Request for Proposal: Cayman Islands Administrator for the APE Foundation
1. Introduction
The APE Foundation seeks an administrator to perform certain functions within the Cayman Islands. The ApeCoin DAO is currently seeking a new administrator for this purpose, which is the subject of this request for proposal (“RFP”). Concurrently, the APE Foundation is in the process of decentralizing certain functions to DAO working groups.
2. Background
ApeCoin is a fungible ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain that serves as a means of network governance and as a utility token for Web3 projects. The ApeCoin community governs itself via the ApeCoin DAO, the decentralized framework that governs the Ape Foundation and, in turn, the ApeCoin Ecosystem Fund. The DAO utilizes a proposal process to vote on how the Ecosystem Fund will be distributed by the APE Foundation to promote a diverse and self-sustaining ecosystem. The APE Foundation facilitates decentralized and community-led governance and is designed to become more decentralized over time.
The ApeCoin community is seeking proposals from qualified vendors across a variety of functions to support the governance and administration of activities of the DAO.
3. Scope of Project Work
The scope of work for this RFP is broken up into 5 administrative support categories: Compliance, Finance, Legal, Operations, Treasury.
Compliance
● Assist with ensuring legal and regulatory compliance of APE Foundation under applicable law
Finance
● Administer the APE Foundation’s finances as determined by the Director, Supervisor, and Special Council including but not limited to: Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Bookkeeping, Financial Reporting on a consistent and timely basis
● Determine crypto-native solution for accounting processes
Legal
● Facilitate the legal processes with respect to APE Foundation activities as determined by the Director, Supervisor, and Special Council including but not limited to: Vendor Contracts, Grant Due Diligence, Grant Agreements, Trademarks
Operations
● Facilitate weekly Special Council meetings
● Apply and adhere to AIP guidelines
● Administer and maintain social media accounts, and publish content to said accounts as directed by the DAO working group(s). Note that responsibility for maintaining social media accounts is intended to be fully decentralized to DAO working groups in the coming months
● Maintain and update the apecoin.com website and keep the Discourse Enterprise Account in good standing until responsibility for maintaining and managing these assets is decentralized to DAO working groups
● Maintain @apecoin email addresses and answer or forward incoming email to relevant parties as necessary
Treasury
● Facilitate administration of treasury of APE Foundation including but not limited to: treasury counter-party risk mitigation, custodian account management, facilitating private OTC sales of ApeCoin, facilitating Gnosis safe usage, Ethereum addresses to hold apecoin.eth ENS, ApeCoin NFT
● Note that responsibility for holding custody of the apecoin.eth ENS, and the ApeCoin NFT is intended to be fully decentralized to DAO working groups in the coming months
It is expected that all of the above work will be completed in a timely manner in line with expectations from the APE Foundation and the ApeCoin DAO community. Work not completed in a timely manner will be deemed to be a breach of contract and subject to fee adjustments according to a process specified under the contract.
Timeline expectations:
● Publish content to social media accounts as directed by ApeCoin DAO (after approval by legal, where necessary): 24 hours
● Update Apecoin.com website as directed by Working Groups / Special Council: 2 business days for standard changes (text, navigation, links, etc.) In-depth changes on timelines to be agreed with Working Groups / Special Council
● Send grant agreements to approved AIP authors for execution: 2 business days
● Disbursement of AIP approved funds: within 2 business days of execution of grant agreements
4. Vendor Requirements
Within your application, please demonstrate your experience in the following areas to support our evaluation of potential vendors for this RFP, and be prepared to provide live demos as requested:
● Development, implementation, maintenance, support and upgrades of DAO governance and management services and systems for blockchain-based platforms
● Expertise in distributed ledger technologies, including open source blockchain protocols, smart contracts, distributed data storage, and incentive systems
● Knowledge of DeFi applications, token economics, and token issuance
● Ability to develop and implement a security audit process for the ApeCoin DAO
● Understanding of Web3 space to ensure proper analysis of AIPs
● Understanding of Cayman Islands law to assist in assessing Foundation’s risks
● Standardized programming language to manage relational databases
5. Submission Requirements & Instructions
Timeline in brief
● February 7th: RFP is live and posted on Discourse
● February 7th - 10th: Stewards’ engagement with bidders
● February 10th 5pm EST: Bidders post their proposals to Discourse
● February 10th-16th: Community feedback period
● February 16th: Proposal evaluations by points system posted by WG0 Stewards in Discourse
● February 16th: Proposal to elect new administrator posted to Snapshot
● February 22nd: Vote for new administrator completed
Instructions
Bidders interested in responding to the RFP are responsible for reviewing these instructions in their entirety, prior to completing each section.
This RFP will go live on Tuesday, February 7th. WG0 Stewards will continue to engage with potential bidders between Tuesday February 7th and Friday February 10th.
Bidders applying for the RFP will be required to submit a proposal via the ApeCoin DAO Discourse no later than Friday February 10th, 5pm EST. Proposals received outside of this channel, or after this date and time, will not be considered.
The proposal posted by bidders should include the following information:
- Provide General Information by providing the company name and website, as well as the Key Contact Person(s) details for your company. All communications regarding submissions and/or work assigned will be provided through the Key Contact Person(s) identified.
- Submit a Scope of Work to indicate if your bid is for some, or all, of the Administrative Support categories of work as detailed in Section 3 above.
- Prepare a Knowledge/Skill/Systems Requirements & Work Experience section of the proposal providing the appropriate description of relevant knowledge, skills, systems and work experience that outlines and demonstrates what is needed for the achievement of processes and procedures to be completed in the scope of work.
- Confirm Availability & Capacity to let us know how soon you can begin and capacity of resources being made available for the work required. For continuity and time management purposes, the Community is seeking your feedback on how you would deal with coverage of work requirements, and meeting the timelines as outlined in Section 3, in the event of workforce disruption or expansion of scope of work.
- Submit Pricing Information. The Community is seeking a cost-effective solution to its administration support needs. As such we have bundled our administrative needs into this RFP to achieve the best value for price.
There will be a Community feedback period from February 10th - February 16th, during which ApeCoin DAO members can reply to the Discourse posts of the RFP bidders, in order to ask questions and seek feedback.
On February 16th, an ApeCoin DAO vote to elect the next administrator will be held on Snapshot.
The Snapshot vote will require the selection of 1 administrator out of the various bidders who have posted proposal bids in response to this RFP. The Snapshot vote description will include the Stewards’ evaluation of the proposal bids according to the criteria posted in Section 6 below. Note that any Community member is welcome to evaluate the proposals bids using the below criteria, or according to any other criteria of their choosing.
The Community vote to elect the next administrator will close on February 22nd, and the onboarding and transition process for the new administrator will begin on February 23rd.
6. Submission Evaluation Criteria
Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
● Knowledge/Skill Requirement & Work Experience – Bidder has demonstrated recency and relevancy as well as depth and breadth of experience associated with the role assigned.
maximum 40 points
● Capacity and Redundancy – Demonstrated evidence of bidder’s capacity to complete the project (i.e., sufficient staffing redundancy to prevent lost time in the event of staffing changes)
maximum 10 points
● Availability and ability to meet deadlines – Preference will be given to bidders ready for an immediate start and with a demonstrated capability to be available to complete work as outlined by the Community.
maximum 25 points
● Value and Price – The Community is seeking a cost-effective solution to its administrative support needs.
maximum 25 points