Gitcoin Passport S21 Business Unit Budget Proposal
TL;DR
Gitcoin Passport aims to be the go-to solution for web3 identity management. In Seasons 20 and 21, we’ll concentrate on five key pillars:
- Effectiveness: Improve identity scoring models
- Adoption: Grow to 1.5M passports
- GTC Utility: Strengthen GTC-based identity and community ties
- Data: Enhance and aggregate Sybil detection and data sets
- Partnerships: Increase both API and onchain partnerships
The budget for S21 (Feb 1st - April 30th) was previously approved and we’ll be moving funds with a Tally vote for $481,215 as the completion of that budget.
Given the announced changes to the organization, we do have two new roles we are hiring for (Product Marketing and Operations). Our budget request is slightly higher in S21, but we are under budget for S20. Details are outlined below in the Funding Request section.
Milestone Update: Season 20
Season 20 Update for S21 Budget
In Season 20, our top line growth picked up a bit, but was slower than we had anticipated going into the end of last year. We have a total of 900k unique all time passports. We also continued to drive strongly against our targets in GTC staking, hitting over 1.3M GTC staked.
We’ve also expanded our potential service offerings beyond the standard Passport & onchain Passports to include the new Ethereum Stamp backed a new Eth activity model. This is proving to be highly effective at classifying Sybils. It can also be used to score addresses without requiring any user interaction.
Milestone Report for Past Season
Legend
Success/Completed/Shipped
Incomplete but will hit goal/priority changed
Incomplete, will not hit goal
Cancelled
| Initiative/Project | Key Results | Value Delivered |
| Improve Effectiveness |
|
Launched the new Eth Activity stamp which dramatically improves classification based on ETH activity and provides Sybil protection without user interaction. |
| Grow Adoption & Usage |
|
Continued to drive top line growth of unique Passports |
| GTC Utility |
addresses |
Staking remains strong, but will be a stretch to hit the 2M GTC target.
25% growth of community stake and will launch revamped identity staking during S21. |
| Data |
|
We’re going to rethink our approach to this milestone as we are unable to build high confidence models to classify humans and validate on the scale we wanted. |
| Partnerships |
|
Strong growth in helping partners in a myriad of use cases.
We should hit our goal of 5 onchain partners in S21 |
Observations:
- While we fell short on passport adoption, we found success in GTC staking, continuing the path for utility. The upcoming revamp of identity staking, from smart contracts to UI, should continue to grow the utility of GTC.
- In S20 we started to gain adoption from the partner side of onchain Passports with a new set of partners to onboard within the next season. Despite lacking full utility, onchain Passports continues to gain traction.
By revisiting our milestones and assessing both successes and shortcomings, we’re armed with invaluable insights for strategizing in the upcoming seasons. For more granular details on our past work and future plans, please refer to our previous budgets for S17 and S18 & S19 budget request, as well as the S19 Amended Budget Request and Passport Roadmap.
Budget Update: Season S21
We are maintaining a flat budget for S21, but incorporating previous costs and additional headcount that were previously allocated to the MMM workstream. The additional budget includes hiring a Sr. Product Marketing Manager, moving from part time to full time Operations, and adding consulting budget for GTM support.
Team Composition
Full-Time Contributors: 10
- Developers: 4
- Product Manager: 1
- Data Scientists: 2
- Workstream Lead: 1
- Operations: 1
- Marketing: 1
- Support: 2 (previously shared cost with Grants Labs, moving to fully dedicated to Passport)
Part-Time or Shared Contributors: 5
- Design: 1
- DevRel: 2
- DevOps: 2
Funding Request for Seasons S20 & S21
Requested Amount: Gitcoin Passport is requesting an allocation of ~422,118 GTC**, equivalent to approximately $481,215 to cover S21. This includes reserve and rollover funds.
| Budgeted | Budgeted | Budgeted | Budgeted | Budgeted | Budgeted | Budgeted | Budgeted | Budgeted | |
| 2023.11 | 2023.12 | 2024.01 | S20 | 2024.02 | 2024.03 | 2024.04 | S21 | S20+S21 |
| Total GP Budgeted Spend | 149,239 | 170,864 | 158,489 | 478,591 | 169,864 | 178,864 | 166,489 | 642,216 | 1,120,807 |
| 33% Reserves | 159,529 | 214,072 | 373,601 | ||||||
| Past Season Treasury Balance | 223,681 | 375,073 | |||||||
| Total S20&S21 Request | 414,439 | 481,215 | 895,654 |
Budget Evolution
| S17 | S18/19 | Amended S19 | S20 | S21 (Projected) | S21 (Actual) | |
| Passport Budget | $515,254 | $589,846 | $494,116 | $478,591 | $515,216 | $642,216 |
** Note: The GTC amount requested and reserves will be updated based on market conditions when this proposal moves to Tally, using the lower of the current price or the 20-day moving average. (Currently @ $1.14 price)
Budget Breakdown
Breakdown staffing, contracting, operational expenses
We have meticulously accounted for upcoming expenses, aiming for a lean but comprehensive budget. Our 16-member team comprises roles in Product, Design, Engineering, DevRel, Operations, and Support.
| S18 (Actual Spend) | S19 (Projected Actuals) | S20 (Requested) | S21 (Requested) | S21 (Adjusted) | |
| Contributor Rewards | $373,791 | $318,102 | $341,674 | $349,799 | $426,799 |
| Contracting (Dev Ops, DevRel, design, Marketing) | $114,192 | $70,969 | $75,192 | $99,192 | $149,192 |
| OpEx (Software subscriptions, gas, audits, travel, professional development) | $31,835 | $42,236 | $61,725 | $66,225 | $66,225 |
| Total | $519,818 | $431,307 | $478,591 | $515,216 | $642,216 |
