Although I support continuing to incentivize Hydration’s initiatives and products—which have proven to be professional and diligent—I will vote against this proposal in the current vote for the reasons outlined below:

1. Granting 5M DOT to this initiative means multiplying the previous incentive amount by five, and even if successful, it would be difficult to sustain over time.
2. 5M DOT represents 21.7% of the available liquidity in the Treasury. Committing this amount to a single project drastically limits our capacity to act effectively as a governing body and reduces our room to maneuver, essentially focusing the economic viability of the broader project on a single parachain.
3. Even if the incentive program were a complete success, the long-term consequences could be counterproductive—both for us as a DAO ecosystem and government, and ultimately for Hydration itself.

By allocating 21% of the funds to its rollup, we would be artificially strengthening a monopolistic position, which amounts to a market failure. (Argentinians among you should be particularly familiar with this kind of situation.)

This move would discourage or even block other potential participants from entering and competing in the market, as they’d be at a direct disadvantage against Hydration. Even if their proposals were just as good—or even technologically and economically superior—to HDX (better products), we would not be able to offer them the same kind of incentives to allow them to compete on equal terms.

This creates a toxic dependency between Hydration and the DAO Treasury, as our future success in DeFi would become entirely dependent on them. The continuity of their project would ultimately be subject to the will of the DAO, because if we decided to withdraw the incentives at a later date, it would be akin to killing the project.

To draw a parallel with the real world: granting such a massive incentive from the Polkadot government could essentially lead to a de facto nationalization of Hydration on our part.

1. I propose that, in order to approve a new incentive package, either the requested amount be reduced to a level that our Treasury can viably sustain—so that benefits could potentially be extended to other actors in the future—or, if the decision is made to grant Hydration the full 5M DOT, that it be disbursed in stages. These tranches would be released upon the achievement of specific milestones, and the operational timeline should be extended to a minimum of 18 to 24 months.

If we give 21% of our Treasury to a single project—even one that has proven its honesty, professionalism, and capability—there’s a real risk of killing it with success.

Having laid out my reasoning, and despite being a supporter of Hydration, my vote for now will be: NAY.

I’d love to hear the views of the rest of the community, especially those of you who have voted in favor, are planning to do so, or are part of the Hydration team—I know there are a few of you—so I can better understand your perspectives. Thanks

Hydration has delivered, no question there. But asking for 5M DOT all at once, with no conditions or milestones, really feels like giving a blank check. We're talking about 20–40% of the available Treasury funds going to a single project, in one shot. If it underperforms or doesn’t meet expectations, that’s a huge chunk of capital gone with no way to reallocate. I'd feel way more comfortable with a staged approach, tied to clear KPIs like TVL, user growth, volume, or XCM activity. It’s not about doubting the team — it’s about reducing systemic risk and showing responsible governance. Also, it would help to see benchmarks from other ecosystems. Like, what’s the cost per user or per $ of TVL in Aptos, zkSync, OP, etc.? We're putting up 5M DOT — we should have some expectations on what that delivers. Personally, I'm not against supporting Hydration. But I'd rather see a reduced amount first — maybe 2.5 to 3M DOT max, with the rest unlocked based on results. That leaves room for others too and avoids concentrating all our DeFi strategy around a single protocol.