Request for Proposal: Cayman Islands Administrator for the APE Foundation

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

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Four vendors have submitted bids in response to this RFP.

You can view the bids here:

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Thanks @Waabam and all who submitted proposals.

  1. Seems the choices are voting for 3 firms: 1 each for 3 distinct components, or a full-service firm. Correct?

My breakdown of scope and costs, if I have it correct:

Provenance - Compliance 2500 / mo retainer (USD I presume), + services a la carte
Autonomous - Finance $327.5k USD / yr + 15000 $APE / yr
Lemma - Operations 30k USDC / mo + 4500 $APE / mo
Webslinger - Full Scope $75k USD / mo equivalent (split 75% USD, 25% $APE)

I like Autonomous’ personal vibe & detailed breakdown of fees, schedule for review of same, inflation indexing, etc. Very clear.

  1. What are ramifications / timelines if one or all are not approved by vote?

  2. Who watches the Watchmen, so to speak… or who vetted the vettors; were the firms vetted or vouched for in some way? Not doubting them. It’d be a common step is all.

These proposals are a lot to digest. Many of the roles are within scope of jobs I’ve done - CFO, comptroller, compliance, etc - and it’s still a lot to take in and the vote is soon. I encourage others to step up with questions or comments.

  1. Is anyone, maybe from WG0 or Council, going to give any guidance on whether/how we should vote?

  2. Or even if these costs are in-line with whatever passes for “normal” at this early stage of such endeavors?

  3. Given the work required for the DAO thus far and using that as a guide, do we know what Provenance’s billing schedule might cost out as?

Thanks again to all involved.

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This is gonna take a long time to read fully :laughing: ty for the excellent work you all do!

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Hi @br00no, thanks for the reply.

To answer your questions:

  1. Seems the choices are voting for 3 firms: 1 each for 3 distinct components, or a full-service firm. Correct?

The choices are two:

  1. Webslinger
  2. Autonomous, Lemma and Provenance.

You are correct that Webslinger covers the full scope of the RFP and is asking for $75,000 USD / month, split 75% USD and 25% APE.

Just this morning, @Autonomous, @Lemma and @ProvenanceCompliance have posted that they intend to amend their bids, to match Webslinger’s price of $75,000 per month. I have asked them to amend their posts, so that the community can see how the $75,000 will break-down between the three service providers, and the break-down in APE vs USD terms.

  1. What are ramifications / timelines if one or all are not approved by vote?

The RFP vote will be structured so that one of the options must be selected. Voters will have the option to choose Webslinger, Autonomous+Lemma+Provenance, or abstain.

  1. Who watches the Watchmen, so to speak… or who vetted the vettors; were the firms vetted or vouched for in some way? Not doubting them. It’d be a common step is all.

The vendors who are going to vote have all been interviewed by both Special Council and WG0 Stewards through multiple calls. WG0 Stewards were entrusted to vet these candidates in this way through AIP-196.

  1. Is anyone, maybe from WG0 or Council, going to give any guidance on whether/how we should vote?

Yes, this is addressed in the RFP:

“The Snapshot vote description will include the Stewards’ evaluation of the proposal bids according to the criteria posted in Section 6 [of the RFP]. 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.”

  1. Or even if these costs are in-line with whatever passes for “normal” at this early stage of such endeavors?

Price is one of the vectors on which the proposed bids are being evaluated.

The community will be able to compare between the prices of these two bids, as well as the cost of the previous administrator.

The pool of Cayman-based companies which are able to provide the administrative services under this RFP is small. The rates charged by Cartan, Webslinger, and Autonomous/Provenance/Lemma are effectively what can be considered “normal” within the Cayman Islands.

  1. Given the work required for the DAO thus far and using that as a guide, do we know what Provenance’s billing schedule might cost out as?

I am encouraging @ProvenanceCompliance to go back and edit their bid to clarify their costs, given that Provenance/Lemma/Autonomous have now committed to reducing their combined bid to $75,000 per month.

Once they have done so, I will post a summary of the cost break-down in this thread so that the two options can be compared in a more manageable format.

In terms of Provenance’s per-use charges for KYC/KYB, it would depend on how many times KYC/KYB is needed for AIPs. As a point of comparison that may help the community estimate this number: there were 43 approved AIPs in 2022.

Thanks for your questions. Please let me know if I can answer any questions or clarify anything further.

Waabam

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Thanks so much for this detailed reply. Helps tremendously and clarifies a lot.

I see now, as you kindly pointed out, I’d asked some things that were already addressed but it seemed counter-intuitive so I thought I’d misunderstood. One such thing is not seeing Steward’s evaluations until the vote, but no reason we can’t see and consider those for days before voting period ends.

Cheers!

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Hi Br00no,

Thanks for your feedback.

There have been some changes to the bids as recently as today, and we want to make sure that when we provide our evaluation, it is a final evaluation, and not an evaluation that we then need to go back and revise.

That said, your feedback is appreciated. We will discuss completing our evaluation and sharing it tomorrow, in advance of the start of voting.

Waabam

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Thank you.

I hope it didn’t seem I’m pushing for that info earlier.

Process you’ve described is prudent and I’m totally OK with it FWIW. I meant once voting starts there’s still plenty of time to consider scores assigned by Stewards before voting period ends.

Cheers.

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Hi,

I deleted my original question as I noticed Br00no had asked “Who watches the Watchmen, so to speak… or who vetted the vettors; were the firms vetted or vouched for in some way? Not doubting them. It’d be a common step is all”, however, I felt the reply didn’t satisfy my OG thought. Just out of curisoty really, are there any conflicts of interest noted? As this is such a big decision for the DAO and also a very lucrative contract for the successful bidder, it would be proper to just be sure and/or disclosed, if there are any kinds of relationships or connections - SC and WG0 stewards to bidders, just so everything is on the table, and just to be reassured these checks are always being made as standard in situations like this. TY in advance

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Hi furiousanger,

Thanks for you concern on this matter. We would like to formally confirm that Autonomous does not have any affiliation with the Special Council, WG0, or any individuals associated with these groups. Our initial contact with these groups occurred during the early discussions pertaining to the Request for Proposal (RFP).

The Autonomous Team

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Hi,

Thank you for answering; it was just curiosity tbh, as I really don’t see anyway in which it would be detrimental to a bid, just interested in the process more than anything.

GL with your tender, much appreciated the swift reply.

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Hi furiousanger

We can confirm that Lemma did not have any relationships or connections to the Special Council or WG0 before the RFP was brought to our attention.

Lemma

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Hi furiousanger

We can confirm that Provenance also did not have any relationships or connections to the Special Council or WG0 before the RFP was brought to our attention.

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Hi,

Many thanks for taking the time, it is much appreciated.

Amazing.

GL going forward

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Hi,

Couldn’t have asked for a more rapid and full response ever, blown away!

Thanks and GL.

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Hi @furiousanger

Webslinger confirms it does not have any affiliation with the Special Council, WG0, or any individuals associated with these groups. Our initial contact occurred during early discussions relating to the transition of the Cayman administration and the formal RFP.

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Hi,

Thank you so much for this, imho it speaks volumes for all teams involved - to reach out and answer individual questions - just really amazed by the standards here!

GL with your bid. Thanks again

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Hello ApeCoin Community,

Snapshot voting for this RFP will be open today, February 16th, at 9:00 PM EST. You may vote here.

Best,
-mallard

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Hi All,

The WG0 Stewards would like to clarify a few things. First, this RFP is for a contract term of one year. It is the expectation of the WG0 Stewards that the process of extending this agreement, or determining the next administrator, will occur three months prior to the expiration of this contract.

Second, the WG0 Stewards Analysis included on the Snapshot voting page was specified in the “Proposal evaluations by points system” task mentioned in the RFP Timeline. As part of a transparent RFP process, the analysis was the opportunity for the Stewards to provide insight into our experience with each bidding group through multiple discussions, interviews, emails and calls over the past three weeks. The analysis and scores are not a binding decision, but rather a quantification of our experience with the bidders. Every DAO member has the opportunity to perform their own due diligence on the bids and make their own voting decision.

We publicly communicated the intent to share our evaluation numerous times – through the official ApeCoin twitter, through the WG0 Discord, and here on Discourse. We evaluated the bidders to be equal in all but the category of Knowledge / Skill Requirement & Work Experience. We awarded higher points to WebSlinger in this category for a number of tangible and intangible reasons. Namely:

  1. WebSlinger’s team had more extensive experience within the Crypto / Web3 environment, including one team member having over 145 Fintech patents.

  2. WebSlinger expressed consistent interest and a keen desire to decentralize DAO roles and responsibilities to the community, showing a heightened understanding of the immediate goals of ApeCoin DAO.

  3. WebSlinger’s bid represented a single point of contact for ease of communications and logistics with Working Groups and the APE Foundation.

  4. WebSlinger’s bid involved CFO services being provided by a global firm (Crestbridge).

  5. A lack of a website by Lemma, a statement they would not be responsible for instances where the previous provider does not provide a complete hand-over, in addition to inconsistency of proposed costs and timeline were deductions against the PAL group.

We believe both groups are competent, accomplished, and can fulfill the needs of the APE Foundation Administrator RFP otherwise they would have not been put to a vote. This is a complicated process, but we encourage every DAO member to ask as many questions as they desire before making a voting selection. There will be an additional Twitter Space tomorrow at 3 PM PST to hear from the Bidders before voting closes.

We hope to see you all there.

Waabam, on behalf of the WG0 Stewards

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Hey builders! Let me know if you have any comments/quotes to add to the news

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