PROPOSAL CATEGORY: Informational
PROPOSAL NAME: GWG x UMA On-Chain Grants
PROPOSAL AUTHORS: AllCityBAYC and UMA Protocol Team
TEAM DESCRIPTION:
The Governance Working Group and its Stewards play a pivotal role in enhancing ApeCoinDAO’s governance processes. Their responsibilities include proposal development for ecosystem improvements and growth, fostering external collaborations (such as with UMA), and overseeing the drafting, implementation, and execution of operational budgets for ApeCoinDAO.
UMA’s optimistic oracle secures bridges, prediction markets, and financial contracts with a TVS of over $500 million. oSnap has been successfully adopted by CoW DAO, Across, Connext, ShapeShift, and Lossless Protocol, securing over $250 million in on-chain treasuries and attesting to its reliability and effectiveness.
Collaborative unit includes:
ALL CITY
ALL CITY is an ApeCoinDAO Governance Working Group Steward who serves as a key strategist with a proven history authoring successful AIP proposals, GWG initiatives, and DAO-wide campaigns. His primary focusses include identifying potential contributors who can bring value to the ApeCoin ecosystem, and increasing voter turnout.
BigBull
BigBull is a newly elected ApeCoinDAO Governance Working Group Steward bringing an economics degree with postgraduate studies and over 25 years of business experience and strategic advisory at Fortune 500, and listed private companies. Since becoming a regular contributor at the DAO, he has written a successful AIP proposal, been elected to two key roles within the ecosystem, and pledged to increase the amount of ApeCoinDAO voting delegations to as many as 50 in 2024.
0xAmplify
0xAmplify is a longstanding contributor to ApeCoinDAO who has served as a Governance, and WG0 Steward and remains committed to the DAO for the foreseeable future who the GWG may choose to use as a consultant on the program.
Alex Gaines
Alex is an engineer at UMA. He is a core contributor to the creation of oSnap and the partnership with Snapshot. Along with a significant focus on helping onboard DAOs to oSnap, he has worked with insurance and prediction markets to utilize the full potential of UMA and an optimistic oracle.
Lee Poettcker
Lee is an Integrations Engineer with strong technical and communication skills. He supports DAOs in their onboarding and continued use of oSnap. He has experience writing DAO tooling smart contracts for Hats Protocol and has competed at and won prizes in 4 ETHGlobal hackathons.
Manny Narang
Manny is the Head of Sales at UMA, with a specialized focus on DAO governance and decentralized finance solutions. His extensive experience in sales and business development within the tech sector has been pivotal in propelling UMA’s market presence, especially in the niche of DAO governance.
ABSTRACT:
This no-cost proposal signifies a strategic partnership between ApeCoinDAOs Governance Working Group (GWG) and UMA, aiming to launch an innovative on-chain grants program utilizing their Optimistic Snapshot Execution (oSnap) protocol; an optimistic governance tool that will represent a leap towards true decentralized decision-making and a strategic administrative overhead reduction.
The program will be designed to support proposals and community-tailored proposals below 8,500 APE targeting areas that include, but not limited to, cross-community grant programs, in-person events, intellectual property propagation, professional service provider costs for ApeCoin-funded ventures and initiatives, educational services, app and layer-two solution developers, and seed funding for early ideas.
No additional costs are tied to the implementation of UMA’s oSnap protocol, or the development and management of the program, to be completed by the Governance Working Group.
Total allocation of APE designated for grant recipients who participate in this program to be determined in an upcoming proposal.
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BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM:
1. Decentralized Transparency
Transitioning to on-chain grants represents a significant stride towards an actual decentralized process; fostering a more inclusive, transparent, and traceable record-keeping system.
2. Reduced Administration Costs
By leveraging UMAs oSnap protocol we can initiate the process of reducing dependence on human involvement in various aspects of the grant process, and reduce monthly overhead.
3. Pathway Toward an On-Chain Treasury
By tapping into a dedicated on-chain grants pool, we can inspire the community to reconsider the locations where ApeCoinDAO stores the majority of its treasury. This collective effort aims to foster a more diversified and resilient financial future.
4. Faster Grant Distribution
The program ensures prompt access to grant funding once voting concludes, eliminating inherent delays in the traditional AIP process. This assurance ensures that approved projects receive timely support.
5. Expanded Grant Accessibility
By providing more accessible grant funding compared to average AIP requests, the program aims to broaden its reach to a wider audience and increase the number of funding requests under 8500 APE. This initiative opens up new doors for community members and facilitates more onboarding into ApeCoinDAO.
6. Focused Grant Categories
Recognizing the current lack of emphasis on specific grant categories, this proposal seeks to identify and channel community efforts towards key areas. By encouraging increased contributions that target the sectors ApeCoinDAO needs most, the program ensures a more focused and impactful allocation of resources.
In summary, the transition to on-chain grants is a strategic move leveraging blockchain advantages to enhance transparency, efficiency, and decentralization in the ApeCoinDAO funding distribution process with an overarching goal to reduce administration overhead.
KEY TERMS:
Cross-Community Grants
Cross-Community Grants: Grant opportunities offered to Web3 communities that have not yet engaged with ApeCoin or the ApeCoinDAO AIP voting process.
Intellectual Property Propagation
Intellectual Property Propagation: Advancing opportunities for intellectual property (IP) focused grants.
Optimistic Snapshot Execution (oSnap)
oSnap: Developed by UMA, oSnap enables the on-chain execution of off-chain Snapshot votes, streamlining the governance processes of DAOs.
Optimistic Governance
Optimistic Governance: This method allows anyone to submit transactions to implement a proposal. If no dispute arises during a specified window, transactions are executed on-chain, fostering an optimistic approach to governance.
On-chain Execution
On-chain Execution: The process of implementing off-chain voting results directly on the blockchain. In ApeCoinDAOs case, utilizing Snapshot (off-chain) to trigger the release of funds on the blockchain.
Optimistic Oracle
Optimistic Oracle: A decentralized on-chain oracle for resolving flexible data requests. UMA’s optimistic oracle can handle natural language questions, like whether a set of transactions were approved on Snapshot and match what was described in the Snapshot vote.
Off-chain Votes
Off-chain Votes: Voting activities conducted outside of the blockchain, like Snapshot.
PLATFORMS & TECHNOLOGIES:
A dedicated website, webpage, Discord or Discourse forum channels, or any combination of those four platforms will be set up for the program to serve as centralized hubs for discussion and program submissions. Concurrently, a separate Snapshot Space will be established, distinct from the existing ApeCoinDAO page. Furthermore, the Governance Working Group will oversee a Gnosis wallet to ensure secure and transparent oversight of all financial transactions related to the program.
Here is the program’s anticipated flow…
1. Proposal Submission
Applicants submit their grant proposals.
2. Submission Evaluation
The Governance Working Group assess the proposals to decide whether they should follow the current AIP process or go straight-to-vote on the program’s dedicated Snapshot Space.
Additional initiative partners, potentially including other Working Group Stewards, service providers, active ApeCoinDAO community members or brand collaborators may be invited to participate on proposal assessments and other aspects of the program.
3. Snapshot Creation and Voting
The Governance Working Group will set up and oversee a separate Snapshot Space created for this program where each proposal will be voted on.
Once ready, voting cycles will commence and operate similarly to standard ApeCoinDAO AIP proposals, although cadence and the duration that proposals will remain open for voting may differ.
4. Dispute Window and Resolution
After transactions are proposed for execution, they enter a standard UMA dispute window for three days utilizing their Optimistic Oracle, where disputes on the proposed transaction can be be made by the community, and successful disputers are rewarded.
Common reasons for these disputes would be proposals which have slipped through the initial screening process which break any of the program rules or have been miscatorgized; where for us, could mean that the initiative should have been sent through the standard AIP process.
5. Post-Vote Execution and Reporting
After a successful vote, any address has the option to post a bond (configurable, with 2 WETH recommended) and suggest the on-chain execution of transactions from the Snapshot proposal page. UMA’s bot streamlines this process by automatically sending the transaction, posting the bond, and covering all associated gas fees.
The program will also have implementation reporting requirements and non-monetary resources available to project founders aimed at increasing the success rate of their ideas.
STEPS TO IMPLEMENT & TIMELINE:
The Governance Working Group will finalize the program structure after successful completion of the AIP process, paying close attention on improving the efficiency and transparency of our current system.
The implementation of UMA’s oSnap protocol can be deployed within hours, and program funding will be sent to a Gnosis Safe under the supervision of the GWG.
To ensure the establishment of a well-organized program, including a community feedback period, the entire process may take upwards of six-eight weeks from the date of fund receipt to rollout the initiative.
OVERALL COST:
There is no cost to implement this proposal.
