Hi All,
I love this robust discussion, and I agree with @nambrot that I think there is a fair amount of agreement just beneath the surface.
Let me summarize the key arguments and propose a synthesis that I feel maintains the intention and key details of the original proposal while integrating the feedback of the community.
Summary of community feedback:
-
A number of thoughtful arguments (for example, by @pranay and @viktorbunin) have been made that we should be investing in the ecosystem more aggressively, and should avoid dallying or bikeshedding.
-
A number of thoughtful arguments have been made (for example, by @kobigurk, @papa_raw, @luukdao) for milestone-based funding and more detail in the initial proposal, including clear performance objectives.
-
A number of thoughtful arguments have been made (for example, by @thezviad and @aaronmgdr) that multiple, smaller funds can be more nimble and also provide a template for future use of the community fund.
Synthesis:
The synthesis that I will offer below rests on a couple of observations:
-
These arguments are not actually in conflict with one another. For example, it is possible with the right design to invest aggressively and avoid bikeshedding, while at the same time having clear performance objectives and milestones.
-
Many of the thoughtful ideas that have been brought up in this discussion already exist in a nascent form in the original proposal. Therefore, it should be straightforward to flesh them out, and doing so would strengthen rather than compromise the original proposal.
Part 1 of Synthesis: Fleshing out initiatives and target outcomes of the proposal.
To address the concerns around more detail in the initial proposal (including clear performance objectives), I had a conversation with @Yaz and took notes.
While the original proposal had 3 core initiatives, if we look closely, the second initiative (Radical Experimentation and Emerging Markets) was actually two distinct initiatives. So I’ll organize the below by detailing a mission and target outcomes of 4 core initiatives. All credit here goes to Yaz; I just asked questions and typed up the summary.
Initiative 1: Open-source Projects ($4m)
Mission:
- to generate developer interest in Celo at a core level, and position Celo as a central player in the EVM community
Target Outcomes:
By 2 years from now:
- To have at least 50 people attending governance calls regularly
- Have at least half of people attending governance calls be non-cLabbers
Examples:
- Double down on identity research
- Push forward cryptography for privacy and compression
- Push forward an EIP that we can sponsor
- Improve EVM for things that are useful to Celo
- Support projects like Geth, Erigon, Hyperledger Besu
Radical Experimentation ($3m)
Mission:
To increase community by pushing the envelope technically and making people say “wow, Celo is doing really cool things and I want to be involved with that community.”
Target Outcomes:
By 2 years from now:
- Bring the 5 most innovative, underfunded projects in crypto to Celo (for example, kyc-compliant privacy; novel ideas for real-world adoption like kong.cash; we’ll ask the community for what they want to see)
- Bring at least 3 innovative new ideas to bolster stability
- Bring the 10 most innovative independent core developers to Celo (for example, people like Or Neeman)
- Introduce at least 1 new standard (for example, erc20 contracts with allocation of transaction fees to reserve)
Global markets ($4m)
Mission:
To have local autonomy in each country where Celo has a presence, by funding a DAO where the eco-lead and local crypto thought partners / influencers can make decisions on bootstrapping a Celo ecosystem in that country.
Target Outcomes:
By 2 years from now, for each country where Celo has an Eco Lead
- Have at least 10 technical projects funded per country, built on Celo, that would otherwise not exist, at least 1 of each of them becoming major projects in the community.
- Have the top 10 university communities be aware of and excited about Celo because of a university event/hackathon funded by the Dao
Developing Crypto-Native Community around Celo ($4m)
Mission:
Encourage the community to create more community-led projects by sponsoring hackathons, college blockchain club events, holding crypto-native community-building functions (example, League of Bridges) and providing support to all those who come.
Target Outcomes:
By 2 years from now:
- Have 3 new externally proposed CGPs
- Have 5 new non-country-specific DAOs on Celo with substantive engagement (social daos, investment daos for celo ecosystem, mission-related DAOs e.g. regenerative finance DAOs)
- In countries where there are large crypto developer communities and Celo has a large presence, but no eco-lead (for example, US, Germany),
- Have a talk at the top 20 college blockchain clubs
- Have 5 celo hackathons
- Have 25 new projects built on Celo arising from hackathons/college blockchain talks, at least 5 of which become major projects in the community.
Part 2 of Synthesis: Addressing remaining feedback.
Once a mission and target outcomes like the above are set, it makes it more straightforward to address the remaining concerns:
Addressing concerns about size of fund by returning overages and having a quarter-point and mid-point checkin:
A few people expressed concerns about the size of the fund being too big. I would interpret this concern as follows:
- Without clear target outcomes, $15mm is a large blank check.
- If the price of Celo goes substantially up over the next two years, this can be a much larger fund than initially intended.
- If the fund is clearly going in a bad direction early on, the community shouldn’t be locked in to putting good money after bad.
Point 1 is already addressed with the mission and target outcomes articulated above. Point 2 can be easily addressed, by making clear that this is intended to be a $15mm proposal, and if the price of Celo goes up, the fund will return the overage. And point 3 can also be easily addressed, by having a quarter-point and midpoint checkin, where the proposers give an update to the community, and the community can vote to stop it if it is going in a clearly bad direction.
Addressing concerns about community involvement vs. bikeshedding by open solicitations for ideas 2x / year:
Some people wanted more community involvement, and others were concerned that it would lead to interminable discussions and slowing down investment. These two concerns can be synthesized by a simple process where each initiative makes an open call for ideas from the community within the scope of the target outcomes 2 times per year. For example, for radical experimentation, the team can source project ideas themselves, and also solicit ideas from the community of what kinds of projects in the domain of radical ideas the community would like to see funded.
Importantly, the multisig should not need to come to consensus within the community at this level of detail; this runs the very real risk of slowing things down. Rather, it should simply solicit ideas and integrate them as they see fit.
Addressing the concerns about one large fund versus a few smaller funds:
I feel like this one can be easily synthesized, because in practice, this fund is actually 4 subfunds. And given the scope of each of these 4 initiatives, each member of the proposer team will likely specialize in a couple of the initiatives and act as an advisor to the other initiatives.
One can make that clear in the structure by having a parent DAO with a 5-of-7 (or 7-of-9) multisig, and then having smaller subDAOs for each of the initiatives with a 2-of-3 (or 3-of-5) multisig.
One benefit of this structure is that the size and scope of the subDAOs can be a template for other groups who would like to steward portions of the community fund. While it would be difficult for me to see many $15mm funds right now, I can see a number of $3-4mm community funds (for example, around stability, regenerative finance, specific use cases, etc).
One last thought:
This fund I think would be even stronger if we had clearly more non-cLabs people on the parent multisig than cLabs people, as it would then be more clearly a community fund. I chatted with Jarrell and he mentioned that he had one or two people in mind who are strong, mission-aligned, and interested.
TL;DR
My vote would be to move forward with the original proposal, with the following small tweaks that would meaningfully integrate the feedback of the community:
- The intended timeframe of the fund is 2 years.
- The fund’s 4 initiatives have clear missions, target outcomes, and funding targets as described in Part 1 of the Synthesis above.
- Each initiative acts as a subDAO of the parent DAO.
- Each initiative will solicit ideas from the broader community 1-2 times per year. These solicitations should be ways to get a broad range of ideas from the community, but they should not be voting or consensus opportunities. This allows community engagement while staying nimble.
- For each initiative, there will be a quarter-point and mid-point checkin, at which point the community can vote to not continue with an initiative if they feel it’s going in a bad direction. If the community votes to discontinue an initiative, the remaining allocation is returned to the community fund.
- This is intended to be a $15mm initiative, if the price of Celo goes up to a point that would have more than $15mm deployed, the excess gets returned to the community fund.
- Ideally, there would be 1-2 more people not affiliated with cLabs on the parent multisig, so that it is clearly a community fund.