Grants - Wave 1 Learnings + Future Plans

📣 Updates & Reporting 💪 Org Updates
1

Wave 1 Retrospective

On July 20th, Radicle Grants stopped taking in applications.

Below is a summary of the first wave and at bottom, notes on where I’d like to push things going forward.

Grants Summary

Below are all grants from Wave 1, ranked first by grant size, with a priority on whether they were accepted.

grant_name application_date total_amount_usdc funded status url notes
DevNode 2022-06-08 50,000.00 1 started DevNode: Aggregating developer learning and support communities across Discords - #10 by bordumb
IDE Plugin Implementation 2022-06-17 27,650.00 1 started [Application] Radicle Jetbrains IDE Plugin - Implementation Phase 1 - #5 by bordumb 1st 3rd party integration
IDE Plugin Research 2022-02-18 25,000.00 1 started [Application] Radicle IDE Plugins - UX Design - #25 by yorgos 1st 3rd party integration
DAOstar One 2022-03-06 20,000.00 1 completed Grant application: DAOstar One DAO EIP project; no Radicle specific deliverable
Otterspace 2022-05-30 12,500.00 1 started Otterspace: Soulbound Contributor Badges for DAOs - Grant Application - #6 by rsquare
LearnWeb3 2022-02-07 5,000.00 1 abandoned LearnWeb3 DAO - Grant Application milestone 1 completed, milestone 2 abandoned
CLI x Drips 2022-05-09 4,900.00 1 abandoned Drips CLI + SDK tutorial for node.js - #4 by donnoh milestone 1 completed, then abandoned
naming radicle orgs 2022-01-22 2,000.00 1 completed Retroactive Grant Application - Naming Radicle Orgs in Upstream - #2 by bordumb retroactive funding
Yubiai 2022-06-13 300,000.00 0 rejected Yubiai (D-Marketplace) - Grant Application - #2 by bordumb unrelated to Radicle
Proposal Inverter 2022-04-07 150,000.00 0 rejected Grant Application- Dogfooding the Proposal Inverter - #8 by bordumb unable to reach quorum; unrealistic timelines and unproven team
Radicle Analytics 2022-03-21 84,000.00 0 rejected [Application] - Radicle Discovery + Analytics - #4 by mrudulgole Radicle products not ready yet
ETHAnglia 2022-02-03 50,000.00 0 rejected ETHAnglia - 0 to web3 - #10 by ETHAnglia unrelated to Radicle, no very scalable
Ditto NFT Futures 2022-02-02 50,000.00 0 rejected [Application] Ditto Protocol - NFT Futures - #2 by bordumb unrelated to Radicle
3RM.co 2022-05-03 50,000.00 0 rejected 3RM.co - Grant Application
RADAR 2022-05-02 50,000.00 0 rejected RADAR x Radicle Grant Proposal unrelated to Radicle
YieldGate 2022-05-18 49,600.00 0 rejected Yieldgate Grant Application - #7 by seb unrelated to Radicle
YieldGate 2 2022-07-18 49,200.00 0 rejected Yieldgate - development, badges and Drips integration research - #3 by seb unrelated to Radicle
JokeDAO 2022-06-14 40,000.00 0 rejected Jokedao — grant application unrelated to Radicle
OutTube 2022-06-13 30,000.00 0 rejected OurTube Grant Application - #2 by bordumb unrelated to Radicle
TributeDAO Framework Integration 2022-03-31 25,000.00 0 rejected Radicle Org TributeDAO Framework Integration - #5 by alpinelines unrelated to Radicle
Widelens 2022-02-13 25,000.00 0 rejected Grant Application for Widelens - #8 by bordumb unrelated to Radicle
no-name 2022-02-04 20,000.00 0 rejected Grant application for Freeform Grant - #2 by bordumb incomplete application
CommunityBuild 2022-06-25 15,000.00 0 rejected CommunityBuild x Radicle Grant Proposal general rule to not fund marketing
DeFiSlate DAO 2022-02-07 10,000.00 0 rejected Grant application DeFiSlate DAO - #2 by bordumb unrelated to Radicle
Radicle Community Anthem 2022-04-06 6,500.00 0 rejected Radicle Community Anthem general rule to not fund marketing
Odyssey DAO 2022-03-29 0.00 0 rejected Odyssey DAO - Grant Application missing too much info
NFT Search Engine 2022-06-03 0.00 0 rejected Expanding NFT and Metaverse Ecosystem on Radicle by creating NFT Search Engine - #2 by bordumb unrelated to Radicle

Emergent Patterns

The majority of successful grants directly support the Radicle ecosystem, web3, or FOSS in general.

Conversely, the majority of rejections were due to grants not being related to Radicle or FOSS.

This is in-line with the original charger and should continue.

Grants by the Numbers

Applications

  • Total applications: 27
  • Total applications in USDC: 1,151,350 USDC

Successful Applicants

  • Total grants funded: 8 (29% success rate)
  • Total grants funded in USDC: ~52,430 USDC (5.2% of total)

Notable Firsts

  • 1 applicant returned for a 2nd grant
  • 1 project drove prioritization of Core Dev work (Gnosis Safe, multi-sig integration for Work-Streams)

Areas to Improve

  • 1 vote rejected after voting started
    • Short term: find better ways to gauge vote intent earlier on
    • Long term: implement some off-chain way of voting to get intent
  • 1 grant abandoned due to core Radicle product issues (LearnWeb3; little/no Microsoft support)
    • Short term: find better ways to assess possible issues on horizon
    • Long term: get Microsoft supported
  • 1 grant abandoned due to 3rd party dependency issues (CLI x Drips; WalletConnect issues)
    • Short term: get grantee team more closely connected to Core Dev, if helpful
    • Long term: possibly create partnerships with 3rd party dependencies to fund/prioritize around grantee roadblocks
  • 2:5 ratio between Grant Funding to Committee Fees (too high)
    • Short term: recruit more high quality grants that can pass quorum, so that this ratio improves
    • Long term: same as above

Multi-Sig Participation

Ranked in order by number of votes:

  • Bordumb: 13
  • Nader: 12
  • Nas: 11
  • Abbey: 10
  • Reverie (Larry + Derek): 5
  • Kei: 4

Note: the numbers indicate votes made, including instances where the member explicitly abstained from voting on Discourse.

Wave 2 Prospectus

Basic Plan

  • Return wave 1 funds to Treasury Address by September 20, 2022
  • Reapply with new proposal - focused on optimistic funding - by September 20, 2022
  • Ask current multi-sig members to continue work, with deadline of September 20, 2022

Objectives

  1. Dogfooding

    1. Grant Committee: facilitate grants exclusively using Workstreams. First time grants get 20% streamed over each milestone’s timeline, with 80% one-off payment upon completion. Trust-worthy grantees (i.e. returning teams) get 50% streamed over same timeline, with 50% upon completion.
    2. Grantees: grantees using Issues, Patches, etc., with possible bonus program to incentivize

  2. Retroactively Fund Dependencies

    1. Get 4 main dependencies of ours (Gnosis Safe, Snapshot, Compound, Drips Devs) onboarded to Drips, including configuring Drips for 3-4 of their dependencies.
    2. Drip $10,000 (4% of budget) to each dependency.
    3. Write blog post about retroactive funding of FOSS.

  3. Web3 Partnerships

    1. 1st Party Projects: If a grantee gets blocked with a core Radicle Grants dependency, find a way to unblock them by getting on Core Dev roadmap
    2. 1st Party Recruiting: Use Grants as a funnel to recruit for Core Dev teams + build new Core teams
    3. 3rd Party: If a grantee gets blocked with a 3rd party dependency, find a way to unblock them by partnering with, and possibly funding that 3rd party to prioritize work to unblock grantee

  4. Be at forefront of transition to DAO

    1. Proposal: create new sub-DAO proposal by September 20th
    2. Funding: switch to optimistic funding (e.g. 1,000,000 USDC until revoked by main DAO, with option to re-up on ad-hoc basis)
    3. Reviews: switch to optimistic reviews (e.g. once per 6 month period, with no changes to general structure unless noted)