This CeloPG H1 Report provides an overview of the developments, accomplishments, and learnings from CeloPG H1 (Feb - June 2024) and provides context for the emerging CeloPG H2 plans. This thread will update until July 31st, when H1 is finalized, and all remaining funds have been returned.
The document was written by Luuk Weber @LuukDAO and Monty Merlin @MontyMerlin, with input from the other CeloPG Stewards.
Updates related to the Celo Governance Guidelines and Mento Reserve: Return a combination of cUSD and CELO can be found in this thread.
Budget and Spending
The requested Celo Public Goods H1 2024 budget was 1,6M cUSD + 700k CELO. Based on current spending, it is estimated that approximately 1.3M cUSD + 440K CELO will be spent in H1. Because of this surplus, approximately 300k cUSD (19%) and 260k CELO (37%) will be returned to the Celo Community Treasury by July 31st, 2024, as outlined in the original proposal. Below is an overview of the spent budget per initiative.
| Initiative | Budget | Spent | Remaining** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regional DAOs | 500,000 cUSD | 455,850 cUSD* | 44,150 cUSD |
| Celo Project Incubation | 325,000 cUSD + 100,000 CELO | 325,000 cUSD + 100,000 CELO | 0 cUSD + 0 CELO |
| Celo Grants and Requests For Proposals | 500,000 cUSD | 343,000 cUSD | 157,000 cUSD |
| QF and RPGF Rounds | 125,000 cUSD + 500,000 CELO | 50,000 cUSD + 250,000 CELO | 75,000 cUSD + 250,000 CELO |
| CeloPG Operations | 150,000 cUSD + 100,000 CELO | 128,937.50 cUSD + 90,375 CELO | 21,062.50 cUSD + 9,625 CELO |
| TOTAL | 1,600,000 cUSD + 700,000 CELO | 1,302,787.50 cUSD + 440,375 CELO | 297,212.50 cUSD + 259,625 CELO |
*The spent column assumes the remaining regional DAOs (Africa / Thailand) will successfully submit a three-month report to CeloPG before the end of June 2024 and receive their second payment transfer.
**The remaining column does not include potential unspent cUSD being sent back by teams.
Initiative Progress
Regional DAOs
Five Regional DAOs started the application process for CeloPG funding, three of which (Celo Europe, Celo Africa, and KohCelo) successfully submitted proposals and received funding. In total, 455,850 cUSD (91%) has been assigned to these three regional DAOs, with half-point milestones assigned for Europe and Africa, as shown in the overview below.
- Europe: Update Q1 / No Q2 update yet | $168,250 / $168,250 | Proposal
- Africa: No Q1 update yet | $134,000 / $248,300 | Proposal
- Thailand (KohCelo): No Q1 update yet | $37,000 / $37,750 | Proposal
- CeLatam: Not funded by CeloPG | Update Q1
Celo Pacific created an initial thread but didn’t follow through. Celo India progressed through the CeloPG process but didn’t reach the voting quorum in the voting stage and didn’t push through afterward.
Reflection on Regional DAOs
In H1, the Regional DAOs became more transparent and integrated into the larger Celo ecosystem. Examples are Celo Africa running programs connected to Celo Camp and MiniPay, and Celo Europe organizing Celo Gather. Cross-DAO communication has also improved, where most Regional DAO leads can now find each other and coordinate initiatives.
Given that the active regional DAOs are spending less money per month than estimated in their proposal, we believe operations efficiency has increased, and we can imagine lowering the overall initiative budget without hurting current operations.
Celo Project Incubation
One Celo Project Incubation program, namely Celo Camp, completed the application process. Since Celo Camp’s proposal requested 100% of the Celo Project Incubation Initiative budget, no other resources remained available within CeloPG H1 to allocate to other programs.
- Celo Camp: No update yet | $325,000 + 100,000 CELO | Proposal
Two other groups aimed to apply for the Celo Project Incubation budget but couldn’t since no budget was left. As such, Outlier Ventures and Red Beard Ventures submitted a Celo Community Treasury proposal straight to Celo Governance to fund their programs. Both proposals passed, resulting in three active Celo Incubation / Accelerator programs running simultaneously. In total, ~$400K (Celo Camp) + ~250K (Outlier) + 150K (Red Beard) = $800K was spent on Incubation and Acceleration programs.
Reflection of Celo Project Incubation
Full results and insights need to be shared to further analyze the effectiveness of each of the three programs. Given they are still ongoing, we believe the coming months should focus on supporting the current programs, analyzing results, and exploring scope for future incubation and accelerator programs.
A refined process for Celo Project Incubation program funding could be beneficial. In the existing funding allocation process, groups requested budgets independently of one another. In the future, a tender-like process, where a clear call for programs is issued with guidelines co-created by key Celo stakeholders, could prove to be more effective. Setting out a fixed budget with well-defined program scopes and allowing multiple groups to apply within these parameters may be more efficient in fulfilling Celo ecosystem needs than the current method.
Celo Grants and RFPs
Only one team submitted a request to run a Celo Grants program – Prezenti. Their proposal for $343,000 was accepted and funded by CeloPG H1. Besides this allocation, no other Celo Grants program was submitted; however, some groups attempted to draft a proposal requesting funds from this bucket as one grant to a project, which was referred to Prezenti, as this initiative budget was assigned for Grant Programs. The CeloPG Stewards did not see sufficient demand to formalize an RFP process, given some requests could be fulfilled with already assigned budgets.
- Prezenti: Update coming up | $343,000 | Proposal
Reflection on Celo Grants and RFPs
At least a dozen teams that interacted with CeloPG requested where they can request a Celo grant, making clear that there is a need for a one-off grant infrastructure. In most cases, Prezenti’s current scope seemed to be a good fit. However, there are two areas where another initiative budget could be a better fit: a. Infrastructure deployment/maintenance and b. Program-related and time-sensitive commitments that are more tactical/strategic by nature.
Note: Overall ecosystem reporting
A positive development is the increase in public reporting by Celo Community Treasury-funded initiatives, also beyond the CeloPG-funded programs. Groups, including MiniPay and CeLatam, have provided detailed updates, allowing other groups to align better. We believe it’s important for other key initiatives, such as Climate Collective and Credit Collective, to provide a comparable update so that the wider ecosystem can catch up with their progress and explore additional collaboration methods.
QF and RPGF Round
Over 160 projects have registered for CeloPG programs via the Registration form, growing the CeloPG coordination Telegram to over 145 members. Of these 160 projects, 89 made it through CeloRPGF0 review, while 33 were selected for the Gitcoin Grants 20 (GG20) Celo Climate Round.
GG20 Climate Round: Adding to CCN’s $250k GG20 Climate Round, Climate Collective and CeloPG added 50k cUSD of bonus matching for select Celo projects from the round. Of the 129 projects, 33 were chosen based on their Celo-related plans and developments. Our selected Celo Climate projects raised $187,145 USD (3.74x Celo’s contribution to the program) from the CCN and Celo Matching, also including $21,431 in community crowdfunding. These projects have all been added to the new Celo Public Goods Community on Karma GAP (Grantee Accountability Protocol) to enable the on-chain tracking of grantee milestones, updates, and impact before funds are dispersed.
CeloRPGF0: Leveraging the newly deployed EasyRPGF dApp, 89 of 109 applications were selected and voted on by the CeloPG Stewards for the first Retroactive Public Goods Funding program on Celo. As a result, 250,000 CELO was distributed to projects across Community and Adoption, dApps and Infra, and ReFi, who have developed and supported the Celo ecosystem since the mainnet launch. A full breakdown of the results can be found here.
GG21: A total of 125,000 cUSD was budgeted to run Celo-native Gitcoin Grant programs in GG21 in June. However, Gitcoin Grants 21 has been pushed to start around mid-August, so this initiative was not included in the H1 program. However, Gitcoin Grants Stack is now live on Celo, and running programs around GG21 will be an essential element of a CeloRPGF H2 strategy. CeloPG can tap high-demand traffic by running Gitcoin rounds on Celo, attracting top-of-the-funnel users who are aligned with Celo’s values.
Retro Validator Program: In March and April, conversations around Validator rewards led to the creation of a Retroactive Validator Rewards Program thread. After several weeks of ecosystem discussion and feedback, it was decided not to move the program forward. Regardless, we feel the drafting and conversations around the proposal did contribute to the overall discussion around Validator’s role and rewards in the Celo network.
Participant Feedback on the CeloPG Programs
Following CeloRPGF0, several polls were created in the CeloPG Telegram group to gather participant feedback. Both individuals who made the program cut and those who didn’t were able to share their perspectives on the CeloPG programs. From 34 voters, the results were as follows:
- Nearly 80% of the participants found that the CeloPG H1 program was a good or perfect fit for the Celo ecosystem.
- The programs scored an average of 4 out of 5 for ease of application.
- 55% of the participants rated the steward support and communication 5 out of 5, with 12% rating the communications bad or decent.
- 73% of the participants scored the fairness and effectiveness of the programs with a 4 or 5 out of 5.
Overall, these are good results for an initial program, but they also highlight specific areas for revision and improvement.
Supporting Technology
As mentioned in the Q1 CeloPG update, five applications were deployed on Celo (nearly all free of charge) to create a strong onchain data and coordination infrastructure.
- Ethereum Attestation Services: The Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) is an infrastructure public good for making attestations on or off the blockchain about anything.
- EasyRPGF: Open-source version of the RetroPGF tools used by Optimism.
- Hypercerts Updated Version: Every hypercert is a public claim on a discrete piece of work and the impact resulting from that work.
- Gitcoin Grants Stack: Gitcoin Grants Stack is a protocol-enabled solution that enables any community to quickly create, manage, and grow a grants program.
- Karma GAP: An accountability protocol for tracking grantee milestones, updates, and impact.
With these tools now live on Celo, the ability to document, evaluate, and fund initiatives on Celo can now be done quicker and more transparently by leveraging the best-in-class onchain tools.
These supporting technologies are key to positioning Celo at the heart of onchain public goods funding, enabling builders to create innovative funding mechanisms and platforms for our network.
Reflections on GG20 and CeloRPGF0
Takeaways from running these two programs include:
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Diverse Voting Strategies: Stewards’ various voting strategies and methodologies were illuminating. It also underscored the need to gather and analyze these insights to inform key Celo signals, metrics, and KPIs. This understanding could facilitate enhanced feedback for applicants, helping them improve their Celo alignment and strengthening future applications.
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Expanding Steward Diversity: There is a potential to diversify the pool of Celo Stewards or ‘Badgeholders’ beyond the core set elected in H1. This could help grow the community of active Celo contributors, as demonstrated by successfully onboarding new active members like Monty and Sophia.
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Need for Onchain Data: Enhancing identifying, monitoring, and reporting specific Celo-related metrics and KPIs for projects is essential. Drawing inspiration from Optimism’s ‘Metrics Garden’ increased automation and using on-chain data points can reduce bias and enhance objectivity. Developing better tools to properly evaluate community and education projects alongside dApps and OSS is also necessary
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Enhanced Collaboration: There is a need for improved collaboration and data sharing among the full range of Celo Ecosystem service/grant providers (Prezenti, Climate Collective, Celo Camp, Celo Foundation, etc.). By breaking down silos and facilitating greater information sharing, we can ensure that the diverse Celo ecosystem and its projects receive comprehensive support. This enhanced intelligence in capital allocation and support mechanisms will better meet the needs of all ecosystem participants.
Additional insights and takeaways from these programs can be found in the Learnings and Takeaways for H2 document by the CeloPG Stewards (WIP).
CeloPG Operations
The CeloPG program’s overall operations were led by LuukDAO, together with four active and four advisory stewards. In total, $129k cUSD (86%) and 90,375 CELO (90%) of the operating budget were spent—approximately 12% of the total CeloPG H1 budget.
Next to operating the CeloPG H1 budget, the Stewards also:
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Maintained the CeloPG Budget Sheet and Celo Community Treasury Accounting sheet.
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Supported the Celo Governance Guardians in their operations (led by Juan).
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Designed, developed, and launched the CeloPG platform and CeloPG Info hub.
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Functioned as an overall extension of the Celo ecosystem, representing both in-person and online and guiding individuals through the ecosystem.
The importance of clear roles and responsibilities
As the number of initiatives funded by the Celo Community Treasury and contributors to the Celo ecosystem grows, it’s becoming increasingly important to have clear maps of roles and relationships in the ecosystem. Having a clear understanding of the ecosystem can improve resource efficiency and cross-team collaboration and make Celo more resilient.
CeloPG has assigned onchain roles through the Hats Protocol to all individuals who are paid by CeloPG operations for certain roles. This is shown in the CeloPG Hats tree and visual below.
It is possible to create new Hats, assign them to new people, and withdraw them from individuals who no longer fill a role. We see great potential in expanding the usage of Hats throughout the Celo ecosystem and further integrating the onchain options available, such as tying the Hats to multi-sig signing rights and governance voting power.
Outlook for H2
Given our overall positive contribution to increasing the effectiveness of Celo Community Treasury spending to grow the ecosystem, we are currently working on a Celo PG H2 plan. This plan will build on the knowledge, network, and tools created in H1 and contribute to the upcoming transition towards CEL2. We believe the most important topics for H2 are:
- Leveraging opportunities within Optimism and the broader superchain to enhance the reach and impact of our programs.
- Focusing on builders, particularly in relation to the launch of the OP Celo testnet and mainnet.
- Improving on-chain coordination, reporting, and collaboration within the wider Celo ecosystem.
A draft H2 plan and request for input will be shared early next week to establish a new strategy and put it up for a vote before the end of the month. This will enable a full six-month cycle to be run.
Huge thank you to everybody who contributed to CeloPG H1 as a Voter, Steward, Guardian, Grantee, or Supporter—your contributions mean a lot! <3