TL;DR
- We are thrilled and deeply grateful to have been elected by the DAO to serve as Applicant Advisors. We will undertake this role with the utmost responsibility.
- In this role, we will work closely with protocols applying for ARB incentives. Our aim is to provide them with the necessary feedback to strengthen their proposals and increase their chances of securing incentives.
- The workflow, communication, and feedback will take place on this Discord. We invite protocols that apply for incentives to join the Discord and ping your designated Applicant Advisor to assign you role and create you a specific channel.
- The LTIPP is designed to experiment and gather data to develop a long-term incentive allocation framework. As Applicant Advisors, we commit to sharing our accumulated knowledge from both the STIP and LTIPP, addressing the questions we have posted here. We encourage all participants in this program to respond to them, helping us create the most accurate and reflective report
The LTIPP and Our Role as Applicant Advisor
The Long-term Term Incentives Pilot Program for the DAO has been designed and approved to test new incentive designs and answer the necessary questions to ensure we are ready to commit to the long-term program.
The primary objective for LTIPP remains aligned with the STIPs one: To experiment and research for the most efficient way to attract protocols, users, and TVL to Arbitrum.
One of the many innovations introduced by this pilot program is the role of the Applicant Advisor. These are impartial organizations charged with providing each applicant detailed feedback and guidance on how to enhance their applications and, eventually, their incentive programs. This ensures that each applicant can refine their proposal, enabling them to present the best possible incentive plan to the Council.
Through a snapshot voting the DAO elected 3 Applicant Advisors:
We are deeply grateful and proud, and we hold this opportunity in high regard, which we approach with great responsibility and seriousness.
Together with the Advisors, we want to communicate to the protocols applying for incentives that this program will treat all protocols equally, fairly, and transparently. We will allocate the same resources and time to analyze each of the proposals and provide the best possible feedback to strengthen your applications.
As a first step fulfilling their advisory role, @JoJo and @CastleCapital created this excellent guide to help you complete Section 4 of the Application Form. The goal of this document is to take your protocol through an exercise helping you understand, plan, and execute the following:
- What incentives does the protocol require?
- Where will the incentives be distributed?
- Why will they make an impact on distribution?
- How will that impact be retained post-incentives?
Alpha alert! You have GREAT advisors. Make the most of them!
The application period begins on February 19th. From that date until March 3rd 11:59 EST, applications can be submitted. Then, from March 3rd to March 17th 11:59 EST, feedback will be provided but no more submissions accepted.
It’s important to highlight that once the protocol has submitted its application and an Advisor has been assigned, it will be in a position to start receiving feedback immediately. This feedback will be used by the protocols to edit their proposals before the applications are locked at the end of the feedback period (March 17th 11:59 EST).
How will communications be handled between Applicants and Advisors?
We have set up a specific communication channel to which we invite all protocols that have already applied to the program to join. This will be a Discord Server. Initially, you will find five information channels there: a Q&A channel, another with the timeline and deadlines of the program, an explanation of the eligibility requirements for applying, a detailed description of each of the program roles and a framework and examples for grant size requests (reach-retention-revenue).
The first step to participate in the incentive program is to apply. You will find the details of how to apply in this forum post. Once you have applied, the Program Manager (@Matt_StableLab) will assign each protocol an Applicant Advisor. Note that each protocol will be assigned only one Applicant Advisor who will be responsible for working with you and providing feedback. The other Advisors will be focused on their assigned protocols, so we suggest not sending questions or requests to advisors who were not assigned to you. In case you are not satisfied with the work of your advisor, please communicate with the Program Manager so they can address the situation.
The workflow, communication, and feedback will take place on Discord.
Once you have applied and been assigned an Advisor, you should join the Discord. There, you need to request your assigned Applicant Advisor (ping them on the general chat) to assign you a specific role so that you can interact in your dedicated channel created for this purpose.
How does this work? Each Applicant Advisor is responsible for their own channel:
In that channel, only Advisors and the protocols assigned to them will be allowed to interact. When you have joined the Discord, the Advisor will create a specific channel for communications “Applicant >< Advisor” and where you will receive the initial feedback. The final feedback, in the form of a report, will be provided on the forum for visibility to the entire DAO:
All communications will be handled within these channels, which will be visible to the entire community (whoever enters the Discord). This aims to promote and ensure transparency, as well as fair and equitable treatment for all protocols applying for incentives. All communications, questions, answers, feedback, and shared documents will be available for review by the entire community.
In this regard, we encourage applicants to avoid private communications. We will only accept such communications when the matter being discussed is sensitive and requires that the information is not disclosed to the general public.
As a good practice, only if it is needed, we will let you know publicly that we will contact you privately first. Remember that we will never ask you money, private keys or anything out of the information requested in the application form.
For further questions on the Pilot Program, please check the How To Apply FAQ
The goal of the LTIPP is to experiment and gather data to develop a framework for long-term incentive allocation
In the coming weeks, we will collect all the necessary data to provide a comprehensive report in which we will analyze the overall development of the program, and specifically our role as Advisor.
Here are the questions we intend to answer. This post serves as an invitation to debate, and we invite all program participants, including applying protocols, council members, Advisors, the Program Manager, Data providers, and anyone who wishes to contribute value, to add questions and also share viewpoints and answers. All the information we can gather will be valuable in contributing to the learning needed to develop the definitive framework that the DAO will use in the long term.
The initial questions that have arisen in recent days are:
What is the best way to assign protocols to Applicant Advisors? What is the fairest objective criterion? Are there any key parameters to consider?
What is the most efficient way to interact and provide feedback? (considering the availability of the protocols, Advisors’ hours). Is it better to have open office hours for all protocols or one-on-one meetings?
What is the best way to manage communications with the protocols? Is the designed Discord system effective? What can we learn from this to improve in the future?
How do we allocate the necessary time to each protocol while being fair to everyone?
What kind of feedback should we give? What does it mean to improve their proposals?
Some questions that could be answered or that helpful insights from Advisors, Council members, Program Manager would help:
How will we evaluate the numbers/metrics provided to us? Does it make sense to set objective parameters prior to the proposals? Is there a measure that can be fairly adapted to all protocols that may apply?
What kind of proposals should the program accept? Does the program welcome proposals beyond DeFi or gaming? Is there a way to tailor this framework to development grants?
Is it beneficial for the application period to be public? Rationale: Protocols might wait for innovative applications to be submitted and then simply copy them. Are there criteria in place to prevent this?
What is the balance between broad and general application forms and being specific? What is the balance between categorizing and specifying criteria when there’s a risk of excluding protocols from those categories?
How much information and detail should be requested from the protocols? What is the optimal point for efficient communication? Seeking a balance between avoiding pigeonholing and efficiency in what is being reported. For this: What is the MVAF (Minimum Viable Application Form): a balance between asking for too much and excluding, or being too broad and wasting time.
When providing incentives: What is the balance between encouraging protocols to come up with innovative designs and preventing them from introducing designs that are harmful/dangerous/Ponzi schemes?
Regarding the previous point, how can we evaluate proposals while remaining credibly neutral? To what extent should we judge based on subjective opinions?
Conclusion
We are very excited about the opportunity, thank you again. We hope that any questions about the process have been clarified. Any further feedback or questions are welcome.
We hope this post serves as a starting point for great collaboration between advisors and applicants! We look forward to seeing you starting Monday!