Attributes
Author: PNF
Recipients: Grantees
Asking Amount: 60,000 OP; 70,000 ARB; and 750,000 POKT from the ERA program; all of which is already being custodied by PNF on behalf of the DAO (a combined value of about $475,000 at current prices)
tldr/
This proposal requests to use DAO funds held by PNF for a retroactive grant program to reward people and projects for impactful contributions to POKT Network such as driving awareness and adoption, enriching the ecosystem, and developing the protocol.
Summary
Arbitrum and Optimism have awarded grants to POKT Network in recognition of our impact on their ecosystems and our importance to a fully decentralised stack. We propose using these funds, plus POKT, to reward positive impact in our own ecosystem.
An emerging mechanism, retroactive funding bridges the gap between the value of a contribution and what someone gets paid to create it. Retroactive funding recognizes that true value or impact can be assessed only with the passage of time and provides certainty to contributors that ultimately their compensation will reflect that value. And if there’s one thing humans love, it’s certainty.
Affording certainty in this way makes POKT a more attractive place to build. Not only are retroactive grants a great way to get funds into the hands of the people who create positive impact, but also they’re a way to draw talent to POKT Network, since contributors will know that their impact will be fully compensated.
We designed this program to deliver retroactive funding in a way that also strengthens our relationships with Optimism, Arbitrum, and Gitcoin (providing the tech piece) and that maximises awareness of the talent we have in our ecosystem and of the opportunities to build in POKT Network.
Note: Retro POKT Good Funding is not about double dipping. It’s about recognising impact that was either unpaid or has created demonstrably more value than what was paid for.
Background
POKT Network has received grants from other ecosystems:
- A genesis grant from Arbitrum of 75,000 ARB
- A retroactive public good grant from Optimism of 67,000 OP
These funds are currently custodied by PNF on behalf of the DAO. We propose redistributing nearly all of them via our own round of retroactive grants.
Optimism has now run 3 rounds of retroactive funding, the latest of which had 643 approved submissions including one by POKT Network. This level of participation is impressive and signals to talent that building in the Optimism and extended Superchain ecosystems will be rewarded. We believe a POKT retroactive funding round can create the same ripple effect.
Through the Era program, POKT adapted to provide more proactive funding and stimulus to builders. Builders now have certainty around funds available, and mechanisms like Quick Grants and RFPs enable us to reward proactively. Introducing this retroactive grants program would complement these mechanisms and ensure that builders and anyone else who does great things for the ecosystem are fully rewarded for the impact they deliver.
Implementation
Implementing this program covers applications, assessment, voting, and rewards. Below we summarise a more detailed design which is in refinement here
Applications
Contributors can submit a grant application for any network contribution whose value exceeds the funding already received, under one of the following categories:
- Protocol: recognising contributions to the POKT stack itself, either through contribution to main code sources such as Morse and Shannon, or through other dependencies and POKT-related repos.
- Ecosystem: recognising tools and applications using or enhancing the experience of working with the POKT stack and may include wallets, explorers or other associated tech. It’s all about making an impact on the broader POKT ecosystem through your creations.
- Adoption: recognising activities that drove awareness and adoption of the POKT Network, whether through discussions, referrals, content or any other meaningful contribution.
Voters
Voters for this retroactive funding round are our current DAO voters. We recommend that the DAO support the addition of the following 8 voters for the retroactive grants:
- Optimism representative - Partner who provided grant to be redistributed
- Arbitrum representative - Partner who provided grant to be redistributed
- FireEyes representative - FireEyes have provided knowledge and design support and have experience with major token programs for other DAOs
- Gitcoin representative - Gitcoin has provided technical assistance and grant knowledge to the design
- Adz - Unique knowledge around awareness and adoption impact
- Zak - Unique knowledge around community contributions
- Jack & Ben - High ecosystem context and impact knowledge as foundation directors
The foundation is also exploring the support of a neutral third-party given the close and likely overlapping roles of applicants and voters (and how to handle conflicts of interest). We will provide further detail on this in due course.
Assessment
Voters will assess impact using the following criteria:
- Depth: How deeply does the impact benefit the stakeholders, users or technology of the project
- Examples of questions for voters to ask themselves include but are not limited to the following:
- Is the benefit measurable in terms of $ or time saved?
- Is this benefit likely to continue in the future, or is it more temporary?
- Does the impact offer a significantly better solution for users other than existing options?
- Do users have to do a significant amount of work to use/maintain it?
- Examples of questions for voters to ask themselves include but are not limited to the following:
- Breadth: How broad and wide ranging is the impact utilized across the network, its participants and the wider web3 ecosystem
- Examples of questions for voters to ask themselves include but are not limited to the following:
- How widely is it used?
- How frequent is this use?
- Do many different stakeholder groups benefit?
- Does a very large proportion of any one stakeholder group use this?
- Is use slowing or accelerating?
- Examples of questions for voters to ask themselves include but are not limited to the following:
- Significance: How do certain contributions fundamentally change the impact and economics of the POKT ecosystem, and what multipliers should be applied in these limited cases
- Examples of questions for voters to ask themselves include but are not limited to the following:
- Was this work a game changer?
- If we could only ever give out 10 grants, should this get one of them?
- Is there a reason we want to incentivise this kind of work more than other types?
- Examples of questions for voters to ask themselves include but are not limited to the following:
Voters will analyse these contributions using the evidence provided and their relevance to our POKT DAO ambitions. We will aim to simplify the voting process so that voters can simply allocate projects to categories of No Impact, Low Impact, Medium Impact, High Impact or Highest Impact. This mechanism is still in design but you can get a sense for how this may look below:
| Category | Size of Impact | Voters can allocate to | Scoring weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Highest Impact | 50K + | Max 10% of projects | 10 Points |
| High Impact | 25-50K | Max 30% of projects | 5 Points |
| Medium Impact | 10-25K | Max 60% of projects | 3 Points |
| Low Impact | 0-10K | Up to 100% of projects | 1 Points |
| No Impact | None | Unlimited | 0 Points |
Further detail on the scoring mechanics will be provided prior to launch
Rewards
Each project will earn points based on the votes cast and their scoring weights. Rewards will be distributed to applicants based on their aggregate score as a proportion of the total score of all votes:
Applicant Points / Total Points = % of Rewards
They will then receive proportional rewards from each of the funding pools:
% of 60,000 OP
% of 70,000 ARB
% of 750,000 POKT
These rewards will be streamed to the provided wallets over 30 days, with each grantee receiving OP, ARB and POKT.
Timeline
The timeline is dependent on the successful passing of this proposal. An indicative timeline is provided here:
Deliverables
Deliverables for this proposal are:
- Completion of the first round of a high impact retroactive grants program
- Effective redistribution of OP, ARB & POKT as per a final design that reflects the summary above
- Increased awareness and visibility of POKT across our partners’ ecosystems and more broadly
- Strong signal to builders and impact creators of all kinds that POKT Network is open for business
Key Decisions
While the proposal should be assessed in totality, the main decisions for consideration are:
- Do you support the use of these custodied funds for the purpose of rewarding high impact contributions to the network?
- Do you support the addition of the 8 voters to our existing DAO voters within the scope of this retroactive grants program?
Budget
The budget for this is:
-
60,000 OP custodied by PNF in the OP Safe:
oeth:0x1A544D8dcA79d50c0E21e446BB33B03E01Cc9257 -
70,000 ARB already custodied by PNF in the ARB Safe:
arb1:0xd499168E0955B9eBDCCF4cb947aF2989D82EDEA5 -
750,000 POKT already allocated to PNF within the Era Budget