GG19 Matching Funds Proposal for Discussion

📜 Proposals
1

A big thank you to @Sov @azeem and @connor as well as everyone else on the Grants Program Team for your help on this proposal for discussion.

TLDR

  • We are proposing we set the matching funds for the Program Rounds in GG19 as follows: $200,000 for the Web3 OSS round, $200,000 for the Web3 Community and Education round $200,000 for the Core Ethereum Infrastructure round. This will be offset by funds raised before payouts are complete.

  • After our post-round review is completed, we will post the round results here on the gov forum as we have done in the past. We will allow the community one week of discussion and feedback before payouts are made.

  • Fundraising efforts are underway and we are inviting the community to get involved in helping to support program rounds.

  • Funds from DAOs, individuals or other organizations can be sent directly to these ENS addresses: GitcoinOSS.eth, GitcoinCommunity.eth, GitcoinETHInfra.eth

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Issues for Discussion:

Given the ongoing bear market conditions it’s important that we ensure funds are available for builders in the space to build for the long term. Fundraising continues to be a challenge in this market. We do still have some core funders who continue to help and we are actively pursuing new opportunities but this process can be slow.

We are requesting these funds in advance of the round to speed up the process of releasing matching funds at the end of the rounds as well as to increase transparency. Please note, this means we will not plan to have a formal snapshot vote to ratify the results after the round concludes. We will continue to update this thread as funds are raised by the Grants Program Team as well as by community members.

We are exploring ways to decentralize our fundraising efforts. This feels like a good fit given the shift towards progressive decentralization and modularization within Gitcoin.

We will post updates as this process progresses

Current status of matching funds pool:

Gitcoin currently has approximately the equivalent of 8917 ETH or $16,000,000 (current market value) made up of a mix of tokens in our public good matching funds remaining in the multisig at Gitcoin.eth.

You can see the details for yourself here:
https://etherscan.io/address/0xde21F729137C5Af1b01d73aF1dC21eFfa2B8a0d6

https://app.zerion.io/0xde21f729137c5af1b01d73af1dc21effa2b8a0d6/overview

Screenshot 2023-11-02 at 23-52-09 0xde21f729137c5af1b01d73af1dc21effa2b8a0d6 overview Zerion
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Note: this snapshot does not include funds held in FIAT or on other networks.

Hypothetically If we allocated 1 million dollars worth of these funds to each round without any additional funds added to the pool (and no price changes) this would last us for 16 more quarterly rounds (4 years). Throughout most of the history of our Grants rounds Gitcoin tended to raise more than was required for matching funds so we typically increased (rather than drew from) the matching multisig. The growth compounded from rising prices, and various one off raises and donations like MoonShotBots, The Greatest Larp, Akita, and more. In recent rounds raising matching pool funds has proven more difficult, given the bear market conditions and trend towards more rounds with larger pools.

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How Can The Community Get Involved?

In the interest of building in public and generating network effects we are inviting the community to play an active role in helping to raise funds for our quarterly grants rounds. We have set up separate multisigs with their own .eth address so its easy for you or your DAO to contribute directly to the matching pools and extend the runway.

web3 Open Source Software - GitcoinOSS.eth

web3 Community - GitcoinCommunity.eth

Core Ethereum Infrastructure - GitcoinEthInfra.eth

If you would like to collaborate on ideas or proposals for partnership we would welcome the opportunity. Feel free to comment below or reach out to us on Telegram.

Also please check out the overall GG19 Outline and Plan and drop us a line with any ideas or suggestions.

Proposal for Pre Vote on Funds

Thanks again for your careful consideration of this proposal and for your participation in DAO governance and decentralized decision making.

To Vote Please Select from the following:

  1. Yes, pre approved the matching fund amounts from the multisig for GG19 at $600,000 total
  2. No, approve the matching amounts with ratified results at the end of the round as we have in the past
  3. Revisit the amounts allocated to be more or less than requested
  4. Abstain

Please comment on the options presented. We will use this as a temperature check before bringing this same question for a formal snapshot vote.

Cheers and best of luck in GG19 everyone!

WAGMI

22 Likes
2

I am in favour of option 2, approving the matching amounts with ratified results at the end of the round

In the beta round we saw strong community support in identifying sybil attackers. In GG18, we saw healthy discussion around inequality & the new cluster QF formula. I worry that pre-approving would lead to relatively less vigorous discussion from the community.

If gitcoin is all about leveraging the wisdom of the crowds, we should let the community debate results after they come in. I am also not sure i see the advantage of pre-approving, save for faster payout to projects. Is there anything other than that which i am missing?

3 Likes
3

Shoutout to the team for all the good work. Getting the pre approval would speed up the release of matching funds. Hence voting yes for this.

4 Likes
4

Yes, the pre-approval of matching fund amounts is a step in the right direction.

Being both a grantee and a core contributor to two rounds, I find this proposal to be practical and beneficial. I’ve had countless of interactions with grantees from various rounds and bio-regions and a recurring frustration has been the delays in receiving matching funds, which delays projects activities and time to implement grant proposals.

Sybil Defense and matching calculation are undeniably critical processes, and as far as I read here, this will not impact them at all.

Any measure that can expedite the overall procedure, as proposed here, is certainly worth considering.

Praise to all those who have worked on the ‘‘post-round’’ activities.
Your efforts are truly invaluable in upholding the safety–and efficiency of this realm.

5 Likes
5

Yes, pre approved the matching fund amounts from the multisig for GG19 at $600,000 total

6 Likes
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Yes, pre-approved.
Do we have any data that shows how the gitcoin mechanism used to distribute funds has impacted those in Africa yet? If there isn’t yet, could it be that the scope of the matching pool approach be reconsidered for those in Africa, knowing that there are real economic challenges for builders to mobilize contributors?

4 Likes
7

I love transparency. What to the forum thinks about being a micro grant funding for PNG adoption. Sice we only have 4 years ahead we need to get some retro for the process of donations and the sequencer. So, why don’t try to use all the PGN network to stay PGN pilled, with PG networks, Smart Wallets, and all the PublicGooodsverse inside this platform, adoption it’s going to create demand for the platform and keep funding the rounds. And let’s try to connect the PGN network with the Law of chains.

4 Likes
8

Thanks, @M0nkeyFl0wer, for posting this proposal.

I will be voting for option #3 as the amounts proposed seem very low at a time when builders need these funds the most.

While I agree with this new process of pre-authorizing the Grant Program Team (GPT) to distribute X amount of funds, the funding amounts proposed by the team (based on feedback from the DAO) are too low.

The GPT (previous PGF) team (Public Greats like @connor @M0nkeyFl0wer @azeem @ceresstation and many more) has done a fantastic job over the years raising and building a robust matching fund up to over $15 Million in value. As far as I know, these funds were raised for our quarterly matching pools and cannot be used for other activities. We are in a bear market; we need to be conservative with our funds, and we are guided by Essential Intent #3: Financial Longevity: Ensuring the economic health and vitality of Gitcoin. But this seems to take this ethos to an extreme.

While Gitcoin needs to be concerned with its runway, so do the Eth Infrastructure, Open Source Software and Community & Education projects we support through QF rounds. This significant decrease in matching funds will be a hit to so many struggling to make it through this cycle.

I would propose $1 Million in matching funds be distributed in GG19. $300k Infra and $350k for OSS & Comm & Ed since they have more grantees that participate. This would provide, as stated in the post, 4 years of runway for the program. I am sure the team will continue to raise funds in addition which will further extend this runway or allow us to give away even more in matching funds.

Regarding the proposal, I like the idea of voting to give the GPT approval for the funds before the round to expedite the distribution of funds after the round. I agree with @thedevanshmehta that:

As someone who works on the GPT team, I know we will still provide an opportunity for discussion about the results, but it isn’t clearly stated in the proposal. @M0nkeyFl0wer will add a few sentences regarding the process.

7 Likes
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Added an additional bullet to clarify the process for sybil defense and community participation/ accountability. IMO generally the vote itself is largely a rubber stamp post round. The detailed work of discussing the results is done in the gov posts and the discussions with stakeholders as results are being finalized.

That being said if community members had significant concerns the payouts could be delayed and a vote could still take place if it would help reach a final decision. Community members should feel free to call for a vote at any time.

2 Likes
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Love this idea, don’t think that analysis exists but we have been making efforts to onboard and support more grantees in Africa as well as elsewhere around the world in emerging economies. Would be great to go further with this work. Maybe some researchers would be interested in putting forward a grant proposal to fund this work?

1 Like
11

These ENS addresses can only receive funds on Ethereum?

Because if you try to send funds on a network that the multi sig has not been setup on the funds will be lost.

1 Like
12

Great, as a community contributor, I would love to support this. In the last few years, there has been considerable work done by some amazing builders particularly in areas of nurturing Ethereum developers in Africa. But level of contribution interms of grants or financial resources has not been too loud. Working towards this in achieving a balance public good funding in a way to impact active builders will go a long way to grow the ecosystem.

13

I checked :white_check_mark: and see a multi sig on ETH is setup…
But this will not work for this same address on the other networks such as Optimism.

Due to safe not having cross chain compatibility for a single multi sig.

You would need to setup a safe address on the Optimism network separately and cannot attach a ENS to the safe on any other network besides Eth Main Net. So just a heads up before people start sending money :moneybag: in…

The details need to be explicit for Ethereum.

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This may be a solution but I have not checked the efficacy or safety of the product myself yet. It could potentially serve as a solution if an ENS can still be utilized in the way that you intended.

Even if that does work folks still need the address for each of the .eth names to send funds to the other networks because ENS is only works for main net.

Smold appears to have cross chain connectivity with a vault setup.

Edit: :writing_hand: I will setup a smold wallet today and test this theory.

4 Likes
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Thank you for putting this together and sharing @M0nkeyFl0wer!

Love that we have these set up now! It’s never been easier to contribute to ALL grantees by funding the matching pools :pray:

Fully onboard with anything that leads to quicker payouts and more transparency. This will be invaluable for grantees IMO

I really appreciate the transparency with the community here and its interesting to check out the mix of funds that we’re working with for the matching funds multisig.

Overall - I support option 1 and remain interested in novel ways we can increase the matching pools round over round. This would help us to provide more funding to grantees in a time when they need it most, as @jon-spark-eco mentioned :slightly_smiling_face:

15

Thanks @M0nkeyFl0wer for putting out this proposal.

We would love to vote for the Option 1

But we also agree with @jon-spark-eco with the sense of voting on Option 3

Why? We agree with @jon-spark-eco the idea of “voting to approve for the funds before the round to expedite the distribution of funds after the round” but we also agree with this new proposed ammount:

Projects like us can only survive at least initially due to Gitcoin Rounds, and from our perspective, since at the moment no one on the team is paid for their work and the funds raised are only used to carry out onboarding and ReFi activities that attract more people to the Ethereum ecosystem we trully believe that a matching pool of $350K would fit the necesities of the Web3 Community and Education round projects that are one of the rounds with more number of projects applying.

By the way, Thanks to all the Gitcoin Team for the hard work :green_heart: :clap:

1 Like
16
  1. Yes, pre approved the matching fund amounts from the multisig for GG19 at $600,000 total

I believe that having a disclosed amount of funds dedicated to the round motivates and encourage participants.

2 Likes
17

Thanks for the clarification, i was under the mistaken impression that this part was being circumvented. I agree the vote itself is procedural after the discussions conclude and we can approve that beforehand.

I do think these are 2 proposals rolled into one.

The 1st is whether to pre-approve the matching funds payout and the 2nd is whether to increase/decrease the amounts in the round. What is the reason to post them as one proposal rather than separately? It’s quite confusing as i might want to pre-approve the matching funds AND revisit the amounts. there’s no way for my preference to be expressed in the vote as it currently stands.

This raises a broader question on how we decide the level of matching fund payout for each round. I’m curious to learn the reasoning of the team behind lowering the amount this round compared to previous ones, especially for high impact, competitive ones like open source software

Let’s now dig into some numbers;

  1. In GG18, Web3 OSS had total contributions of $304,119 for a matching pool of $300k

  2. Ethereum infra had $103,623 for a matching pool of $200k

  3. Web3 community had $86k for a matching pool of $250k

At even a cursory glance at these numbers, it doesn’t make sense to have matching funds in each round be the same amount ($200k) . Web3 OSS should be more than Eth infra or web3 community

Thanks to this amazing team, Gitcoin has the liberty of pathfinding the right allocation for each round without undue regard to budget. I think it should be largely based on some combination of number of contributors & amount contributed in the preceding round.

Let’s now apply a crude version of this formula, holding that the ratio of matching funds for this round : community contributions from the earlier round should be between 1.2 & 3

  • OSS should be at around $350k, as last round had contributions of $300k

  • Web3 education & eth infra should be between $150k to $300k, depending on the priority attached to each round

Overall, I think OSS at $200k is bad for Gitcoin’s mission; $200k for eth infra and web3 community is alright given there is still a 2x multiplier if community contributions remain the same as last round, although it would be nice to have those bumped to $250k given the bear market conditions projects have been surviving in.

4 Likes
18

Of course I would love to see a large amount but understand that we want to sustain the matching pool. I’m personally OK with approach #1 provided the following caveat – if there’s a smaller matching pool, we should be more stringent on eligibility and keeping rounds reasonably balanced in terms of number of competing projects. I would hate to see a web3 community or OSS round with 300+ projects vying for a matching pool of $200K. With a matching pool of $200K per round, then ideally you have 50-80 projects per round. Hopefully the new grant checker app can help with more rigorous eligibility checks.

4 Likes
19

This approach makes sense for OSS but not web3 community, which is planned to be a free for all in GG19

5 Likes
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I agree with your answer. If you limit smaller projects and do not give them the opportunity to grow and access public goods. In the end, we will narrow the circle to only a few large-scale giants, which will completely kill the decentralized world of the web3. Of course, you can add selection criteria, but it is definitely not permissible to limit their number.

3 Likes