Similar to allthecolors, we are a domain allocator for Compound Grants Program. I echo his comments about the work ethic of the Questbook team and we believe that both the team and their product is a great way to bring transparency to the program.
As of right now, the dydx grant program is receiving a lot of criticism for its lack of transparency, but QB tool helps tackle those issues. The issues mentioned in the dydx forum paint a clear picture of the issues that come from creating “traditional” grant programs in web3. QB use of blockchain and open forums, makes it easy for grantees to get better insight into their grant and the program itself.
We appreciate the nomination for our domain and with my experience in other grant programs (Optimism, Compound and currently setting up a grants program) we believe that we provide a lot of experience to help Euler.
We have been active participants in Euler DAO since we joined and look forward to helping them grow further.
Hi @ruchil ! Thanks for this thorough proposal! I remember the need for some grants distribution modifications was discussed during the first Governance call. So I would like to echo what guys have already said. At the same time, I feel obliged to play some devil’s advocate role.
While I have full confidence in the nominated domain allocators, I agree with @allthecolors that nomination process should be more open and decentralised. I believe that the DAO needs elections for each domain allocator position with free (self) and transparent application process. Some competition is always good. In organising elections, we also need clear rules and criteria of nominees. No conflict of interest is possible.
Financials.
Maybe Im too conservative, but ~2.16 for one programme seems too much. It is presumed that the programme for Euler will succeed based on the Compound and other project experience. However, I tend to look at each case particular and start with smaller amount in order to check how the programme works and proceed with bigger amount for further iterations.
The total amount of the programme is around 2 millions with domain allocators getting 6000$/month and project manager 12 000$/month. Im just reminded of the Euler story, that started as a 3 people team with just 700k in seed round. So with 2 mil for 5 people, a brand new start-up can be organised, hehe. Btw, what is the average salary for a full time position in EulerLabs? Is it above or below 6000?
As I have previously mentioned, I have concerns that decisions are adopted by 1 domain allocator. That does not seems very decentralised. Instead, (given that we want to have people focused on their domains only), I would suggest that we have Domain Councils comprised of 3 people at least. Thus some decentralisation is guaranteed and 2000$ (but I would recommend reduce it to 1000$) for each member of the domain council seem to be more reasonable rate of compensation.
PS. Im reminded of the Recognised Delegates programme having been rejected by Lemnicap, when it was about 1000$/month (at that time) for 10 people due to the lack of transparency, Im afraid that the story could repeat here
Thank you @ruchil and the Questbook team for putting across a well rounded proposal.
Considering Lemniscap’s investment in both Questbook and Euler, it is to our interest to have both the teams which we highly rate to be working together.
Also, considering my personal engagement with the leadership of both the teams, we would love to find a way to support the proposal.
But we have a few concerns about the RFC as it stands:
Capital preservation and efficiency of capital deployed is a primary concern for us. Considering the uncertain market and macro environment we currently are in, we think it is imperative to be judicious with where the Dao spends its funds.
Capital efficiency: Simply put, the Dao should looks to get maximum bang for every buck it spends.
Being frugal doesn’t mean slashing your spending or depriving yourself of things that you enjoy. It means knowing the value of a dollar and making every effort to spend it wisely.
We would like to propose the following changes to the proposal:
Allocator’s salary be reduced to $1,000 per month.
Questbook to provide initial Program Manager at no cost the Dao. This is a win-win for both Euler and Questbook.
Reduce the scope of the proposal to one quarter. As we approach the end of the quarter, the Dao can reassess and vote to continue the program with similar or increased budget. Basically this gives everyone a good trial period to judge the success of this grants program.
Change the compensation model for Questbook to charging a % of the capital deployed.
Reduce the number of domains for the first quarter to 3, namely - Multichain and Crosschain Strategy, Developer Tooling, New Protocol Ideas.
We believe responsibility for core marketing, events, hackathons, bootcamps, user-onboarding should reside with Euler Labs for the near future with the Dao assisting.
The targeted budget for each domain for this quarter to be $50,000.
P.S: Speaking of efficiency, I still cannot get over with the $50,000 that was proposed by Messari team and passed using a sparingly thin voted snapshot EIP with extremely low participation (25k Yes votes and 19K No votes). Maybe someone from Messari reads this and does the decent thing of proposing to return some of the funds.
Hi @ruchil thx for the proposal. I think it’s in the DAO best interest to have a grant program in the future and definitely need to consider this.
However, as discussed in our chat, i have some several concern that i will just write here again for everyone to see.
Budget → 300k for 6 months is quite a lot eventho it’s counted based on hourly cost. Also i think we shud reduce the total budget from 3M into much smaller number.
Measurable KPI → to define success, we need Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based KPI. I personally don’t see the Measurable part. Compensation can be adjusted based on KPI.
I personally don’t prefer any gatekeeping model where bunch of selected people decide to use the best way to spend money especially looking into how uniswap grant works. Unfortunately, I don’t know any better alternative yet.
I also would prefer if we go with this program, we will do DAO wide selection for the allocator. Also would prefer someone who is not involved with other competitors to prevent potential conflict of interest.
On 3, I do like the allocator model as I have found it efficient and focused with deployment for grants as compared to a full dao vote for every grant. Allocators can be assessed at the end of every quarter by the dao and rotated/reselected. For allocators looking to build a good record and reputation, this provides good incentives to perform well.
Hi @ruchil, thanks for your in-depth post. I think it’s important to have a grants model like this in place.
On top of our private discussions, I have been thinking about this a lot over the last few days.
Some points I would like to make:
Conflicts of interest: especially those who have been recommended as Domain Allocators.
-If you are employed by a competing entity, is it in the best interests of the Euler DAO to also employ you?
-If you are actively running/promoting an education program, should you be deciding where the education budget should go?
I think full disclosure should be in order from all parties.
I am with the other guys in that there should be a democratic solution to selecting the Allocators.
Budget: I’m with @shaishav0x@Raslambek and @patria here. I think we should start small and build from there based on KPI’s. I understand the stated figure would stretch a long way, but I feel we shouldn’t set aside a large portion of the treasury for something that might not work as well as intended.
If there is huge demand, we can discuss and deploy more. In H2, when Euler has deployed their various new products there might be many more opportunities for external teams to build on Euler.
This makes sense to me. Euler has a long way to go. It’s important to be frugal and spend wisely while assessing frequently and iterating. It also gives opportunities to “hungry” individuals to become DA’s.
I think this is a reasonable suggestion:
Although I would agree with @Raslambek here in that there could certainly be at least 2 Domain Allocators each in the Multichain section and New Protocol Ideas. These are complicated matters.
Dev tooling could potentially be taken on by the Euler Labs team. I feel we need technical individuals who know the dApp inside out.
Lastly, we had discussed in a recent community call the potential of a non-voting member of Euler Labs who could get involved in this. An observer who could provide valuable insight to the Manager and Allocators. Something I think could add a lot of value.
I want to seek clarification regarding the impartiality of this poll. A Sybil attack may have influenced the results. Is anyone else experiencing similar concerns?
I also have concerns about the large amount to be allocated toward grants. So far the DAO has only approved relatively small amounts to a few key contributors. I don’t see how a grant program could realistically allocate such a large amount in such a small amount of time. I also think the cost to run the program is unreasonable and that there could be far more productive ways of spending the DAOs capital.
Echoing what @NOA said, I also find it suspicious that the poll is so positive given how much pushback there is from the community.
I would be in favor of a $300K-$400K grant program with let’s say 10% of that being used to pay for the domain allocators.
We echo the communities sentiment and believe that Euler DAO should only ramp up its grant allocation if there is demand for effective grants. $50k per domain for the initial 3 months is fine, and we can review it at the next quarter to see whether it needs to be increased.
We should expect more grant requests once this program is set up since its much easier to apply via a grant program than a DAO wide vote.
To keep it more frugal, we suggest that per-hour compensation is reduced to $75 per hour and capped at around $1,000 per month. I don’t think a flat $1,000 is suitable since some individuals will have busier domains and should be compensated fairly.
We are fine to see “Community and Growth” etc. removed from the grants program too. As stated, Euler Labs wants to continue handling that.
Seeing a lot of the concerns here, we are in favor of 2 things:
Decreasing the domain and program manager fees to $1000/ month. The proposed rate by @Bobbay_StableLab is fine and reasonable.
Decreasing each domain to $100,000 total for this initial trial period (6 months), or prorated down as necessary. We believe this sets a nice ~25% of the original proposal and is appropriate for the trial.
Thanks @raslambek, @shaishav0x , @knightsemplar , @patria, @NOA and @Jack_Plante for sharing your comments and concerns with us. We have carefully considered all the feedback from the community members, and we’d like to respond to the comments as follows:
Grants Budget and Domains : To start with, we propose a revised budget of $50,000 per domain for one quarter. We propose to launch with the following 4 domains:
Developer Tooling
Multichain and Crosschain Strategy
New Protocol Ideas
Education for New User Onboarding
Compensation : We propose the following compensation structure:
Domain Allocator: $80/hr capped at $1000/month
Program Manager: A dedicated program manager from Questbook will work with the domain allocators free of cost
Questbook : 5% fee for each disbursal
Selection of domain allocators - We believe that the proposed domain allocators are best suited to evaluate proposals for the selected domains based on their expertise, and community participation on forums, discord and social media.
If anyone from the community has concerns or is not aligned with the proposed domain allocators, they can self-nominate themselves as a reply to this post along with their interested domain name for the next 2 days. Based on the responses, we propose to put those nominations for vote on Snapshot along with the names proposed in the initial proposal for 3 days.
KPIs
Each domain allocator is required to come up with domain-specific rubrics similar to the following in order to evaluate the proposals. If the identified rubrics are not in line with the domain or Euler’s roadmap, anyone from the community can openly suggest changes or question them on the forum
Score
0
1
2
3
4
Developer Reach
No project developer team. No developer attraction.
No dev team. Small attraction plan (1 to 5 devs).
Yes team dev.
Yes team dev. Small attraction plan (1 to 5 more devs).
Yes team dev. Big attraction plan (+5 more devs).
Developer Commitment
No commitment attraction
Mercenary commitment attraction (stays until benefits end)
Commitment attraction (1 to 3 months )
Commitment attraction (1 year)
Commitment attraction (3 year)
Developer Quality*
Project does not have a reasonable chance to attract high-quality devs
Project has a possibility of attracting high-quality devs
Project has a reasonable possibility of attracting high-quality devs and/or has high-quality devs
Project is likely to attract high-quality devs
Project is highly likely to attract high-quality devs
Likelihood of success
Clear flaw in design that cannot be easily remedied
Difficult to see the project continuing for more than a year
Reasonable chance that the project has intermediate-to-long-term success (+1 Year)
Project is likely to generate long-term, sustainable value for the ecosystem
Project has substantial likelihood to generate long-term, sustainable value for the ecosystem
Grant size
Grant size significantly outweighs projected benefit
Grant size is considerably larger than expected benefit
Grant size is proportional to expected benefit
Expected benefit outweighs grant size
Expected benefit meaningfully exceeds grant size
Team assessment
Team does not substantiate ability to deliver on plan
Team does not show significant ability to deliver on plan
Team shows reasonable ability to deliver on plan
Team shows significant ability to deliver on plan
Team exceeds what is required to deliver on plan
Milestone Assessment
Milestones do not significantly hold proposer accountable
Milestones are unlikely to hold proposer accountable
Milestones are reasonably likely to hold proposer accountable
Milestones are significantly likely to hold proposer accountable
Milestones are very likely to hold proposer accountable
Demo included (binary yes/no)
No demo included
Demo included
Score
-2
-1
0
1
2
Discretionary Factors (comment required)**
Total number of proposals received, number of proposals received for each domain, number of proposals funded, turn around time to take a decision and for disbursal, milestone and project completion rates
The program manager will share reports and conduct AMAs once every two weeks to ensure transparency and accountability.
We welcome any suggestions for additional qualitative or quantitative metrics not included above
Questbook product is a decentralized on-chain grants orchestration tool. Anyone from the community can view the data and create custom dashboards using the on chain data relevant to Euler Grants Program in a permission less manner.
Anyone from the community can track the number of proposals, funding available for builders for a particular domain, and accepted proposals from the Homepage.
Lastly, as per the revised governance process, we would like to extend the timeline for the RFC by 7 days in order to conduct the domain allocator selection process and submit the formal proposal based on community’s comments.
Thank you @ruchil for incorporating a majority of the feedbacks in the revised proposal.
On domain allocators: we would suggest Questbook to not propose any domain allocators to begin with. Everyone including the proposed allocators should be able to nominate themselves and the selection process be handled in a separate RFC after this current RFC is voted upon.
This would serve two objectives: 1) make the selection process open and even 2) remove any notion of incentive being a factor in deciding allocators votes on this proposal.
Guidance for Allocators: we think for allocators to be able to successful and allocate to the right projects, it is also necessary for Euler Labs team to provide some guidance to allocators on what they would like to see built or what work they need to be done. This kind of guidance from Euler Labs team, and allocators working in tandem to meet these objectives, will go a long way in making the grants program fruitful and a big success.
On part of EulerLabs, they have agreed to work on identifying a list of things/projects/features they would like to use the grants program for and I think allocators would find this kind of guidance very helpful.
Lastly, our request to all future allocators is please emphasize on cost effectiveness as we think that is something hugely missed in our ecosystem. Spend the allocation as though you were paying for it from your pocket.
Good comments @shaishav0x ! As a follow-up, I think members of the EulerLabs team could be part of each domain, that will help to increase efficiency and decentralise the process.
@ruchil First of all thanks for taking comments on board. Since this is quite a global proposal that is going to change drastically the grants allocation process, probably it would be wise to discuss it during the monthly Governance Call before proceeding to the next stage?
Hi @shaishav0x , thanks for your comments. Below are some changes we’ve made to the proposal based on your feedback.
Removal of pre-nominated allocators
We agree with your point of making the process for selecting domain allocators open
We will be accepting applications for the role of allocators in a new RFC : Link
The nominated allocators will be voted upon in the above RFC
We are updating the 4th domain’s title to be more descriptive of its goals and aligned with Euler’s roadmap
What was previously called Education for new user onboarding is now called Content Marketing and New User Acquisition
We agree on working with the Euler team to list out the necessary RFPs. We will work closely with the elected domain allocators and the Euler Labs team to figure out the RFPs and create content about communicating that to the builders.
This Grant Program will go live after all of the following steps are executed:
We will take this RFC to a vote on 23:59 PST, 17th February 2023. Please let us know if you have any further comments, we’re happy to work on them on priority.
The Encode grants program slipped my mind, but is it worth running two grant programs at the same time? I don’t believe so. Encode is currently piloting an external grants program with no admin costs in their current proposal.
They’ve already expressed an interest in potentially running another Grants program based on its success, with an operational fee this time.
I think it makes sense to let Encode finish its current grant program and then both providers (Encode & Questbook) can submit a proposal. Euler DAO can evaluate both instead of running two programs alongside each other before the community even evaluates what we aim to achieve from these grant programs.
Bounty Ideas are collected until March 26th and the Encode Grants Program ends on June 18th.
Questbook should at least wait till March 26th and see what bounties Encode has created to reduce redundancy and tackle other domains. Or wait till June 18th, for the community to evaluate the impact of the Encode Grants Program and see if the DAO would prefer to move forward with Questbook or Encode.
Some of the domains such as Multichain deployment & Content education, are valid even without encode so they could progress forward, but to make an informed decision, it would be better to wait until march 26th to move forward with other domains
I completely agree with you that these two programs may not be able to run concurrently. The only plausible solution I see is if Encode Club agrees to be a domain allocator for one or multiple categories.
Questbook provides on-chain tooling for daos to manage their respective grants program. They don’t run the grants themselves and I don’t think they even want to do that. Under this structure, it is the allocators who run the grants and deploy the capital.
Encode is more akin to an allocator in this format. They actually run the grants and are one of the best at it and I have personally nudged them to apply for the allocator selection vote for one of the domains.
We have had more grants pass after encode’s grants and it is debatable to the effectiveness and cost efficiency of the grants process as it currently stands. This is why in our view, a comprehensive onchain tool tailored for processing and managing grants is imperative and urgent for the dao.
Lastly, I think in general it’s good to have competition between allocators in the same domain as it allows the dao to make better assessments between allocators and also pushes allocators to perform better. Have suggested this to the Questbook team for future seasons of the program.
