Title : [Grant Proposal 9] Delegated Domain Allocation by Questbook
Author : ruchil
Submission date - 17/02/2023
Summary
- We propose the launch of Euler ecosystem growth fund of $222k (~0.26% of the treasury and ~0.8% of stables as on Feb 17th, 2023) spread across 1 quarter to fund a wide variety of teams building apps on top of Euler in a transparent manner. Questbook is leading Compound grants program through delegated domain capital allocation model, a community-run grants program
- We additionally propose that this budget be managed by 4 individuals called Domain Allocators - chosen from the community, by the community. These domain allocators would manage grants for a domain. These domains are strategic areas of focus for which the Euler DAO wants to disburse grants
- The performance of each of these domain allocators will be publicly viewable and auditable using rich dashboards. At the end of the quarter, the Euler community can vote to replace, continue domain allocators or increase budgets for each domain allocator.
- We (Questbook.xyz) will help facilitate setting up these domain allocators and provide the tooling to run the grants program in an efficient and transparent way. We have previously set up or currently setting up the grants process for Compound, Polygon, Solana, Celo, and Aave
Motivation
As we continue to experience the depth of the bear market, it is increasingly important for Euler to retain the mindshare of key ecosystem contributors and incentivize builders to build on top of it. Grants program is a great way to attract high-quality builders and grow the ecosystem more quickly. This proposal details the benefit to all the stakeholders involved - token holders, builders and DAO members.
Problems
Based on our experience of running grants programs for multiple ecosystems and after speaking to key ecosystem contributors of Euler DAO, we have identified the following key problems:
-
Dearth of high-quality proposals - Since the submission of the first grant proposal (July ‘22), Euler DAO has received only 14 grant proposals till date. This is an average of 2 proposals per month. To contrast, the number of proposals received by Aave is more than 50 per month.
List of proposals
Proposal |
Domain |
Grant Amount Requested |
Anthias x Euler Alert System Grant Proposal |
Developer Tooling |
$21,000 |
Grant request for Yacht Labs Inc. to improve native iOS interface for Euler Finance lending & borrowing |
Developer Tooling |
$18,000 |
Grant Proposal - Alternative Liquidation Bot Implementation |
Developer Tooling |
$17,000 |
[Grant Proposal] Euler Finance Integration In Texochat |
New Protocol Ideas |
$8,500 |
DAO Global Hackathon Grant Proposal |
Community growth and events |
$12,000 |
[RFC] Bankless Academy: Lending and borrowing lesson ft. Euler.finance |
Education for New User Onboarding |
$40,000 |
[RFC] Encode Club Grant Proposal |
Education for New User Onboarding] |
$30,000 |
Grant Proposal - Quarterly financial reporting |
Financial Reporting and Data Analytics |
$1,00,000 |
Grant for Defishy to create VaR simulation model with Euler Liquidation Health Graph View implemented in eGP1 |
Financial Reporting and Data Analytics |
$42,000 |
[Grant Proposal] [Euler Monthly Financial Reporting] |
Financial Reporting and Data Analytics |
$12,000 |
Grant Request for Defishy.xyz to build Euler-specific liquidation health dashboard |
Financial Reporting and Data Analytics |
$5,000 |
Warden Finance - Risk & Tooling Engagement Proposal |
Risk Tooling and Parameter Research |
$2,00,000 |
Grant Proposal - Risk Management Tools for Euler |
Risk Tooling and Parameter Research |
$85,000 |
Grant proposal - Euler risk tooling |
Risk Tooling and Parameter Research |
$80,000 |
Total |
|
$6,70,500 |
Multi chain and cross-chain Strategy
[RFC] Deploy Euler to Polygon
[eIP 49: Deploy Euler to BNB Chain]
RFC: Deploy Euler on Arbitrum
Deploy Euler on XDC Network
-
Tokenholder’s blind spots - It is unfair to expect any token holder and community member to have expertise across various domains. It becomes impossible or inefficient to judge projects that may lie outside their expertise and may still be valuable to the Euler ecosystem. By delegating capital and decision-making to experts, we can empower domain experts to make informed decisions within a certain domain
-
Lack of Impact Measurement - Measuring the impact of the grants program is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of the allocated capital and ensuring that the resources are being used effectively. In the absence of a thorough impact measurement, grants team is unable to identify the areas of improvement and is prone to repeat the same mistakes.
Screenshots of comments from Euler’s active community members
Link
Link
Solution
Giving domain allocators the capital and decision-making powers can increase the efficiency of the grants program, without compromising on accountability:
- Individual expertise instead of collective blindspots
- Distributed load instead of committee backlogs
- Accountability instead of diffusion of responsibility
The proposed structure will lead to the following outcomes:
-
Increase in quality proposals - measured by the number of proposals received per month and % of proposals accepted by the domain allocators. Questbook (https://www.questbook.app) is a desired destination for 20,000+ builders each month. We also have a dedicated team who is responsible for builder engagement and reviewing draft proposals before they are submitted to ensure high quality
-
Delegate capital allocation - Identify, attract and fund projects/builders that the current grant structure would otherwise not have funded by delegating capital allocation to members of the community rather than a central disbursing committee or a large diverse community
-
Consistent and timely communication - between the domain allocators, builders and community members is a key part of any successful grants program. This will be measured by impact metrics such as turnaround time to give feedback on the proposal and make a final decision, the number of projects completing all the milestones. The data and performance across key metrics will be visible to the community
Specification & Implementation
The program structure focuses on having community members as domain allocators. Euler DAO will be required to set a budget of $222k to be disbursed by 4 domain allocators and for committee compensation. Each domain allocator will be elected by the community and will run their domain on-chain for full transparency. The data and performance across key metrics will be visible to the community in order to evaluate the domain allocator’s performance.
The disbursement of the grant will take place on-chain from a multi-sig wallet for each domain controlled by the program manager & the domain allocator. The domain allocators will approve or reject proposals based on their evaluation. The program manager will then coordinate with the Euler community to ensure that the proposal is aligned with Euler’s growth before making the disbursal. The sole purpose of the multi-sig is to make sure capital is not being siphoned. However, the allocators are encouraged to make independent decisions regarding the approval of the proposal based on their expertise.
The grants committee and the Euler community shall evaluate the performance of each domain and domain allocator using publicly available data. The outcomes could be as follows:
- Change the domain
- Change the allocator/program manager
- Change the budget
Active community members can also initiate a no-confidence motion to initiate a review off-cycle. This can be initiated by one of the active delegates on Snapshot. The program manager can coordinate this, if the situation arises, along with the active community members. The unused funds from every domain will be returned to the treasury at the end of the quarter.
Product Screens
Invite proposals to your grants program
Anyone from the community can view and comment on the proposals
Invite community members to review proposals based on an evaluation rubric
Make milestone-based payouts directly from the multi-sig
Track the performance of the grants program
Euler Grants Committee
The program will consist of
- A Program Manager
- 4 Domain Allocators
A Grants SAFE, with 3/5 multi-sig, between the program manager and 4 domain allocators will be setup. We will then have 4 SAFEs for each of the domains with a 2/2 between the program manager and the specific domain allocator.
The funds for the grants program will flow from the treasury into the Grants SAFE. This SAFE will hold the funds related to the grants budget and committee compensation. Funds that will be disbursed to the proposers will reside in the domain-level SAFEs. The program manager will be responsible to update the community about approved proposals and their details through bi-weekly community calls and reports over discord.
We have identified the following domains based on the feedback of the community and welcome the community members to self-nominate themselves for becoming domain allocators.
- Developer Tooling
- Multichain and Crosschain Strategy
- New Protocol Ideas
- Content Marketing and New User Acquisition
Domain Allocator Roles & Responsibilities:
The following will be the roles and responsibilities of the selected domain allocators.
- Time commitment per week: Maximum of 25 hours per week for the program manager and 15 hours per week for the domain allocator, which might vary based on the number of applications. The program manager will ensure that the workload is evenly distributed
- Program Manager:
- Communication:
- Work with the Euler team and the elected domain allocators to create and list out the necessary RFPs
- Create marketing content for communicating RPFs to the builders
- Coordinate between Euler team and the community regarding funding requirements
- Communicate the information regarding approval/rejection of proposals to the Euler community regularly
- Attend community calls, actively participate in the community forum, and keep the community updated and take their feedback on the program
- Regularly update the progress of the grants program to the Euler community over Discord and community calls
- Grants Program:
- Source good-quality proposals from developer communities
- Sign the transactions for the approved projects
- Ensure a quick turnaround time for proposers regarding their proposal decision
- Coordinate between the domain allocators to ensure that the workload is evenly distributed and take their feedback consistently
- Domain Allocator:
- Review proposals received for their domains based on the rubrics set by the domain allocator
- Reject/Approve proposals and coordinate consistently with the program manager
- Source applications by reaching out to developer communities in their network
- Discuss program improvements with the other domain allocators and program manager during scheduled meetings
Compensation:
- 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
Conclusion
What does success look like?
-
Objective
- The prime objective of this model is to have domains that align with Euler’s priorities. This way the contribution of the projects as part of the grants program is directly adding value to the DAO and the token holders.
- Increase in the number of builders, proposals, and funded projects
- Increase in the homegrown leadership to run grant programs (measured by the number of people running grant programs)
- Increase in the community members’ participation to keep grant programs accountable (measured by the number of people looking at the dashboard and participating in the program)
- Diversity in projects being funded across technologies, geographies, and demographics, to name a few. We encourage the community to regularly review the project domains during Euler’s community call
- Increased engagement in builder community’s
- Discourse
- Discord, Telegram
- Social media (Twitter, Reddit)
- GitHub
-
Subjective
- Improved community involvement in the grants program
- Strengthened builders’ sentiment towards Euler
- Enhanced Euler’s brand recognition in builder circles
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 permissionless manner.
Track the performance of the grants program
Anyone from the community can track the number of proposals, funding available for builders for a particular domain, and accepted proposals from the Homepage.
About Questbook:
Questbook’s role in Euler’s Grant Program
-
Ruchil Sharma from Questbook will be the first program manager. Thereafter, the program manager will be elected from the community. Ruchil was the program manager for Polygon facilitating the disbursal of ~ $1M in grants. He works with the Solana foundation and ecosystems within Solana on a daily basis to help them design their grants program. He has received a grant of $250K from the Solana foundation for the same. He also works closely with Compound Grants Programs 2.0’s program manager. He has spoken to more than 100 builders and teams over the last 6-8 months and understands what it takes to make a grant program successful – from both program manager and builder perspectives
- Questbook Grants tool will make sure the workflows are systematic and transparent.
Product Flows
- Posting a grant - Link
- Reviewing and Funding Proposals - Link
- Settings - Link
- Communicating with Builders - Link
- Funding Builders - Link
Credentials
- Questbook (YC-W21) is a decentralized grant orchestration tool, currently being used by Compound, Polygon, AAVE, Celo & Solana Ecosystem
-
Ruchil Sharma from Questbook will be the first program manager. Thereafter, the program manager will be elected from the community. Ruchil was the program manager for Polygon facilitating the disbursal of ~ $1M in grants. He works with Solana foundation and ecosystems within Solana on a daily basis to help them design their grants program. He has received a grant of $250K from the Solana foundation for the same. He also works closely with Compound Grants Programs 2.0 program manager. He has spoken to more than 100 builders and teams over the last 6-8 months and understands what it takes to make a grant program successful – from both program manager and builder perspectives
Next Steps
- Taking the formal submission for a Snapshot vote on 23:59 PST, 17th February 2023
- Launching and announcing the Grants Program after all of the following steps are executed: