Background
Name: Metagov
Position I am applying for: Council Member
TG: @amanwithwings
Twitter: https://twitter.com/metagov_project
Affiliations (Currently I am working with, invested in, etc.): We’ve worked with the Ethereum Foundation, Uniswap, Gitcoin, Arbitrum Foundation, Optimism Collective, and many other organizations to build web3 infrastructure. We’ve also worked with many traditional funders like the Ford Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, One Project, the NSF, EU, and UKRI.
Why You
Why would You be the best candidate for this position?
Metagov is a nonprofit interdisciplinary research collective. We build standards and infrastructure for digital self-governance. Our community includes 850+ researchers and 90 member organizations. Our standards have been adopted by thousands of DAOs, many DAO frameworks and web3 projects. We advocate for the well-being and innovation of the entire ecosystem. We
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have high context on the Arbitrum ecosystem. We’ve interacted with a large number of projects on Arbitrum in relation to EIP-4824 (for which DAOstar, one of our initiatives, was funded by the Arbitrum Foundation), giving us a good idea of the ecosystem roadmap and priorities.
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have high context when it comes to grant management. We piloted the Grants Management standard with Gitcoin, Optimism and others; released a (well-referenced) 86 page State of Web3 Grants Report diving deep into 11 of the largest web3 grants programs; run grant programs and various fellowships; and recently launched the Grants Innovation Lab with to improve the state of web3 grant ecosystem.
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have high context and first-hand exposure to the inefficiencies in grant lifecycles. Being a 100% grant-run organization supported by the Ethereum Foundation, Optimism Collective, Arbitrum Foundation, ENS DAO, Gnosis, European Union’s NGI Initiative, and many others, this is ironically the case.
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have high context on things that are not receiving enough funds/attention but are needed. As a collection of builders, we are well versed with the troubles that web3 foundations, DAOs, tooling providers and protocols face during bear markets and on a day-to-day basis.
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have high context on a large spectrum of web3 products. We’ve produced a variety of web3 products, interoperability standards, research and public goods.
We would like to take all these learnings and help create a resilient grant program for Arbitrum DAO.
This initiative will be led by Joshua Tan (co-founder of Metagov, mathematician and computer scientist at Oxford), Eugene Levanthal (ED at Metagov, Grants Lead at the PBS Foundation, Research Lead at Plurality Institute) and Amandeep (Governance and Growth lead, previous at DeepDAO and IIT Delhi).
What do you think a good incentive application looks like?
Sustainability, not short term frenzy: a good incentive program has mechanisms to fund sustainable impact and genuine innovation. It stays away from short-term KPI upticks as much as it can, as we have learned from the experience of countless other DeXs, bridges and DeFi protocols that these pathways aren’t sustainable.
Reward innovation and novelty: The 2 larger grants available in the Arbitrum ecosystem (the incentive program and the Arbitrum Foundation grant) are both growth grants. While prioritizing pure protocol advancement and research might be out of the scope of this program, we can still support novel applications that pushes the envelope on the Arbitrum Nitro Stack.
As less grant farming as possible: An incentive game where the same set of addresses farm different DeFi protocols for rewards doesn’t establish anyone’s goals. Nor does an incentive game which funds the same experiments different times over without any results.
What are your goals for this program?
At this point, there is no need to reiterate the inefficiencies with the short term incentive program that concluded recently. Without clear guidance on what needs to be developed for the growth of Arbitrum, we will inevitably be led to issues over time. Hence, our primary goal for this program is to address these inefficiencies and ensure the long-term success of the incentive program.
Developing a universal rubric: while no grant program is a one-size fits all solution, we believe solid advancements can be made over the previous model as well as other grant programs whose insights we have. DAOstar’s strong academic, research-oriented background that has converted well into grants research and infrastructure development will be advantageous as well as contribute to diversity of perspective within the Council. It is important to come up with a rubric that rewards novelty, innovation and sustainability
Improving transparency of the program: We are committed to ensuring transparency of fund usage among grant recipients beyond defining a code of conduct. The LTIP is not a free-lunch (but we do want everyone to eat). Using grantee reporting and accountability protocols extend beyond milestone tracking to understanding the real impact of the program.
Ensuring long term alignment: While this is easier said than done, we will make active efforts towards ensuring the long term alignment of grantees as well as users onboarded through initiatives powered by LTIP with the Arbitrum ecosystem.