Abstract
Seasons are a new addition to the Gitcoin ecosystem designed to provide periods of focused action around governance.
The âSeasonsâ concept has been explored by many web2 gaming companies, and more recently by web3 communities like Friends with Benefits.
When GTC launched in May, governance over the Gitcoin platform was handed over to the community via a group of individuals known as Stewards. Stewards are trusted community leaders with delegated voting power to make decisions on behalf of the community.
A Season represents a time period for Gitcoin Stewards to earn GTC for active participation in governance. It consists of the top 40 delegated addresses, with an open application process for community members to join.
These GTC allocations will be distributed via a number of mechanisms which will evolve over time.
This proposal is split into the following sections:
- Motivation: Why start Seasons?
- Specification: A roadmap for implementing Seasons.
- Distribution: Retroactive allocations for Steward work to date.
As a point of process, the contents of this post will be split into multiple Snapshot polls, as to ensure the different topics are voted on a case-by-case basis.
Motivation
Over the past 6+ weeks, the Gitcoin community and Stewards have been working tirelessly to build the first pillars of Gitcoin governance. There has been a huge amount of engagement on the Gitcoin forum and Discord, as well as wider discussions.
These first steps have not come without trials and tribulations, but we believe that great progress has been made and the impact made on the wider decentralized governance space has been significant.
Weâve often said that Season Zero has been a Tutorial Island of sorts, with a number of people from across the Ethereum ecosystem dipping their toes into the waters of decentralized governance for the first time!
While weâre grateful for the hard work and time that has been committed thus far, we also understand that all of the Stewards have jobs, projects and commitments outside of Gitcoin which demand their attention.
For this reason, we believe that it is both necessary and justified to begin rewarding Stewards for their time and energy in the form of additional governance rights.
The principle is simple: those who have participated in such a nascent system and are shaping its core functions would be some of the best people to guide it to a stage where broader contributions are possible.
Itâs worth noting that these rewards are intentionally distributed in the form of governance weight with no economic value.
Itâs also worth noting that Stewards can be expected to be reasonable about the amounts they opt to reward themselves early on, as delegates can opt to switch to new Stewards if the wrong levels are set.
Specification
Seasons Overview
Season Zero (S0) represents the time between the launch of GTC and the GitcoinDAO, and the beginning of Season One (S01).
Season One will commence at a date specified in the âS01 Proposalâ, and continue for the shorter of 90 days or the end of the next formal grants round. After this period, Stewards will vote on individual methods of allocation for GTC among themselves and the wider community.
Season One should be viewed as a trial run, with future ambitions to have recurring Seasons following short windows for recovery and reflection. Similar to off-seasons in sports, Stewards should be given time to rest before ramping up for key governance decisions made throughout the year.
A formal structure to future Seasons will be presented at the end of Season One, assuming the program is deemed valuable by the community.
Steward Selection
A snapshot of the top 40 delegated addresses will be taken at the beginning of a Season to determine the intial members for that Season.
Community members who sit outside of this threshold are welcome to submit a proposal to join, with incoming applications reviewed by the existing Stewards group (or a committee dedicated to onboarding).
Steward Incentives
Steward incentives could be distributed at the end of every Season using the following options:
- Quadratic funding (Gitcoin Building Gitcoin)
- Coordinape
- Fixed rewards to workstreams left up to workstream leads
In the case of Coordinape, all top 40 Stewards will be listed, along with any outstanding stewards who reach out. Those who wish not to be compensated for their work can defer their allocation after voting has concluded. This way, all Stewards are recognized for the value they created, even if they choose not to be compensated for it.
Deferred allocations will be split pro-rata among all remaining stewards relative to the Coordinape voting distribution.
It may also be worth considering up front allocations for workstreams heading into Season 1, but to ensure concise discussion this will be left to the S01 Proposal if we find support for the concept in general.
Season Zero Distribution
We propose that a total of 40,000 GTC is allocated retroactively across the Stewards group as well as recipients of grants in the âGitcoin Building GitcoinDAOâ category. The breakdown of proposed allocations are detailed below.
Seperate Snapshot proposals will be made outlining further detail around these allocations, their timelines and their distribution.
Grants Round 10 Matching: 20,000 GTC
- To be allocated to grants in the âGitcoin builds Gitcoinâ category pro-rata using the same quadratic formula as matching pool funds.
- Used to encourage the community to create grants for the Gitcoin builds Gitcoin category, resulting in more active development of both core and periphiral infrastructure for the GitcoinDAO.
Gitcoin Stewards via Coordinape: 20,000 GTC
- To be allocated via Coordinape to all Stewards who have been active in Season Zero.
- Stewards will be onboarded to Coordinape and given a set amount of votes (in the form of GIVE tokens) to distribute to others that they feel have contributed value. Once all Stewards have completed this process, the resulting social graph will be used to distribute GTC to those who participated. More information on how Coordinape works can be found here.
TL;DR
This post looks to start a conversation around Gitcoin Steward incentives during Season Zero, as well as to propose initial frameworks for Steward selection and incentive distribution processes for future Seasons.