GG20 Community Round Proposal - Token Engineering QF Grants Round: Spring 2024

Name (or Topic/Theme) of Proposed Round

Token Engineering QF Grants Round: Spring 2024

How many times has this round been run during a Gitcoin Grants round?

We’ve been a Community Round since the Gitcoin Beta round last year, so this will be the 4th time we run a Gitcoin Grants round.

How big is your team that will run this round? Who is your team?

We have a team of seven (7) people who will focus on supporting the operation of the round. Five out of the seven team members have experience running Gitcoin Grants rounds. We’ll also have a dedicated group of token engineering advisors who will help in reviewing the grantees. Team members are:

  • Ivy (Round Operator)
  • Bear (General Support)
  • Gideon (General Support)
  • Nate (Events Coordination)
  • Tam (General Support)
  • Efra (Social Media Coordination)
  • YGG (Data Analysis)

How does this round align with Gitcoin’s mission and essential intents?

This round will continue to provide critical funding to build, fund and protect what matters to the TEC community, which is applying engineering rigor to ensuring the trustworthiness of blockchain systems. Our rounds help attract and strengthen Gitcoin’s ties with the expertise and skills of the token engineering community – a valuable contribution to boosting the intent of network effects. The TEC’s dedication to catalyzing token-engineered public goods offers a powerful expression of Gitcoin’s commitment to positive change.

What do you anticipate the size of the matching pool will be (either fundraised from partners, raised independently through your connections, or a combination of both)?
Who will be advisors for this round, if anyone?

The TEC will be providing a $25K matching pool, funded by partners and the TEC’s own Common Pool. We’re hoping to boost it with the GG20 matching fund if we get qualified.

We’ll invite our previous round advisors to join us again for the upcoming round:

  • Jeff Emmett
  • Phil H
  • Vasily
  • YGG Anderson
  • Lisa Tan
  • Enti

Please describe the eligibility criteria you envision for this proposed round.

The eligibility criteria include:

  • Projects that deliver education, tooling, research, or social infrastructure to advance the field of token engineering (tldr; economics and system design with crypto / design and analysis of cryptoeconomic systems).
  • Be a public good.
  • Projects must specify their short-term goals (within the scope of the grant) and long-term vision of their projects.
  • Projects must have some proof of already existing work and list any recent milestones, even if small, to be included into the round.
  • If you are a returning grantee, you must provide an update on what work has been accomplished since the last grant round your project received funding from.
  • Have a verified Github and/or Twitter account.

How large is your community approximately?

The TEC has over 700 token holders, as well as almost 6,000 followers on X and 2,000 Discord members.

What type of projects would you like to fund?

Projects that deliver education, tooling, research, or social infrastructure to advance the field of token engineering.

Approximately how many grantees do you believe will be eligible to apply to this round?

In our first three rounds, the number of grantees ranged from 15-20 in each round and though we may tighten our screen a bit for this round, we expect a roughly similar number of projects.

Impact Assessment: If and how do you intend to assess grantee impact over successive rounds? This could include, but is not limited to Hypercerts, GAP, Deresy, etc.

We plan to run a TEC RetroPGF round (possibly using Gitcoin’s EasyRetroPGF) that will only be open to previous QF round grantees that meet a TBD performance threshold. These applicants will be subject to an impact assessment process to determine the RetroPGF awards.

Is there anything else that community members should consider when voting for which rounds to focus on in the upcoming GG20 grants round?

The TEC plans to continue applying its innovative Tunable QF process for embedding token engineering expertise into the QF voting signal for our rounds. We see this as a valuable contribution to the field of public goods funding and a nice way to extend the impact of Gitcoin’s Allo Protocol.

Link to the org’s social handle: https://twitter.com/tecmns

Funding address: Safe{Wallet} – Assets

5 Likes

This proposal is highly aligned with the ethos and needs of the larger crypto community. I’d like to urge the Grants Council to approve this request

7 Likes

Thank you once again for your proposal! Please note that the council will review and vote the week of March 18 - 22. Voting won’t take place in a public setting (to avoid any collusion).

Results will be posted on the gov forum March 25th. Please be available the whole of next week to answer any questions on this post that the council may have!

Good luck!

3 Likes