[Proposal] OpenData Community - Gitcoin founding role and request for support

🧙 🧙‍♀️ Ideas and Open Discussion
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Title: [GCP-00x] - Gitcoin OpenData Community Founding Partnership

Author(s): Evan Powell with many reviewers

Version 1.0: June 27, 2023

Summary:

This proposal seeks a commitment of $65,000 from the Gitcoin Treasury to support the OpenData Community (ODC), a non-commercial DAO dedicated to protecting public goods funding and supporting decentralization at the data layer. The funding will help the OpenData Community to improve its ability to deliver complementary open-source and free-to-use software, algorithms, analysis, data sets, and data scientists for users of Gitcoin protocols. Gitcoin in turn will receive, when available, erc-20 locked tokens for use in governance as a Founding Sponsor of the ODC.

The complementary goods provided by the ODC are important for Gitcoin users including round operators. As an open-source project, the ODC is capable of delivering them less expensively than other approaches. Recently members of the ODC have been active in reviewing the Beta Round, the Citizens Retroactive Funding Round, and the DeSci Round at no charge to any of the round operators.

Introduction:

The OpenData Community (ODC) emerged in late 2022 from Gitcoin FDD, with a mission to leverage data science and software development expertise to protect public goods funding through Sybil analysis and squelching. This proposal outlines our plan for sustainability and the benefits that Gitcoin, as a Founding Sponsor, would gain from supporting our mission.

OpenData Community:

The ODC’s mission is twofold:

  1. Defending Web3 from Sybil attacks and other types of Fraud: We aim to protect public goods funding, airdrops, DAO governance, fair and transparent markets, and other public squares from Sybil and similar attacks.
  2. Preventing centralization at the data layer: We strive to protect the decentralization and resistance to censorship of Ethereum and other well-designed blockchains by supporting decentralized approaches to data access and analysis.

To achieve these goals, the ODC hosts quarterly hackathons, develops open-source software projects, and curates useful data sets and decentralized data infrastructure for the broader community. We also help to recruit and train data analysts and data scientists.

Governance and the Role of a Founding Partner such as Gitcoin:

As a Founding Partner and member of our inaugural Steward Council, Gitcoin will receive a leading position in the governance of the OpenData Community and will be in a position to participate in a growth in the value of the OpenData Community.

The governance tokens that Gitcoin receives will be locked for a period of not less than one year, with the option of the DAO voting to unlock tokens after that period.

In addition, the OpenData Community is implementing on-chain governance via the use of the Hats Protocol as outlined in our forums in a discussion entitled People Pipelines. These are ERC-1150-based tokens and are used to establish roles - and hence accountability.

Use of Proceeds:

The funding will be used to execute a plan that will result in the sustainability of the OpenData Community by enabling us to secure additional support while improving the depth and quality of our capabilities. The budget breakdown is as follows:

  • 1.5 full-time equivalent staff: $7,500 per month
  • Ongoing bounties: $2,500 per month
  • Legal expenses: $2,500 per month
  • Total: $12,500 per month

While it is difficult to be certain during a bear market, there are a number of DAOs making grants and other stakeholders that have expressed interest in similarly supporting the OpenData Community.

Benefits to Gitcoin:

By supporting the OpenData Community, which provides complementary software, data sets, analysis, algorithms and experienced data scientists and developers that Gitcoin users can use in running their grants rounds and other activities with the aid of Gitcoin protocols, Gitcoin stands to gain:

  • Increased market for the Allo protocol and Gitcoin-enabled public goods funding
  • Increased market for Gitcoin Passport
  • Additional relationships with a diverse set of web3 stakeholders

Many would-be users of the Allo protocol and related software such as Grants Stack and Gitcoin Passport are in need of credible data analysis and related software. For example:

  • Automation: Automation of aspects of Grants review and Sybil squelching
  • Reporting: Dashboards for Grants review and grants funding allocations including the impact of Sybils; these reports increased credibility and trust
  • Customization: For example, whether a given community should use default Gitcoin Passport thresholds
  • Screening of known Sybils: For example, the recent ODC Hackathon revealed that Sybils that had been identified in another community were present in the Gitcoin Beta Round
  • Turn-key services: As a non-commercial organization, the OpenData Community does NOT provide turn-key services however members of the ODC work with professional services organizations to deliver services as needed

In addition, the transparency provided by the ODC can be useful in building the credibility of allocation decisions; as discussed recently in collaboration with Gitcoin teams, whereas Gitcoin and other round operators as they emerge must make the ultimate call on which potential Sybils and Grants are allowed, the ODC can play an important role both as a provider of important complements, including data sets, data scientists, algorithms and software and also as a check and balance that can be used by the community to validate results.

Potential Risks:

While we are confident in our mission and strategy, we acknowledge the following potential risks:

  • Gitcoin dependency: We need to continue to demonstrate value to non-Gitcoin supporters to broaden our support and achieve our mission. We believe this grant and the role of Gitcoin as a Founding Partner will help to catalyze similar relationships with a number of other stakeholders.
  • Competitive responses: It may be the case that individuals within a particular round operator or within proprietary providers of analysis and data services would feel threatened by the OpenData Community. Over time we expect the positioning of the ODC as a non-commercial provider of Research and Development, tooling, skilled analysts, and data sets will be more clear and less likely to elicit a competitive response.
  • Public good dependency: Thus far our algorithms, software, and members have applied themselves primarily to protecting public goods funding; while we are planning to collaborate with leading marketplaces and others such as investors concerned about wash trading, we have focused our first three hackathons on the public goods ecosystem.
  • Lack of governance decentralization: We need to put our on-chain governance into production to enable us to grow and allocate our scarce resources credibly and in a way that resists capture. This is a primary outcome of this funding.
  • Dependency on key volunteers: A limited number of individuals are dedicating substantial time and may be unable to continue to do so if the ODC does not receive funding or for other reasons.
  • Lack of coordination across web3: Systemic barriers to effective cross-project coordination could hamper our efforts to protect web3. We are often overlooked by projects clearly in need of our capabilities; again, becoming more sustainable will presumably help here.
  • Lack of regulatory clarity or good faith: Regulatory uncertainties could impact our operations.

KPIs:

Our key performance indicators include:

  • Initial governance on-chain launch by August 15th via the Hats Protocol
  • Receipt of additional funding and contributions, including additional Founding Sponsors and Steward Council members by September 30th
  • Hosting quarterly hackathons with continued growth in participation including sponsors who assist in designing the Hackathons

Thank you for reading this proposal and for your support and feedback.

Vote:

Yes: Support the OpenData Community with $65,000 in funding.

No: Do not support the OpenDataCommunity in this way.

Abstain: I am missing context or this proposal needs more refinement.

Resources:

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Gitcoin already spent millions$$$ on FDD. Should that not in itself grant Gitcoin a founding role in the ODC?

Did the anti-sybil legos software that were advertised on the forum last year ship? If so, please link them. I find it hard to believe that they’re going to ship with $65k in funding if they didn’t ship with $$$millions of funding.

It looks like from this post that @connor is in charge of sybil reviews now. @connor what do you need to be successful? What do you need from the ODC?

I would support this proposal if what the ODC offers matches what Gitcoin demands for solving sybil in 2023.

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Thanks Salvador

We have two sets of docs right now for Legos:

Very cool that you are aware of Legos.
In addition to this sort of work we also support R&D on datasets, dashboards and of course we help on board data scientists to the fight.
That said - our focus is on cost effective R&D and while members of the community have been working hand in hand w Connor and others reviewing recent rounds - the judgment and definitely the incredible investigative work of Connor and others is and likely always will be required. Similar story for Passport - it is becoming ever more effective however currently it alone is insufficient in many cases.

The ODC is a massively more cost effective way to deliver useful R&D and other capabilities, however is far from silver bullet and will still require ever improving Passport and relentless operators like Connor and the broader round ops team. Especially as many non Gitcoin organizations start to operate rounds, it is important to decrease the burden on them via Legos, dashboards, useful datasets, and of course helpful data scientists.

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Thanks @epowell101

While i do see merit in funding this project, I would like to request a quantifiable (MoS) measure of success for the following:
1.

Could you please add an overview the funding that has already gone into this project and the returns it has generated?

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Thank you for reviewing the proposal.

It is hard to quantify the “increased market” metric. Sybil defense isn’t an optional component of these funding rounds and data analysis is necessary to tune Passport. Taking an open-source approach can be both more cost-effective and credible due to the transparency than solely relying on Gitcoin-paid teams and workstreams such as the former FDD.

Regarding funding into the project, we have had two hackathons since being mostly or entirely spun out of Gitcoin. These were funded in part by Gitcoin and in part by other stakeholders including Ocean Protocol and Pocket Network and Supermodular; and 95% of those sponsor payments went directly out to hackathon winners; there is no other source of funding as of yet other than the few months I had as a part time contributor to FDD (which was hugely beneficial). It is again a little tricky to measure the hard ROI of a hackathon however the models, datasets, dashboards, and data scientists that these hackathons helped to gather are now being used in the analysis of a few recent funding rounds, which is one of the benefits of the OpenData Community although not the only one. As the number of these rounds increases it becomes all the more important that a credibly neutral, open, and qualified set of data scientists, algorithms, dashboards, and datasets are available to enable success including in non-Gitcoin-operated rounds, which we all hope will proliferate.

Thank you again for reviewing the proposal and for your analysis.

One comparison - it could easily cost $65,000 in commissions paid to a recruiter to hire a single data scientist and there are dozens that have been introduced to our challenges via the OpenData Community, a handful of which are helping Gitcoin now as volunteers.

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The ODC was extremely generous to help with the Beta Round matching calculations and Sybil analysis at no cost. Many of their tests, some from the FDD days, some from recent ODC hackathons, played a part in catching Sybil rings. I’m not sure what the best solution is yet, but I’d like to emphasize how important it is to have robust on-chain analytical tools in order for Quadratic Funding to scale on a decentralized protocol.

I am generally in support of this proposal, and/or Gitcoin + ODC collaborating in whatever capacity makes the most sense. I would like to see some more concrete deliverables described for this cost, and I do have some questions (what are legal expenses for?) but overall it is really important we continue funding and building open source Sybil defense tools.

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Hey guys, I’m Stefi, I’m not an active writer here, more of a reader but would like to leave my testimony.
I got to know Gitcoin through ODC, like other people from our community that like me would like to onboard the web3 space but with a data and not a developer background dont find a lot of places to do it.
I understand all your questions about ROI and I agree that they should be made, just want to leave some thoughts around non-tangible returns too.
The community have run hackathons and gather a vast number of submissions that helps to guide development toward solutions to this really complex problem that is sybil attacks. We are on an eminence of, besides all the intangible and tangible assets already built, building more tangible ones with all the past experience.
Examples have been mentioned here like trained and skilled data scientists ( flourished on ODC) helping out on round evaluations, curated data sets, but there are others worth to mention like:

  • a website that gather resources to onboard and inform whoever wants to understand the subject of sybil attacks.

  • Onboardings like when I went to EthSamba to talk about the danger of sybil attacks to public funding and to do that I explained Gitcoin, Allo Protocol and QF to more than 50 people , including stakeholders from Lens Protocol, Chainlink and Celo.

  • And more recently Sandbox projects, including the Mirall0x app which I’m a founder and has been developed as an open source application to integrate the grants owner tools to analyze grantees projects and fight sybils even before the donations start . The main user persona of this tool is not only Gitcoin, whom some members have already seen a MVP and offered great feedback, but the future Grants Stack and Allo user too.
    This is a tangible example of an outcome coming from the existence and momentum of the community that will indirectly aggregate value to Gitcoin ecosystem.

With all that said I ask you to keep supporting ODC, the most specialized open hub that studies and discusses this huge issue keen to the success of Gitcoin applications that is sybil attacks.

Thanks for reading

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Thank you, Connor!

The legal costs are due to anticipating that some lawyers won’t donate their time. We do have a relationship with a great domestic US law firm who actually has said they would defer many legal expenses - however non-US firms that have experience in safely issuing ERC-20s and all the related work whether in Switzerland Zug or Caymans / BVI are rather expensive and at least so far not very flexible in their costs.

In the meantime, thanks to the Hats Protocol team not charging us so far as an early user - and to them working in the open (open source wins again) - we are able to progress on that piece of governance without any direct costs other than the opportunity costs of educating ourselves on the use of the Hats Protocol as a means to build a so far alpha level of on-chain decentralized governance.

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Hi Evan, great to see this proposal :grinning: I’m excited about your upcoming governance token launch!

Overall, I would like this proposal to have specific metrics allowing us to measure the gap between your promises and actual outcomes delivered at the end of the grant. @connor touched upon this briefly , here are some ideas for concrete deliverables;

  1. Number of organizations other than gitcoin that you do sybil resistance for.

For example, Endaoment has an ongoing proposal for QF distribution with little by way of sybil resistance.

  1. Co-funding targets - how much do you anticipate raising beyond the $65,000 provided by Gitcoin?

  2. Amount of funds saved - this is the most critical metric to track. For example, ODC should be able to say that with $65,000 in expenditure, $130,000 was prevented from going to cheaters.

It may be hard to to assign targets to each of these metrics, but it is still a worthwhile exercise. At the very least, if ODC comes back with request for more funding I’d like to know progress on these 3 fronts.

I’d also like some more details about the core team and size of volunteer network.

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Hi Evan, Stefi and team

I want to weigh in with a few of my own thoughts plus echo a few others shared here. Overall, I’m very supportive of efforts to decentralize Sybil defense and build a vibrant community of analysts who can serve the needs of Gitcoin (and beyond). This is a talented team with a strong track record and mission alignment, so my intention is to improve ODC’s value proposition to the DAO.

I’d like to see more of a hypothesis from ODC about what it’s product or service offering will look like. And I’d like some validation from within the DAO that such a product or service can be immediately helpful.

(nit: I don’t think it’s relevant to compare the cost of this proposal to the cost of recruiting a data scientist, unless the BATNA is to go out and recruit a data scientist)

The posts from @jengajojo @connor @thedevanshmehta raise concerns around metrics / deliverables. I share those concerns, but want to emphasize that whatever metrics / deliverables are proposed should be closely linked to the impact of a ODC product or service on the DAO.

For instance, at the end of each round but before the matching pool payouts are locked, there could be a write-up that ODC submits that consolidates the Sybil detection approaches of multiple contributors, showing both consensus Sybils (where models are in agreement) and novel signs (worth follow-up because they represent new or more complex attack vectors). Or there’s a sensitivity analysis on on the effect of different passport scoring thresholds on results. Or reporting dashboards that go live at the start of the round and help participants spot attacks or suspicious behaviors at the onset. I’m spitballing based off the examples provided in the OP, but ultimately what I’d like to see is validation from a user group or championing from a DAO workstream that this is a good investment.

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Great feedback, thank you.

I’d appreciate your feedback on whether you agree this is a comprehensive list or if there are others you’d suggest. We could add this reporting to the proposal.

Work in Sybil analysis:

  • known total amount protected* (aggregate size of rounds from all operators)
  • known amount of funds redirected / squelched (Sybil related misallocations prevented - your #3)
  • number of addresses flagged
  • number of rounds protected
  • additions to known Sybil lists

Sybil and Grants screening:

  • known number of rounds protected, broken down by Gitcoin and other non Gitcoin operators
  • known number of grants reviewed

Hackathon(s)

  • results of hackathons - can include a very similar set of metrics, however per hackathon
    • should also continue to include a narrative analysis

Size of community

  • number of active discord participants
  • twitter community engagement including attendance at Twitter spaces & Discord based free training
  • number of roles designated via Hats or otherwise (minted & claimed Hats)

Development activity

  • pull requests across all Sandbox project
  • number of Sandbox projects
  • other highlights of Sandbox projects

Non-Sybil impact

  • known use for airdrop analysis
  • known use in wash trading analysis

Financial metrics

  • cashflow and waterfall analysis

A significant caveat here is that the focus of the ODC is on research and development - we are boosting the supply of valuable data sets, algorithms, dashboards, and especially data scientists in the open, in a non-commercial, non-rivalrous manner. Nothing we do is complete without a round owner to actually make the determinations on their round how to screen Grants, squelch Sybils, set Passport parameters, report out their approach to their community, and so on. So when the metric says for example “amount protected” this means in conjunction with a round operator.

A second related caveat is that the metrics read “known…”. This also points back to our open source approach which, by design, allows for fully anonymous use of software, dashboards, and even the data scientists and many of the data sets prepared by the ODC. A round operator or even a proprietary provider of Sybil or wallet protection or other services could use all of these public goods prepared by the ODC and not let us know.

Moving onto to your questions about funding targets and current core team size and network size:

  • Funding target: in total, $250,000 over 18 months, inclusive of other grants, plus any net margin from hackathons, and support from Sandbox projects and commercial affiliates such as membership fees for sponsoring organizations
  • Size of current team: of course it grows enormously during hackathons and we are only now launching some bounties for ongoing activities; we have yet to spend any resources on ongoing activities other than paying the expenses of two community members who attended and spoke at crypto conferences; there are 9 “ODC Jedi” and there is a published process explained in the Forums about delegating authority to these and other community members
  • we anticipate paying 1-1.5 low wage full time equivalents per month going forward
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Thanks Carl

Agreed re: the cost of recruiting a data scientist comparison; while the cost of recruiting a single data scientist likely does match or even exceed the cost being requested by the ODC here, that far understates the hard ROI as measured by cost avoidance (where soft ROI would include the overall benefits).

The hard ROI of the ODC would be each round operator hiring a handful of data scientists and software developers, building relationships with data layer providers and partners like the Ocean Protocol for the safe storage and sharing of datasets, and so forth. That still would mean that each round operator would be seen as somewhat of a black box so there would need to be a lot of additional explanation required as well. Back of the envelope the cost for an organization to replicate what the ODC is already beginning to deliver might be:

  • Data scientists: 2.5 @ $150,000 per year
  • Software dev: 1@$150,000 per year
  • BD and related work: 1@$150,000 per year

All in all you pretty quickly get to $1 million per year which approaches the costs that Gitcoin was funding the FDD at recently I recall. Again, though, a captured approach by a single operator would not have the same benefits as an open-source approach in terms of independence and credibility. Nonetheless, it is probably a fair proxy and one, again, that is similar to that which Gitcoin itself paid the FDD last year. Nonetheless, when considering the $65,000 being requested here as the first funding to be used for the ongoing operation of the ODC, a fair comparison for a hard ROI in terms of avoided costs would be something in the range of $1-$1.2 million for an in-house, data science and software team. It’s not a perfect comparison and to be clear ODC does not eliminate the need for round operators and especially Gitcoin to have data science expertise.

A lot of the specific reports you are mentioning are already being worked on by OpenData Community volunteers day by day with @connor and others within Gitcoin. As we begin to actually compensate for the work we are doing between hackathons, we anticipate this work will further improve in quality and will more tightly reflect the needs of Gitcoin. I think it is notable that @connor stated above that he was supportive of this proposal, at least as I interpret his post.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning here that this isn’t just a grant proposal. Gitcoin will also have governance rights in the ODC as a founder. So there should be alignment in part because Gitcoin will have more power over our focus than it would were this simply a Grant proposal.

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@epowell101 Thank you for this proposal. I told you at ETHDenver that I thought ODC could be at the forefront of data analysis and you are making that happen. Well done.

I rank this proposal as a 6 out of 10. A middling score that signals neither a strong yes or no. Being where we are in the bear market and Gitcoin needing to double down on focus and frugality, if the vote were today, I would vote no based on the proposal and responses above.

My score is only a n=1, according to me, a minnow with significant only-to-me GTC holdings. It is very likely someone else would do this same analysis and come up with a different score. If this proposal moves to a vote, I will update the analysis based on forum content at that time.

Btw - I don’t like giving this proposal a score of a 6. I think ODC could be an exceptionally important partner for Gitcoin, and I hope the workstreams demonstrate that my initial assessment is way off.

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Thanks Shawn - I appreciate your perspective and of course your broader work in governance at Gitcoin and more broadly.

I feel like the problems we help to address are the Achilles heel of quadratic funding - and in a broader sense are symptomatic of a rot within web3 itself. It’s like we are arguing for fixing the roof because it is starting to leak, when the family really wants to instead use that money to go hang out in Europe.

The analogy breaks down a bit though in that the OpenData Community is not and should not be the entire solution. Passport is crucial here, round operators are obviously crucial as well, and it will often be the case that commercial round operators and Sybil fighters are central as well. We need to face reality, increase our collaboration, and further increase the costs of attacking public goods funding rounds, airdrops, and wash trading.

Anyway - the basic adjustments we propose to make to the proposal are to add the metrics for reporting listed above. Do you have any other suggestions you would make that could make your score a higher one?

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Hey it’s Ben from Pocket here. Seeing as we are mentioned in the op I just want to add my voice directly and say that as a partner to ODC we’ve been really impressed with their engagement and ability to build a guild of values aligned people and spread the message of Open Data and Public Goods.

Reading the thread it sounds like a lot of people share this positive perspective. I think with ODC it’s not really a question of “do we support” but more about “how best to deploy”. I raise this because I interpret the feedback so far as mostly asking ODC to make a “better guess” at how they can support Gitcoin’s ambitions… fwiw I think it might be better for someone at Gitcoin to just tell ODC directly what would be work that is strongly supported and justifies funding…

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The perils of living in the unsexy shadow of shipping… I get that. : )

Yes, in the assessment there are comments on each line item of which could boost the score. I think working with the worksteams on elements 5 and 6 would likely sharpen 4 and 7.
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Thanks. I appreciate your use of the matrix by the way and if it is fair to do so, I would like to use it in the future.

Picking a few points:
4. Does the project help Gitcoin achieve sustainability via mission-relevant income or cost savings?

  • A: Yes, due to the departure recently of a couple of data analysts, Gitcoin is even less equipped to this work on its own. That said, I don’t want to oversell - others might be more aggressive (and articulate) in making the case however I think open-source data sets, algorithms, dashboards, and motivated data scientists mostly increase the productivity and credibility of in-house talent as opposed to replacing it. In short, the score should be a lot higher than a 2 IMO however likely not a 10. For the sake of argument, let’s make this a 7.

5, 6, & 7: Does it contribute to immediate priorities & does it have support?

  • A: I think you were on the Operator feedback call the other day. The very first piece of feedback from a round operator was that to be successful they need more help in Sybil analysis and related work; what I heard was a desire for the ODC & Gitcoin to work together better proactively, which certainly will be an outcome of this proposal. There is also a thread going elsewhere in which some operators are doing the chat equivalent of jumping up and down in support of the work @stefi_says is doing as the founder and leader of an ODC sandbox project that helps to automate and present grant screening. So the work is seen as extremely valuable by Gitcoin target users. The question to me in all of these open source efforts is often around how amorphous an open source project can seem versus payment for services; this is one reason why we wanted to make this not just a grant, but an invitation for Gitcoin to be on the governance council which concretely will help to keep us focused on delivering value to Gitcoin and the public goods ecosystem.

That said, as mentioned we plan to also revise the proposal to include a commitment to hit and report upon a number of metrics listed in the thread.

Thanks again for the analytical framework and thought you put into your analysis. By my admittedly biased math, if we shift up the first score on cost avoidance from 2 to the average score and shift up the score on KPI quality as well to the average score then the high scores you gave on other items would get us between 7 and 8, still lower than I’d like but I think more accurate.

The bottom line for me of course is that Sybils have not gone away and no one org - even one shipping at an accelerated rate like Gitcoin - can credibly create the data science, data sets, dashboards, and data scientists needed to enable the broader community to deal with these attackers. Nor should Gitcoin bear that burden alone. We are asking Gitcoin to support the creation of a public good in the form of an aligned community that will benefit the broader public goods and web3 space - and thereby will deliver capabilities at a small fraction of the cost were Gitcoin to build these capabilities in-house.

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Love to hear 3rd party validation of ODC outside of gitcoin! Thanks Ben.

Also really like the idea of getting a formal paid relationship started via a spec or RFP from Gitcoin. I think one of the areas we could improve is better definition of what a sybil attack is (vs an airdrop farmer vs a new user) and the % tolerance we have for sybils (0% is never going to happen, but what about 1%? is 5% too high? etc)

Going through an RFP exercise for our first formal/paid engagement with ODC could help us sharpen our need internally as well as provide structure and a path to success for ODC.

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I’ll second this as an early community member in the ODC and agree totally on being impressed with the ability to build a community and interest in Open Data and Public Goods. I long ago got out of the business of making my opinions known regarding GitCoin DAO funding proposals, so I’ll leave at there. If I had a vote, I’d vote yes.

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Thanks Meg! Btw an open data community member built a first version of that grants dashboard we discussed as a useful utility that Gitcoin wasn’t going to be able to build itself for sometime. We should get you a demo and maybe you might want to reach out to @stefi_says who leads that project.

Our position re commercial engagements is that we are an open source community and project. There are solution providers like Plurality Labs and others including a number of amazing ODC members that might be a better prospect for that RFP.

That said - it’s a great thought experiment. Would it make sense for gitcoin to source and pay for all of the data science, data sets, dashboards and data scientists for the broader public goods and web3 community whether from the ODC or via an fully staffed internal team? I’d argue probably not because there is a real concern about centralization and of course costs. As mentioned above the amount we are requesting is roughly the amount for recruiting a single data scientist - let alone for paying them and their team members.

Please do let me know if you want a connection to @stefi_says - or just take a look at the momentum behind the project here (caveat - it is new and evolving quickly - this is the sort of thing we will help to accelerate once we solidify our foundations): GitHub - OpenDataforWeb3/Mirall0x: Mirall0x is a application to empower humans analyst to have access to information and clearness when analysing third part projects

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