Author: Josh, Co-founder of ImmortalX
Status: Draft 1 of Proposal
Abstract:
ImmortalX is a next-generation decentralised perpetual exchange on the Celo blockchain. ImmortalX aims to onboard the next wave of retail users and become one of the core communities as well as virtual infrastructure within the Celo ecosystem.
Acknowledging the challenges faced by prior protocols, including a decline in community engagement and the absence of a dedicated space for user interactions, ImmortalX is hoping to seize this opportunity in filling the void. As heralded by long-time Celo users, ImmortalX has been recognised by our community members to have consistently contributed to the betterment of the ecosystem reputation.
ImmortalX is committed to fostering a friendly and inclusive environment for all users, regardless of any differences.
1. Context and Motivation:
As evident from Token Terminal, Celo has witnessed a monumental increase in daily active users (DAU) from less than 10,000 in January 2023 to more than 200,000 DAUs in January 2024. However, within the rises, there lies unexpected declines of more than 30% between weeks.
Comparing Celo to Layer 1 blockchains, such as Avalanche which was launched during a similar period, it only faces a 10% to 15% fluctuation between each week in DAU. Comparing to ourselves to newcomer Layer 2 blockchains, such as Arbitrum, it could be argued that we do have an advantage when it comes to higher DAU but we actually have half the number of weekly active users of Arbitrum and Arbitrum also has a lower DAU fluctuation rate than Celo, despite the later release of its blockchain.
On Defi Llama, statistics have shown that the Celo ecosystem has only retained approximately 10% of its peak total value locked (TVL). Majority of the TVL (94.8%) in the Celo ecosystem is situated within Mento Labs, Uniswap and Curve DEX. Out of the three, Uniswap and Curve DEX are not native to the ecosystem and take up 34.1% of the TVL. Comparing our TVL with other Layer 1 blockchains, such as Solana and Aptos, the top 3 protocols who hold similar TVL percentages are native and are praised highly within their respective blockchain communities.
Amidst Celo’s transition into a Layer 2 (L2) blockchain, it would also be fair to compare ourselves to other new L2s such as Arbitrum, it requires approximately the top 8 protocols to match a similar dominance in Celo and half of the 8 protocols are native to Arbitrum. The top protocol, GMX, has unintentionally been established as a dedicated space within its ecosystem for users to congregate and interact casually.
The main point of contention for the rise and falls of DAU and TVL lie within the theme of “user stickiness”, in which users are retained over a period of time, possibly through a sense of belonging, strong beliefs in the blockchain development, trust in the developers or other relevant factors.
The point of contention here is the lack of a prominent native protocol recognised and trusted by the community as a “third place”, separate from the two usual social environments (X/Twitter and Celo Discord server). One could argue that Mento Labs is recognised and could become the dedicate place, but the main objective of Mento Labs is onboard real world assets (RWA) onto the virtual space of cryptocurrencies. As much as Mento Labs possesses a significant TVL dominance on Celo, its primary purpose of creation is different and its social culture has been established to be more technical than social.
2. Specification of potential protocol:
The first specification is the origin of the protocol. The protocol must be native to the Celo ecosystem and it does not matter whether the protocol originated from the previous or current cycle.
The second specification is the protocol’s current reputation. The protocol should be recognised by the wider community for their conviction and commitment to the improvement of the Celo community and ecosystem as a whole. Such a protocol should have a history of consistent positive engagement with the community, both online and possibly offline.
The third specification is the protocol’s rate of user retention, on both DApp and social media platforms. The protocol should strive to help and interact with the communities more often, either through online events or offline assistance.
3. Rationale of ImmortalX as the dedicated platform
ImmortalX has been a native protocol since 2021 and its history dates back to before its restructuring, in which it was known as ImmortalDAO Finance.
Since its inception, the protocol has consistently shown efforts to collaborate with other protocols and to give back to its community.
A fine example would be its collaboration with Impact Market in 2022 for its users to donate their staking rewards to Impact Market, in which the rewards continued to be staked such that additional rewards could be used to aid those in need. Another example would be the protocol’s collaboration with other native projects such as Ubeswap, Valora and CeloPunks.
ImmortalX as a protocol has also unintentionally created an environment in which users have set aside their differences to help one another. For example, one of the more prominent users, Frerehugi, has continually involved and identified himself as part of ImmortalX while giving aid to community members.
For reference, here is the link to a rickshaw pledge by Frerehugi to John Konah: https://x.com/frerehugi/status/1713110779405193437?s=61&t=0RJ_JBQ0Fae7pL_0FCwUzw
Community members in ImmortalX have also identified themselves as part of ImmortalX without having been asked or requested by anyone else.
For reference, here is a community member from Kenya, known as MacDonald, who has taken money out of his own pocket to fund events related to ImmortalX.
Other community members have also helped themselves out in creating their own ImmortalX merchandise from their local stores.
ImmortalX has unintentionally been the place that Celo users return to time and time again. The protocol is poised to become the dedicated space of interaction.
4. Proposal Objectives
4.1 General Outline
ImmortalX plans to build the communities by hiring two dedicated ambassadors through the system of meritocracy. The ambassadors will concentrate their efforts in building their connections with the online users, which have been lacking despite the creation of several entities in the past year. The ambassadors will propose community events with monetary incentives which will be examined by our seasoned developers. Though the target audience appears to be a generalised online audience, the events will help to gather the existing community to enliven the atmosphere and attract new users from other ecosystems based on the rewards.
Understanding that monetary incentives are not sustainable in the long run, the events will focus on ingraining a sense of belonging by creating an atmosphere of nonchalance while creating opportunities to socialise. Such events will be held in the form of games such as crossword puzzles, online scrabbles, prediction games, member of the month, etc.
The secondary aim of the events would be to encourage users who feel a sense of belonging to use the DApps of the Celo ecosystem. Other than fiat on-/off-ramping, the users will be encouraged to interact with protocols, such as ImmortalX, Impact Market and GoodDollar.
4.2 Ambassador
4.2.1 Selection Criteria
Ambassadors should possess the following skills, i.e. blockchain knowledge, communication, teamwork, interpersonal skills, conflict management, problem-solving, time-management, attention to detail, and potentially other relevant skills.
They should also display certain traits, i.e. passion for the community, relatability, understanding and empathetic.
The ideal candidate does not need to possess all the necessary skills and traits in the beginning, but they should present the willingness and motivation to improve themselves. The ideal candidate should, but not necessarily, have been active in the community prior to hiring.
Each ambassador will also undergo a probationary period of 1 month.
4.2.2 Job Scope
- Ambassadors will utilise the space of ImmortalX on X, Discord and Telegram. These platforms will act as the hubs for community interactions, especially the Discord server.
- Ambassadors are expected to facilitate user engagement and foster a friendly environment for user participation and interactions.
- Ambassadors should utilise the resources available for regular events that can facilitate (2), including but not limited to utilising Twitter/X or Google Ads. They are allowed to create promotional content and post on the official ImmortalX’s X account after thorough reviews.
- Ambassadors should discuss with the developers before organising any events in order to optimise the events’ effectiveness and prevent potential misunderstandings. It is also recommended that ambassadors reach out to other projects for potential collaborations.
- Ambassadors will be under the direct supervision of ImmortalX developers throughout the process.
4.2.3 Remuneration
Each ambassador will receive a base salary of 500 USD per month and will be rewarded 50 USD per successful event organised. The remuneration will be paid in $CELO or $cUSD. It is recommended to have a minimum of 2 events per week and a maximum of 4 events per week.
The remuneration will be revised upon the increase in workload.
4.3 ImmortalX
4.3.1 The Dedicated Space
The ImmortalX social media platforms do not require any major restructuring. However, ImmortalX would require the permission of the Celo Foundation to be recognised as the dedicated virtual space for social gatherings and events. The dedicated space will request the recognition of the Celo Foundation through co-marketing such as retweets, medium articles or any other appropriate mediums.
ImmortalX also seeks to amplify our messages in each social media platform, such as X Boost, Google Ads, etc.
4.3.2 Community Events
The ImmortalX platform will follow the Code of Conduct from Celo when it comes to organising events. Each event type will be recorded as a proposal, detailing its name, purpose, procedure, budget and expected number of participants. The proposal can include more details, such as but not limited to origin of events, inspirations, the separation of outcomes into short and long term. Each event will be held with a budget of 100 USD for the winners, if any.
4.3.3 Success Metrics
The events are recommended to commence in Q3 2024 and after the Bitcoin halving. The time spent from the likely approval of the proposal until the commencement will be utilised for seeking the most suitable ambassador candidates. Upon finding the candidates, they will start their probation in May/June of 2024.
12-Month Success Metrics
- Average number of participants per month: 500
- DAU of Discord/Telegram server: 200
- Monthly positive testimonies by participants from regular and new users
- Optional: Twitter Analytics of 500,000 impressions and high retweet numbers.
4.4 Budget Breakdown
Please click on the link or paste this link into your browser: Celo’s Dedicated Space - Google Sheets
5 Updates
The team will present a monthly report to the Celo Foundation, based on the Celo Grant Playbook. This includes the evaluation of engagement, visibility, roadmap, milestones and launch.
Financial Report
The team will keep the receipts of all expenditures and will keep a detailed spreadsheet of all expenses by date, business entities and amount spent.
Each event will also have its own modified version of a financial report to detail the number of participants attracted by the monetary incentives. This serves as supporting evidence to revise the budget of each event in future.
Future Plans
The plans will be revisited every quarter to optimise ourselves for the current market. Optimisation efforts will be focused on marketing efforts, conversion rate and potential restructuring.
come on guys