[RFC][RGP - 27] - Drips protocol upgrade

👩‍⚖️ Governance 👀 Active Proposals
1
Author(s): @igor
Type: executeable
Created: 2025-09-09
Status: active
Request for Comments: —
Formal Review: —
Submission: —

Purpose

The purpose of this proposal is to upgrade the Drips protocol smart contracts to their latest versions with the newest features. This will enable funding via Drips for more users and ecosystems. The upgraded protocol will also improve the UX for the Drips app users by enabling more aggressive transactions batching and better integration with the wallets.

Overview & Background

The changes highlights:

  • Filecoin, Metis and Optimism RepoDriver: add support for ORCID and generic website identities.

  • Ethereum RepoDriver: switch from OracleSpace Labs to Gelato as the oracle provider and add support for ORCID and generic website identities.

  • Ethereum NFTDriver: add support for custom NFT URIs.

  • Ethereum, Filecoin, Metis and Optimism ImmutableSplitsDriver: make account IDs deterministically calculated.

This is a drop-in replacement that doesn’t disrupt or limit the protocol and all the user funds, configurations and account ownerships are unaffected.

Implementation

  1. Upgrade NFTDriver on Ethereum under 0xcf9c49B0962EDb01Cdaa5326299ba85D72405258. This upgrades the implementation to address 0x566ECff89fD28B374F40E64D0B838Fa2175Fc99E deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e.

  2. Upgrade ImmutableSplitsDriver on Ethereum under 0x1212975c0642B07F696080ec1916998441c2b774. This upgrades the implementation to address 0x6E276c2975C1d9Ea776C6fEbE3437ADd4A769131 deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e.

  3. Upgrade RepoDriver on Ethereum under 0x770023d55D09A9C110694827F1a6B32D5c2b373E. This upgrades the implementation to address 0x65C75c75A2cDdd98152cAD40ebbbfEc988bcFdd9 deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e and configures it to use as the oracle the Gelato Web3 Function deployed to IPFS under QmZaFjGs6vPTxhDtP2CKDtwrP7CvM1S4k6ZnHNHxkzQbNn deployed from commit 4e0fdfce2ea2d07ece8dd72d7b10de3db22dfec7.

  4. Unwrap 0.1 WETH to raw ETH. The raw ETH is needed to cover the fees for the message bridges.

  5. Configure LayerZero for sending messages to Metis and Optimism. The configuration is identical to how the LZBridgedGovernor contracts have been configured on both of these chains during their deployments.

  6. Send a message to LZBridgedGovernor on Metis under 0x07791819560264627e9c4B1308e546667E83B564. The message will trigger execution of the following steps by the governor:

    1. Upgrade ImmutableSplitsDriver on Metis under 0x96EC722e1338f08bbd469b80394eE118a0bc6753. This upgrades the implementation to address 0x459d3067322AA9637430D9512D2f61a853322045 deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e.

    2. Upgrade RepoDriver on Metis under 0xe75f56B26857cAe06b455Bfc9481593Ae0FB4257. This upgrades the implementation to address 0x277cEFeC0EE89f01A27d4f66670341743f1C95D2 deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e and configures it to use as the oracle the Gelato Web3 Function deployed to IPFS under QmZaFjGs6vPTxhDtP2CKDtwrP7CvM1S4k6ZnHNHxkzQbNn deployed from commit 4e0fdfce2ea2d07ece8dd72d7b10de3db22dfec7.

  7. Send a message to LZBridgedGovernor on Optimism under 0x07791819560264627e9c4B1308e546667E83B564. The message will trigger execution of the following steps by the governor:

    1. Upgrade ImmutableSplitsDriver on Optimism under 0x96EC722e1338f08bbd469b80394eE118a0bc6753. This upgrades the implementation to address 0xa4D8Ab5699EDA234d835830FC323A551B15878a3 deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e.

    2. Upgrade RepoDriver on Optimism under 0xe75f56B26857cAe06b455Bfc9481593Ae0FB4257. This upgrades the implementation to address 0x41cced5DB73791de36FfaC3DD4D19a4C7378E6FB deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e and configures it to use as the oracle the Gelato Web3 Function deployed to IPFS under QmZaFjGs6vPTxhDtP2CKDtwrP7CvM1S4k6ZnHNHxkzQbNn deployed from commit 4e0fdfce2ea2d07ece8dd72d7b10de3db22dfec7.

  8. Send a message to AxelarBridgedGovernor on Filecoin under 0xE9B15C572EB7Ba2E2856cc5eFaAb8fe1d0e34116. The message will trigger execution of the following steps by the governor:

    1. Upgrade ImmutableSplitsDriver on Filecoin under 0x96EC722e1338f08bbd469b80394eE118a0bc6753. This upgrades the implementation to address 0xCcB20FB4b70226E829009D018461d508fcA70060 deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e.

    2. Upgrade RepoDriver on Filecoin under 0xe75f56B26857cAe06b455Bfc9481593Ae0FB4257. This upgrades the implementation to address 0x20A1B66689cdA2c97aB167C0c0732EC3E986C3b0 deployed from commit 633f9d23f332aee14b2bcb7b6fa6ee2aad1ee73e and configures it to use as the oracle the Gelato Web3 Function deployed to IPFS under QmZaFjGs6vPTxhDtP2CKDtwrP7CvM1S4k6ZnHNHxkzQbNn deployed from commit 4e0fdfce2ea2d07ece8dd72d7b10de3db22dfec7.

Reasoning & Analysis

This proposal achieves multiple goals:

  1. Widen the userbase by upgrading NFTDriver on all chains to support ORCID-based and plain website-based identities. This will enable Drips in funding DeSci and will open up new possibilities for funding ad-free websites. This will lead to more usage of the protocol and more value in the funding graph. This in turn will strengthen the impact on the world of Drips and by extension of Radworks.

  2. Future-proof NFTDriver on Ethereum by switching the oracle provider from OracleSpace Labs to Gelato. The current provider is winding down their operation while Gelato has no such plans.

  3. Improve the UX of the Drips app by upgrading ImmutableSplitsDriver on all chains to make account IDs deterministically calculated. This will allow batching operations that require usage of the immutable splits account IDs that are yet to be created. Such batches won’t need to be split across multiple transactions making operations faster and cheaper to execute.

  4. Improve Drips integration with wallets by upgrading NFTDriver on Ethereum to make NFT token URIs configurable. This will let users tag their Drips identity tokens, so they are easier and safer to manage using generic wallets.

Reporting & Success Criteria

This proposal should result in a successful contracts upgrade across 4 chains. The upgrade should fulfill all goals listed in the “Overview & Background” section, most critically the lack of disturbance for the users of the protocol.

Fund Management

0.1 WETH owned by the DAO will be unwrapped to raw ETH and transferred back to the DAO. Some of these funds will be used to cover the cross-chain messages fees.

Timeline & Budget

The budget is capped at 0.03 ETH. Those funds will be used to cover the fees for sending cross-chain messages. The fees set to be paid in the proposal are highly overestimated and most of them will be refunded to the DAO shortly after the messages are delivered and the actual costs are determined. The proposal will have all of its effects fulfilled across all chains in about 20 minutes from its execution.

Proposal Code

The proposal is generated with code found in commit a0c82c85cc2e962ec25585f64236d225ce3433ca, specifically the Propose contract in file UpgradeProposal.sol, which ensures auditability, reproducibility and testability.

This proposal description does not include the usual list of calls because it would contain multiple large binary blobs with no clear meaning.

2

This proposal has finished its draft stage and now it’s officially an RFC, so I moved this post to the “Active Proposals” category.