- Edited
OIP-55 (forum , snapshot) voted for the grants program on the 6th December 2021. The OIP stipulated that the grant program be run for a trial period of 3.3 months, at which point the grants team would provide a report updating the community and recommending improvements for the community to consider, discuss and ultimately vote on by the 16th March 2022.
In the following report we reflect on what has been achieved and make suggestions about the most effective strategy moving forward given the changing market conditions since Grants inception.
Grants Mission
OIP-55 outlined the purpose of OGP as being to bootstrap Olympus’ wider ecosystem within a clearly defined framework. All OGP grants will be directed to projects & contributors that directly advance the Olympus Ecosystem in ways which synchronise with emergent priorities of the DAO.
This purpose has been distilled into 3 high level objectives
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- Grow the EconOHMy - expand the ecosystem & increase EconOHMy GDP
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- Activate the ecosystem - Reduce friction for building in the econOHMy
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- Quantify Olympus’ Value Proposition - Establish Olympus Grants as a strong Web3 or crypto brand
These objectives are being tackled by focusing on Education, Infrastructure and Utility.
Grantee Early Achievements
Here are a few highlights Grants has enabled within the econOHMy since our public launch on 14th February.
MetaMars
- Run by the world’s most famous OHMie Bored Elon Musk and team have launched the first in a series of browser-based no-loss arcade mid-fi games with prizes funded in part by OHM treasury rebases held by MetaMars. In a world first OHM is used as the in-game currency. Majin all the OHMies who will be onboarded through the world of gaming!
MoverDAO
A non-custodial debit card that allows you to spend gOHM via MoverDAO (yes you are reading that correctly).
On the way to delivering an Olympus mobile payments App (think OHM Venmo). Majin never needing to leave OHM!
Playgrounds
Empowering users with on-chain data analytics tools and educational content to improve yield strategies and understanding of Olympus protocol in particular and DeFi more generally.
Built data and metrics interface for Olympus Pro here’s a quote from Data and Metrics Stratego Edgecaser: “We contracted the PG Subgrounds team to build a data feed for Olympus Pro bond performance, which needed to be built in as short a time as possible. Their team showed utmost professionalism, discipline, and talent in their craft. They delivered on time and to spec; with impeccable documentation. I look forward to working with them again.”
Collab with fellow grantee MetricsDAO (ecosystem activation in action!)
Working with Grants and Data-n-Metrics teams on Data Analytics bounties
On way to becoming major challenger to Dune Analytics! LFG!
EntropyFi
Provides safer risk-on and risk-off options for OHM stakers via soft-hedge (cope free hedge) and soft-leverage (rekt free leverage). Lets make those (9,9) cascade liquidations a thing of the past with this liquidation free way to Degen. First parts of the grant are well underway.
Our partners
Grants orchestrated partnerships with Gitcoin, WAGMI Inc, and Klima to the value of ~$400k USD in committed match funding.
Gitcoin
- Hosting an ecosystem round as part of GR13. This means that $OHM projects which are included in the Gitcoin Round will get quadratically matched from Olympus Grants. If a project is very popular it is then in the running to win part of the $1M main ETH pool prize.
Klima
Cofunded Playgrounds grant. Klima and Olympus share a base technology and so continuing the Joint Venture to fund the building of on-chain data analytics tools and educational content to improve yield strategies and understanding of Olympus protocol in particular and DeFi more generally is very web(3,3)
Wagmi Inc
Cofunded a number of developments. Wagmi Labs Inc is a C-Corp set up by three Ohmies to help fund family offices and institutions invest in the Olympus ecosystem.
Grants Program Achievements
Grants has been busy, some highlights:
Publicly launched on February 14th (on schedule! Devs did something!) followed by a month-long launch campaign, with 1000+ OHMies participating, across 8 twitter spaces, 2 AMAs, an Ohmie Day (3rd of March) event in collaboration with Olympus Incubator and Startup Jam (yielding 75 applications for entrepreneurs, builders and investors interested in contributing to Olympus), culminating in the launch of the OlympusDAO ecosystem round as part of Gitcoin’s GR13.
Worked closely with the Olympus Give team to disburse Grants via Give. This is helping Give move from charity use case through to utility use case. This is a world first in grants administration fully enabled by OlympusDAO technology!
Built OKRs flows
Created an entire operations manual/onboarding resource
Created grantee and program impact monitoring & evaluation flows
Designed a slick and capturing brand identity, website and variety of marketing assets
Check out our community update for more!
Budget to date
DAO Contributors:
In our first month (December) the cost of paying contributors was $16,000 USD
For January the cost of paying contributors was $46,250 USD
For February the cost of paying contributors and building, designing and launching website was $79,750 USD
This puts the total cost for contributors to Grants at $142,000 USD over 3 months. This puts average monthly cost at $47,333.33 which is lower than the average monthly budget of similarly sized departments in the DAO. Moving forward we propose to cap compensation for the department at $56,000 USD.
Grants Committed
So far the cost of grants has been 5787 OHM sent at a value of 164,083.48 USD (funds distributed)
There have been a total of 39 applicants requesting a combined total of ~$4mm USD of which 13 applications have been accepted for a total of $824,999.00 USD (and with our official launch not happening until 30 days ago)
6 applications accepted in December
4 applications accepted in January
3 applications accepted in February
Due to the challenging market conditions the Grants Working Group elected to be conservative with the budget putting the program costs for grants at 55% of the allotted program budget of $1.5mm (or 21% of requested funds) with costs of administering/setting up the program at ~10%. Grants WG has made recommendations about how best to navigate the Grants program through market downturns by focusing on stimulating a larger number of small grants (Activate the Ecosystem) and focusing more on specific strategic developments via a Request for Proposals process (Grow EconOHMy GDP).
Committee
Nominated to the committee were Catwalk, Solarpunk and Kleb. Here is a little about them:
Catwalk - Background in grants, tech, data science, start-ups, writing, and organizing in decentralized environments. Currently wearing many hats in Grants: monitoring and evaluation, strategy, operations, marketing, etc. Exceptionally interested in the hard problems of scaling coordination problems. they/them
Solarpunk - Background in tech, platform cooperatives. Built and sold tech companies, VC experience, been through YC. Also wearing many hats in Grants, but will be focused on DD, content marketing and strategy, and impact evaluation. he/him
Kleb - Analyst, project manager and serial startup-er. Also one of the core members of Incubator.
Church, Dropkick Darren and Brian all had to step down from the committee. We thank them for their efforts during the time of their tenure. To recap, our committee of 7 is composed of Apollo, Appleseed, Catwalk, Json, Kleb, Solarpunk and WollemiPine.
Learnings
Grants is positioned to be one of the premier tools in OlympusDAO’s toolbox for growing econOHMy GDP, activating the ecosystem and being ambassadors for the OlympusDAO brand into Web(3,3) and beyond.
Grants was able to reignite a number of promising partnerships which had stalled within the DAO for 4 months (such as MoverDAO’s gOHM loadable debit cards and gas “free” smart contract interactions).
Memes, such as our use of the mushroom, can become powerful self-replicators related specifically to the Olympus values of 3,3 and the development of the inclusive econOHMy.
Current process can be quite intensive for coordinating amongst committee (which was also a reflection from the Uniswap Grants v1 experience)
The existing grants process attracts large grant applications. We have investigated alternate models which can activate the wider ecosystem to contribute to Olympus with smaller grant requests.
DAO has a need for identifying specific priorities and offering mechanisms for enabling the wider ecosystem to contribute projects which amplify and assist these strategic aims
In grants short life we have already been approached by contributors from other grants programs (Gitcoin, Gnosis, LFG) to see if there is scope for co-funding work.
We have already seen that there are ideas from contributors within the DAO who would benefit from funding via grants.
Some of the grants which have applied have been for amounts > $100k USD. It was the feeling of the committee that anything in that range should go via the OIP process.
Olympus is a leader in the field of decentralization. As such we would like authority from the community to fund experiments which would allow a wider set of OHMies to participate in the allocation of grants ultimately decentralizing away from the need to solely rely on coordination through a committee.
Looking Ahead - Grants v2
Early feedback on OGP v1 indicates there are the following needs:
a) Activate a higher number of smaller grants whilst not swamping existing Committee member process
- Activate the wider ecosystem to contribute to Olympus by giving clear and transparent avenues to accessing smaller amounts of funding through a nimble and efficient process
- Proposed solution: Mycelial Method (see below).
b) Solicit strategic developments to assist in achieving grant and DAO wide OKRs
Ability to proactively solicit for specific projects through a Request for Proposals process, including the ability to set scope, set up bounties and approach potential teams to help develop
Proposed solution: Set up Request for Proposals process and seek authority from the community for grants to set, coordinate, fund and manage projects.
c) Form Joint Ventures with aligned ecosystems
Ability to form joint ventures with other grant organisations to co-fund grants which are of benefit to both Olympus and another ecosystem e.g. Olympus and Gnosis putting up 100k USD in match funding for projects of mutual benefit
Proposed solution: Seek authority from community to set up and lead Joint Ventures with other grants organisations
d) Fund internal projects, not only external
Ability to fund projects solicited from *within* the DAO, not just external to the DAO.
Proposed solution: Seek authority from the community to fund projects originating from within the DAO, not just external to DAO.
e) Clear process for grants larger than 100k USD in scope
Ability to issue grants larger than 100k USD
Proposed solution: Enshrine that grants/projects of larger than 100k USD need to seek authority from the community via OIP in addition to 4/7 committee approval.
f) Decentralise allocation of grants capital to a wider set of OHMies
Ability for grants to experiment with opening up decision making to a wider set of OHMies e.g through setting up Shark Tank style curated pitches of pre-vetted grantees to community to fund via Give - with OGP match funding
Proposed solution: Seek authority from community to allow OGP Committee to fund experiments in broadening participation in grants capital allocation to community
Framework: Mycelial Method
OGP v1 was an adaptation of Uniswap Grants. The Mycelial Method iterates from this starting point and adapts and combines Lido’s grants program (which is an adaptation of Uniswaps process, which itself is an adaptation of Ethereum Foundation’s process) and the Web3Foundation’s grant program
Sand grains (up to $1000) can be handled by a pair of stewards reporting to two OGP committee members out of their individual committee member budgets (50:50).
Pebbles (up to $10,000) require a third OGP committee member to agree to the grant approval and participate in the evaluation of the results.
Boulders (up to $100,000) require majority approval of the OGP committee.
Mountains (more than $100k) additionally require a regular OIP governance process.
Quarterly budget:
The OGP Individual Committee Members will have a max quarterly aggregate budget of up to $105,000 USD, divided into individual budgets of $15,000 USD for each OGP committee member, from the total budget of the wider OGP budget of $1.5mm per 6 months. Budget and caps to be reassessed after the end of a quarter.
If an OGP committee member exhausts their quarterly individual committee member budget, they can still propose to the full committee that sand grains and pebbles receive grants out of the general portion of the budget, but will need to obtain approval of a majority of the OGP committee members. Committee members may delegate their share of budget to be administered by an alternate committee member.
While the goals and priorities of the grant program will be thoroughly discussed and reviewed by the community through public discourse, the decision to start the OGP by operating as a small committee is to ensure that the application and decision process will be efficient and predictable, so applicants have clear objectives and timely decisions. All OGP committee members are equal in power but have different specialties.
At the end of three months the committee makes a report on the grants program and a retrospective on how to improve it.
Accountability and Auditing:
All successful Sandgrains and Pebbles will be listed publicly in real time upon acceptance, including which committee member/s approved the grant. Payments will not be released to the grantee until the deliverable has been completed and checked. Deliverables will also be made public in real time. This information will be communicated on the grants website.
All Boulders and Mountains are listed upon committee approval and negotiation of agreements.
Summary
Grants rules and we want to keep growing the econOHMy GDP, activating our ecosystem and expanding OlympusDAO beyond web3. It’s also integral that the Grants team be empowered to be effective in the most cost efficient and impactful ways given current market conditions. We will shortly put forward an OIP requesting
Implement the Mycelial Method to enable nimble funding of smaller grants to activate a wider number of contributors from the ecosystem to contribute to OlympusDAO
Set up a Request for Proposals process and seek authority from the community for grants to set, initiate, coordinate, fund and manage projects.
Lead Joint Ventures with other grants organisations up to a max of $100k per venture.
Fund internally originated projects as well as externally.
Ratify that projects seeking > $100k in funding require OIP in addition to majority committee vote.
Run the program on a rolling basis with a review and OIP every 6 months.
Fund OGP with $1.5mm in DAO owned OHM every 6 months.
Set OHM rate at time of snapshot passing (Time Weighted Average Price or similar)
Unused funds contribute towards the next OIP budget e.g if $1mm unallocated at the end of 180 days then grants multisig only needs $0.5mm adding.
For this round this means $1,500,000 to be transferred to grants multisig to cover this current OIP.
Approve maximum budget of $56K per month to administer the program (75% of Incubator program budget)
We will shortly propose a further OIP requesting the community approve these proposed modifications.
Supporting Docs
Community update slides: (link thooon)
Grants Improvements Doc (Mycelial Method): OGP Improvements - Public
Grants OKRs: Grants OKRs - Public
Key Tweet threads:
