AIP-281: ApeCoin DAO Prop House powered by ApeCoin - Small Grants Program Proof of Concept

Withdrawn AIPs
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Proposal Name: ApeCoin DAO Prop House powered by ApeCoin - Small Grants Program Proof of Concept

Proposal Category: Core - Ecosystem Fund Allocation

Abstract:

Allocate 22,000 APE to sponsor a 12-week Prop House program for the ApeCoin community. Small grants of 500, 1,000 or 1,500 APE each will be allocated across six funding rounds over twelve weeks.

The goal of this program is to explore more efficient ways than the current AIP process to issue small grants that empower artists, devs, and content creators in our community. The program will create new attention, engagement, and good vibes for the ApeCoin ecosystem by funding 24 new grants over a twelve week period.

Motivation

Right now, there is no way to access small grants in a quick way through the DAO, despite the success other DAOs such as Nouns DAO have had with their small grants programs.

The best way to build awareness and empower artists and builders to add value to our ecosystem is to make it easier for them to get their hands on funding. The current AIP process is designed for larger asks and therefore slow by nature.

Authors

Name: atareh
I’m @atareh , a molecular scientist that moved into web2 product management and is now in web3 full-time for 1.5 years. I write insightful threads on Twitter, co-host THE DAM SHOW, and have been deeply involved in 10KTF (among other Yuga projects). I am one of the three community members that was anointed a Captain, officially entering the 10KTF storyline. Author of AIP-214: Sponsoring THE DAM SHOW, which successfully passed on Snapshot and is being implemented

Name: Badteeth | Josh Friedberg
Life-long skateboarder. Three decades building at the intersection of art, sport, and technology. Down the NFT rabbit hole in January 2021. Minted apes. Full-time Web3 since May 2022. Co-founder of THE 288 https://twitter.com/288gang and Rara Avis https://twitter.com/raraavisapp . Lead-author AIP-196, served as elected ApeCoin DAO WG0 Steward.

Rationale

Utilizing Prop House creates a low-cost, low-stakes way for ApeCoin DAO members to create and develop with and for the ApeCoin ecosystem. This will allow us to test the impact of a small grants program without building any unnecessary infrastructure within the DAO. Funding this AIP will not affect the current DAO AIP proposal process.

This AIP presents an easy path to experiment with capital allocation in a way that has been successful for other DAOs in the web3 space.

It will allow us to promote ApeCoin DAO as a place that welcomes experimentation (emphasis on guiding value of: Boldness - We don’t shy away from the weird, the hard, or the new)

Specs

If the proposal passes, Prop House will create an ApeCoin DAO house that will have its grants funded in APE.

Total being requested is 23,000 APE – 22,000 to fund 6 rounds of grants over 12 weeks and 1,000 APE for the administration of the program. There will be 3-5 winners of 500-1500 APE every other week.

An example of the 6 rounds of funding* is:

  • Week 1: Call for proposals
  • Week 2: Votes completed - 5 winners of 500 APE
  • Week 3: Call for proposals
  • Week 4: Votes completed - 4 winners of 1000 APE
  • Week 5: Call for proposals
  • Week 6: Votes completed - 3 winners of 1500 APE
  • Week 7: Call for proposals
  • Week 8: Votes completed - 5 winners of 500 APE
  • Week 9: Call for proposals
  • Week 10: Votes completed - 4 winners of 1000 APE
  • Week 11: Call for proposals
  • Week 12: Votes completed - 3 winners of 1500 APE

*As this is experimental we reserve the right to adjust the size and frequency of funding rounds based on how the process proceeds. If for any reason the entire allocation of 22,000 APE isn’t delivered through the funding rounds, the remainder will be returned to the Ape Foundation.

Process:

  • Each round will have a theme and begins with a 7-day period, where anyone can submit a funding request for an idea that:
    • Supports the goals and objectives of ApeCoin DAO (Support the expression of web3 culture through art, gaming, entertainment, and events)
    • Supports community-led initiatives that drive culture forward into the metaverse
    • Encourages usage of ApeCoin
    • Integrates ApeCoin as a form of currency or access
    • Is fun, cool, and relevant to web3, the metaverse, and ApeCoin
  • Once a round is opened, teams will have 7 days to submit their proposals.
  • After that, voting will open to ApeCoin DAO holders for 7 days.
  • 1 wallet holding $APE = 1 vote.
  • At the end of the 7 day period, the 3-5 project(s) with the most votes will receive the grant funding.
  • At the end of the 48 hours, winners are awarded ApeCoin.
  • Winners will be only eligible for up to two grants total during the program.

Steps to implement

Funds requested from the DAO will be distributed as following:

  • Prophouse rounds will be funded every other week based on the grant amount per week (ranges from 3-5 winners of 500-1500 APE).
  • Wallet that receives the funding will be a 2/3 multisig.
  • atareh, badteeth, and {one more person} will be multisig controllers.

Timeline

As soon as the proposal is approved, we will begin working with cryptoseneca from PropHouse to implement the experience. We expect this to take ~2 weeks.

Once the UI/UX is created, we will begin round 1 of the program. Teams will have 7 days to submit their proposals. After proposals are submitted, voting will be open to ApeCoin holders for one week.

Overall Cost:

This proposal requests a total of 23,000 APE.

  • 22,000 for 6 rounds of grant funding over 12 weeks (3-5 grants ranging between 500-1500 $APE will be rewarded every other week).
  • 1,000 APE for administrative work to be split across 12 weeks for maintaining the ApeCoin DAO Prop House program.
  • If for any reason the entire allocation of 22,000 APE isn’t delivered through the funding rounds, the unused funds will be returned to the Ape Foundation.

Feedback considered

Overwhelmingly, the feedback we received was centred around creating a stronger filter than just “hold 1 APE” to participate. This was because of the sheet amount of prophouse proposals that get put on chain that don’t necessarily benefit the ecosystem, but are rather “reskins” or “repeats” of proposals from different prophouse (i.e. “I will create apecoin stickers and distribute them”).

While we considered using discourse level 2 as a filter, to make sure only people in the APE ecosystem are applying for grants, we opted for remaining fully on-chain so as to reduce the management overhead. While this isn’t perfect and there will be some rounds that go towards “recycled props”, the belief is that overwhelmingly, it’s better to keep control in the hands of the voters and trust that they will discern good use of funds from bad. After this pilot, we have considered adding features into prophouse that will create an automated filter, but that work should start after a successful pilot, not before.

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Reserved for change log.

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Hi @atareh.eth,

Thank you for sharing the proposal for the ApeCoin DAO Prop House Small Grants Program. I appreciate the effort you and your team have put into this project. The idea of exploring more efficient ways to issue small grants that empower artists, developers, and content creators in the ApeCoin community is a great initiative.

I understand that the total amount being requested is 23,000 APE, of which 22,000 APE will be allocated across six funding rounds over twelve weeks and 1,000 APE will be used for the administration of the program.

Few questions:

  1. What measures are in place to ensure that the Prop House program is transparent and fair in its allocation of grants?

  2. How will the success of this program be measured, and what metrics will be used to evaluate its effectiveness in empowering artists, devs, and content creators in the ApeCoin ecosystem?

  3. What impact do you expect this program to have on the overall value and growth of the ApeCoin ecosystem?

  4. Have you considered the potential risks and challenges associated with this program, such as the possibility of funding projects that may not align with the goals and values of the ApeCoin DAO, or the risk of creating an unsustainable demand for small grants? How do you plan to address these risks?

Overall, I think Small Grants Program have a place, but to a very specific goal that the DAO agree for. I instead asking for grants program, I would ask for grants program for the goal you guys what to achieve with the dao (example, we need to focus on cybersecurity).

That kind of program is a valuable and necessary addition to the ApeCoin ecosystem.

-Mr. Hype :fire:

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Hi Mr Hype,

Thanks for the questions, please see responses below each.

  1. What measures are in place to ensure that the Prop House program is transparent and fair in its allocation of grants?

The transparency and fairness of the Prop House program are ensured through a clear and public process - the community submits proposals and community votes on them.

  1. How will the success of this program be measured, and what metrics will be used to evaluate its effectiveness in empowering artists, devs, and content creators in the ApeCoin ecosystem?

Lots of ways to measure success, like the number and quality of proposals received, the level of community engagement in voting, and the results of funded projects. The effectiveness in empowering artists, devs, and content creators could be assessed by tracking the use of the granted APEs and the impact of the funded projects on the ApeCoin ecosystem.

Following up with builders can be done after the proof of concept

  1. What impact do you expect this program to have on the overall value and growth of the ApeCoin ecosystem?

The program is expected to stimulate innovation and creativity within the ApeCoin community, fostering the development of new projects that support the goals and objectives of ApeCoin DAO. By funding these projects, the program aims to empower artists, devs, and content creators to contribute to the growth and value of the ApeCoin ecosystem. Plus, the program could attract new members to the community and promote ApeCoin as a platform that supports creativity and innovation.

  1. Have you considered the potential risks and challenges associated with this program, such as the possibility of funding projects that may not align with the goals and values of the ApeCoin DAO, or the risk of creating an unsustainable demand for small grants? How do you plan to address these risks?

We have guardrails in terms of what people should submit but the collective voting of the DAO is a good way to weed out bad projects and allow for good ones to shine.

In terms of the risk of creating an unsustainable demand for small grants, this program is designed as a 12-week proof of concept, and these are small grants represent 0.00001% of the overall treasury (1.5 billion USD). We should be able to fund builders for a very long time with prophouse with out it putting a dent on the treasury

  • atareh
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I love this idea!!! I’d love to help out when it passes! LMK

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Hi Atareh,

Love the idea, only question I have, do we have any data to work with re demand and why? As i’m wondering, for such small USD amounts, is this even something that will be utilised if offered.

500-1500 apecoin rn in USD is like $1500-4500, so do we have any irl examples of people requesting such low amounts in numbers?

Maybe it’s just the cost of living here in the UK, but for me I struggle to comprehend how these nominal amounts could achieve very much, and wonder if you would be able to prove that actual demand exists.

Regards,

FA

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Hi Atareh!
You wrote [quote=“atareh.eth, post:1, topic:12567”]
The goal of this program is to explore more efficient ways than the current AIP process
[/quote]
What do you think are the key differences from the current grant system and why do you think they need to be changed.
Thank you!

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GM, this is literally the same concept that I put out months ago, with addition of IRL conference to onboard developers and artist to $ape ecosystem.
My first AIP was rejected and other one is similar to the previous AIP is in review.

AIP: 172 - Rejected

AIP: 244 - In Review

I put the same for Idea-a-thon in its early days of submission and still dunno how idea exactly same to this won instead. Moreover, the decision to drop Prophouse from our initial plan was because some community members didnt liked including Prophouse and are in plan to create Ape’s own funding system for this.
How do you plan to counter such problem? Prophouse and Nouns have their own audience where doesnt matter the hosue, majority of people will put in the same proposal in different houses just changing the NFT related to it.

Thank you for putting this together, although I have my own issues with this idea, but I’ve been pushing the entire concept of granting small funds in a quick and efficient way from a long time. Hope this makes a difference

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Also, as someone who used to be active in Nouns ecosystem and ultimately discovered and showed proof how easy it was to misuse delegations and voting power, voting on Prophouse to decide winners would be kind of hard.
There is a joke inside PH community, that " It’s easier to get your proposal pass via on-chain voting instead of winning a round in Prophouse "
So here’s my second question " How will you make sure that projects that will bring value to the DAO will win the rounds "

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This is great!

In general, I think we need multiple smaller programs like this. I just talked with @CEOofWeb3.0 the other day about this being needed. And as Evil mentioned, it’s similar to his initiative.

Questions
Pigging back on @furiousanger’s question, do you have any specific examples in mind of the kinds of projects that could be funded? 500-1500 is a small amount (I think?).

Would you consider the third person on multisig to be someone from Asia, South America, or Africa? The thought being that this money can go a lot farther there, so making sure those communities know about this could be good for getting quality applications. (I’ll ofc be glad to post this in Thai apes discord if this passes and see if Kawpuccino can spread in CCs and Beans asian communities)

Feedback

  • Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather just you guys select the projects. Or 50/50 at most. Usually, mini-funds are done to speed up the effort by centralizing decision-making. The overall budget is allocated via the DAO, but from there it’s all you. It avoids popularity contests (“I’m not reading 50 proposals, but hey I recognize this pfp! Voted.” kinda thing), which I think are cancer. I’d jump on call with Evil re: PH, too, see what he can share.

  • Ask for more budget, I’d say 2x (50k APE). Then it can be 500 - 3,400 APE per proposal. (And if I win twice @ max amount, it’s like my book proposal got approved! lol I’m kidding.) I think that range just opens more options.

Holler if you need help (free) if this goes through and you switch to centralized selection. I’m really good at sniffing out bad actors (and seeing potential) and have helped run an accelerator IRL.

Good luck!

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Thanks Ms NFTy! Keep a look out

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Hey Furious,

Prop.house has been around for quite a while, it’s brought a lot of value to builders that want to experiment with something small and create an MVP.

The big ask is still the big ask which should be through the existing process.

I’d check out some nouns prophouse’s to see what people have built. The demand is certainly there. Meebits also had one not too long ago. Micro grants for a DAO are a must.

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I spoke with @badteeth on a twitter space a bit about this the other day. I ran the Meebits Prop House that was funded via AIP-110

Would gladly hop on a call with the two of you and share my insight and thoughts from that experience.

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Hey Russell,

The main thing is, for any ask in the DAO right now, you have to go through a 3-4 month long process. For the big asks, that’s a good thing. But what if you need a few thousand to experiment with something or launch an MVP? That’s where small grants / prophouse comes in.

A small grants program has worked well in nouns, and what we will likely see are builders applying for Prophouse, get funding to build something cool, which will then extend into a larger grant that they can ask the DAO for through the traditional method.

“graduation” if you will

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Hi Evil,

Sorry to hear about the prop not passing - good to hear you are keeping at it. At a high level, it appears that the prophouse you are suggested is restricted to a specific geography (india), while this prop intends to put it our for everyone in the ape community.

WRT to the second question, “how can we ensure projects that will bring value will be funded” - that’s the multi million dollar question, no one can answer or ensure that but creating a system to get more funding to builders will lead to better outcomes for the DAO because the money is being used in how its supposed to - to help fund builders!

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Hi Sasha,

500-1500 is range of about 1500-4500 USD, which isn’t meant to replace a salary, but rather provide funding for builders to experiment with something small.

While i have been making videos for a while, i got 2ETH of funding from a nouns prophouse (~4k USD) which helped a lot in the path towards making content creation more sustainable for me personally.

I can try and find examples but there are so many ideas in prophouse, that its probably worth exploring yourself - the grants for their prophouse is very similar to the range we’re proposing.

WRT to us picking - thats a more complicated question to answer, i’d personally stick with the ethos of a DAO and experiment with collective voting first. I also personally would not have the time to be a capital allocator in this instance, and if I did, that would have to come with a fair renumeration for time spent.

All in all, i think the decentralized model has worked quite well for other prophouses, we dont intend to change that here

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Hey bojangle, yes i remember we’ve DMed about this as well.

Would love to do that as this gets closer to voting, unless you think there are some insights you might help improve the grant itself, either way, i’m in and im sure @badteeth is too!

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Might be worth doing it before to be honest. Hit me up.

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Yes back when there werent much people exploring the Apecoin DAO. My prop goes back to November and first draft event older. Back then I was pushing towards small grants. So good to see that more people think the same way now that the DAO should deploy small fundings to people.
Good luck

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Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

The demand part definitely seems to be proven imo, going by the amount of submissions/proposals the nouns prop house is receiving - perfect ty.

Maybe there are also examples (you could utilise) where a small grant funded an idea that took off? (All would help emphasis and promote the potential of this AIP if passed.)

Would love to see this idea progress further and pass. LFG

Regards,

FA

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