GovHack at ETH CC (Brussels)

Proposals Finalized AIPs
1

Hack Humanity: GovHack at ETH CC (Brussels)

non-constituional

Abstract

Hack Humanity is seeking $309k of funding from the Arbitrum DAO to host an event and after-party coinciding with ETH CC in Brussels, Belgium. Arbitrum GovHack Brussels will take place as a 3-day event on July 5, 6, and 7, the days directly prior to the start of the conference. ETH CC is only 11 weeks away, so approving the funds ASAP is of the utmost importance to ensure that Arbitrum has a strong presence at one of the most important Ethereum-centric events of the year.

Hack Humanity intends to continue serving the DAO by planning IRL activations and will seek additional funding in the coming months. The time constraints for ETH CC have led us to propose funding solely for this event in hopes of an expedient proposal process prior to asking the DAO for a larger funding package that ensures a long-term and optimal solution for Arbitrum DAO’s event participation.

GovHack Brussels aims to:

  • Build trust and deepen relationships between Arbitrum contributors
  • Ideate and later implement proposals that benefit Arbitrum
  • Attract new talent to the DAO
  • Position Arbitrum as the go-to home for talent to build and the DAO as a world-class operation maturing and innovating at the forefront of decentralized governance

GovHack Brussels, improves on and expands GovHack ETHDenver with additional prize pool, the introduction of a subsidy pool for high-value contributors, enhancing and running a proper community showcase day, and adding a dedicated afterparty.

Motivation

In a world of remote work, decentralized technology, and decentralized finance, the human social-layer needs intentional facilitation and development to mature and enable building this next paradigm of technology and new ways of working together. Online collaboration can only get us so far. A key competitive advantage for the ArbitrumDAO is strategically investing in growing a high-trust network of talented contributors, delegates, service providers, and builders on Arbitrum. GovHack ETHDenver proved the thesis that in-person opportunities for the DAO to work together represent a significant competitive advantage for Arbitrum.

If you are aiming to learn more about what GovHack aims to achieve, please check out their ETHDenver:

Hack Humanity, was previously funded with a grant from the Arbitrum Foundation to host GovHack ETHDenver. Hack Humanity is looking to build on this success and momentum as an ecosystem development partner through IRL activations with the Arbitrum DAO for the long-term.

It is critical that Arbitrum has a significant presence at industry-leading events, and that contributors have regular and consistent IRL opportunities to grow high-trust relationships. It builds community and brand while attracting users, developers, and other important DAO contributors.

Hack Humanity offers deep custom work pre-event; with ecosystem mapping, facilitating community co-design processes to develop tracks & challenge statements most relevant to Arbitrum, identifying target talent contributor personas, skill gap analysis of who to market and recruit to the ecosystem. Hack Humanity drives innovation through unique custom IRL experiences that mature and evolve the DAO’s capabilities.

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A well-run event typically requires a minimum of 3 months of lead time, with factors such as securing suppliers, the team’s calendar, and venue down payments requiring capital upfront from the event organizer. We are less than 90 days out from ETH CC, and at this point Arbitrum is not well-positioned to have a strong presence in Brussels. Klaus (Hack Humanity founder) has exemplified his ability to host high-quality IRL activations on behalf of the Arbitrum DAO in the past, so we believe that getting funds approved ASAP so that Hack Humanity can begin organizing a governance hackathon and an after-party is very important.

Relevant Hack Humanity resources:

Rationale

The most successful crypto brands, such as Uniswap, LayerZero, dYdX, and others, prioritize brand presence at events to reaffirm their positions as industry leaders. ETH CC is an Ethereum-focused event, and Arbitrum should lean into that given its status as the leading Ethereum L2. These events provide substantial value, such as brand strengthening, community building, attracting developer talent, in-person ideation, and more.

Many hackathons cost north of $1M with smart contract base layers like Near, zkSync, Avalanche, and others throwing events/hackathons with more than 1000 participants. It’s important Arbitrum remains competitive with these other protocols to ensure its ability to attract talent.

Specifications

GovHack will run for three days, boast a prize pool of $20k for GovHack participants, have t-shirts and other swag for attendees to get their hands on, and pre, mid, and post-event media production and storytelling to represent the voice of the DAO and to amplify the event on social platforms.

GovHack is 3 events in 1: A 2-day hackathon-style bootcamp, followed by a 1-day Community Showcase, followed by an afterparty. Hack Humanity is looking to build on GovHack ETHDenver’s success and coevolve with the DAO over the long term.

For GovHack Brussels a full impact report and transparency around the event and its cost will be posted in the forum following its completion.

Steps to Implement

Once spending is approved by the DAO, funds will be sent to a ⅔ multisig to be converted into dollars. These dollars will be used to pay for the costs associated with running and organizing the event. Hack Humanity will provide event details on the forum so that the entire community can participate in the event’s scope and execution.

50% of the funds will be paid to Hack Humanity upon this proposal’s approval. An additional 35% will be disbursed the week before the event, and the final 15% will be disbursed after the event concludes.

The 3 multisig signers will be: Klaus + Abdullah Umar (Arana Digital) + Krzysztof Urbański
The multisig address is (arb1) 0x03D47B06Cc95bAFf2a408cD7c735ed7e7142Edb9

Any excess funds from the $309k that are not spent on the Brussels event will be rolled over and used to fund future Arbitrum events, but only if the DAO votes to spend additional funds on future events before the end of August. If the DAO votes against further spending on events, or a proposal fails to pass by the end of August, the excess ARB will be returned to the DAO.

Timeline

The event will take place July 5, 6, and 7 (2024) in Brussels, Belgium directly before ETH CC. Given the strict timeline, we are hoping to proceed to Snapshot on Wednesday, April 24th (if delegates approve), in order to hopefully have funds earmarked by the end of May.

More details will be shared with the DAO in the weeks leading up to the event surrounding the specifics of GovHack.

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With the expedited process as outlined, Hack Humanity will only have a ~5 week buffer to plan the event. It is paramount that if the DAO wants representation at ETH CC, we move with haste.

Overall Cost

Brussels is an expensive European city, and successfully executing a world-class high-quality IRL activation requires a significant budget.

The event’s research, preparation and delivery phase determines the exact event program design, local costs, the number of participants, any scholarships/stipends, etc. Getting the funds approved is the top priority so that Hack Humanity can begin to work out these details.

The all-in cost to execute this proposal is expected to be $309k, with a rough budget broken down in the following table:

Item Cost
Venue, Food, Drink, Swag, room equipment, interior decor, printing, stationery $85,000
Marketing, targeted contributor outreach, Pre/Post Event Media Production, AV equipment rental, hackathon management software and other licensing $33,000
Hackathon Prize Pool $20,000
Scholarships $10,000
After-party + Contingency $50,000
On-site living costs (5 days, lead in, lead out day + 3 delivery days for a team of 7): Flights, Accommodation, Ubers, Food $13,000
Hack Humanity margin and fees. GovHack Director and assistant to design, organize, deliver the event. Designer, local Brussels event producer advisory, on-site GovHack delivery team (7). Post-event Impact Report, community engagement, handover. $98,000
Total Cost: $309,000

Any excess funds from the $309k that are not spent on the Brussels event will be rolled over and used to fund future Arbitrum events, but only if the DAO votes to spend additional funds on future events before the end of August. If the DAO votes against further spending on events, or a proposal fails to pass by the end of August, the excess ARB will be returned to the DAO.

The amount of ARB to be moved to the multisig will be determined in accordance with the dollar equivalent of the trailing 14D ARB TWAP with a 30% buffer. After the ARB is swapped to USDC, any amount in excess of $309k will be immediately back to the DAO.

The scope of this proposal to the DAO is specifically for ETH CC in Brussels. Hack Humanity intends to produce a subsequent proposal to provide a year-round program of events on behalf of the Arbitrum DAO, this will require a larger funding package, with a component to cover a full-time team & and a component for an event budget to cover a series of IRL events. Hack Humanity needs the ability to hire and maintain a dedicated team committed to Arbitrum, this uniquely enables high-context, up to date and relevant continual program design in lockstep with the needs of Arbitrum’s roadmap and community needs, it also enables Hack Humanity and team to commit and block calendar dates for future events 6-12 months in advance, secure venues, and team member’s time. This requires upfront funding.

Expect another proposal for further funding in the coming months. We need this GovHack Brussels proposal to be executed swiftly so that the event in Brussels can be organized as soon as possible, hence our decision to seek funding only for this event rather than trying to pass a larger DAO spend.

16 Likes
2

I’m supportive of this proposal. GovHack in Denver was an important event that catalyzed many new initiatives in the DAO. I thought the format did a great job of mirroring Arbitrum’s decentralized nature while organizing around relevant themes. I think it’s important that Arbitrum has a strong presence at ETH CC and am confident Hack Humanity can deliver. See you there!

7 Likes
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unfortunately i missed denver due to work related stuff.

one of the thing i wanted to participate to, and that I heard very good things, was indeed GovHack.

I am glad that the idea is to expand what was done in Denver in EthCC. This initiatives are really needed in our ecosystem, live events, in which you can effectively connect, are part of that portion of marketing in which we still lack a bit as a Dao. And as Frisson said, making participation “decentralized” like in our Dao matches not only our Ethos but also our way of working.

I suggest 2 things to improve this proposal:

  • providing a few examples/comparison for uneducated people (like me) who don’t know too much about cost related to the organization of big events
  • as we did in questbook, since your costs are USD denominated, I would suggest for you to ask for the amount needed converted based on the 14d twap + 30% buffer. This buffer can be given back, right away, as soon as there is the conversion, plus or minus whatever the market movement has been. You don’t want to find yourself in the situation of requesting funds, going to snapshot, then tally, and when is time to start paying to do stuff you don’t have enough cause market nuked.
6 Likes
4

I think this is an important proposal which must be moved forward quickly.

  1. It was a well run initiative which succeeded in its goals and exceeded expectations.

  2. It means a lot that we reward work well done with renewal and expanded scope. It is important to any potential contributor to see that we reward the behaviors that will help attract top talent and succeed.

Full support.

5 Likes
5

Very happy to support this. As I am from Brussels, I’m also happy to help if needed.

6 Likes
6

Unfortunately I could not attend last time due to other commitments, but I heard a lot of great feedback.

I support this proposal. A fair amount of contributions came from the last govhack, and with more preparation and notice, this can be elevated to the next level.

4 Likes
7

From my experience planning two multi-day conferences as part of @404DAO, the costs associated with GovHack’s proposal are reasonable. For our Web3 ATL conferences (~350 to 400 people), our team had similar budgets for the venue, food, AV equipment, pre/post production etc. Providing the quality event experience that the Arbitrum community should strive for will require these types of costs.

Overall I thought GovHack in Denver was a great success, and it is worth expanding upon and bringing to other conferences. And as mentioned in the proposal, these IRL opportunities are vital to growing high-trust relationships and Arbitrum needs to have a presence at major industry events.

I will also echo the urgency presented by Entropy in this proposal. A three-month lead time for an event of this scale will be challenging. It is possible, but every day counts at this point. Hopefully this can move through the DAO quickly.

6 Likes
8

I attended govhack in ethdenver & am hugely supportive of the proposal. There was good attendance, lots of interest from first timers in writing proposals for the forum & also top delegates who gave feedback. I actually spoke about govhack to ethglobal & buidlbox , both of whom were startled at the innovativeness of a hackathon where the primary output is proposals

The pilot in ethdenver was successful and i strongly endorse contributing it for eth cc & if successful there too, devcon. The arbitrum foundation covered some of their costs last time due to the short time period but we should not expect this again. ecosystem growth is the DAOs primary responsibility and gov hack is high RoI on that front.

5 Likes
9

I’d love to see this on snapshot in the minimal amount of time.

What do people think about a “loan” from Plurality Labs to let the team get a head start as soon as snapshot is conclusive?

4 Likes
10

this helps a lot understanding costs, which imho at this point is the only thing that needed a clarification since most of the dao seems quite positive on the initiative itself, thanks

5 Likes
11

If it’s a vast majority voting in favor of the snapshot, then I see no harm in PL providing a loan to enable HH to start the work ASAP since these types of events take a lot of time and the onchain voting takes an awful long time.

In the above case of a large majority, its somewhat fair to assume that its most likely to pass a Tally vote along as no major changes are made.

7 Likes
12

Great to see all the support! Following @JoJo’s advice, we have made 1 amendment to the proposal.

Before: “The amount of ARB to be moved to the multisig will be determined in accordance with the dollar equivalent of the trailing 14D ARB TWAP”

Now: "The amount of ARB to be moved to the multisig will be determined in accordance with the dollar equivalent of the trailing 14D ARB TWAP with a 30% buffer. After the ARB is swapped to USDC, any amount in excess of $309k will be immediately back to the DAO.

We plan to move to Snapshot in 24 hours.

9 Likes
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It’s really impressive seeing delegates coordinate to fast track this proposal. This was one of the EthDenver events that generated the most hype. Looking forward to attending in Brussels.

5 Likes
14

It’s been great reading through the transparency report and improvements being made. Besides the intangbile value out of the proposals and connections being made on-site (which we can do a better job in materializing after the GovHack, knowing this is high on Klaus’ agenda), I feel this was a key community event for the DAO. Fully support a continuation.

6 Likes
15

Given the circumstances, a one-off funding request here makes sense. From what we can tell, the first event has been extremely valuable, both in tangible and intangible terms. Combined with the well-defined expense structure that seems to be fair in comparison to other similar events (although, if possible, it would be great if a high-level overview of how these figures have been estimated could be provided), we feel comfortable in fully supporting this initiative.

As a side note, we’d more than encourage exploring the feasibility of this solution proposed by @DisruptionJoe as, in the best-case scenario, it could add several weeks to the event planning timeline:

EDIT: based on the above, Blockworks Research will vote FOR this proposal on Snapshot.

6 Likes
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These comments and thoughts reflect my personal opinions on this proposal. Whilst I am a member of the Arbitrum Representative Council (ARC), they do not necessarily represent the overall views of the council or provide an indication of final voting decision

I am in favour of this proposal as it seems the Denver event was of immense value. I would like to see this be the start of a structured and consistent presence for Arbitrum DAO across all major conferences (events WG?).

Thanks for putting this together @KlausBrave. The loan suggestion @DisruptionJoe also seems a good idea.

5 Likes
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As a participant in the last Gov Hack in Denver, I really enjoyed the event and it brought many mission aligned delegates together to work on purposeful projects. hence i am happy to support this initiative.

5 Likes
18

Voting “for” on this on snapshot.

I wasn’t in Denver, I plan to be in Brussel, and I have only heard good thing about govHack.

Team here has the challenge of putting up the org of a big event in less than 2 and a half month: realistically, they will need funds asap to start paying vendors and suppliers.

Voting for, and hope that a couple of days after snapshot is over goes directly to tally, for the sake of proper execution.

Several people were also able to testify about budget being rightly sized for this type of event, which was my main concern (and the main concern of others).

3 Likes
19

I’m voting in support of this proposal passing.

ETH CC is the largest European crypto conference and it only seems fitting to host a GovHack there as well. I’ve heard good feedback coming from participants of the ETHDenver edition and know plenty of people who would love to take part in the Brussels one.

There is a huge need of getting people together to work on governance related issues, I hope it becomes a tradition to host GovHack at major crypto conferences around the world. Another great candidate for a future edition could be Devcon Southeast Asia this November?

4 Likes
20

Hi!

At Cryptosquare, we’re based locally and organize Web3 events throughout the year. We also host side events for ETHCC on behalf of others.

If you’re looking for someone local to collaborate closely with, we can help!

Let us know if you’re interested :wink:

3 Likes