Background
This time last year, we established a new grant program for the DAO, called GROW.
Core to its purpose was experimentation with better methods of retroactive funding (now referred to by other projects as Retroactive Public Goods Funding or retro PGF).
Retroactive Funding has always been part of our ecosystem with contributors returning to the DAO with proposals for payment after work was completed. All too often this process devolved into disagreement: "This ask is too much!!
” vs ” This should definitely be rewarded!!”
This led to contentious debates and slowed the velocity of building. It also often left reward questions unresolved or deferred until later, further diverting attention from our most important thing - execution.
We have made good progress in other areas of community contribution, and think now is the time to resolve the question of retroactive funding.
Proposal for RetroPGF
Retroactive funding aims to create a link between demonstrated impact (evidence) and resource allocation decisions (reward). Rather that be dragged into specific $ decisions, voters can signal where funds should flow, with the aggregate signal determining the amount awarded.
Retroactive funding also creates space for recognising contributions that often fall through the cracks such as stewarding debates, providing real-time support, or simply making introductions that lead to results, all of which have no alternative path to being rewarded.
POKT Network itself has been a recipient of retroactive rewards:
- Genesis grant of 75,000 ARB from the Arbitrum Foundation for values alignment and contributions to the web3 ecosystem.
- More recently an award of 67,000 OP by Optimism via their RetroPGF Round 3 for providing over 11B relays to Optimism and Base since our inception.
We want to redistribute some of these rewards to our own ecosystem.
The retroactive rewards pool will be made up of:
- 60,000 OP
- 60,000 ARB
- 750,000 POKT
Combined, this equates to roughly $500K USD at current prices.
Proposed Mechanism
The primary goal of retroactive funding is to reward the broader POKT community, ecosystem, and partners for contributions to the network, thereby encouraging further contributions and development.
There are two additional objectives:
- It will deepen our relationship with our grants partners - Optimism, Arbitrum, and Gitcoin
- It will be an effective way to attract new talent that can build on and for POKT Network
Here’s the high-level design we propose:
March & April
Invite submissions from teams and contributors who believe their impact and contributions exceed any rewards they may have already received from the network.
We’ll request applicants to provide impact evidence and data for assessment by a group of voters.
April / May
DAO Voters, PNF, and potentially a small number of representatives from Optimism, Arbitrum and Gitcoin will assess the submissions during a voting window and rate them for impact from highest to lowest (precise mechanism details to be confirmed).
Rewards will then flow proportionally so that the highest-impact contributions receive the highest rewards.
Rewards will be distributed evenly from each pool so that grantees will hold their proportion of OP, ARB and POKT at the end.
Next Steps
We’ll update this into a full proposal, based on your feedback, and then put it up for a vote.
- The 750,000 POKT will be provided from the current Era budget, meaning no further expense to the DAO.
- A PEP is required to unlock the OP and ARB rewards which are currently held by the DAO.
We will iterate on this retroactive funding process and calibrate the system so that the community has certainty of future and sustainable retroactive funding for the network.
We have ideas about how this can be funded from the Era Allocation and how to further partnerships with other ecosystems that can contribute to this rewards pool.
More details on this will follow.
I hope this provides a good overview for consideration. Please share here any questions or feedback.
Many thanks,
Ben
