Celo Kreiva DAO Season 0-1 2025 Proposal

Governance Governance Proposals
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Celo Kreiva DAO Season 0 2025

Proposal Key Aspects

  • Receiver Entity: Celo Governance
  • Status: [DRAFT]
  • Title: Celo Kreiva DAO Season 0 2025
  • Author(s): @hawwal @COT @iamoracle @emiridbest
  • Type of Request: Funding
  • Funding Request: $177,000 cUSD

Introduction

Celo kreiva is a “Purpose Driven Creative DAO” aimed at building a vibrant community of artists, digital creators, and collectors within the Celo ecosystem. This proposal seeks to establish a creative cosmos powered by creatives. You can check out the discussion article written some months back here.

This proposal aims to establish a creative DAO through which grassroots grants are accessible to artists, gamers, digital creators, creator lab teams, and creative projects for the sole purpose of building a creator economy within Celo.

What are we are trying to achieve:

  • Drive a dynamic influx of creative projects and individuals into the ecosystem by inspiring the birth of creative projects, attracting skilled individuals or groups to contribute their expertise and energy to the ecosystem.
  • Contribute more liquidity into the network through creativity.
  • Promote native Celo token vesting and lockups in Celo Kreiva DAO utilizing Aave protocol to encourage investor confidence in the DAO.

Celo Kreiva DAO is moving towards investing community funds in great creatives that will draw more liquidity into the network. This initiative will undoubtedly amplify Celo’s reputation in the Ethereum creator economy.

Key objectives include:
Grassroots grants to support creatives provided:

  • Creative projects are connected to the Celo ecosystem.
  • Creative initiatives that encourage the adoption of Celo.
  • Creative projects with Tangible ROIs
  • Drive the adoption of ecosystem products.
  • A thriving creative community is created.
  • Impactful creative projects with real-world use cases.

Motivation

The creator economy was expected to grow from over $250 billion in 2024 to more than $480 billion in 2027. Web3 enables creators to cut out intermediaries and monetize their work directly.

However, Celo has no established community for creatives. Thus, investing in a creator ecosystem will allow Celo to:

  • Increase adoption through digital creators and NFT communities;
  • Become a major stakeholder in the Eth creator economy;
  • Enable real marketing and community engagement.
  • Offer small grants to help close the funding gap for emerging artists.

The absence of a clear grant program for creatives only makes this initiative more pressing. Our purpose is to enable creative projects and communities to create a cosmos of creativity, where artists and creators can thrive creating prosperity conditions for creativity within the Celo ecosystem.

Why apply for Celo Kreiva

Why would creators apply for this grant?
Successful applicants will be Immediately adopted into the DAO which will expose them to Celo ecosystem stakeholders and industry players. Frequent workshops as well will be organized to empower these creatives.

Specification

1. Global Partnerships:

We aim to onboard creative teams and projects into the DAO, beginning with this team Revelator music Additional projects and teams will be announced in due course.

Additionally, we’re also looking at securing partnerships within the community, which includes Regional hubs, Celo Camp, Mento, Celo Mondo, Prezenti and others. These partnerships will help facilitate the distribution of grants to various creative projects across the globe.

Partnership Details:

Partnerships Commitments Expected Outcome
Revelator Music Integration of Celo Blockchain for Music royalty payments. Music royalties to be available in cUSD.
Regional Hubs Allocation of Creator grants accessible to creators in their regions. Diversity and inclusion.
Rarible X NFT marketplace Mint of Celo Kreiva NFTs.
Prezenti New grant arm designed for creative projects. Influx of creative projects and creatives.
Celo Camp Art business skill acquisition training from a art curator with dedicated grants for awardee. More business oriented creatives in the ecosystem.

2. Grants :

Below are various grant categories with their dollar denominations:

  • Sapphire Pool ($500): Prototyping, Early Creative Projects, & social exposure experiments
  • Emerald Pool ($5,000): Larger Creative Projects and Communities
  • Diamond Pool ($10,000): Grander Projects and Partnership

Grant Pool Breakdown & Criteria

:blue_square: Sapphire Pool ($500) – Prototyping & Early-Stage Creative Projects (Retroactive)

Purpose:

  • Support early-stage creative projects, experiments, and prototypes.
  • Provide small-scale retroactive funding to validate creative project concepts.

Eligibility Criteria:

  • This is for a project in their early experimental or ideation phase.
  • Must have measurable On-chain metrics.
  • Encourages community engagement and adoption of Celo.
  • Has potential for expansion into larger initiatives.

:green_square: Emerald Pool ($5,000) – Larger Creative Projects & Communities

Purpose:

  • Fund mid-scale creative projects with proven concepts.
  • Support creative communities projects with Celo adoption concepts.
  • Expand successful prototypes from the Sapphire Pool.

Eligibility Criteria:

  • The project has a prototype or art product ready for deployment.
  • Plans for ROI, and a financial sustainability plan
  • Has utility for Celo ecosystem stakeholders
  • Concepts that are ready to go on testnet
  • Has real-world applications that drive Celo adoption.

:gem_stone: Diamond Pool ($10,000) – Grand Projects & Strategic Partnerships

Purpose:

  • Support large-scale creative initiatives with high impact on-chain and real-world.
  • Proposals for ecosystem partnerships and collaborations are welcomed that drive development of creative public goods utilities for ecosystem stakeholders.
  • Celo ecosystems adoption through major creative projects.

Eligibility Criteria:

  • This category is for fully fleshed out concepts and requires funding to scale.
  • Concepts that have gone past testnet and are ready to go Mainnet
  • Concepts that have tangible real-world use cases verifiable on-chain are welcome.

Proposal Platforms:

Judging and Measuring Criteria:

Scoring Rubric:
Celo Adoption (30%), ROI (40%), Team Expertise (20%), On-chain validation (10%). Read our full criteria available on Charmsverse.

Diversity and Inclusion

  • Offer multilingual support for Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese application forms.
  • Partner with regional hubs to reach diverse communities.

3. Value Proposition:

How it will benefit the Celo blockchain:
Creators:
As a creative DAO, we are passionate about originality and have decided to be thorough about the art pieces displayed in our collection. In partnership with Rarible X, we’ll be launching an NFT marketplace where only genuine art will be minted.

How do we go about this:
Creators will be able to submit their NFT project proposals to snapshot on a monthly basis where the DAO through governance can decide on NFT projects to support by adding to the Celo Kreiva’s collection. From these, collectors can purchase to gain access to governance privileges within the DAO.
Check out “how to propose Testnet” repo here

Collectors:
Collectors holding Celo Kreiva NFT’s will have access to our governance and have the ability to make proposals that contribute to the overall wellbeing of the DAO.

We will facilitate the launch of these NFT projects as long as they meet our requirements.

4. Strategy:

In line with Celo Governance Season 0, we will establish a Grants Council consisting of four moderators responsible for reviewing applications during each grants season alongside a (Guardian or Steward) - Advisory role to actively oversee and support the DAO’s activities to ensure inclusivity and decentralization. The council will rotate biennially, allowing more passionate community members the opportunity to participate in critical decision-making within the DAO governance model. This structure reinforces transparency and contributes to a more decentralized ecosystem.

5. Voting:

Snapshot, Charmsverse.

6. Celo Kreiva DAO Governance:

Please Note: “The concept shared below in this category is actively under development and is now available on testnet, you can check out our Github for more information. Our team will deploy on mainnet pending Celo’s stakeholders decision outcome of the proposal.”

Token-Based Governance: Inspired by Nouns’ approach to bootstrapping identity and collective decision-making, Celo Kreiva DAO will adopt an NFT CELO ERC721 token-based governance model, where holders of our NFT will have the power to make proposals and vote on projects using snapshot, Community members will have a chance to shape the future of Celo Kreiva through NFTs with governance advantages.

Council Oversight: council members or moderators will oversee the administrative aspects of the DAO, ensuring the smooth operation of our community and initiatives

Funding Sources: Our funding will come from grants, NFT sales and Loans.

Governance Details:

1. NFT Voting:

  • One vote per NFT, capped at 10 votes per holder to prevent whale dominance.

2. Council Selection:

  • Open call via forum, community vote on Snapshot.
  • Biennial rotation, 4 members max.

3. Transparency:

  • All votes recorded on Snapshot.
  • Council meeting minutes shared on Telegram.

4. Dispute Resolution:

  • Community veto via 60% NFT holder vote on snapshot.

Metrics and KPIs:

  • Quarterly Reports:
    Every three months, we will have reports highlighting our progress so far, and completed milestones.

  • Percentage on completed/pending projects:
    These are projects that have received funding or yet to receive, also projects that have been completed or yet to be completed.

  • Community growth numbers:
    Community channel numbers across our various community channels.

  • Update on newly adopted projects/team as well as minted NFTs:
    Onchain activity report which include minted NFTs, and amount of transactions carried.

  • Monthly report on treasury:
    The Treasury report will be available via remox and to be shared on the forum.

Current Status

We are still in the early stages to issue grants. Our grant rounds will commence upon the community’s approval of this proposal. In the meantime, we have established our community page on Twitter, Charmverse, Questbook, Rarible Testnet and Snapshot testnest. We will expand to additional platforms such as RaribleX, Remox, Telegram, and more.

Timeline and Milestones

Below is a 6 months runway of activities that will occur.

Season 0/‘25 Milestones
April Community Feedback and Voting (if approved, the rest will follow)
May Onboarding of Revelator
June Launch “Kreiva Round”
July Wait Period For Applications
August NFT Mint
September Application Review Period and Grant Distribution

Detailed Budget

Here is a detailed breakdown of how the funds will be distributed:

  • Mods / Staff: 20% of total budget
  • Advisory: 3% of total budget
  • Grants: 70% of total budget
  • Contingency: 4% of total budget
Category Amount No. Cost Season 0 duration (6 months) Description
Moderators / Staff 4 1,500 36,000 Monthly payments for Celo Kreiva Mods.
Celo Guardian or Steward (Advisory) 1 1,000 6,000 Monthly payment for Celo Guardian Advisory role.
Contingency 5,000 5,000 Find breakdown of contingencies below
Sapphire 10 500 5,000 Social experiments, & projects in early stages that have a realistic goal that can be delivered in the shortest time possible.
Emerald 15 5,000 75,000 Bigger creative projects, with a prototype and a realistic time frame to completion, project must reach testnet on Celo.
Diamond 5 10,000 50,000 Larger established projects who are looking to be integrated in the Celo ecosystem. Projects must reach Celo mainnet realistic time frame.
Total 177,000

Mods:

  • Moderators will work 20 - 30 hours/week reviewing grants and managing the community.
  • Advisory will provide 5 - 10 hours/month of strategic guidance.

Contingency:

  • Website: domain - $9, hosting - $200.
  • Otoco LLC or cCorp - $200 - $1500 (inclusive of Legal consultation fees)
  • Farcaster: $3 - 10 monthly.
  • Rarible X: est. $40 monthly.
  • ENS: $35

Note: Balance will be kept in the treasury and will be used when completely necessary with a detailed report of purpose and evidence for expenditure.

Payment Terms

If approved, 50% of the $177,000 cUSD ($88,500 cUSD) budget will be deposited into the Celo Kreiva 2/4 multisig wallet upon approval. The remaining 50% ($88,500 cUSD) will be deposited after 3 months, upon successful completion of specified milestones in the first half of Season 0. The 200,000 CELO lockup will be paid in two equal instalments to the Celo Kreiva Lockup safe: 100,000 CELO upon approval and 100,000 CELO after 3 months, aligned with the cUSD payment schedule.

Celo Kreiva Multisig (2/4):
Celo: 0x46A8DC4786b4700D86BbCADD84A71f20cf0A5321

Celo Kreiva Lockup:
Celo: 0xfFA07dE7A652d357a1BF3A0b060030AC0aB3a71A

Multisig Holders:
Hawwal: celo:0xB6Bb848A8E00b77698CAb1626C893dc8ddE4927c
Oracle: celo:0x7360984Dd1e52cd898fE9AE1d2F8d017bFF56D74
COT: celo:0xD93e786498a3B56fd0B531648db294Cb378E4674
Emiri: celo:0xb82896C4F251ed65186b416dbDb6f6192DFAF926

Team

Hawwal: Linkedin, Twitter, Github.
I’m a front-end mobile dev and founder of Blaqk Stereo, a decentralized music distribution platform revamping artist royalties with stablecoin payments through minipay, and Tribe Block, a web3 University.
As a proud Celo Camp alumnus (Batch 9) with a strong passion for web3 innovation, I’ve been actively building on Celo since 2022 and driving web3 growth in Africa for several years. My achievements include a Guinness World Record for the longest recording marathon, as well as facilitating the distribution of $20,000 in grants to accelerate art initiatives globally through Blaqk Stereo DAO.

Oracle: Twitter
Oyeniyi Abiola Peace: is a blockchain software developer and the CEO of Blockchain Innovation Hub. Under his leadership, the company has trained over 600 talents and organized boot camps, hackathons, and training sessions for prominent blockchain ecosystems, including Celo, Arbitrum, Cartesi, and CrossFi. He has also worked as a DevRel Community Moderator for the Celo Foundation. Additionally, he is the co-founder of Pody Network, a Web3 alternative to Google Meet, which has over 30,000 users and more than 440 million seconds of in-app usage.

COT: Twitter.
Kelechi (aka COT): is a multidisciplinary creative — a seasoned record producer, artist, designer, and art director with over a decade of experience collaborating with global brands and artists on hundreds of successful projects.
With nearly five years immersed in the Web3 space, COT has played a pivotal role in pioneering projects that fuse blockchain technology with music and culture.
He was a core contributor at Blaqk Stereo, where he co-led groundbreaking initiatives within the NEAR Ecosystem, including a Guinness World Record-breaking project for the longest continuous music recording with multiple artists — a global movement that empowered creatives through collaboration and innovation.
Now, he’s building Apex Trybe — a decentralized record label reimagining how artists own, distribute, and earn from their music in the Web3 era.

Emiri: Twitter
Emiri Udogwu: A software developer who has been in Web3 for over 5 years and has actively participated in the Celo ecosystem for 2 years. He has been involved in Celo Sage, Celo Camp, Celo Africa Dao Incubator, Proof of Ship and so many Celo-organised hackathons.

Additional Support/Resources

We strongly value having a Guardian or Steward to advise the Celo Kreiva DAO and We welcome the Guardians to nominate alternative candidates :yellow_heart:.

Additionally, we’d like the guardians / stewards to help in facilitating an introduction to the Celo Mondo team. Thanks

Relevant Links:

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Hi @hawwal thank you for a detailed proposal and for your enthusiasm to establish a creative ecosystem with a home on Celo.

I want to highlight that we are currently in a process of transitioning to a Seasonal Cadence of governance. This will organize community initiatives into 6 month cycles aligned to an overarching objective presented at the beginning of the season. Objective of Season 0 is to lay down the foundation for this transition and align all community groups to this cadence to finish all activities by end of June so we can start the new cadence together.

With Season 0 (January-June) already more than half way over there is not enough time to carry out activities and report on this project until June. I advise you pause on this proposal until Season 1 planning is announced and propose it under the new framework.

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Alright, thanks @annaalexa, so do I take this down to repost it when season 1 starts so it can be readjusted to season 1 or do I readjust the time frame? Please advice :folded_hands:t5:

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I recommend reposting when Season 1 starts because with the current governance cycle (minimum 3 weeks) the earliest this proposal can be approved is well into May and it leaves just over 1 month in Season 0 which is not a meaningful amount of time to accomplish something. So in order to set up a proposal for success you can revisit it in Season 1.

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Hi @hawwal,

It would have been nice to have been asked if I had the capacity or desire to take on more work before nominating me to be an advisor on your project. I thank you for the vote of confidence but unfortunately I have less than zero spare capacity at the moment.

I know you’ve applied to Prezenti a couple of times in the past, and I am glad you’ve stuck around with Celo and building on your ideas. It’s a good sign to me that you’re committed to the ecosystem and have an interest in Celo as a platform.

That said, I have some questions:

  1. What blockers do artists currently have creating and monetizing their work online have that Celo (and this governance request) specifically solves? Can’t anyone already, without intermediaries, develop art and sell it on a blockchain? (Be it Celo, Ethereum, or other?) Adding an intermediary between the artist / purchaser always incurs a cost and I just want to understand what the benefits are.

  2. Under “Partnership Details” you list a few organisations here. Are these partnerships already signed? In what capacity? I am one of the directors of Prezenti and am not aware of any agreement with you. If these are “ideal / projected” partnerships, I think this should be clearly stated as it could be very misleading.

  3. There’s lots of mentions of NFTs and so on. Why would someone need to submit an NFT “proposal” to a third-party to get them minted on chain? Can’t they just mint their collection? Or is this about granting funds to the most successful projects from the three tiers? Is the DAO then just a platform to directly grant to creatives? Does the DAO retain financial interest in the output of the creatives?

  4. Regarding the loan concept. I don’t understand this part of the proposal. Who are the counterparties in the loan? Who is loaning to whom? Are you saying you want to pay back your governance request? Are you saying you will pay for your future expenses from the AAVE rewards? Why create all these extra steps and workload for the DAO managing risk and so on? Why not just request the cUSD runway you require for operations for a Season? Then re-scope and request again next Season? I don’t understand this section at all. You don’t really “secure loan eligibility” with AAVE, it’s not a bank. You deposit your own assets (at automatic liquidation risk), and can borrow against your own capital within certain liquidity requirements. Yes you earn rewards for depositing but you also incur costs for drawing against your capital / borrowing against yourself, often at a rate higher than the deposit rate. Could you clarify what the intention is here? If the DAO just wants to earn some DeFi yield on it’s assets, this is 100% the internal decision of the DAO and not really part of operationally what the DAO is delivering.

Happy to support creative communities in general but I have a sense this proposal is middle-manning artists here. That might be fine if the third-party is providing value add but I’m not super clear on what that is just yet. The reason is that artists already have a mechanism for determining subjective value and PMF - the existing open NFT/music/other markets already there. It’s not perfect and for sure many amazing artists are getting overlooked, but the tools are there.

If the value-add of this DAO is more talent-scouting / exposure related, which in certain circumstances might be a good function (I’m not an expert in this by any means), I would like to see more about how Celo specifically solves this problem for them and what will be added to the Celo community that doesn’t already exist.

In a perfect world I think great art and creative energy should be remunerated freely and fairly, but since 2021 much of the wind has been taken out of the sails of NFT-related initiatives in general. I know this proposal isn’t 100% about NFTs but it is mentioned a few times. How will this DAO overcome the recent loss of mindshare in on-chain assets?

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Thank you for the response. I appreciate the advice🙏🏾. I will resubmit in season 1.

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I also echo this words.

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Hi @Thylacine

Thank you for reviewing the Celo Kreiva DAO proposal draft and providing valuable feedback. I apologize for nominating you for the advisory role without prior consultation. We deeply admire your capabilities and contributions to Prezenti and the Celo ecosystem, but we understand the demands of your responsibilities, and we welcome your recommendations for other suitable candidates.

  1. The ability to mint and sell art on-chain is open to all creators yet emerging artists often struggle to achieve effective results. Open access alone doesn’t solve key challenges like ecosystem visibility, and funding. This governance request doesn’t add friction—it provides targeted, mission-aligned support that makes Celo a more accessible and equitable platform for creative talent
    Open marketplaces suffer from visibility issues due to saturation and algorithmic control. Talented artists and projects often fail to achieve recognition without institutional visibility. Through our curated assistance strategy, the Celo Kreiva DAO will enhance visibility for projects operating on Celo.
    Although Celo operates as a low-fee blockchain platform many artists find the initial costs of developing meaningful creative projects too high to manage. The DAO grant structure eliminates financial obstacles which facilitates artistic experimentation along with growth opportunities.
    This isn’t a for-profit intermediary. The DAO serves as a community-led connector that provides workshops and feedback together with value-based curatorial service. A 20% moderator allocation exists to promote active participation while preventing gatekeeping to integrate artists into a mobile-first supportive ecosystem.
    This proposal enhances Celo’s creative economy through its activation of underrepresented creators’ untapped potential which raw blockchain access failed to achieve. Creators entering Web3 need scaffolding structures rather than obstructive walls.

  2. We apologize for any confusion regarding the listed partnerships. The proposal includes both confirmed and aspirational partnerships to illustrate our vision for collaboration within the Celo ecosystem:

  • Confirmed Partnership: Revelator Music

    • Delivery: Integration of Celo for Music royalty payments to make Music royalties available in cUSD.

  • Aspirational Partnerships: Organizations like Prezenti, Celo Camp, Regional Hubs, are ideal partners we aim to collaborate with to amplify grant distribution and community engagement. No formal agreements are in place yet

  • Clarity: We will revise the proposal to clearly label “Confirmed Partnerships” (e.g., Revelator, Rarible X) and “Proposed Partnerships” (e.g., Prezenti, Celo Camp) to avoid misrepresentation.

For Prezenti specifically, we value your work in the Celo ecosystem and see potential for collaboration, such as promoting grants. We’d love to discuss how Prezenti can partner with the DAO and welcome your input to shape this relationship.

  1. The Celo Kreiva DAO is not a gatekeeper for minting NFTs but a facilitator that enhances artists’ success through funding and exposure:
    NFT Proposal Purpose: Artists and creative projects submit proposals to apply for grants (Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond) to fund their creative projects, not to get permission to mint. Proposals ensure projects align with Celo’s mission and have measurable impact (e.g., on-chain metrics, adoption). Approved projects receive funding and DAO support (e.g., workshops) but can mint independently.
    Direct Minting: Artists can mint NFTs on Celo without the DAO, but they miss out on grants, community support, and curated exposure to collectors via our NFT marketplace.
    DAO’s Role: The DAO is primarily a grant platform to fund creative projects, connect artists to Celo’s ecosystem, and promote adoption. It also curates high-quality NFTs for its marketplace to drive collector interest in order for these collectors to access the DAO governance privileges.
    Financial Interest: The DAO does not retain direct financial interest (e.g., royalties) in artists’ output. Instead, it benefits indirectly through ecosystem growth (e.g., increased cUSD transactions, CELO demand) and potential NFT marketplace fees (10% of sales, reinvested into our grants). Artists retain full ownership and revenue from their work, aligning with Celo’s creator-centric ethos.

  2. Thank you for your valuable insight and feedback on the Aave strategy. We’ll hold off on the Lockup strategy and remove the 200,000 CELO Lockup from the fund request, relying on the $177,000 cUSD to fully fund the Kreiva grants round for creative projects. We’ll seek further counsel in the coming months on sustainable DeFi strategies to implement internally, effectively minimizing risks and complexity while focusing on delivering grants and creative projects, with plans to re-scope funding for future rounds.

  3. The DAO isn’t middle-manning but amplifying artists’ potential through funding. Our involvement in NFT’s is prioritizing utility and community, leveraging Celo’s ecosystem to connect artists with partners like Revelator and Rarible X’s curated marketplace. Our NFTs are governance utilities which enable our collectors become stakeholders automatically. Inspired by Nouns’ proven model, Kreiva NFTs grant collectors governance rights on Snapshot, incentivizing investment in art through utility, not speculation. Monthly auctions of community-vetted unique art collections prioritize originality (these auctions will take place on snapshot, with artists receiving 90% of proceeds and the DAO retaining a 10% commission to store in our treasury. Beyond NFTs, the DAO’s grant is designed to primarily support diverse creative projects (e.g. creative dev teams who are into gaming, virtual reality, utilities for creatives etc.), reducing reliance on a volatile market. Workshops, virtual galleries, and community engagement rebuild NFT mindshare, creating a vibrant creator economy that adds unique value to Celo by driving more liquidity and CELO usage into the network through creativity aligned with Celo’s mission, ensuring artists are fairly remunerated while overcoming market challenges.

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I want to begin by acknowledging the high quality of this proposal’s content and structure. It’s clear and transparent, which is commendable. The commitment to providing quarterly reports and a monthly treasury update is especially important in our Celo ecosystem. If the DAO can consistently deliver around this promise, it could set a strong precedent for the entire ecosystem.

Now, turning to the budget:

Given that this is a new initiative, I strongly recommend adjusting the initial budget. A leaner starting point would significantly increase the likelihood of the proposal passing and give the DAO a chance to demonstrate impact before requesting a larger allocation.

My specific suggestions:

  1. Remove the Celo Guardian/Steward (Advisory) budget. An independent DAO should not fund a Celo Guardian. It raises concerns about impartiality and integrity. If strategic guidance is essential, it should come from industry experts with domain expertise, such as an artist or a consulting firm with a background in arts.
  2. Re-evaluate the moderator time commitment and corresponding budget. Based on the profiles you shared, a 50–75% time commitment (20–30 hours/week) seems unrealistic given their existing professional obligations (Software developers and builders). A 25% time commitment is more aligned with expectations and should be reflected in the budget.
  3. Adjust the grant pool structure. Reducing the number and size of grants, particularly in the Emerald and Diamond pools, will make the program more manageable in its early stages while demontrating effectiveness of the DAO. A revised target of 10 grants for the Emerald pool and 3 for the Diamond pool would be more pragmatic.
  4. Rename “Contingency” (Emergency?) to “DAO Expenditure”. This change in terminology better reflects the purpose of the fund and avoids confusion about its intended use.
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We have funding program like Prezenti that is available for the evaluation and funding of such projects.

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Hi everyone,

I’m COT, part of the team building CELO KreivaDAO, and I wanted to share my support for this proposal and why it matters to me personally.

Working closely with emerging artists, especially from communities that are often overlooked, I’ve seen the real struggles they face, not just in creating amazing work, but in getting it seen and monetized in meaningful ways. CELO KreivaDAO isn’t trying to replace existing tools or platforms, but to bridge some key gaps: helping artists get exposure, providing small but impactful funding, and creating a community that champions their work.

I know there are concerns about complexity or adding unnecessary layers. From our side, this is about enabling creatives, not controlling them. It’s about offering support, guidance, and access, especially for those who might not have the network or resources to take full advantage of what Web3 offers on their own.

I’m grateful for the honest feedback so far. It’s helping us sharpen this proposal, and we’re open to any input that will make it more valuable for the Celo community and more effective in its mission.

Thanks for the time and energy you’re putting into reviewing this. We’re really excited about what we’re building and the opportunity to do it together.

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Thanks for pointing that out! Prezenti is an amazing funding mechanism, and we definitely see its value.

What we’re building with CELO KreivaDAO goes beyond funding, we’re focused on creating a vibrant community that incubates talent, offers mentorship, provides access to tools and opportunities, and ultimately puts creatives on a clear pathway to thrive. It’s not just about handing out funds; it’s about walking with emerging artists and creatives from idea to impact.

We believe this kind of structure is essential to unlocking the full potential of creatives in the Celo ecosystem.

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I’m supportive in general of the idea of supporting emerging artists. Creative arts are a valuable and important contribution to the the world.

The part that I don’t see the complete picture with is: what does this have to do with Celo as technology and blockchain platform? The community treasury can’t just be a philanthropic foundation.

I would like to hear more about: what specifically about Celo unlocks something for these artists that couldn’t be done before? What contributions to the protocol are you building or what long-tail activity is expected? What is the north star for this DAO and what would success look like if it’s running for a couple of years? Is there a plan for self-sustainability or revenue generated either for yourself or the protocol?

I would be more willing to support this concept as a once-off grant to one of the existing programs before launching yet another DAO community, then reconsider a larger-scoped request after seeing how everything has progressed.

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Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to share your thoughts on this project, I always appreciate detailed feedbacks on proposals cause these feedbacks help to improve proposals beyond the level they were introduced.
I sense some skepticism from you towards the essence or necessity of a creative DAO existing in the Celo ecosystem and I will try my best to elaborate making it as clear as possible to help bring some level of insight.

  • The Celo Kreiva DAO leverages Celo’s blockchain to empower artists, driving protocol adoption and liquidity by funding creative projects(which means projects either it be tooling, DeFi, community, or RWA measurable on-chain with a focus scope on “creativity” in mind), We will pioneer the next line of creative projects which would drive protocols growth through creativity. The Rarible X NFT marketplace, built on Celo, promotes on-chain art sales, validating Celo Native token demand with measurable on-chain metrics.

These efforts align with Celo’s mission to create prosperity conditions for all not just fintechs, connecting artists to Celo’s ecosystem and building a creator economy that enhances the platform’s utility and reach.

  • The Celo Kreiva DAO is not a charity organization. It was never stated in the proposal, so let’s stick to its context. The DAO is designed to:
    • Build a hub where creatives can thrive within Celo’s ecosystem.
    • Provide micro-grants to fund creative initiatives (e.g., tooling, products, or art projects) with realistic, on-chain measurable milestones, driving high-volume transactions and liquidity into the Celo network.

If I am to understand you correctly, the very existence of this DAO is the unique value proposition to gain artists interest driving influx of creatives into the network and while triggering higher transaction volume into the network’s liquidity pool.

Could this have been done before? “Yes”, did anyone do something about it? “No”, Does the absence of a creative community within Celo prove its irrelevance? “Absolutely not”. The proposal details these facts.

Celo invested heavily into making Celo Native available on Rarible X which brought about the birth of Celopsphere. Celosphere is a platform that facilitates the minting of NFT’s through registered stores owned by these communities and DAO’s who exists outside CELO which are named below:
Boysclub, RefractionDAO, & RugRadio, sheFi, and so on… with Celosphere’s social pages(discord & Instagram) linking to Celo Foundation pages only proves that Celosphere is managed by Celo foundation and the creative communities incorporated into Celosphere are communities that exist outside Celo. You will agree with me that these communities are active in other ecosystems and blockchain networks and have no network loyalty.

  • We will create long-tail activity through sustained creator and collector engagement, monthly auctions, and governance activities (to be finalized internally post-launch). These efforts ensure continuous protocol activity, with metrics like community growth and on-chain transactions reported quarterly.
  • The DAO’s north star is to build a thriving creator economy on Celo, driving adoption and liquidity through art. After two years, success would include onboarding at least 15 teams, funding 30+ creative projects, generating 100,000 CELO in transactions via the Rarible X marketplace, and building a vibrant community of 4,000+ members.
  • The DAO plans self-sustainability through a 10% commission on NFT auction proceeds, reinvested into the DAO’s treasury for management and DAO’s governance. This revenue will reduce reliance on Celo Governance.
  • You can read further on the process here on how the DAOs plans in my previous response:

I agree with you; the DAO could start as a one-off grant, but it should be funded from the governance treasury and evaluated based on whether it meets all KPIs, milestones, and promised outcomes to validate its potential. The proposal’s metric criteria should serve as the yardstick to evaluate funding, not skepticism.
Prezenti as a “one-off” grant from the community treasury wouldn’t have birthed many of the startups currently building on Celo. Also even as a significant amount of these startups come from Africa, Prezenti didn’t need to operate under the African regional hub existing program.
Is this another DAO, yes, however a first of its kind in the Celo ecosystem and should be encouraged.
If you need more clarity, I’m happy to respond.

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Thanks, I’ll have a bit more of a think and read the responses in more detail before I give further feedback to make sure I understand it fully.

You’re correct that I’m skeptical, but I like to keep an open mind so I’m not too biased as a technologist to under-appreciate fresh ideas.

I welcome the conversation and appreciate your replies.

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