forum discussion
• June 2026: Voting
• Upon approval: Activation of lean operating model and treasury
• Upon approval: Continued use of shared NEAR Foundation infrastructure and services where appropriate
• Upon approval: Continued operation of independent treasury management, compliance, and governance functions
• Quarterly: Reporting on KPIs, budget utilization, and governance activity
• Q2 2027: Annual review and follow-up budget proposal

Team & Accountability

RACI – Budget Responsibility & Decision Framework.

Implementation Notes

• Tokenholders remain the ultimate authority through governance
• Directors ensure legal and fiduciary accountability
• Head of Governance ensures alignment with mandate and priorities
• Ops Manager ensure execution and coordination,
• HoS IT: Service provider with dedicated NEAR and security expertise, hiring completed
• Additional Oversight Layers: Sensitive categories (treasury, legal, compliance) include additional oversight layers (Security Council, auditors, domain experts)

Functional Independence

a) Shared Infrastructure: Where software, licenses, or operational services already exist within the NEAR Foundation and provide a cost-efficient solution, House of Stake may continue using them.

b) Governance Independence: House of Stake maintains independent authority over governance processes, compliance obligations, treasury oversight, and decision execution.

c) Treasury & Security: Treasury management and transaction security remain under House of Stake control through dedicated treasury infrastructure and governance processes.

d) Scalable Operations: Operational capacity should expand or contract based on governance demand, ensuring resources remain aligned with ecosystem needs.

For this proposal, the Head of Governance is authorized to select vendors based on best fit (quality, security, cost-efficiency). Vendor selections and key details will be disclosed in quarterly reports.

Governance of Continuation

Applies to the 12-month operating period following approval of this proposal (July 2026–June 2027)

Future budget requirements should continue to reflect actual governance demand and operational needs.

Conflicts of Interest

The author of this proposal serves as Head of Governance at House of Stake and is contracted by the NEAR Foundation, including for activities related to the implementation of this proposal.

The proposal is aligned with House of Stake’s mandate. To mitigate any potential conflict of interest, the Head of Governance will abstain from voting on this proposal. All relevant disclosures and potential benefits associated with this proposal are subject to House of Stake’s Conflict of Interest Policy and Code of Conduct.

Changelog

This proposal is an update to the budget proposal published on May 4, 2026.

This revision includes:

• Reduced operational budget to $196.00k plus 60.00 NEAR
• Removed the operational buffer
• Removed the Skin-in-the-Game co-funding mechanism
• Updated the proposal from a Season #1 operating model to a full 12-month operating period
• Clarified use of shared NEAR Foundation infrastructure and services
• Updated budget allocations to reflect current governance demand
• Simplified reporting requirements (no buffer, no co-funding allocation)
• Updated implementation plan and accountability framework
• Revised functional independence model to focus on governance, treasury, and compliance independence while leveraging shared infrastructure where appropriate

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0 1.0.

Recent KPI checked : credit to jemartel

───

House of Stake — Decentralization Score

Composite: ~20 / 100 — Highly Concentrated

5 pillars, each scored 0–100 (higher = more decentralized):

───

1. Power Concentration — 8/100

The headline number: 4 wallets control a simple majority. 7 for a supermajority.

Top 10 wallets hold 84.22% of all voting power. The largest single wallet (vote.mob.near) holds 15.4% alone. In a DAO with 461 registered voters, that’s an oligarchy, not a democracy.

1. VP Distribution — 5/100

This is the most damning metric:

• 381 wallets (82.65% of all participants) hold 0.06% of voting power combined
• 11 wallets (2.39%) hold 83.52% of voting power
• Palma ratio: ~1,392x (for context, real-world wealth Palma ratio is 1.2–7x)

The long tail is invisible. It’s a plutocracy with a UX layer.

1. Participation — 25/100

Running average VP participation: 76.1% — sounds good until you see that count participation is only 13.4%.

Translation: a handful of large wallets consistently vote, but the vast majority of registered participants never show up. The high VP turnout is just whales pressing buttons, not broad engagement.

1. Governance Activation — 45/100

Latest proposal shows:

• 25% self-delegated VP (active)
• 32% delegated VP (active)
• 43% completely inactive

Better than nothing — over half of total VP is actually doing something. But nearly half sitting on the sidelines is a lot of dead weight.

1. Delegation Health — 45/100

57% of VP is delegated to others, 43% is self-delegated. The delegation trend has been improving (was 96% delegated early on, now down to 57%), which is actually healthy — more people self-custodying their vote. But 153 wallets delegating to others still creates proxy concentration.

AND

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hos_official:

Team HoS Ops Manager 60.00

1. Still couldn’t find MANDATORY monthly reports

2. $10,000 per month for the ops role is super expensive (we don’t hire C-level staff). It definitely should be reduced to the market value ($3,000-$4,000). Additionally here is the same question: why do we need the role If HoS has 7 proposals per year and Angela already acting like the operational manager?

3. What the Legal and IT breakdown? Why $142k snd $54k? One KYC / B costs ~ 20 cents , the nominal director remuneration ~ 10-20k per year (Aurora DAO has the same person and amount). Accounting doesn’t cost more than $2000 per year. What the full understandable breakdown?

Thanks!

What is the Angela’s remuneration and where can we found her monthly report? She was silent since January.

Everyone paid by HoS must report here for what they got $
For the community

This is already taken for granted. Where have you read otherwise?

I understand reporting will commence once payments are due and can be processed.

Thanks for your questions @Rosalia @DDeAlmeida

DDeAlmeida:

Everyone paid by HoS must report here for what they got $

Rosalia:

What is the Angela’s remuneration and where can we found her monthly report? She was silent since January.

Rosalia:

1. Still couldn’t find MANDATORY monthly reports

Just to clarify: no one is being paid by House of Stake today. That’s exactly what this budget proposal is about.

The reports are part of the proposal, and we’ll start publishing them once the proposal passes and there’s actually something to report.

Also, the Head of Governance is not paid by House of Stake (see proposal), so that role won’t appear in the reports.

For all other details, like the rationale behind legal and IT expenses, please refer to the detailed breakdown in the budget proposal discussion (earlier versions) on the forum.

Thank you, @AK_HoG for working on and proposing this heavily optimized revision. Grounding our budget to actual governance demand ($196k USD + 60k NEAR over 12 months) is a highly disciplined approach that signals a strong alignment with ecosystem efficiency, and is a smart move for our current situation.

As we transition to this ultra-lean model, I want to call out a few operational guardrails and offer some thoughts, to ensure our core mandate as a sovereign Treasury Governance Engine remains intact:

1. Safeguarding Treasury & Execution Sovereignty:
With Software and IT Infrastructure largely consolidated into shared licenses, we must ensure a strict boundary line in practice. While using shared admin tools (Slack, GSuite) makes perfect sense (and is a smart move), our Treasury & Custody infrastructure (ie. the management of our $3M principal) and core voting repositories must remain completely independent of external IT firewalls. I am glad to see Section (c) under Functional Independence that it explicitly guarantees this.

2. Retaining the ‘Trust but Verify’ Principle:
Zeroing out the independent Data & Insights line item is an aggressive cut. While leveraging primary data infrastructure is efficient, we must remember that HoS holds a Fiduciary Duty to its tokenholders to independently verify economic data flows. During this 12-month period, if specialized economic modeling is required to evaluate treasury health or protocol value accrual, we should be prepared to utilize the budget’s flexibility or return with micro-proposals rather than flying completely blind.

3. The Future of the Revenue Switch:
I noticed that the removal of the Skin-in-the-Game co-funding pool is due to current macro-uncertainty around protocol revenue distribution timelines. This is a practical deferral. However, as our ecosystem products scale, transforming HoS from a capital-consumer into a self-sustaining revenue-steward must remain our North Star. We should treat this 12-month cycle as a foundational period to secure our compliance and legal rails so we are ready to deploy robust economic mechanisms when conditions mature.

Overall, this is a highly responsible framework for a quiet market environment. I am fully supportive of this lean baseline and look forward to seeing it go forward to an on-chain vote. Tks!

The previous budget had a line item for adding features to the HoS smart contract. As I understand, this is still present in the “IT” costs? Hard to rationalize these spends for on-chain voting.

Perhaps it would be better to demonstrate the utility of the existing HoS infra, which already has something like >$750k in total development costs.

The metrics shared by @DDeAlmeida are not encouraging. The best way to move forward will be to earn the trust of the community. We need to see utility demonstrated by the existing infra and positive results from leadership.

If that isn’t possible, we should consider options for winding this debacle down.

Please read again.

I’m just telling that Report must be mandatory for everyone who will be paid by HoS

I really appreciate you and the team reviewing and adjusting this proposal, having the community feedback into account.

Says a lot of your work ethos and it has huge merit.

I don’t have any further questions or concerns regarding this proposal and I believe this is the best way forward in building a solid foundation to HoS.

Well done!

Ready to vote favorably to it!

Voting FOR

I’m happy to see the budget drop. It’s a lower risk setup given the market and DAO landscape.

One thing I’d keep half an eye on is the legal and compliance line since it’s most of the spend. I’m curious if the quarterly reports will show what it bought. But easy yes from me. Great work Angela!

Let’s get House of Stake on its feet.

Voted “FOR”

I voted in favor of this proposal to start getting HoS fully operational with its own budget. Excited to see where 2026 brings us with HoS.

If you haven’t please vote as today is the last day before the vote closes.

This proposal has passed.
Thank you to everyone who voted and contributed to the HoS Budget Proposal discussion.

It took a few iterations, but I think we’ve arrived at a strong outcome. More importantly, we made the governance process work as intended: the forum discussion shaped the proposal, and the proposal, in turn, shaped the discussion.

Congratulations to everyone involved.
We’re kicking off execution now, including KPI tracking and establishing our data pipelines. Expect the first report to be published in September 2026, end of Q3/2026.

hos_official:

Reporting Cadence

Quarterly: Comprehensive report covering KPIs, budget usage, treasury status, operational performance.

When report for Q3? It’s almost mid of October.

Below is the Q3-2026 Operational & Treasury Report for House of Stake, which will serve as the canonical reference for this reporting period, and following reporting periods for HSP-026. Operations and financial management ran smoothly throughout the quarter with zero budget overruns, full SLA compliance, and zero security incidents. Thanks for your patience for this first report.

Reporting period: Q3-2026 (01 July 2026 – 30 September 2026)

Governance reference: HSP-026 | Operational Budget July 2026–June 2027

1. Executive Summary

During Q3 2026 (July 1 – September 30, 2026), House of Stake operations ran smoothly and remained fully aligned with the approved HSP-026 Operational Budget framework. All operational expenditures, vendor disbursements, and grant/program execution costs stayed strictly within authorized budget allocations, requiring no mid-quarter reallocations or emergency funding requests.

• Treasury Status:
  • House of Stake’s treasury assets originate from one main allocation:
    • 3.286M NEAR transferred from the NEAR Community Purpose Trust in March 2026.
    • After accounting for all expenditure through the end of Q3, assets under management totalled 3.266M NEAR and 5.52 USDC.
• Key Operational Development or Outcome:
  • All core operational functions and governance workflows performed within budget with no material issues or deviations to report. Standard governance execution remained high, achieving a 100% completion rate across scheduled voting processes and required transparency reporting milestones (including ongoing execution reports for HSP-007 and HSP-028).
• Material Budget or Vendor Development:
  • Financial expenditures remained well within approved limits, with $23,207.50 USD and 10,000.00 NEAR disbursed in Q3 across Legal, IT/Infrastructure, and Operations Management categories. No new vendors or service providers were onboarded during Q3 2026. All existing service commitments are fully covered by the current operational budget.
• Material Risk, Delay, or Decision:
  • There are no material risks, security incidents, or project delays to report for Q3. Treasury reserves and operational wallets remained secure with zero treasury breaches and 100% adherence to internal compliance protocols.

2. Budget Utilization — as of 30 September 2026

Notes & Updates:

• Remaining = Approved − Paid − Committed. September services paid on 2 October remain committed at quarter end.
• Update 2026-10-28: The updated table consistently treats payments made in October as committed at quarter end, rather than paid by 30 September. Budget utilization remains measured in the invoice/budget currency, including USD invoices settled in NEAR.Variance and forecast

• Variance and forecast
• There are no material deviations from the HSP-026 Operational Budget plan. Expenditures across all categories (Legal & Compliance, IT & Infrastructure, and HoS Ops Management) are tracking on or below projected seasonal run-rates.

3. Treasury Status

• Opening balance snapshot: at account creation, see “Transactions”
• Closing balance snapshot: 30 September 2026
• Currency conversion: NEAR-USDC 05 August, 2026 | 1 USDC = $0.999427 | Tx: A3rZfWpztQL15Xy3Vv66PDTxemvh8Ch8ZEuLhLTNvwTU

4. Budget Utilization vs. Treasury Status (As of September 30, 2026)

Reconciliation Notes:

• Legal & Compliance and IT & Infrastructure: Some invoices were issued in USD but settled in NEAR.

• Treasury Status: Outflow totals exclude internal transfers and reallocations.

• *Update 2026-10-28:

  The updated comparison aligns actual payments through 30 September with treasury movements from the operations wallet, separating token conversions from spending. Figures now distinguish paid amounts from outstanding commitments and avoid counting the NEAR conversion and subsequent USDC payment twice.”

5. Operational Performance and KPIs

Execution Reliability per Proposal

KPI	Target	Quarter result	Status	Notes
Execution reliability	≥95% of voting processes completed end-to-end on schedule	100%		NEAR Proposals

Transparency (Proposals in Execution)

Proposal	URL	Reports delivered	Status	Notes
Transparency	100% of required reports on time; all delays communicated within 48 hours	100%		NEAR Proposals
HSP-007		June, July, August payout reports July, August, September performance reports
HSP-028		Milestone update

Compliance readiness

KPI	Target	Quarter result	Status	Notes
Compliance readiness	100% adherence; zero compliance breaches at HoS Ops	100%		Complete and compliant financial accounting confirmed, October 15, 2026

Security robustness

KPI	Target	Status	Notes
Security Robustness	0 breaches affecting treasury funds		No breaches identified, verification passed Oct 21, 2026
Security Robustness	Recovery fully functional		Backup recovery test passed October 19, 2026
Security Robustness	Critical patching: ≤ 48 hours for data/governance infrastructure		No critical patching identified July 1 2026-September 30 2026

Notes:

Priorities for the Next Quarter (Q4 2026):

• Preparation and submission of at least one new governance proposal before the end of the year.
• Prepare 2026 books closed and review House of Stake Operational Budget 2027 to refine forward allocations.
• Maintaining 100% on-time execution and transparency reporting across active programs.

Planned Procurement, Renewal, or Operational Change:

• Nothing to note for the upcoming quarter.
• All active software, infrastructure, and legal retainer contracts remain valid and budgeted.

Known Milestone, Risk, or Reporting Obligation:

• Risks: No operational, financial, or security risks to report.

6. Managed Wallet Register

7. Attestation

We confirm that, to the best of our knowledge, all wallets managed by House of Stake are included in this report; the reported balances have been reconciled against the relevant blockchain or service records; and all identified exceptions have been disclosed above.

8. Source records and links

Published HSP-026 proposal: HSP-026: Establish House of Stake Operational Budget for July 2026 – June 2027