The objective of this document is to articulate how Allo.Expert is a strategic investment for Gitcoin’s multi-mechanism future.
Go play with Allo.Expert. We are launching it at Devcon!
TLDR
TLDR - Allo.Expert creates strategic intelligence for Gitcoin.
We are drilling for oil; and Allo.Expert is the device that allows us to scan for giant caverns of resources to be tapped and build confidence of where to drill.
What is Allo Expert?
AS OF DEVCON:
Allo Expert is the scheling point for onchain capital allocation expertise.
AE offers a
- Allo Experts - registry of 50s different mechanisms
- Allo Experts - registry of things built in the cap allo space, or things that could be built
- Allo Experts - registry of dozens of experts in these mechanisms.
- Allo Experts - registry of training materials to train new Allo Experts
Each of these registries are backed by a postgres database that has been meticulously maintained by Kevin/Carey. But admin access to this DB can be granted to anyone we want. Which will give us the ability to further curate this in a decentralized way.
As important as these objects themselves is the relationships between them. For example, the following relationships exist with QF:
- Meg, Owocki, Griff Green are experts in it.
- Allo Protocol and Grants stack are builds built on it.
- We ran a training course on QF.
- It is related to Private Quadratic Funding and Streaming Quadratic Funding
You can see an example of these relationships in action on QF Training Program | Learning Cohort (scroll to the bottom)
How do users discover AE?
- Through the 2nd edition cap allo book (each mechanism is linked to its AE page)
- Through Gitcoin’s “mechanism of the day” twitter campaign
- Through allo.gitcoin.co, which we are linking to AE soon.
- Through any future campaign where we want to show off our allo expertise.
EndGame
The endgame for Allo.Expert is to be a strategic asset for Gitcoin. We also get the following benefits from AE.
- We get a high level overview of the cap allo/grants design space.
- Strategic intelligence about what’s next. Is it QF => Retro Funding => Futuarchy?? D2C??? Who is building these things? Etc
- If we develop a site for expertise in capital allocation, we help Gitcoin be seen as an expert in Grants/Cap Allo.
- We attract the innovators and the explorers to Gitcoin, which will be especially useful in our future network-first exploration of the design space [read me for more on this].
- We’re building a cultural movement. We’re taking something cold/boring thats usually in 30 page whitepapers, and making it into a fun/colorful vibe, something to be excited about.
Future Enhancements
These are the investments we could make FOR ETHDENVER:
1. Graph view of the interconnected relations.
There is a lot of value in the relationality of the Experts, Mechanisms, Courses, and Builds.
I would very much like to be able to view this information visually. Here is an example of what that could look like.
What you’re looking at here is a map of the territory. By being able to visualize the relationships between Experts, Mechanisms, Courses, and Builds, we are effectively looking at the emergent design space of onchain capital allocation.
2. Expert Registry v2: work placement + Training Programs
We’ve already done a training program in Retro Funding and Quadratic Funding, what training program should we do next?
How can we move beyond just training Allo Experts? Could we issue credentials to the ppl who pass the training program? Could we offer them plush placements in our partner ecosystems? There is a lot of opportunity to help our partners by training up ppl who can help them and placing them to their ecosystem (little known fact: we placed Carl Cervone at Protocol Labs! Austin Griffith into the ecosystem. These relationships pay dividends for years thereafter!)
Right now AE experts are just our friends and people we know about. But we could and should make the AE landing page placement a coveted position that leads to more job placement and clout for aspiriing Allo Experts. We should also develop a credibly neutral policy for who gets placed where and at what ranking…
3. OSO Integration - AE becomes a Google trends for Onchain Cap Allocation
I have invited Carl Cervone of OSO to give us data about which capital allocation mechanisms are doing what volume quarter over quarter.
If we had volume information about each cap allo mechanism and build, we could effectively see which ones are trending and which are dying.
If this works, AE becomes a google trends for onchain capital allocation. A place where you can see the new, trending, or hot cap allo mechanisms out there.
4. Integration into Allo Leaderboard
https://leaderboard.allo.gitcoin.co/ is a site that allows you to see how much each L2, build, user, etc is generated in Allo GMV. A future exploration with this data source could prove valuable for Allo Experts, though the exact form/structure is unknown. (perhaps AL just gets folded in to AE?)
5. Continued Curation of the data
As the space evolves quickly, AE may become out of date. And thereby lose irrelevance.
There are entire groups of mechanisms and experts that are not on the site right now. We could learn a lot by adding them to the site and building them into our worldview.
Onchain Capital Allocation is such a fun, intellectually interesting, and high financial upside thing, for us.
Due to these reasons, Owocki will make sure that the information on AE is continually updated. It would be great to have help from others who are committed to updating the data here. We are more powerful when we build this worldview together!
6. Cultural Movement
We’re building a cultural movement. We’re taking something cold/boring thats usually in 30 page whitepapers, and making it into a fun/colorful vibe, something to be excited about.
We can extend this with tweets, memes, swag, books, GPTs that have read the books, google hangout backgrounds, other artifacts that give people an opportunity to make being part of this movement part of their identity and their own vibe.
Get assets here: Dropbox
Get swag here: Onchain Capital Allocation Handbook Book Launch – gitcoin
7. Possible Future Editions of Allo books
some straw man thots for where to go next. (Not committed to any of these)
- policymakers edition - for policymakers who want to fund what matters in their communities (state,city, etc)
- innovators edition - for ppl who are innovating in the cap allo design space
- moloch hunters edition - for ppl who want to solve coordination failure
- Indigenous mechanisms edition - to explore the mechanisms that are high lindy/high vibes
- Localism edition - for those who want to explore using onchain cap allocation in bioregional or localist contexts
- Investors edition - for those who want to make $$$ from investing for profi
- What other domains would be important to explore? Are books even the right channel or are we post-book?
Conclusion
Allo.Expertcreates strategic intelligence for Gitcoin.
We are drilling for oil; and Allo.expert is the device that allows us to scan for giant caverns of resources to be tapped and build confidence of where to drill.