We’d like to announce a “V2” update to the Climate Collective Treasury proposal as a CGP for the Celo community. This proposal takes into account feedback from our initial proposal summarized here:
- Amount of funds requested: though the on-chain governance fund contains >10M CELO, there is ~6.7M CELO unallocated per comments from @Tobi referencing this forum thread. The revised amount is 4.7M CELO detailed in the proposal.
- Use of funds towards liquidity: we have restructured the ask here and want to be clear that it will not be used towards incentives, but rather to help the Climate Collective team source liquidity from larger institutions and backstop investors. We are also working with DEXs, DeFi for the People, and other groups to source the required liquidity and incentives.
- Focus on Natural Capital: as suggested by @Pinotio.com we have trimmed down “nice to haves” of supporting NFTs, Digital Cash Operations, and Carbon-Grants in order to focus on Natural Capital Tokens and ReFi Products that help add new assets to the Celo Reserve and position Celo as the home of ReFi, with the urgency expressed in his latest comments.
- Diversity/Decentralization of Multisig: the initial proposal had a majority of web3-native members with direct associations with Climate Collective, cLabs, and the Celo Foundation. We have reworked this to include members from other areas and projects including Loam, Roda, and SimplexDNA. These new members add deep expertise with ecosystem sciences and experience with on-the-ground projects that create a more holistic and well-rounded advisory team. This has been our main focus since v1 was published that we believe has been time well spent.
- Correlation with stablecoins: as @MilaRioja pointed “the more stables in circulation, the higher the need to have REFI projects composing Celo reserve”. Our focus will be on onboarding more Natural Capital in the Celo Reserve so that other groups’ work on increasing stablecoin adoption leads to increased regenerative activity and broader success for Celo.
- Naming: Use of the word “Treasury” is fine.
We are excited to have this revised proposal published on Earth Day & Celo’s 2nd anniversary, and welcome feedback on the CGP here.
Table of Contents:
- Overview
- Objective
- Proposal Overview
- Areas of Focus
- Natural Capital Tokens
- ReFi Products
- Structure
- Climate Collective Members
- Multisig
- Budget
- Compensation
- Verification
- Context
- Marketing Challenges
- Known Constraints
- Proposal Risks
- Appendix
Overview
Objective
The key objective of this proposal is to rapidly position Celo at the forefront of the Regenerative Finance (”ReFi”) movement. To this end the Climate Collective Treasury will galvanize activity around development of climate-related web3 initiatives, particularly around tokenized natural capital that can be onboarded to the Celo Reserve.
Proposal Overview
The primary purpose for funding the Climate Collective Treasury is to support projects utilizing web3 to combat climate change through grant funding for project development and Celo integration. The proposed areas of focus broadly map to initiatives from the Collective’s founding members (outlined in Structure section). The Climate Collective Treasury will be considered a success if it positions Celo as the go-to climate-positive blockchain and ecosystem in the near future.
Areas of Focus
There are two key areas this effort will focus on (see Appendix for more information on current targets and strategic partners).
Natural Capital Tokens (natcap)
Definition: Semi-fungible ERC20 tokens that represent either:
(1) An outputs-based financing of an ecosystem service such as a carbon offset
(2) Ownership of territory or other ecosystem assets
(3) Stewardship of an ecosystem producing valuable ecosystem services (e.g. token payments for ecosystem services such as biodiversity).
Mission: To systematically increase the liquidity of existing natcap tokens on Celo, and support the development of new climate-positive tokenized assets
Context: Through CGP30 Celo successfully onboarded a 0.5% target allocation for MCO2 tokens to the Reserve in late July ‘21, and founded the Climate Collective in early October ‘21 to achieve the target of 40% nature-backed assets in 4 years. After the launch of Toucan Protocol and KlimaDAO in mid October ‘21, the majority of on-chain natural capital has gravitated to the Polygon network (including MCO2 since KIP7 in mid January ‘22), with a healthy distribution between the Klima reserves and DEX liquidity pools.
In order to codify standards for natural capital in the Celo reserve, Celo must increase the liquidity and diversity of natcaps on its own chain by either bridging or natively supporting projects who produce natcaps. The following table is a snapshot of the Climate Collective’s Green Token Dashboard prototype as of 3/7/22 — an early attempt to articulate a methodology for natcap “certification” that adheres to strict, pre-defined standards about what does or does not qualify as a natcap:
| Name | Symbol / Chains | Supply / Market Cap | Liquidity | Reserves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toucan Base Carbon Tonne | BCT / Polygon | Supply 18,260,576 / $52,225,249 | Sushiswap holds 6M in USDC pool + 1.37M in KLIMA pool + others = 7.37M BCT ~ 33% | Klima holds 9,154,847 BCT = $34,650,680 = 51% |
| Toucan: Nature Carbon Tonne | NCT / Polygon | Supply 1,191,322 / $7,660,200 | Sushiswap USDC pool 924,100 = 77.5% | N/A |
| Moss.Earth: Carbon Credit | MCO2 / Ethereum, Polygon, Celo | 3,185,540 / $32,239,317 Ethereum: 2,845,084 (92%); Polygon: 251,870 (5%); Celo : 88,586 (3%) | Uniswap ETH + USDC = 1,737 (0.06% onchain); Quickswap USDC = 50,364 (33% onchain); Ubeswap mcUSD + others = 2,093 (3% onchain) | No ETH reserve; Klima holds 165,654 MCO2 = 65% onchain supply; Celo holds 83,333.67 MCO2 = $1,186,475 = 94% onchain supply |
Target Outcomes
By 6 months from now:
- Collaboratively define quantitative standards for reserve assets including legal due diligence, financial measures (liquidity sources, transaction volume, historical prices, available trading pairs, etc.), ESG criteria, and availability on Celo
- Complete Balancer v2 contract migration in partnership with Symmetric and port the Gnosis Safe and key Safe applications to Celo, opening up the possibility for a Carbon or ReFi index on Celo, ReFi DAOs on Celo, and supporting composable DAO tooling (e.g. Zodiac, a Safe app that enables cross-chain DAO formation).
- Launch & publicize Toucan Carbon Reference Pools on Celo during Q2, as well as other carbon assets.
- Develop cohesive strategy around existing and imminent natural capital assets including Moss (MCO2, NFTs), Toucan (BCT, NCT), FlowCarbon (GNT), and Untangled Finance (SOT)
- Establish Carbon SubDAO and LP-Index to curate natural capital asset holdings, for future use in the Celo Reserve through separate governance proposal
- Leverage above LP-index to broker token sales with institutions and other backstop investors to create deep liquidity supporting natcap launches. Provide up to 1M CELO (~$2M) in initial anchor liquidity for the purpose of minimizing slippage until pool is of a sufficient size and LP diversity is achieved, after which pool tokens may be recalled and repurposed for grant issuance
By 10 months from now:
- Support new use cases including plastic credits, forward financing, land ownership, regenerative community currencies, and DNA sampling-based biodiversity credits
- Submit proposal to Celo Governance to onboard a Carbon SubDAO-governed LP-index of natcap tokens
- Support projects in implementing geospatial web3 primitives, such as Astral Protocol’s upcoming GeoNFT, for the purposes of tokenizing land ownership, data-production, stewardship, or augmented space
- Experiment with Internet of Things (IoT) sensor integrations and other environmental monitoring, reporting, verification (MRV) applications.
ReFi Products
Mission: To use constructs from Decentralized Finance to help frame the regenerative economy
Target Outcomes
By 6 months from now:
- Develop and maintain “ReFi Pulse” with financial measures and ESG indicators, similar to DeFi Pulse for regenerative assets in partnership with Prime Ratings
- Facilitate certification of Celo blockchain as carbon-negative from accredited institution
- Develop and maintain Celo Energy Consumption Report to help projects explain Celo adoption to their users and/or community
- Support social tokens linked to regenerative activities and impact communities through ecosystem fund with Socialstack
- Support select regenerative NFT projects using existing tooling from Tatum on Celo
- Establish ReFiDAO platform and associated initiatives positioning Celo at the center of ReFi
- Issue a quadratic funding round on Celo for ReFi projects across web3, using a quadratic funding primitive such as Clr.Fund
- Help bootstrap natural capital related DAOs with ecosystem partner PrimeDAO and participate in governance
By 12 months from now:
- Experiment with new token issuance models that are related to climate or ecological data, combining several Climate Collective members’ composable protocols to create an end-to-end solution combining MRV, Oracles, Geographical demurrage, and remittances to mobile wallets (such as an airdrop that can be claimed by persons experiencing serious heat stress) to prove the concept of a “ReFi Stack”.
Structure
Climate Collective Members
The Collective’s 13 founding members have demonstrated commitment to our mission and successfully delivered relevant work on Celo. Grant recipients from the Treasury would be admitted to the Collective after meeting these membership conditions through a publicized induction ceremony. All members are expected to join a lazy committee to support governance processes such as curation of CLR Quadratic Funding rounds, elections of Carbon SubDAO, participation in virtual events, and involvement in future products, events, and initiatives.
Table: Climate Collective current members in alphabetical order
| # | Name | Representative |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allegory | Ed Walters |
| 2 | Astral Protocol | Holly Grimm |
| 3 | Byterocket | Marvin Kruse |
| 4 | Celo | Xochitl Cazador |
| 5 | cLabs | Slobodan Sudaric |
| 6 | Curve Labs | Patrick Rawson |
| 7 | Flori | Maria Alegre |
| 8 | Flow Carbon | Dana Gibber |
| 9 | Kolektivo Labs | Luuk Weber |
| 10 | Loam | Birju Shah |
| 11 | Moss | Luis Adaime |
| 12 | Regen Network | Gregory Landua |
| 13 | Toucan Protocol | Raphael Haupt |
| 14 | Wren | Landon Brand |
Multisig
The Multisig contract address is 0x275D5828bF7e5aaf51Bf8EF2f0668ac4a98F0d23 and can be found here
| # | Name | Affiliation | Address |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nirvaan Ranganathan | Climate Collective | 0x42B4a02f79438D558AB33E326638ed752b94D187 |
| 2 | Craig Wilson | Climate Collective | 0x52b485860cB58d1f283D23985002fE1B9CC8311E |
| 3 | Slobodan Sudaric | cLabs | 0x19c280d792429243007c91041c56bA5344726341 |
| 4 | Luuk Weber | Kolektivo | 0x0261842bdDB13418fAe2B7567fc340bAa585b950 |
| 5 | Renc Korzay | Regenerative Finance Foundation | 0x23d817fA0F3C9F77e45880dBE99eDDfafB59142c |
| 6 | Kianga Daverton | AcreDAO | 0x5b9C98e8A3D9Db6cd4B4B4C1F92D0A551D06F00D |
| 7 | Maria Li | Steward | 0x3a5e88f79af1d863001d1abeb92418b1403f2cfa |
| 8 | Ale Borda | Gitcoin, Fifty Years | 0x82c4d6f212F30701234aDbFfbB5ed8D65B06910C |
| 9 | Birju Shah | Loam | 0x671367581a1038f3d1edda106097c945e5a16231 |
| 10 | Tom Walker | SimplexDNA | 0x09d2abefa41fe1a5f15eeac62dbc3af977c54eab |
Budget
This CGP is requesting 4.7 Million CELO from the on-chain governance Community Fund, which will be distributed as indicated below. Based on grantee requests, some of the CELO tokens may be collateralized in the Celo Reserve to mint and disburse cUSD. Temporary liquidity will be recalled when the conditions outlined above are met, then redistributed towards the other budgeted areas.
| Area | Allocation (MM CELO) | Approx MM USD (Celo ~ $2) |
|---|---|---|
| Project Development | 2.3 | 4.6 |
| Community Building | 0.5 | 1 |
| Operations | 0.12 | 0.24 |
| Marketing | 0.78 | 1.56 |
| Temporary Liquidity | 1 | 2 |
| Total | 4.7 | 9.4 |
Compensation
Using past proposals’ as a benchmark, we propose for the equivalent of $100/hr payable to senior advisors in cUSD within an expectation of at least 10 hrs/week, be paid as compensation for the administrative operations of the Climate Collective Treasury. This compensation will be reserved for multisig members who are not directly affiliated with Climate Collective, the Celo Foundation, or cLabs. The Climate Collective team works full-time on sourcing, scoping, and administering the grants with support from the multisig members to align on grant outcomes and efficacy towards progressing the stated goals. Any unused funds will be used towards grants.
Verification
[
{
"contract": "GoldToken",
"function": "approve",
"args": [
"0xc8cBB71E25caF708Bcf55564b7ed7aA692de25c1",
"4700000000000000000000000"
],
"value": "0"
}
]
Context
Marketing Challenges
To many followers of both industries, “crypto & climate” seems like an oxymoron or contradiction primarily due to the negative coverage around Bitcoin and Proof-of-Work. Changing this impression is crucial to community development and adoption of Web3-based ReFi products. The Celo community briefly experienced such social media backlash following the announcement of the Kickstarter integration.
The Climate Collective will provide resources that help projects explain their decisions to leverage web3 tools towards climate action, with a focus on highlighting Celo’s carbon-negative status, mobile-first sustainable architecture, and other unique features.
Known Constraints
Based on conversations with prospective Climate Collective grant recipients and Celo ecosystem members, we have identified several “primitives” and integrations currently absent on Celo but not directly linked to climate.
- Treasury Management using Gnosis manager applications
- Cross-chain DEX integrations beyond SushiSwap
- Token-gating integration for Discord to foster productive DAO communities
- Analytics platforms such as Dune Analytics for live blockchain statistics
- Integrations with Centrifuge, Goldfinch, and other existing protocols tokenizing Real World Assets
Proposal Risks
We have identified the following risks:
- Technical risk based on missing primitives: as outlined above, there are currently several “functional primitives” or technical building blocks missing from Celo that may deter certain projects or founders from building on Celo
- Competitive risk: certain other blockchain foundations are offering higher value grants
- Performance risk based on where the Treasury is allocating capital: this is mitigated by three checkpoints to gain feedback from community members
- Legal risk: tokenizing land or other ecosystem assets requires substantial buy-in from current institutions and legal systems.
- Conflict of Interest Risks: In the case of a conflict of interest with one of the multisig signer, the COI will be disclosed and the multisig signer will not participate in voting on that specific proposal. Members have been deliberately chosen to minimize potential conflicts of interests with cross-functional members of the ecosystem. For instance, a representative from SimplexDNA would be recused from grant-making decisions related to the project.
Appendix
Natural Capital Tokens
- Current Targets: SimplexDNA, Sanergy, Senken, SolidWorld, Thallo, Silvi, Mad Agriculture, Droneseed, Carbon Path, EdenDAO, Kolor
- Strategic Partners: Moss, Toucan, FlowCarbon, Kolektivo, Astral Protocol, Curve Labs, cLabs, Symmetric
ReFi Products
- Current Targets: Athena Protocol, Offsetra, Raiz Vertical Farms, Supermetahumanfutures, Steward, DeTrash DAO, Acre DAO, Climate DAO, Thought for Food
- Strategic Partners: cLabs, PrimeDAO, ReFiDAO, CLR.Fund, Ubeswap, PoolTogether, GoodGhosting, Socialstack