[TFIP-28] TrueFi Operational Expense Request

Context & Previous Budget Approval

In TFIP-23, the DAO approved an operational budget for Q2 2025, building upon the lean yet ambitious direction initially established in TFIP-19. These earlier proposals were designed to recalibrate TrueFi’s operational cost structure, bring more core functions in-house, reduce reliance on third-party vendors, and ensure DAO-wide transparency, legal alignment, and financial compliance.

Since implementing these frameworks, the TrueFi core contributors have continued to optimize resource usage while advancing major strategic objectives. This includes completing successful transitions of responsibilities such as IT infrastructure management, making headway in legal restructuring, and establishing a more data-driven governance cadence across departments.

Spending through Q2 2025 has remained within the bounds outlined in TFIP-23. Finalized figures for June 2025 will be published on the TrueFi DAO Report - Q2 2025.

This Q3-Q4 budget proposal is intended to continue fueling the DAO’s long-term vision: efficient and compliant operations, best-in-class DeFi products, and an engaged, value-aligned community. It integrates clear KPIs per workstream, a practice strongly requested by community members, to enhance understanding of department-specific activities.


Current Status & Budget Performance

At the beginning of Q2 2025, the DAO held a reserve of 55,502 USDT and 3,870,319 TRU, both remaining from TFIP-19. Under TFIP-23, the DAO approved a new operational budget of $497,000 in 17,138,200 TRU. As part of our treasury management decision, we only converted 9,926,875 TRU into USDT (approximately 368,067 USDT) to cover current operational expenses through Q2, awaiting more favorable market conditions to convert the remainder.

By the end of May 2025, actual spending from TFIP-23 funds amounted to 213,000 USDT out of $497,000 budgeted. As of the date of this report, 210,269 USDT and 11,081,644 TRU remain in the new treasury wallet. We forecast June expenditures of 137,938 USDT and plan to restore the operational reserve by converting an additional 128,933 USDT from ~3,348,909 TRU* at $0.0385/TRU*.

The Q2 2025 expenditures covered all ongoing operational needs outlined in TFIP-23, as well as several unbudgeted but essential backpayments—most notably related to IT infrastructure previously managed externally. Despite these additional obligations, total spending remains below the approved budget. This outcome reflects our continued commitment to lean financial management, which we intend to maintain going forward as we shift our focus toward the next key objective: increasing TrueFi’s TVL, spinning off Elara Finance, and generating sustainable protocol revenue.

Taking all of the above into account, we expect the treasury status at the end of Q2 to be:

  • USDT Reserve: 201,264 USDT
  • Unspent TRU Tokens: 7,732,734 TRU

*Subject of change based on the TRU price


Budget Request for Q3 and Q4 2025

Total requested budget: $953,000

  1. This proposal requests six months of operating expenses to support core functions such as governance, operational costs, and community initiatives. The budget accounts for the necessary funding to maintain operational stability and strategic development, with an estimated total of $953,000 for the upcoming 6 months.
  2. The proposed budget will take a ~30% earmark in TRU’s token price at the execution of the proposal before being swapped into stablecoins. This is to account for price fluctuations before the TRU-to-USDC/USDT conversion.
  3. Any excess funds will be reported to the DAO at the end of the three months.

This figure includes ongoing operational costs as well as necessary back payments and strategic hires as detailed below. The budget structure remains consistent with previous frameworks to preserve clarity and predictability.

1. Legal

Budget: $100,000

Objectives:

  • Implement necessary legal modifications to TrueFi Foundation Ltd, including board member transitions and corporate governance updates in line with new BVI regulations.
  • Finalize the Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Elara to formalize terms of engagement.
  • Review and adapt internal documentation and obligations to align with evolving jurisdictional requirements in the BVI.
  • Finalize the incorporation of Elara’s SPVs

KPIs:

  • Amendments filed and confirmed by Q4 2025.
  • Signed Elara MSA delivered and made available for DAO transparency.
  • Delivery of a legal memo summarizing material regulatory shifts in BVI and their implications for DAO operations.

2. Finance & Treasury

Budget: $82,000

Includes:

  • CFO’s (x2): $75,000
  • Software subscriptions: $7,000

Objectives:

  • Maintain core finance operations, including DAO-level bookkeeping, centralized payments, and monthly cost control reviews.
  • Coordinate with legal team to assess how regulatory changes could impact fiscal procedures.
  • Prepare and file the BVI Annual Financial Report during Q3 2025.
  • Support the rollout of an enhanced treasury strategy that includes stablecoin reserve design, RWA integration, and DeFi yield instruments.

KPIs:

  • Zero late payments; Quarterly reporting published via DAO Report
  • Q3 financial report and annual submission in BVI completed.
  • Treasury diversification plan (incl. ~11M TRU minted via TFIP-23).
  • Internal DAO guide created for future treasury strategy iterations.

3. Strategy & Operations

Budget: $172,500

Includes:

  • Board Members (x5): $60,000
  • Head of Operations (x1): $75,000
  • Head of Strategy (x1): $37,500

Objectives:

  • Recruit and onboard a Head of Strategy to oversee long-term roadmap planning, cross-stream coordination, and DAO-wide alignment.
  • Sustain day-to-day operations management and enhance governance and contributor coordination.
  • Provide governance oversight, strategic planning, and operational coordination.
  • Execute strategic roadmap, aligning product, legal, and finance streams.
  • Manage day-to-day operational continuity and reporting cadence.

KPIs:

  • Governance cadence maintained (forum, Snapshot, Tally).
  • Strategic input documented for each major initiative (legal, dev, finance).

4. Research & Analysis

Budget: $93,000

Includes:

  • Head of Research (x1): $75,000
  • Research Analyst (x1): $18,000

Objectives:

  • Provide foundational market and competitive research.
  • Support financial and treasury strategy with analysis and benchmarks.

KPIs:

We want to increase long form content, quantify growth metrics, improve Dune dashboards, and continue to grow our digital footprint. While most of the work done in Q2 was social media short form and speaking engagements we now want to transition to more fequent coverage of relevant RWA/DeFi protocols

5. Product & Development

Budget: $404,000

Includes:

  • Head of Product (x1): $75,000
  • Full-Stack Engineers (x2): $200,000
  • UX/UI Designers ( 1 Team ): $54,000
  • New Developers (x2): $75,000. Transition starting June 2025
    • Developer 1: full-stack focused on backend, smart contracts, chain integration
    • Developer 2: frontend-focused, responsible for UI/UX reskin delivery

Objectives:

  • Manage hand-off from Akemona, whose contract ended June 1, 2025, including support during the offboarding phase.
  • Onboard two new developers with different focus areas: backend/smart contracts (started June 2) and frontend/UI improvements.
  • Deliver and polish the new UI/UX reskin for TrueFi.
  • Support marketing and product with consistent design assets.

KPIs:

  • Developer 1 contributing to tech debt backlog within one month of start.
  • Developer 2 operational by end of Q3, focused on delivering full UI/UX reskin.
  • UI/UX reskin publicly launched before Q4 close.
  • Full design support for reskin launch (Q4).
  • Monthly design asset delivery for content and product.

6. IT Infrastructure

Budget: $30,000

Objectives:

  • Fully internalize IT infrastructure, transitioning services previously managed via Archblock (e.g., GitHub, Gitbook, Cloudflare, INFURA, Heroku).
  • Pay down infra costs covering Q3 and Q4 2025 (~$20,000)
  • Create a budget for IT Equipment procurement (~$10,000)

KPIs:

  • All infrastructure access and billing under DAO control by the start of Q3.

7. Marketing & Community

Budget: $61,500

Includes:

  • Marketer (x1): $50,000
  • Community Moderator (x1): $1,500
  • Other marketing costs: $10,000

Objectives:

  • Amplify TrueFi and Elara’s presence in web3 media, through long-form content, podcast appearances, and ecosystem collaborations.
  • Drive forward community-led initiatives that increase ecosystem stickiness and TRU retention.
  • Optimize budget allocation for industry events, targeting ROI-positive opportunities only.

KPIs:

  • One thought leadership piece published each month.
  • Two high-quality speaking engagements secured by year-end.
  • Quarterly DAO report Town hall call

8. Team Travel for Regional Representation

Budget: $10,000

Includes:

  • Team Travel: $10,000

Objectives:

  • Maintain a minimal conference presence aligning with GTM launch of Elara finance

Summary Budget Table

Cost Center Q3 2025 Q4 2025 Total
Legal $50,000 $50,000 $100,000
Finance & Treasury $37,500 $44,500 $82,000
Strategy & Operations $86,250 $86,250 $172,500
Research & Analysis $46,500 $46,500 $93,000
Product & Development $202,000 $202,000 $404,000
IT Infrastructure $15,000 $15,000 $30,000
Marketing & Community $30,750 $30,750 $61,500
Team Travel $5,000 $5,000 $10,000
Total $473,000 $480,000 $953,000

Estimated Budget in USD:

Position/Item Annual Q3+Q4 2025 TrueFi Elara*
Head of Operations (x1) $150,000 $75,000 $0 $75,000
Head of Product (x1) $150,000 $75,000 $0 $75,000
Head of Research (x1) $150,000 $75,000 $0 $75,000
Head of Strategy (x1) $75,000 $37,500 $37,500 $0
Full Stack Engineers (x2) $400,000 $200,000 $0 $200,000
Developers (x2) $150,000 $75,000 $75,000 $0
IT Infrastructure $45,000 $30,000 $30,000 $0
Marketer (x1) $100,000 $50,000 $50,000 $0
Directors Fees (x5) $120,000 $60,000 $60,000 $0
Research Analyst (x1) $36,000 $18,000 $18,000 $0
Community Moderator (x1) $3,000 $1,500 $1,500 $0
Designer (UI/UX) $108,000 $54,000 $54,000 $0
Team Travel $20,000 $10,000 $0 $10,000
Marketing/PR $20,000 $10,000 $10,000 $0
Legal and Compliance $200,000 $100,000 $25,000 $75,000
Financial Admin and Audit $157,000 $82,000 $82,000 $0
Total Expenses $953,000 $443,000 $510,000

*Note on Elara Costs

There would be a loan structure where TrueFi recoups the full development cost of Elara, as well as 10% of token supply on top of this. We feel this is in line with the risk being taken by the DAO and should not only provide liquid capital in terms of loan repayment to TrueFi but also generate significant upside for token holders and the DAO.

Projected Operational Cost $953,000
Reallocation from the TFIP-23 -$297,000
Budget Funding request $656,000
~30% earmark $196,800
Total Funding request $852,800
TRU price $0,03761
TRU minting request ~22,674,820 TRU

Goals Enabled by TFIP-28

This proposal supports a strategically lean yet high-impact roadmap for Q3 and Q4 2025. If approved, the budget will enable the following critical goals:

  1. Ensure Legal & Operational Continuity

    Execute legal restructuring of the TrueFi Foundation in BVI, renew board mandates, finalize Elara’s MSA, and maintain full compliance with updated jurisdictional requirements.

  2. Deliver Product Advancements

    Finalize the UI/UX reskin and continue backend/smart contract integrations with two newly onboarded developers. This includes a full transition from Akemona to in-house technical teams.

  3. Strengthen Strategic Oversight & Governance

    Introduce the Head of Strategy role to align product, legal, and financial streams under a unified vision while maintaining DAO-wide operational cadence and transparency.

  4. Build a Sustainable Financial Framework

    Continue financial operations and reporting, execute treasury diversification strategies, and submit required BVI filings, ensuring resilient and responsible capital stewardship.

  5. Accelerate Research & Community Engagement

    Scale research output toward long-form RWA/DeFi content and dashboards while maintaining strong forum moderation, community responsiveness, and external thought leadership.

  6. Internalize Key Infrastructure & Reduce External Dependencies

    Complete ownership transfer of all core IT infrastructure (hosting, tooling, documentation) from Archblock to TrueFi, while planning lean internal spending and offboarding legacy vendors.


Next Governance Steps

As the proposals does not fall under the simplified governance exemptions, the proposal will require the following steps:

1. Forum Posting: A 72-hour posting period on the forum to allow the community to provide feedback.

2. Snapshot Vote: A 48-hour Snapshot vote will be conducted with the options: “OK to vote on Tally,” “Not OK to vote on Tally,” and “Abstain.” At least 5% of staked TRU must participate in this Snapshot vote to meet the quorum.

3. Amendment Period: If the 5% quorum is met, with a majority negative vote, a 72-hour period will follow to allow for any amendments or discussions before the proposal is posted to Tally.

4. Tally Vote: Otherwise, the proposal will be posted to Tally for the final vote.


Overall, Truefi Foundation needs funds and not have to continiously go to Tally votes for more budgets.

The previous 3 month budget was too short and really silly for such a short time frame. And such hand to mouth like budget was approved only becuase the foundation may have been on short runway.

I am hoping there is flexibility on budget spend to help on Truefi’s current platform or the stablecoin project “Elara/Polaris”? There is no point to be rigid on budgeting provided that there is a budget.

In my opinion, detailed funding applications help improve transparency. Some investors even want to know more details, such as which aspects of the project construction each salaried person is responsible for. From this proposal, we can see that Truefi’s strategy has changed. In the past, Truefi relied too much on third-party organizations to design and build products, resulting in products that could not be delivered as scheduled and as expected. The current proposal has added developers and IT Infrastructure, which means that Truefi will build its own products in the future, which is conducive to controlling the progress and quality of product construction. I think TrueFi should have done this a long time ago, and maybe it’s not too late to wake up now. To be honest, I am more relieved to see that Elara was developed by the TrueFi team instead of a third-party team. If it was developed by a third-party team, the product would probably not be delivered.

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Hey @Don, @Suvicrypto, Below are a high level summary of the breakdown of roles and responsibilities, we are hoping this provides more insight into how we are going to be measuring progress. Obviously, in line with the agile manifesto we want to respond to change over rigidly following a plan. Here is how we are thinking about executing and measuring success:

Department Core mandate & responsibilities Suggested KPIs (Q3-Q4 2025)
1 Legal — $100 k • Maintain BVI entity compliance, board transitions, Elara MSA, and new SPV formations. ✓ All corporate amendments stamped by BVI registrar ✓ Elara MSA + SPV docs signed
2 Finance & Treasury — $82 k • Bookkeeping, payments, reserve management, BVI annual report. • Execute TRU-to-stable swaps and diversification (RWA, DeFi vaults). • Publish Quarterly DAO financial info & audit trails. ✓ BVI annual return filed Q3. ✓ Quarterly OKR scorecard with ≥ 70 % target achievement.
3 Strategy & Operations — $172.5 k • Governance cadence (forum ↔ Snapshot ↔ Tally), OKRs, cross-team sync. • Head-of-Strategy owns roadmap and Elara spin-out milestones. • Board provides fiduciary oversight. • Assist in Elara fundraise ✓ Minimum 1 governance post / quarter and Snapshot cadence maintained. ✓ Publish updated product roadmap w/ dependencies by October (Q3 DAO Report).
4 Research & Analysis — $93 k • Produce market research, RWA & DeFi deal pipeline analysis. • Ownership of Dune dashboards and on-chain metrics. • Support treasury with benchmarks & risk models. •Assist in Elara fundraise ✓ ≥ 6 long-form research posts (RWA/DeFi) by year-end. ✓ Public Dune dashboard refreshed bi-weekly. ✓ Monthly comparative yield / risk brief delivered to Finance.
5 Product & Development — $404 k • UI/UX reskin delivery & technical debt maintenance. • Up to two new devs (backend & frontend, fully dedicated to TrueFi) clear Akemona hand-off and burn down tech-debt. • Provide design assets to Marketing and Engineering. • Regularly sync with deisgn agency to identify future product improvements • Prioritize product backlog and triage bugs • Manage the product and software development lifecycles ✓ Complete UI/UX reskin – Eng. Estimate pending. ✓ 2 DeFi integrations deployed in production ✓ ≥ 70 % sprint success rate (stories closed vs committed). ✓ Design agency delivers asset kit 1×/month. (Elara and TrueFi)
6 IT Infrastructure — $30 k • Migrate GitHub, GitBook, Cloudflare, Infura, Heroku into DAO custody. • Budget hardware & cloud spend. • Ensure 95 % uptime for core services. ✓ 100 % infra accounts transferred and billed to DAO by Aug 31. ✓ Infra spend ≤ $2.5 k per month average. ✓ No unplanned production downtime > 12 h.
7 Marketing & Community — $61.5 k • Produce long-form thought leadership, secure podcasts / panels. • Moderate Discord/Telegram, run town-halls, and event presence. • Manage paid placements & ROI tracking. ✓ ≥ 1 flagship article / month. ✓ 1 speaking slot per quarter. ✓ Quarterly town-hall.
8 Team Travel — $10 k • Minimal presence at top RWA / DeFi events (e.g., Token2049, ETHGlobal). • Support Elara GTM roadshow. ✓ Travel within budget; publish post-conference ROI memo for each trip. ✓ At least 1 partnership lead per conference moves to diligence stage.
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Although the proposed budget for the second half of the year is proportional to the first half, I believe it’s important to provide an update on what has actually been accomplished so far.

  • Timeline: Q2
    Have the stated goals and commitments for H1 been met? Specifically:
    KPI: 3 bluechip DeFi integrations for tfBills and vault aggregator integrations for Lending Pools

  • Timeline: Mid Q2
    TrueFI Core Product Overhaul
    UI/UX Overhaul
    KPI: UI/UX modifications deployed to production

  • Timeline: Mid Q2
    Tighter Adapter tfBill integration
    KPI: As part of UI/UX integrations mint and redeem for tfBills prominently displayed on the homepage

  • Timeline: Early Q2
    Goal: Successful spin-out and launch of Polaris
    KPI: Completed VC fundraise and entity separation

  • Timeline: Mid/Late Q2
    Goal: Conduct security audits for Polaris
    KPI: Multiple successful audits of the Polaris codebase

A progress report on these items would help delegates assess whether the team is on track and justify continued funding