Questbook DDA Program Phase 2 Request for Continuation

Proposals
1

I would like to thank all the community members and delegates for reviewing and sharing comments on our proposal. Thank you to the Domain allocators of the Questbook DDA grant program round 1, @JoJo, @cattin, @Juandi and @Flook for their valuable inputs and feedback of the program. Thanks to @krst for the feedback and demo day calls setup to showcase the impact of the program to the delegates and community so far and the feedback with which we have planned to improve the DDA program by.

Proposal: Request for Continuation of the Arbitrum DDA Program Request
Category: Non-Constitutional AIPs

Summary

As we near the end of allocating the initial grant budget (link to proposal), where through the Arbitrum Grants Program run via the Delegated Domain Allocation model by Questbook, $912k has already been allocated to over 60 proposals. Based on the overwhelming response and number of quality proposals the grant program has received, we propose to start a new program for the Arbitrum Grants via DDA through Questbook with a budget of $4,000,000 spread across 4 domains over the next two quarters. We have received great feedback and support from the community, builders, and domain allocators for requesting additional budget and continue funding projects through the delegated domain allocation model.

Background and Progress

The Arbitrum grants, administered via DDA by Questbook and 4 domain allocators, (Cattin, Adam, Juandi and JoJo) went live on the 5th of October with a total grants budget of $800k spread across four domains. Since the launch of the grants program, the Arbitrum domain allocators approved proposals requesting $912k and disbursed a total of ~$394,000 to accepted proposals from a pool of 201 proposals. These domain allocators were elected from the community and by the community. The specific information regarding the accepted proposals and the funded teams can be found here.

As previously stated in our initial proposal, Questbook launched the grants program to further scale it based on proposal volume and learnings from the first ever grants program in the Arbitrum Ecosystem. The Arbitrum Grants run through DDA has received overwhelming response, receiving over 200+ proposals since launch.

Please find below the Arbitrum DDA Grant Programs funding breakdown of relevant metrics and insights and proposed improvements going forward.

Program Overview

  • Total Proposals: 201
  • Total Proposals approved: 60
  • Proposals by domain
  • Approved Proposals by domain (81/193 milestones completed)
    • Gaming: 16
      • 18/44 Milestones Complete
    • New Protocol Ideas: 15
      • 8/49 Milestones Complete
    • Dev Tooling: 12
      • 17/38 Milestones Complete
    • Education, Community and events: 15
      • 38/62 Milestones Complete
  • Grant Amounts committed by domain ($) - $912k allocated , 394k Paid out
    • Gaming: 249K
      • 107k Paid out
    • New Protocol Ideas: 264k
      • 65k Paid out
    • Dev Tooling: 166k
      • 84k Paid out
    • Education, Community and events: 234k
      • 138k Paid out

Overview of Accepted and Funded Proposals with DA Report

New Protocol Ideas Domain

  1. Clique & On-Chain Gaming Identity - Growing Arbitrum’s Gaming Identity Layer
    • Funding approved for: 15k
    • 0/2 Milestones Complete
  2. RFQ-API manager for Pear Protocol
  3. Proposal to Enable critonopix for Arbitrum Projects
  4. Amelia the Arbitrum AI Copilot - Chat Based Assistant
  5. Smilee LP & IG Simulator with IL Hedge
    • Funding approved for: 8k
    • 0/2 Milestones Complete
  6. Deploy and grow Mountain Protocol USDM on Arbitrum
  7. Arbitrum Governance Tracker
  8. Sweep n Flip | NFT Dex
  9. One Click Crypto: Aribtrum Public Yield Explorer
    • Funding Approved for: 22k
    • 0/4 Milestones Complete
  10. Giveth
    • Funding Approved for: 7.5k
    • 0/2 Milestones Complete
  11. Smart Contract and Address Labeling System for Arbitrum One
    • Funding Approved for: 23.7k
    • 0/3 Milestones complete
  12. Hunt NFT—NFT Cross-chain Raffle Marketplace, to be NFT Hub !
    • Funding Approved for: 7.5k
    • 0/3 Milestones complete
  13. Buddy-Guard : Social Safeguard dApp with Attachable NFC Wristband
    • Funding Approved for: 22.5k
    • 0/3 Milestones complete
  14. Enhancing Web3 Funding on Arbitrum: AMLOK’s White-Label Liquidity Solution
  15. Mystic - enabling whitelabel NFT economies on Arbitrum
    • Funding Approved for: 13.26k
    • 0/2 Milestones complete
  16. Scattering: Instant Liquidity Market for NFTs(ERC721 & ERC404) on Arbitrum
    • Funding Approved for: 20k
    • 0/2 Milestones complete
  17. Unitap: Incentivize Arbitrum onboarding & rewarding governance.
    • Funding Approved for: 25k
    • 0/4 Milestones complete

Dev Tooling Domain

  1. Infrastructure Support for Arbitrum One & NOVA in Dev Tooling Domain
  2. Laika - Request Builder for Web3 in Dev Tooling Domain
  3. Agnostic AA for Arbitrum
  4. Bonadocs
  5. Bytekode - AI Intent Layer for dApps
  6. Increase of Arbitrum Exposure in LATAM
  7. Enhancing Arbitrum Ecosystem Analytics with DeFi Teller
  8. JiffyScan: 4337 UserOp explorer supporting Arbitrum One and Testnets
  9. Arbitrum Python SDK
  10. Stylus VS Code Extension
  11. L3MBDA, aka Web3 Zapier
  12. Scale ENS on Arbitrum
    • Funding Approved:25k
    • 0/3 Milestones Completed

Education, Community Growth and Events Domain

  1. Onboarding of New developers in Education domain
  2. Arbitrum Academy
  3. Arbitrum as Official sponsor of Ethereum Mexico
  4. DeFi Africa - Web3 Buidl Workshop
  5. Metrics DAO: Web3 Analytics within Arb ecosystem
  6. Blockchain Innovation Hub: 3 month bootcamp for Developers
  7. Arbitrum STIP Virtual event marathon
  8. Arbitrum Aeturnum Program
  9. Arbitrum Arabic
  10. Arbitrum Deep Dive Quest Run
  11. Atoma Project + Arbinauts + Cryptoversidad Collaboration
  12. web3 Warri Arbitrum Universities IRL Events
  13. Arbitrum BUIDL Program
  14. Arbitrum sponsors LearnWeb3’s Decentralized Intelligence S2 Hackathon
    • Funding Approved for: 18k
    • 0/2 Milestones Complete
  15. Arbitrum Uni Challenge: Ideate to Build
    • Funding Approved for: 16.5k
    • 0/3 Milestones Complete

Gaming Domain

  1. Chess.fish - Chess on the blockchain
  2. FPS: “Frags”
  3. Smithonia: MMORPG
  4. Gold Inc: Mobile MMORTS
  5. ethersource: Realtime idle MMORPG
  6. Spire: on-chain lore fo rthe web3 gaming era
    • Funding Approved for: 17.5k
    • 0/3 Milestones Complete
  7. Gaming Chronicles
    • Funding Approved for: 3.3k
    • 0/1 Milestones Complete
  8. Kaiju Cards: RPG, Character Collector and roguelite deckbuilder in one
    • Funding Approved for: 22.5k
    • 0/2 Milestones Complete
  9. Land, Labor and Capitol (LLC) - onchain tycoon game
  10. Sponsorship of the Gaming Startup Collective’s Monthly Calendar of Events
  11. Chaquer- Fully On-Chain RTS Game
  12. Waypoint Gaming - Game Night Grant
  13. Data2073
  14. Gaming Solution with Prizes
  15. Fair Gaming Ecosystem
  16. WorldWarDAO: Onchain Idle-RPG Game
    • Funding Approved for: 15k
    • 1/3 Milestones Complete
    • 5k USD paid out - milestone 1

Proposer’s Experience and Comments

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Arbitrum DDA program DA Demo Day PPTs and Reports

PPT links of the meeting of each domain

Challenges and Expected Improvements

  1. The Price fluctuations of the Arb tokens in the program were of concern for the program, as the overall budget which was denominated in USD kept fluctuating through the term of the grant program. In order to avoid a price fluctuation like that, and based on the feedback received on the Questbook DDA program feedback call from the DAO and delegates, an option is to convert all the Arb received at the time of the proposal passing to Stable coins immediately, to avoid fluctuation.
  2. As many projects have not completed their milestones yet, and with the milestones not having a due date for completion, a problem we foresee is these funds if the projects do not complete them may be locked for ever, or for an indefinite amount of time. If the projects complete their proposals post the program time, there is no structure in place to have the DAs review them post completion and fund them, as the program would have ended by then. To avoid this, for the next program, fixed deadlines will be set for a grant, where either the proposal can be taken over by a seperate team, or the funds can be clawbacked and allocated to another proposal.
  3. Work hour restrictions for DAs was limiting their ability to maximise their impact on the program, as they were only allowed to deliver 60 hours of effort a month. Based on the program so far, we realise that a time restriction only inhibits the DA from their ability assess proposals and support them more deeply, and therefore are suggesting a fixed monthly pay for the work a DA and PM does instead of pay on an hourly basis.
  4. Some of the proposals or conversations projects had with Quesbtook could not be followed on with a funding due to the soft cap established on the program to start with. To tackle this issue, and with the Arbitrum foundation grant ranging from $50-250k, we believe the program should increase its cap to $50k to cover the gap and accept a wider number of proposals.
  5. While all feedbacks, changes and evaluation were timely reported in the Questbook platform, was nonetheless necessary for DA to engage with grantees through chatting systems like Telegram and Google meet. This has generated some questions from the community as a whole regarding inhomogeneous communications ways. We will address this by standardizing both the report frequency, the template used, and especially by setting up a shared discord between all domains. 1:1 calls between DAs and teams will still be needed.

Proposal

Based on the impact and insights derived from Arbitrum DDA program, we propose renewing the Program with a budget of $4M for two quarters. The domain allocators will utilize this budget to fund proposals that align with Arbitrum’s roadmap. After researching, gathering feedback from domain allocators, active community members, and builders, we propose supporting the same domains as the previous program:

Domain Domain Allocator Proposed Budget
New Protocol Ideas Jojo $920,000
Gaming Adam $920,000
Dev Tooling Juandi $920,000
Education, Growth, Community and Events Cattin (Seed Latam) $920,000

RFPs, acceptance criteria and specifications for each domain

  1. New Protocol Ideas - Link
  2. Gaming - Link
  3. Dev Tooling - Link
  4. Education, Growth, Community and Events - Link
  • We propose increasing the allocated grants budget for all domains equally to a higher budget based on the number of proposals received in the previous round.
  • Additionally, in the first round we set a soft cap of $25,000, and we propose increasing the cap to $50,000, with a few more steps for approving a grant that is larger than $25,000, requiring the involvement of two DAs to approve a proposal rather than just the specific domain allocator.
  • Considering the previous softcap being half of what is currently proposed, and that for an average of $220,000 for each domain the program was able to run for around 3.5 months before being maxed out, we project that providing 4X the amount of the previous iteration to each domain should allow the program to constantly allocate, at the same rate or even higher, for the full 6 months projected duration
  • The increased cap will allow the Questbook Program to keep covering the bootstrap belt of grant between $1,000 to $25,000 while, at the same time, be able to serve larger protocols that inherently might have larger needs.

Specifications and Implementation

Similar to the model implemented in the initial program, the renewed grants program will be run using Delegated Domain Capital Allocation Model 1. Each domain allocator will run their respective domain on-chain for full transparency using Questbook. The data and performance across key metrics will be visible to the community.

While the program has produced, accordingly to preliminary conversation with protocols and delegates, good results, we want to address and integrate the feedbacks so far proposed and partially covered in the previous section, such as:

  • have better accountability for the increased soft cap
  • define a more robust and structured set of rules for applicants, in regards to providing a timeline for their project(s)
  • define a cost for the management and verification of milestones after the program is completed
  • define a plan to manage the volatility of funds being distributed by the DAO in ARB token.

The DA will evaluate all the proposals through the rubrics provided for each domain, with the following framework:

  • in case of request below or equal to $25,000, the evaluation process will be the same of the previous iteration, with rubrics being evaluated and scored by the specific DA
  • in case of request above $25,000, and below the new soft cap of $50,000, the evaluation will involve a second DA, chosen by the first one based on the proximity of the specific expertise and knowledge to that proposal, that will have to publish a second evaluation of the rubrics alongside the score. Assuming N rubrics, scored from 1 to 5, the grant will be approved only if both the DA will give each a scoring equal or above to N*3.

The disbursement of the grant will take place on-chain from a multi-sig wallet controlled by the program manager & the domain allocator. The domain allocator will approve or reject the application based on evaluation rubric. A Grants SAFE, with 3/5 multi-sig, between the program manager and 4 domain allocators will be setup. We will then have 4 SAFEs for each of the domains with a 2/2 between the program manager and the specific domain allocator. The funds for the grants program will flow from the treasury into the Grants SAFE. This SAFE will hold the funds related to operational costs, committee compensation, and the grants budget. Funds that will be disbursed to the proposers will reside in the domain-level SAFEs.

After the end of two quarters, the grants committee and the Arbitrum community shall evaluate the performance of each domain using publicly available data and decide to eventually, renew the program and, if so, change any specification of the domains, the domain allocators or the program manager.

To ensure predictability of the funding of the program and a proper runaway, upon receiving the amount from the DAO, the DAs alongside the PM will convert it in stables. If the protocols request it, specific grants or milestones might be paid in $ARB by converting the needed amount at the moment of payout.

Arbitrum DDA program closed accepting new proposals from mid February. If the program will be renewed in the terms above, the DDA program will take care, alongside the evaluation of new proposal, to keep evaluating the milestones of the previous program, thus allowing for the continuity of the previous iteration in an accountable way for grantees.

Compensation

Sourcing, reviewing, funding, marketing, tracking and nurturing proposals requires significant expertise and time commitment from the grants committee members and they should be fairly and competitively compensated for their efforts. Based on the learnings from the previous program specified above, we believe that opting for a fixed payment structure over an hourly paid model may be more impactful for the program. DAs and PMs have months where the work goes above and beyond the work hours mentioned, which does not get compensated accordingly, and there are constraints to work hours and impact a DA can provide within the limited hours provided. This indeed also impacted the turnaround time, alongside some technical difficulties.

We propose the following payment structure for the PM and DAs, with a base salary of $100/h and an increased projected workload of DA by 33% compared to the previous program, in consideration of the fact that DA not only have on average worked more than what initially was expected in the previous program, but also that they will need to spend time to cross evaluate all proposals above $25,000. On the other hand, the compensation of the PM is instead unchanged.
We are also adding overhead for an extra 6 months, equivalent to 20% of full-time salaries, for the Domain Allocators and the PM to keep evaluating the milestones of the grantees after the natural end of the program. This will ensure the proper continuation of the program and the followup with grantees, despite the program potentially not being renewed if so decided by the DAO. In case the program would be renewed with the same structure and people, or in case the milestone verification would come to an end before the due time, any leftover would be given back to the Arbitrum DAO.

Role Monthly Cost Total
Program Manager and Questbook $10000 $60,000*
Domain Allocator $8000 $192,000
Overhead for extra 6 months $8400 $50,400
Operations Cost, Misc. $10,000
Totals: $312,400

*Note: Questbook will provide the grants committee its grants orchestration tool at a cost of $5000 per month, included in the numbers above with the PM’s payment.

As per the above, the current costs to run program would be 7.8% of the overall budget of the grant program.

  • We suggest that the grants committee continue with Synapse for KYC services and Docusign for all contractual agreements, as we have been using these services throughout the Arbitrum DDA program 1.
  • However, for any specific asks from the grants team in order to run the process more smoothly, Questbook will charge for any additional feature requests based on the development overhead through a retrospective grant proposal from Arbitrum at the end of two quarters.

KPIs and Expectations

Program Success

  • Increase in the number of contributors, proposals, and funded projects
  • Increase in milestone and proposal completion rates
  • Increase in NPS score from all proposers and grantees
  • Lower response turn around time to delegates’ and community’s queries
  • Diversity in projects being funded across technologies, geographies, and demographics, to name a few. We encourage the community members to review the proposals across different domains during community calls regularly
  • Timely publishing of comprehensive monthly grants report, outlining the status, progress, and impact of the program, ensuring transparency and accountability

Enhanced Community Involvement

  • Increase in community engagement across :
    • Discourse
    • Discord, Telegram
    • Social media (Twitter, Reddit)
  • Increase in the community members’ participation to keep domain allocators and program manager accountable (measured by the number of people looking at the dashboard and participating in the program)

Brand Awareness

  • Strengthened contributors’ sentiment and word of mouth towards Arbitrum measured through frequent sentiment surveys/ polls to gauge satisfaction
  • Enhanced Arbitrum’s brand recognition and awareness within contributor circles through surveys or social media analytics, tracking mentions, reach etc.

Contribution of Funded Projects to Arbitrum

  • Number of users onboarded by the funded proposals onto their app/protocol
  • TVL (if applicable) of the selected proposals
  • Number of new interfaces for supplying / borrowing / governance interactions
  • Number of projects that have raised follow on capital after getting a grant from Arbitrum Questbook program

Domain Allocator Roles & Responsibilities

  • All Domain Allocators and the Program Manager will continue to uphold their designated responsibilities as outlined in the Arbitrum DDA Program 1 proposal.
  • Domain allocators may request an audit for the considered/accepted proposals, particularly those that involve Solidity code being deployed into production and directly impacting Arbitrum with an high spending cap. In order to streamline the code auditing process and avoid potential time-consuming challenges, the domain allocators will provide assistance to the considered/accepted proposals by offering feedback on code quality and design.
  • As an addition to the previous iteration, projects will have to submit a proposed timeline for their project. The maximum time to complete the final milestone will be 1 year from the start of this iteration of the program (equivalent of 6 months after the natural end of it); after this date, all undistributed funds related to grant that did not complete their milestones will be given back to the Arbitrum DAO
  • The DAs, alongside the PM, will publish every 45 days in the Arbitrum governance forum a comprehensive report of the current status of the approved applications.
  • Every 2 weeks, the DAs will host a public office hour for protocols to come in and request information about any detail they might need to understand to apply to the grant program. This public call will also be used to provide general feedback on the ongoing program and will also let delegates and other stakeholders ask for information about it
  • Similar to the Arbitrum DDA program 1, the Program Manager will collaborate with the Arbitrum Foundation team and the elected domain allocators to create and list out necessary RFPs in order to ensure alignment with Arbitrum’s priorities and roadmap.

About Questbook

  • Questbook (YC-W21) is a decentralized grant orchestration tool, currently being/previously used by Polygon, AAVE, Celo, Solana, TON, Aleph Zero etc.
  • Considering the achievements of Arbitrum DDA program, as well as the time commitment and operational expertise necessary for running an effective grants program, Questbook will continue in the role of the Program Manager. Srijith from Questbook will keep his role with the responsibilities of the Program Manager.

Next Steps

We welcome the community members to participate in the temperature check and share their feedback and comments below.

Temperature check on the proposal. Please vote!

  • I am in favour of this proposal. Any unallocated funds from Arbitrum Program should be returned to the treasury before renewal.
  • I am not in favour of this proposal and I will post a reply that shares my thoughts
0 voters
16 Likes
2

I want to add some color to this proposal that Srijith prepared alongside the help of us DA (me, @Juandi, @Flook and @cattin).

Want to start with something that usually goes at the end, and I will do it by quoting something i wrote a few days ago in the Report N° 2 for the domain “New Protocols and Ideas”, knowing that Cattin, Adam and Juan all share the same feeling as I do.

We want to keep going with this mission.

As of now, the available grant programs are

  • The Questbook one, covering the range 0-25k, for four different precise domains (protocols, developers, games, community)
  • Plurality Labs (a very heterogeneous program, quite agile and very experimentation oriented)
  • Arbitrum Foundation, covering a range 0-150k (goes in epoch that are based on specific categories, tends to obviously go more toward arbitrum native protocols)
  • STIP, LTIPP which are incentive programs and not bootstrap programs like te aboves, and are also very heavy in term of capitalization (40-50M or more, with grants of up to several millions per protocol)
  • GCP which should be live soon, for gaming, that is instead developer oriented, and that can help high spending in a very specific category.
    For a better analysis of, in general, how different grant programs (should) work, please read this post.

We feel like the Quesbtook program has really filled the gap between 0-25k. While some alternatives where there, Questbook was a consistent reality, always available, in 4 different categories. I personally think we can do even better with more funding as proposed and a cap of 50k, and not because “we want more money to keep going” as it, sometimes, happen, but more cause I saw the limitation of the 25k in some protocols not being able to properly apply just because the amount available was not enough for their needs.
Obviously this is only doable with improvements and more checks and balances, like the one we integrated in the proposal above that came after calls with the community and chat with delegates.

We are really looking forward to know if this structure suites the DAO. We tried to cover what was missing (ie: a prosecution of the program to keep checking on milestones and distribute funds, in case the program doesn’t get a renewal) and to make the overall program more robust.

10 Likes
3

We support well ran and documented initiatives as this one. Jojo and the rest of the team has provided granular documentation on the progress so far with the DDA program and IMO looks like a net positive to keep running this program as proposed above.

6 Likes
4

Hi, I have a question regarding financial results.
How much was paid to Allocators and Managers?
I cannot assess whether funding in this area is increasing.
And the second question: maybe it’s worth voting for roles in this project for other projects?

4 Likes
5

Funding is indeed increasing, as you can check here.

For the managers, it was 10k/m; for DA, it was 5k/m; so a total of 30k/m for 6 months in the first iteration of the program.

In here we are asking 42k/m total for 6 months, plus some more overhead to manage the analysis of milestones for further 6 months for another 8.4k/m total.

EDIT all above numbers are in USD.

7 Likes
6

I think the Arbitrum DDA program has contributed significantly to growing the Arbitrum ecosystem and I’m supportive of this plan for continuation. I like the idea of scaling the program up a bit in terms of total funding and funding allowed per grant.

6 Likes
7

I’ve been following the DAO since the beginning and I really enjoy seeing how the ecosystem is growing through the DDA. Kudos to Juandi, who is an exceptionally willing and proactive guy, and to JoJo for his readiness to provide support.

This represents something incredible in the ecosystem, looking forward to seeing all the projects completed. The Arbitrum ecosystem is huge, boosted by giants and made by giants.

2 Likes
8

So, we have the following distribution:

Role Monthly Cost Was Future Monthly Cost
Program Manager and Questbook $10000 $10000
Domain Allocator $5000 $8,000
Overhead for extra 6 months $0 $8400
Operations Cost, Misc. $3,333 $1 666
Total Total Cost Was Future Total Cost
Totals: $200,000 $312,400

Thus, allocators will work 100 hours per month (80$/hr), but before they worked only 62,5. It almost full time job, but you understand that it’s impossible for You or Cattin (Seed Latam), because you have so much work in other committees besides this one.

And please tell me about Overhead, that were are not used in previous period. I don’t understand their point if you have already increased payment for DA by 33% (in fact by 60%, from 5k to 8k per month)

And please tell me about second question: maybe it’s worth voting for roles in this project for other projects?

3 Likes
9

Ok, point by point.

ECONOMICAL:

On the amount of time/hours: personally, in january, I have worked 90 hours on questbook alone. And, obviously, got paid for the 60h that were planned. This is why we both increased the amount of projected hours but also switched to a fixed comp: it just creates friction to be paid by amount of hours, and you have some issue (re: DA, half of month, having topped out their hours and not being able to serve protocols). This I think is also well explained in the proposal.
On the economical: we adjusted the rate at 100$/h for 80h/m. Before doing so, we also asked some informal feedback to a few delegates, to understand if this was a fair rate to propose to the DAO. General feedback was positive, especially because currently the average DAO hourly rate is definitely higher than 100$/h.

Overhead is to manage the program after the end in 6 months. What happen is that, if you approve a development grant in, let’s say, july, it can likely go up to december for example to deliver. You need to have the DA (or more than 1 DA) in there to verify the milestone, publish result, disburse payment, alongside the PM.
To do this, we have basically put an allocation, for 5 people (4 DA + PM) for 8400/, which is basically 20% of the normal running costs (if monthly the costs is 42000, in here we have 42000*20% = 8400). This is a gap on the program that delegates asked to address. As of now, the current program has no coverage for milestones verification after march: we are going to either have to operate with no coverage, or just release the amount promised for the grants despite milestones not there yet. I am personally looking to do the former for what it matters.

If you think that the overall compensantion for DA or for the PM or for the platform is too much, or that the cost of the program is too much, please let us know.

PEOPLE AND TIME COMMITMENT:

I personally feel that for you saying “this is impossible for me or Cattin”, is, well, a bit of a stretch, and also a very subjective thing.
Rest assure that if me, or anybody else, won’t feel up to the task due to time commitment or other, we would have promptly said it.
My opinion is that is up to the DAO to evaluate the results so far reached, and asses if the persons that so far has managed the program are up for the task or not, and not based on time commitment which again, is really really really subjective.

Sure, anything is doable in the DAO.

If the community feels that either me, @Juandi, @Flook, @cattin, @Srijith-Questbook, or even all of us, did not do a good job, of course we can have new elections.

Just, please let me understand something tho: if you think the above is needed, I guess that it means you likely think that our collective results, or the results of at least one of the domain allocators, were not good enough. If that is the case, would you mind commenting on the following reports and data in regard to the program and results? Would love to read your comments on what we did so far, since I think this is the first time that I see you chiming into this program.
(and, of course, I invite every delegate on commentating on our results so far).

Plus if you want:

Probably is also worth mentioning this thread from @krst, that so far has helped us a lot in highlighting to the community what we did, to ensure a prompt discussion, and a quick renewal of the program (with or without new election I guess) due to the fact that currently the QB grants are the only one that can cover in a robust and reliable way the needs for smaller and small-mid size protocols. He literally called the thread “call for action”.

3 Likes
10

Hi, just to calrify this:

I’m not participating in other committees. @SEEDGov manages the Delegates Incentive system, and I assist them with comms with the DAO (since I’m a delegate I shouldn’t be involved in the management of the program, regardless if I wouldn’t receive compensation as stated in the proposal) and the advisor role for the LTIPP is also managed by other SEED Latam contributors (I’m not involved).

If you want to read more about our domain you can check it out here.

3 Likes
11

I would like to provide feedback on the Arbitrum QUESTBOOK program.

To do this, I would like to draw some parallels as I have participated in several other programs, including recently one from another CHAIN with which we have a partnership.

The way communities interact is very different, and how you pay attention to projects is seen as something that will benefit everyone.

The Arbitrum DAO has had a very positive impact on me, becoming one of the places where I spend the most time learning and interacting.

The entire program was very well designed. In my case, the allocated funds will help kickstart the project, and the growth potential within the community is very appealing.

I appreciate @Flook and @Ricardo_Gordon for all the support provided.

Marco Maia (Osten Games - Data2073)

6 Likes
12

A quick recommendation: maybe change the name to something like
“Questbook Phase 2. DDA Funding”
or something at least with Questbook in it, you know cause branding and to make it easier to notice.

Super supportive of this, and kind of even want to expand the scope potentially (that can also always be done via another proposal, but I would consider potentially including it in this proposal).
The idea behind Joe’s firestarter I really liked, and I thought it was super effective, so potentially having a 5th domain for like “special initiatives” that is maybe governed by questbook, or the domain allocaters as a group I think has merit, so if someone is really grinding away, and we want to keep them committed we can funnel those individuals to this 5th bucket. Maybe gate it behind a needed recommendation or endorsement from a delegate, so its only utilized for time sensitive or high priority initiatives.

Food for thought, but otherwise i though questbook was very useful and transparent, and will support nonetheless.

4 Likes
13

i actually really like this idea.
Question: would it be possible to split up the expansion? What I mean is: we figure out, if DAO likes it, a way to move forward the above. And in parallel we also start to discuss this.

Realistically, season 2 of questbook goes live, and while that is live we finalise the discussion and any addendum to the program itself.

The other questions I have: currently QB covers protocols, gaming, developers, community. What is left out from this in your opinion? Because to me (and I am obviously biased) the potential improvement is a better specialisation of the protocol domain that I manage. It encapsulates basically all the stuff that does not fall in the others, so it tends to be broad. I guess there could be a way to specialise a portion of it?

Otherwise, what special initiatives might fall into this new bucket?

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Good morning, @JoJo .

I thank you for your detailed answer to my questions.

  1. Firstly, I want to say that I have no complaints about the work you performed.
  2. Secondly, I support payment by the job, not by the hour.
    I analyzed the latest offers from Arbitrum, where the salary was indeed about $8,000. However, I want the DAO to spend the community’s money wisely, and for most countries in the world this is a very significant amount.

In the future, I would like there to be a split vote for any proposal:

  • actually, the essence of the proposal, its goals, importance for the community (voting yes/no)
  • costs of project implementation (voting AAAA$; BBBB$; CCCC$).
    This will allow everyone to decide on a project based on its importance first, and costs can be adjusted in a future vote.
    I understand perfectly well that the initiator of the proposal is very interested in voting as he wants, but for the community I think this will be the best choice.
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I have been thinking about this, I think we need a category for “Orbital Chains” as they are growing and surely need DAO support. I also think that L3 races are just around the corner.

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As a beneficiary of this grant program through DeFi Africa, I have witnessed firsthand the immense impact it has had on our community of developers. The support provided has been instrumental in fostering innovation, enhancing knowledge sharing, and empowering developers to build impactful dApps.

I wholeheartedly endorse the efforts to extend this program. Count me in as a staunch supporter and I eagerly anticipate the continued success of the Arbitrum ecosystem.

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would think this could fall into the “new protocols and domain” section. Which is a general bucket.

But I also guess that if the DAO wants to push for more orbit chains (that settles on arbitrum hopefully), we could spin up a specific section with specific funding and a specific framework. It can definitely make sense.

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If this is something we get community support for, I definitely think we can add a domain to the program, and equivalently add a similar budget as the rest of the domains here. Would love to see and get feedback on that.

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Representing web3 Warri - one of the grantees from the Questbook DDA grant program round 1, I support this proposal.

Community building and the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem should be approached as a long-term goal. Leading to sustainability, growth, and a wide nest for proposals and ideas in the long run.

And the detailed report from round 1 by the team is commendable.

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The Questbook Grants is one of a kind in the sense that it serves the lower funding asks, and it has shown to serve its purpose. On top of that, there has been high-level communication and transparency throughout the whole funding process of projects.
I think the team has done a great job in picking out quality projects and transparently communicating on developments throughout the funding process to the wider DAO community; This open and transparent way of feedback and review really speaks to me. Having more open communication and discussion through social media platforms (e.g. Discord, Telegram) seems like a good way to build on the already great communication even further.
For the above reasons, and the reasons set forth in the proposal, I think that extending and increasing the Questbook Grants program will be a positive in serving the lower ask proposals. Also, closing the gap between this program and the Arbitrum Foundation grants program in terms of financial cap seems very logical, and so I fully support this.

One question that arose during my review of the proposal: ‘Define a more robust and structured set of rules for applicants, in regards to providing a timeline for their project(s)’. Will these set of rules be made public before the Snapshot vote? I have the same question in regards to the standardization of the report frequency and template used.

These comments and thoughts reflect my personal opinions on this proposal as a member of the Arbitrum Representative Council (ARC). These do not necessarily represent the overall views of the council, Treasure DAO or provide an indication of final voting decision by the ARC.

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