[REPORTS THREAD] New Protocols and Ideas Domain 2.0

DAO Programs & Initiatives Questbook Updates
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Report: New Protocols and Ideas Domain 2.0

The following is the final report for the “New Protocols and Ideas” domain for Questbook. This report highlights the activity of Season 2 of Questbook, starting from May 2024 to October 2024 and distributing $770,250 to applicants, with softcaps of up to $25,000 for an evaluation of a single DA and up to $50,000 for two DAs. All payments have been denominated in USDC.
Note: while the initial proposal stated that, in case of ARB conversion of less than $1M per domain, we would have requested the differences to the DAO, after speaking with delegates we realized that there was no appetite for further spending. For this reason, the program has effectively been executed with 23% less of what was planned for.

Domain Overview

Number of Proposals: 106
Number of proposals accepted: 29
Total completed proposals: 11
Total funds approved: 761,050$
Total funds disbursed: 328,875$
Total milestones: 104
Total completed milestones: 46

There have been a total of 106 proposals, of which only 29 were approved.

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The bulk of all proposals, without including the category “Others”, are about

  1. DeFi (11.2%)
  2. AI (7.1%)
  3. Governance (7.1%).

The outcome was quite expected: Arbitrum is still considered the DeFi King, and is reflected by the high number of proposals. If we also add the Dex, Trading and Lending, which de facto can be considered as sub-categories of DeFi, we jump to a whopping 23,4%. Basically, almost one proposal out of four has been about Decentralized Finance.

The second category is Artificial Intelligence. This category includes a very heterogeneous set of proposals that put AI at the center. With the democratization of models, we are both classic applications which plug in AI, but also a full set of SDKs and environments to leverage the technology.

Finally we have Governance. The Arbitrum chain is the home of DeFi, but the Arbitrum DAO is the most important DAO out there for the governance processes, and this is reflected by the proposals coming in. We have plenty of Governance tooling proposals, framework for proposals, apps to track the life cycle of proposals etcetera.

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For the approved proposals, the main categories have been

  1. DeFi (10%)
  2. Other (10%)
  3. Governance (10%).

This classification partially matches the one of all presented proposals, with a big difference: the “AI” category has been replaced with the “Other” one. The other includes all of the proposals that don’t have a specific classification, and could partially be interpreted as “experimentation” even though this is not always the case. This choice was a conscious one, because one of the goals of the Questbook program has always been the diversity; at the same time, we have seen how AI has been lately abused, and plugged in products that might not necessarily benefit from it. Up to some degree, proposals with embedded AI mechanics were, sometimes, the ones in which the team might have reflected the less about PMF.

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What could be interesting to analyze is the amount requested by each proposal. In this Questbook season 2, we introduced a soft cap up to 25,000$ with an evaluation of just one domain allocator, and a soft cap up to 50,000$ with an evaluation of two domain allocators.

A lot of teams tried their luck by not requesting the evaluation of two domain allocators, and this is why we see the bulk of the proposals between 20,000$ to 30,000$: most of them are at 25,000$ or below. At the same time, we have a higher amount of requests above 40,000$ compared to the ones between 30,000$ to 40,000$: it’s very clear that the team that needed more funds, tried to go for the maximum available.

In this domain, but also in the others, the DA pushed on all proposals to cut, when possible, spending, both to avoid a situation of creating just two naturally clustering tickets (25,000 and 50,000$), but also as a consequence of the lower amount of funds available in the program compared to what was initially planned.
It has been pretty clear how increasing the cap has unlocked a new wave of teams that weren’t able to tap into a program that was, in season 1, not big enough. It is also an attestation of how Questbook season 2 was designed as gap filler for the Arbitrum Foundation grant program, to cover that range up to 50,000$ for smaller financing of projects.

Summary of the 29 accepted proposals

Improve the Discoverability of Projects Receiving Growth Incentives Using FairAI

  • Link to the proposal: Fair Protocol
  • Funding Approved for: 20,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 2/2

Reason for Approval as DA: The proposal aims to fill one of the gaps in our DAO—marketing—through the use of AI. While it is not necessarily revolutionary, the plan to integrate the bot with data for the upcoming incentive programs (STIP.b and LTIPP, ready to start in a few weeks) and the willingness to work with potential future initiatives (such as the 404 DAO marketing that unfortunately didn’t went through, or others in future) means that a project with potential average value can elevate itself to something more significant for both the team and the Arbitrum ecosystem.
This type of composability, the idea of plugging into the current context rather than an abstract one, is what teams should aim for to truly find product-market fit (PMF).

Utoken app

  • Link to the proposal: Utoken app
  • Funding Approved for: 14,500 USD
  • Milestones completed: 3/3

Reason for Approval as DA: While the application is not revolutionary, it is indeed solid. It can give people the ability to directly pay for bills and, potentially in the future, other goods through crypto, in specific African regions. This adds utility, removes friction, and enhances real use cases, especially in developing countries where traditional banking systems are not widely available.
The team is complete and has previously worked on and delivered other projects successfully. Adding Telegram integration will provide even more access. Considering the amount requested, it is fair and appropriate to grant the funding.

StationX on Arbitrum

  • Link to the proposal: StationX on Arbitrum
  • Funding Approved for: 24,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 3/3

Reason for Approval as DA: The application is fairly straightforward. The team wants to deploy a set of functionalities in Arbitrum (KYC for stations, spaces, and integration with some DeFi protocols) that have already been deployed on other chains.
The idea is to democratize participation in ventures, making them accessible to a broader set of users. This aligns well with the ethos of crypto, where reducing friction not only enhances user experience compared to traditional finance but also opens up more opportunities.

The team is well-versed in their product, having iterated on it for a couple of years, and they are expanding across several chains. Given the team’s proven track record and the alignment of their idea with crypto culture, it is worth pursuing.

Automated Reputation Scoring Platform Based on On-Chain Arbitrum Activity

Reason for Approval as DA: Reputation systems are gaining more traction over time. They have been around for a while, with usage typically limited to specific tasks. The hope is that with public goods like this, we will see increased integration of wallet reputation into core systems and dApps in general.
The idea is not necessarily novel, but it is well executed and robust, especially since the product will be a public good. The team has a solid track record that inspires confidence, and the founder has been very persistent in pursuing this grant. While the latter point is not necessarily within the scope of evaluation, driven founders are always a good indication of potential success.
For these reasons, we are awarding the grant to this proposal, hoping that the outcome will be a solid product usable by all Arbitrum users.

Sonica: Empowering RWA Tokenization with Arbitrum Integration

Reason for Approval as DA: This is an application that is not necessarily groundbreaking but is very solid. If well executed, it can effectively tap into several addressable market pockets that are currently not exploited. Combining Web2, Web3, tokenization, and RWA (real-world assets) could either be an exercise in style or something quite useful. If this is the evaluation, why is the application approved?
Because the Sonica team is approaching it in the right way, specifically through well-known Web2 methods: integration through API, security-oriented practices, and no-code solutions. These are characteristics that are essential in corporate reality when you want to start an integration with a new partner.
If a tokenization, no-code platform is going to work effectively, the above is a robust and solid plan.
The team was also able to reduce their request by almost 30%, which I highly appreciate.

Collabberry: Compensation for early stage teams with On-chain Project Points

Reason for Approval as DA: Collabberry presents an innovative approach to improving compensation models by addressing the pitfalls of existing solutions like Coordinape. The team has support from RnDAO and experienced members, though some team members are unspecified, indicating potential gaps in experience. This is effectively the biggest risk, but the idea is novel enough to warrant taking this risk.
The proposal is thorough, with clear objectives and detailed problem identification. The timeline and goals are feasible due to the team’s understanding of the product.
Interesting to note is that, probably, on another chain this product would not have the same value it has here. Arbitrum DAO is demonstrating, for better or worse, to be one of the most decentralized entities in the crypto world. Collabberry can indeed have a role as a tool for small and mid-sized teams, and potentially more in the future, to alleviate the issues of payment in what is effectively a horizontal world.

Complete Analytics of All Arbitrum NFTs on Degenz

Reason for Approval as DA: This is a project that is not very innovative but is solid.
As we all know, NFTs are a pain point in Arbitrum; they are also an asset class that has been almost forgotten by the market for now. However, forgetting doesn’t mean they won’t have a resurgence at some point. When that happens, we want to be ready in Arbitrum, infrastructure-wise. Degenz offers a very good platform, detail-oriented on NFTs and other topics of interest such as Friend Tech.

While it could be argued that the platform itself might not be totally focused on a single asset class or might lack a specific identity, there is indeed good work behind it, with a community of several tens of thousands on Twitter and very good informative dashboards. For this reason, financing an NFT dashboard specifically for Arbitrum feels like a good investment of resources because the experience of the team and the fact that they have been running their business for a few years significantly lowers the related risks.

DexPal.ai

  • Link to the proposal: DexPal.ai
  • Funding Approved for: 25,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 3/3

Reason for Approval as DA: The proposal of DexPal is for a “good old DeFi analytical platform.” While Arbitrum is still largely the land of DeFi, we haven’t seen many of these types of proposals in Questbook lately, with folks wanting to experiment with more novel projects. So there was some curiosity to see an application that was a dashboard to aggregate perps.
There was a big difference between the initial application and the demo witnessed on a call. The proposal was a bit poor, but the demo was impressive, to the point that I advised the team to level up their ability in writing decks and materials for future investors.
It was surprising to see a platform similar to Oku, another DeFi platform oriented toward Uniswap and pool management/liquidity/swaps. Despite these important differences, the two applications are quite similar and face similar challenges: aggregating several sources (for Oku, pools; for DexPal, exchanges/perps), showing users specific data from these different sources, fetching a large amount of data, etc.
DexPal is on track to create a very good dApp that could potentially be key in the future of Arbitrum if they play their cards right. We couldn’t find a way to fit more developments into this specific proposal, but this grant is also preparatory for a future raise and to showcase abilities to investors. It can really be a good flywheel for the project.

Station X

  • Link to the proposal: StationX on Arbitrum
  • Funding Approved for: 24,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 3/3

Reason for Approval as DA: The application is pretty straightforward: the team wants to bring to Arbitrum a set of features (KYC for stations, spaces, plus integration with some DeFi protocols) they’ve already rolled out on other chains. The idea is to open up participation in ventures; basically, it’s about making certain investments more accessible to a wider group of users. This fits well with the crypto ethos - it’s not just about making things smoother than traditional finance for everyday use, but also about creating more opportunities.
The team knows their product inside out, having worked on it for a couple of years now, and they’re expanding to various chains. It’s worth backing because of the team’s quality and proven track record, and because the idea aligns with crypto culture.

Locale Network

  • Link to the proposal: Locale Network
  • Funding Approved for: 35,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 4/4

Reason for Approval as DA: This was a complex application to evaluate, and also required the help of a second domain allocator, in this case SeedLatam, for the evaluation.
The application wants to allow loans utilizing E-TRAN scores for evaluation, and wants to reduce the friction an SMB can have in the rural portion of the country where the banks don’t provide this service due to lack of profitability. The idea of the team is to plug in crypto as a way to tap in liquidity.
The application, initially, was about the team getting their own license, building the infra, getting all the regulatory papers and stamps needed and bootstrap the protocol. But, unfortunately, there were a few risks for the program, namely the potential regulation risk and time risk to deliver. There was easily the chance of having compliance issues, or just others that can happen in any venture, and this would have not been compatible with the time horizon of 6 months of the program. We had to downscale the proposal a bit, namely on the team utilizing already existing financial infrastructure instead of directly pursuing their own during this specific grant.
The result is quite satisfying: the proposal is novel, is a bridge of 2 worlds (financial for small business and crypto), tries to tackle a problem that exist (rural areas not being served by certain financial services), and has a novel mechanism (loan terms adjusted based on real world scoring, specifically of usa business).

Arbitrum DeFi Dollar

Reason for Approval as DA: In my knowledge there is currently no dashboard, in arbitrum showing this info: the amount of stables being provided, and being lent, in the chain, alongside the costs. This dashboard can for sure be interesting, especially because it is developed as public good, by a team that has some names with experience in lending protocols such as AAVE.
It perfectly fits the narrative of Arbitrum as the home of DeFi, and could potentially be an inspiration for others to fork it or iterate on top of it to create further informational services and dashboard.
It also has some very logical criterias on why a certain protocol, or a certain stable, should be included in the dashboard itself.

All-in-one management Tool for delegates

Reason for Approval as DA: For the sake of disclosure, it is necessary to explain how SeedLatam is one of the members of this grant program, for the domain “Education, Community Growth and Events”. But also, SeedLatam is a big organization, spanning from governance to event to running nodes and other ventures; for this reason, and because the people involved in Questbook program were not the ones involved in this very proposal, we evaluated that there was no conflict of interest nor any specific issue in SeedLatam presenting a grant request for a project, that was evaluated by me and the DA of Dev Tooling, Juandi.
The proposal wants to build a governance tool to make life easier for all DAO. In Arbitrum we are seeing an exponential growth in the amount of participants, thanks also to the Delegate Incentive Program, and this is also reflected in the amount of proposals drafted and published first in the forum, and then in snapshot/tally.
Even just for these reasons, creating a standardized framework with integrations on the currently used tools and data, such as pulling actual proposals, up to create a ““delegate dashboard””, and potentially beyond, is something worth pursuing and financing. Knowing that Seed doesn’t just theorize on these topics but has hands directly in the governance matters, I suspect the final tool will be something not only usable, but used by most professional delegates.

Alphaday

Reason for Approval as DA: This proposal is something new in Questbook in the sense that is, effectively, a retrogrant for a big portion of the product.
The dashboard, with a focus on Arbitrum news, videos and a lot of other material, is already available, and I have to say is already quite enjoyable. The proposal wants to also make it better through the addition of job posting, governance news and others.
For the amount requested, and for the quality of the product, this approval was quite easy. And again, is a bit out of scope being, partially, a retrogrant, but looking at the product and looking at what the team has overall realized, is likely positive for the dao to finance this project.

Gonana

  • Link to the proposal: Gonana Marketplace
  • Funding Approved for: 15,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 3/3

Reason for Approval as DA: This proposal taps into the creation of an agricultural marketplace leveraging blockchain technology. It tries to address specific issues in the African region regarding putting in communication distributors with farmers, in a way that is transparent, open and fair. Through the marketplace, and with escrow contracts, the stakeholders will be able to sell/buy, and also put forward bids and asks, agricultural products, thus removing communication and other barriers. The proposal also wants to implement an educational part, with video content, to allow users to properly understand how to use the platform.
I was initially on the fence on this application, especially because I wasn’t sure how it would get traction and a decent amount of user base if any. The grantee explained during the interview that they have a relationship with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), which currently has contacts with 15k farmers that they are profiling, which is a potential good start.
This, more than a grant, is a bet on the questbook side: it’s quite risky because, due to the nature of the protocol, and how it is entangled with specific economics and politics of the Nigerian region, a lot of things can go wrong and would result in an unsuccessful grant. But also, this is the type of grant that, from a usage standpoint, is quite asymmetric: if it works, we can have an application that can potentially change a lot of lives for the best.

Song

Reason for Approval as DA: This proposal was initially rejected not because of the idea, but for the gaps in the team members. Let’s start with what the application wants to do: solve the problem of royalties with NFT in the music industry. Effectively my initial reaction was ““why should we try to tackle a model, the royalty one, that so far has seen a play of cat and mouse around it””. Then, after re-reading the application, it was more clear that it was not about the royalty problem per se, but about evolving and adapting a tool (the NFT) to a media (the music), by putting together upgradable metadata, ownership and others. It is, indeed, a step forward likely in the right direction; even if it would not lead to what effectively the future will be for this industry and erc, is likely an experiment worth taking.
The initial team was composed of only two persons, one with a lot of heterogeneous skills including technical ones, and another with verticals in the music industry. This was the reason for the initial rejection: lack of designers and front end developers, and of other figures, made the risk of not delivering what was promised in the grant program just too high. My initial evaluation, as exception to the usual rules applies, was to come back with a more complete team and, effectively, this is what happened. This not only makes me happy, but shows the commitment of the team in pursuing the route of the grant program in Arbitrum through questbook.

Simplr

Reason for Approval as DA: My initial approach to the Simplr application was a bit biased: we have seen plenty of applications regarding the usage of web3 technologies to tackle the inequalities and inefficiencies of secondary ticket markets. I have to say, the team was able to change my mind.
The team in his application was able to show how they effectively conducted studies on the ground capable of making this application at least potentially oriented toward success. Their partnership with events, to convert tickets from LuMa and eventbrite to NFT, was indeed one of the infinite ways in which you would validate the flow of information and UI from a user standpoint, as well as the test directly with smaller events.
How solid their approach is, and the fact that the team, after submission, worked for 2 months to find a BD lead (which is extremely needed in a protocol like this) convinced me to move forward in the grant despite the initial biases.

EmberAI

Reason for Approval as DA: The idea behind Ember AI is interesting: utilize AI and a custom widget to be able to interact with DeFi protocols, in a way that is somehow similar to what we are used to in Web2 applications; the team specifically mentions, for example, stripe.
The spin of a very custom and deep integration of AI into DeFi model is something potentially quite good to improve UX; at the same time, the main issue is the scalability of the project, since for every new protocol we require to have not only a custom widget, that maybe would also require a look & feel similar to the protocols on top of which the integration is done, but also a deep study and understanding of the dynamics.
I think it is worth financing this application, because it would be a great first iteration on trying to improve UX, one of the main missions that we currently have as an industry.

Secuwa

Reason for Approval as DA: This project is quite straightforward: give users the ability to move capital from bank accounts to crypto (through chain abstraction) thus obtaining a higher yield for their savings.
The idea is simple but solid because it relies on using QoL technology, such as account abstraction, a mobile first experience, and battle tested protocols like AAVE and Uniswap. For this reason I think the project is worth pursuing: it will effectively onboard people to crypto without them almost knowing, will provide a frictionless experience to use some of the most famous protocols, and will serve as a bridge to enhance liquidity in the ecosystem.
The experience of the team is such that they can achieve PMF with this application.

Primis

Reason for Approval as DA: This project was quite complex to evaluate: it puts together staked assets, bonding, decentralized infra for gaming, and a B2B approach.
Users will be able to deposit LRT assets; these will be bonded, and users will be for example rewarded through the native token of the protocol. At the same time, the yield generated will be used to pay for infrastructure for gaming such as servers that can be used by web3 games. Over time the protocol will evolve into an orbit chain settling on Arbitrum. The main customers of this protocol will not be players but directly web3 companies that need a solid partner for their infrastructure.
This is an extremely ambitious project, one worth in our opinion financing to see the outcome, especially now that Arbitrum wants to establish itself as the home of games through initiatives such as GCP; a proposal like this one is a perfect fit in this environment.

Dream Protocol

  • Link to the proposal: Dream Protocol
  • Funding Approved for: 24,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 1/3

Reason for Approval as DA: The proposal comes from the team behind Knights Of The Ether, a well established game that was born in Arbitrum.
Idea is to get AI, a topic that is extremely trendy right now in every platform (including Questbook), to create something with real value and utility. Dream protocol currently allows users to create art for 2D cards to which they will attach mechanics. The most popular ones by votes will be then used in the game Blightfell. The proposal is about extending these capabilities to any type of asset, for any game, deployed in Arbitrum or in Orbit chains.
I am indeed excited about this proposal, because it is about streamlining the working capabilities of a team by reducing the amount of load on certain tasks. The tool will also not be gated, will have a front end for easiness of usage for external parties, will be capable to host media and files from users, and will also be used, at least initially, not in a SaaS type of model but to gather info and insight on what users and protocols wants and likely to also better train the model. This approach is in general the type that we want in any grant, because it doesn’t look specifically to monetization, but has an approach with the goal of scaling and growing the product first in a way that has value and utility.
I am extremely curious to see what this tool will be in 6 months from now.

ArbitrumDAO Governance Analytics Dashboard - Curialab

Reason for Approval as DA: This application has had quite a run, first being presented directly to the DAO and failing a snapshot, and then moving to Questbook. In here we were able to work with the Curia team together to understand how we could potentially make it be a better fit for both this program and the ecosystem. In the end, there was not too much to change in terms of content: the platform is quite good, Curia is also an extremely experienced delegate and team, and the work they are doing in other DAOs is of high quality.
Their alignment to our core values is definitely here, and there is an intrinsic importance for these initiatives in Arbitrum now with the upcoming staking proposal that will indeed make governance even more important than what it is now. Furthermore, the team was able to trim 20% of their initial request to better fit in a program that is extremely oversubscribed. The amount requested for a customized platform, and 6 months of report and analysis on governance, is definitely a fair amount.

Stormbit

  • Link to the proposal: Stormbit
  • Funding Approved for: 25,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 1/3

Reason for Approval as DA: In the Stormbit protocol the idea is to leverage data fetched through Reclaim protocol to create a p2p lending platform with specific terms.
The goal is to have custom loans, based on both onchain and offchain information and scoring, that can be evaluated by the counterparty, with these scoring being verified through ZK proofs. This means effectively a high degree of customization, such as integration of hooks, permissioned pools, optional kyc and others.
The plan is effectively interesting since the composability opens up to experimentation that can likely lead to useful results, such as: how can we build alternative lending platforms that can find PMF in crypto, what specific implementations these platforms should have, etcetera.
The project, I have to say, is extremely risky, in the sense it could potentially have either a huge success, or none, or anything in between, but is worth financing for the experimentation.

Virtual Event: Revolutionising Academic Credentialing with Blockchain

Reason for Approval as DA: The proposal aims to put academic credentials on chain through NFT.
There is indeed an enormous TAM to address with an initiative like this, but this market could be created only through experiments like this one, because standardization of credentials and interoperability will be key, and NFT is just one of the multiple ways in which this could be achieved.
What is good about this proposal is not only the budget, relatively small, but also that the team is already in contact with educational institutions and will have a milestone approach including the integration in pilot universities. This to me is key, because it makes the proposal not just an academic/research one, but something with a practical impact and data to study for the future.
The combination of not so costly economics, utility and real application makes this an easy yes.

zkVerify - zk-proof verification system for Arbitrum

Reason for Approval as DA: The zkVerify proposal focuses on enabling apps on Arbitrum to use zk proof technologies. It offers a dedicated zk-proof generation and verification layer to reduce the time and cost of zk-proof operations, making them faster and more affordable, and presents potential use cases like private voting, identity verification, and decentralized games.
The good thing is that we are talking about a protocol that has been on live testnet since March 2024, with already concrete plans for a full mainnet launch. The grant request would not only support the design of the protocol, but also implementation and promotion. Latter seems important due to how key zk technology seems to be (according to much smarter people than me like Vitalik), and how we should push it along in Arbitrum to compete against chains that have their core value in the zk integration.
I don’t think this could have come from a team with more experience than Horizen Labs, the team behind not only zkVerify but also Apechain.

QuantAMM

  • Link to the proposal: QuantAMM.fi
  • Funding Approved for: 25,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 0/3

Reason for Approval as DA: The QuantAMM application is a “classic” DeFi type of proposal. Ironically, we haven’t seen too many DeFi proposals in this season of Questbook.
The team wants to bring traditional quant strategies on blockchain, starting with a very basic one such as a Macd strategy based on which you would go long or short an asset based on the specific readings of a technical indicator. What is really interesting tho is that all computation is done onchain, which makes not only the application interesting for the idea but also for the implementation.
The macd is a first of a potential infinite set of strategies that we should see live over time. While simple, it will be easy enough for people to understand and a good PoC for the whole product. And hopefully we will see more advanced strategies from traditional and quantitative finance coming in this world.

Proposal.app

Reason for Approval as DA: The Arbitrum Proposals App represents a good advancement in governance infrastructure for the Arbitrum ecosystem. By consolidating the entire lifecycle of proposals, from initial forum discussions to on-chain execution, this tool addresses a significant gap in the current governance process. Effective governance is so important for the Arbitrum ecosystem and for its growth, and this application will definitely help delegates and voters with comprehensive and easily accessible information. The unified view of proposal data will help the decision making process: one of the most difficult things is effectively to track how a proposal has evolved over time, and this transparency will fill the gap in the information asymmetry between delegates extremely entrenched versus newer ones. The project’s commitment to open-source development, and its positioning as a public good, align with the ethos of decentralization. Giving a grant to this tool is an investment in the quality of Arbitrum’s governance, and also supports our DAO activity since this application was the winner of GovHack in Bruxelles.

ĀutOS

Reason for Approval as DA: The proposal wants to iterate upon the concept of RepFi, Reputation Finance. This idea has been explored in several ways and is still currently under experiment, with no standardization inside but also some overlap with online identities. Is definitely a use case in which crypto will remove friction compared to traditional venues and financial systems and should be worth exploring.
What is interesting about this application is that it is extremely model oriented, built upon a math model more than specific desired outcome. The main hurdle I see here is then translating the model into something that, UX wise, is enjoyable for users, plus the fact that the current grant covers only a part of the application (it was initially a way larger request).
Despite this, it is worth pursuing for the very robust underneath approach, plus there is an embedded modularity that alongside the mentioned model will help it likely to scale fast if it has success.
Extremely interesting experiment, to me done in the right way, and very asymmetric in results if it succeeds.

Incentive Distributions / Verifiability - A different spin towards UA

Reason for Approval as DA: Clique’s proposal for automated attestations through TEE integration can definitely help the Arbitrum gaming ecosystem. Their past adventure with the Arbitrum Arcade, which engaged over 15000 unique addresses in 22 games, demonstrates their ability to scale projects effectively. They initially got a grant from the foundation, and iterated on top of this. There are a few key learnings that they are addressing such as limited claim windows and user friction, and so they aim to abstract the attestation process from end-users. Their plan to integrate with 5-10 top Arbitrum-aligned games and create a custom rewards system based on gaming data is consistent with an evolution, and a grant, that is basically doubling down on a success story started through the AF grants. Integrating Steam data (so web2) and Web3 gaming data is likely a small but needed initial step to a more omni comprehensive integration of gaming outside of crypto, which could for sure be leveraged in future. This project has the potential to create a more interconnected and data enriched gaming environment, and is worth financing to keep it moving as a key infra of a vertical that is quite important in our ecosystem.

Wavy Nodes

  • Link to the proposal: Wavy Node
  • Funding Approved for: 23,125 USD
  • Milestones completed: 1/7

Reason for Approval as DA: This proposal has been extremely interesting to evaluate.
The team wants to create a public good platform security oriented, to be able to create alerts in case of exploit or other hack for specific protocols, and they plan to also grow into providing services for traditional finance platforms.
During the interview, they were capable to answer questions on how they would manage alerts without creating potential damage to the CT community through false positive (answer: attacks detected and notified to protocols in an automated fashion, but manually reviewed before going public on socials), or how they would scale the platform with several more protocols (answer: modularity of architecture through micro services).
For an application like this, you also need experience and history in the security field, and the team has it. Overall both the idea and the fact that it is a public good makes the grant quite easy to approve.

Echo Lab

  • Link to the proposal: Echo Lab
  • Funding Approved for: 25,000 USD
  • Milestones completed: 0/4

Reason for Approval as DA: Echo Lab’s proposal for a multi-chain DeFi copy trading platform is interesting. The team’s background in algorithmic trading is quite a fit, and their idea on how to integrate AI driven signals for trading could offer a new approach to both automated trading and to the usage of a technology, AI, that right now is put everywhere, almost it was a label to get a traction on a project. The application was refined by the team after the feedback, and they were quite receptive about how to change: this is always good, and is a lot of time a proxy of teams capable of understanding feedback from the market as well. The budget seems reasonable, and allocates a portion of the capital to a security audit which is always a must have more than a nice to have nowadays. Overall, the proposal shows a solid, good old DeFi application, worth a grant and worth the experiment.

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Here is the recording of the call we had friday, the 18th of october, to recap the impact of this second season of Questbook!

Questbook Season 2 DA recap (2024-10-18)
Questbook Season 2 DA recap (2024-10-18) - Transcript chat

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