# Rocket Pool proposes defaulting Smart Node minipools to the latest delegate

> The proposal would increase governance's practical ability to propagate approved minipool logic through the supported Smart Node path and reduce delegate-version fragmentation.

- URL: https://riadefi.com/on-chain/2026-01-23-rocket-pool-rpip-77-latest-minipool-delegate/
- Type: Control change
- Stage: Proposed
- Evidence: developing
- Materiality: watch
- Event date: 2026-01-23
- Version: 1, published 2026-08-22 (first published 2026-08-22)
- Follow-up: 2026-02-06
- Advisor-relevant: yes
- Affects: Rocket Pool (protocol)

Developing. Some claims here are not yet confirmed; they are listed apart from the confirmed facts. A new version replaces this one when the primary evidence changes.

## What happened

Rocket Pool opened the RPIP-77 vote to make Smart Node-managed minipools use the latest delegate and remove supported configuration for older delegate implementations.

## What changed

The proposal would increase governance's practical ability to propagate approved minipool logic through the supported Smart Node path and reduce delegate-version fragmentation.

## What did not change

At the January window boundary, the vote was still open and no Smart Node update was confirmed released or adopted. Non-Smart Node users would not be forced to change delegates.

## Confirmed

- The official vote opened on 2026-01-23.
- The proposal states that only 7% of operators had proactively selected the latest delegate.
- A positive result would lead to a Smart Node update changing defaults and removing supported older-delegate options.

## Still open

- The vote did not close until 2026-02-06, outside the backfill window.
- Implementation timing, release contents, adoption, and any later enforcement mechanism were not established within January.

## What it means for an advisor

- Monitor the vote and resulting Smart Node release because delegate propagation changes the practical control model for legacy minipools.
- Do not infer that governance-approved logic became universal or that non-Smart Node operators lost their ability to retain older delegates.

## Sources

1. [Use Latest Delegate for Minipools (RPIP-77)](https://snapshot.org/#/rocketpool-dao.eth/proposal/0x0f82693c42d491f8a74fe0584a1d503e30ab8c27a3800bc0c257d0f35340bcc5) · Rocket Pool · 2026-01-23


---

Published by Ketju Research on RIADeFi (https://riadefi.com). Educational research for financial professionals; not investment, legal, tax, or compliance advice.