In the process of writing this OIP we have been reflecting on Tethys (Τηθύς), goddess of the sources of fresh water, and the mother of the rivers, springs, streams, fountains, and clouds.

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Summary

Seek authority from the community to launch an Olympus Grants Program (OGP) - governed by a program committee of known DAO contributors involved in the establishment of this proposal. As a part of the proposal, the program committee seeks authority from the community for a separate budget of $1.5 million - a sum which corresponds to equivalent programs run by Uniswap and Compound and is commensurate for a minimum viable product (MVP) relative to the Market Cap/Treasury of Olympus.

The purpose of the OGP is 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 synchronize with emergent priorities of the DAO. Most major protocols have a grants program to provide a clearly defined and publicised mechanism  to establish new products, projects and integrations beneficial to their protocols and their token holders.

Funding would also be available for external teams to execute a project or integration that is impractical or undesirable for Olympus DAO contributors to undertake. Examples include accessibility initiatives, developer documentation, decentralized frontends, third-party integrations and cross-chain expansion.

OGP would initially have the following remit:

1. Education - projects that educate about Olympus

2. Infrastructure - projects that improve/expand infrastructure of Olympus

3. Utility - projects that increase utility of OHM

The committee suggests utilisation of DAO reserved OHM for the OGP. If an enticing enough proposal is presented the community can vote on utilizing additional assets.

Unused funds from the OGP v0.1 would either be rolled over into the next iteration of OGP or returned to the DAO pending a future vote.

Motivation

Formalising a grants program has many additional benefits:

  • Establishes another mechanism for leveraging the existing expertise and experience of the DAO community by helping decentralize the identification of priorities, projects and opportunities important to the wider community, for the benefit of OHM.

  • Attracts talented developers who seek out clearly defined opportunities to contribute to emerging projects

  • Decreases the barrier to entry for teams who do not want to join the DAO but do want to contribute to Olympus.

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Proposal

Approve Olympus Grants Program pilot with a budget of $1.5 million from DAO reserved OHM for a trial period of 3.3 months.

The committee suggests utilisation of DAO reserved OHM for the OGP fund is of most benefit to the DAO as the idle unstaked OHM are getting diluted by > $10M per day (assuming steady market price). If an enticing enough proposal is presented the community can vote on utilizing additional assets.

The program will be overseen by a committee of 7 DAO contributors known in the community from different departments within the DAO are:

  1. Apollo (Olympus Initiator)

  2. Appleseed (Engineering)

  3. Brian (Sherpa, Community & Content)

  4. Church (Product & Marketing for Odyssey)

  5. DropKickDarren (Community & Content)

  6. Json (Operations, Partnerships & Treasury)

  7. WollemiPine (Partnerships, Community & Content, Engineering)

All decisions will be voted on by committee with minimum of 4 of 7 votes for a grant to proceed. Voting will be made public and available to the wider  DAO. The process and assessment criteria will be transparent and published as part of establishing this MVP.

OGP will launch with the following initial priorities:

1. Education - projects that educate people about Olympus

Examples: Playgrounds, Hackathons, Infographic Contests, Ecosystem Maps, Developer Documentation, Accessibility Initiatives, Enhancement of Olympus brand, market perception

2. Infrastructure - projects that improve infrastructure of Olympus

Examples: Bug bounty, Decentralized Frontends, Cross-chain expansion

3. Utility - projects that increase utility of OHM

Examples: Onboarding Initiatives, Staker directed voting, third-party integrations, one-click purchase and staking within mobile wallets

The program will provide the following support in addition to grant funds:

Distribution

  • Exposure and coverage in our social media and discord servers

DAO Assistance, which would need to be agreed on by a majority of Strategos

  • Advice and assistance when required from highly skilled Olympus DAO members - with expenses covered by Olympus DAO - including community building, content creation, marketing, front-end and backend assistance, advice and review.

With the initial priorities in mind, some effective measures for quick successes might look like:

  • Total number of projects funded

  • Quarterly increase in applications

  • Project engagement post-event/funding

  • Overall community engagement/sentiment

Wrap UP

Unused funds from the OGP v0.1 would be rolled over into the next iteration of OGP, with approval of the community, or returned to the DAO pending a future vote.

At the end of the funding runway, the OGP committee will provide a report concerning the program.

After receiving feedback from the community, the OGP committee will propose adjustments and parameters for an ongoing program and then proceed to a governance vote. During this process, the program committee and DAO will continue to be able to work with existing grantees - as long as it remains within the approved $1.5 million expenditure cap.

Polling Period

  • After 72 hours of community consultation on the proposal it will proceed to a Snapshot vote at 06:00 UTC on 04/12/2021 until 06:00 UTC on 06/12/2021

Vote

  • Yes - approve Olympus Grants Program administered by the DAO

  • Yes - approve Olympus Grants Program, different budget

  • No - do not approve Olympus Grants Program at this time

approve Olympus Grants Program administered by the DAO

I think this is a great idea, spreading the ohmiverse seeds to grow into new life

Fantastic proposal, very well put together no qualms here. Love the attention to detail!

Great idea and will help in building both the Olympus brand and growing out the ecosystem.

Big supporter of this - will speed-up integrations, allow outside execution and let the DAO focus on the main game

Big supporter of this initiative. To reach next few growth milestones, we have to build out a robust partner ecosystem. Grants program is a great way to incentivize projects and teams that add value to our econohmy.

I fully support this initiative

Another solid step in cementing OHM's position in defi. Love it.

I presume the key difference between this initiative and the incubator program is that we wont be taking on any of the projects gov tokens as part of a deal?

    kleb I presume the key difference between this initiative and the incubator program is that we wont be taking on any of the projects gov tokens as part of a deal?

    Yes, that's correct. In fact Grants won't require applicants to necessarily be a protocol/projects which has any tokens at all. So this would be looking to support contributors contributing something directly to the Olympus ecosystem.

      wollemiPine would the funded projects have to be part of Olympus? Or could it be an independent project that builds out the $OHM ecosystem and expands utility of the token?

        nfcarloacutis would the funded projects have to be part of Olympus? Or could it be an independent project that builds out the $OHM ecosystem and expands utility of the token?

        The latter. It's a common model that contributors can see a way to improve the utility and experience of an ecosystem but may not be able to join a DAO/company/protocol to execute the project. The grants program would provide an onramp for these types of contributions.

        This proposal appears to use semantics to bypass the ruling of OIP-50 in favor of Framework 1, which will God willingly be passed in the snapshot vote - blocking any and all charitable donations.

        If a supporting project needs funds - Olympus should require a fair cut of their "equity" in exchange (asset swap) for the OHM they receive. If the supporting project does not have "equity", then the project should be treated as an internal Olympus DAO work and compensation meted out in accordance with the existing budget / compensation proposals.

          bubbidubb I disagree. This proposal explicitly stipulates the projects should have utility for OHM. It isn't charitable, we should expect tangible benefits for Olympus.

          I think this proposal extends the reach of the DAO.

          I'd love a bigger budget for the team…we seem to throw less money at this stuff than we could. I'd suggest a specific allocation for each major category group. We should pay the most for people working in the DAO, we should pay the most to third-party team to get this done right…

          Education, Infrastructure, Utility each deserve, IMHO, a $1 million dollar budget… It would allow a lot of flexibility and for people to work in parallel pass without approaching the budget constraint.

          Great proposal nonetheless. Go team.

            bubbidubb This proposal appears to use semantics to bypass the ruling of OIP-50 in favor of Framework 1, which will God willingly be passed in the snapshot vote - blocking any and all charitable donations.

            If a supporting project needs funds - Olympus should require a fair cut of their "equity" in exchange (asset swap) for the OHM they receive. If the supporting project does not have "equity", then the project should be treated as an internal Olympus DAO work and compensation meted out in accordance with the existing budget / compensation proposals.

            hi b, thank you for offering an alternate view than otherwise expressed so far - it's appreciated.

            We've run OIP-55 past the author of OIP-50 who didn't seem to share your view, as well as a few others who voted in favor of framework 1 in OIP-50 who also had input into this OIP.

            i'm not familiar with this definition of charity - for example, lets say you were hiring a plumber to fix your toilet. They are an external contractor who you pay to fix something in your house which provides you utility. If I have understood correctly, by your definition, this would be charity? I would need to have an investment in the subcontractors plumbing business for them fixing my toilet to not be charity? Have I understood correctly? If I have understood correctly then perhaps an outcome of this perspective is that people would keep all such arrangements in the family?

            In the summary for this OIP is states

            All OGP grants will be directed to projects & contributors that directly advance the Olympus Ecosystem in ways which synchronize with emergent priorities of the DAO.

            With the motivation of

            Decreases the barrier to entry for teams who do not want to join the DAO but do want to contribute to Olympus.


            MrE I'd love a bigger budget for the team…we seem to throw less money at this stuff than we could. I'd suggest a specific allocation for each major category group. We should pay the most for people working in the DAO, we should pay the most to third-party team to get this done right…

            Education, Infrastructure, Utility each deserve, IMHO, a $1 million dollar budget… It would allow a lot of flexibility and for people to work in parallel pass without approaching the budget constraint.

            Thanks for this input and support. This is my first OIP so I'll chat with the team and see if it's possible to add another option to the snapshot which provides an option for a larger initial budget. If it's deemed too late then we could discuss this after this initial MVP in a subsequent proposal.

            • MrE likes this.

            bubbidubb we need to be able to be able to support ppl to build cool shit on top OHM - that is what this proposal is about - this has nothing to do with OIP-50

            @wollemiPine @Mark11 I have nothing against grants.
            My objection is basically on the principle whether we should keep the authority to distribute DAO funds centralized or decentralized. My heart warms for most things decentralized and the challenge is to unlock needed grant/funds without centralizing the disbursement authority. I believe the Tyche functionality could be the key to unlock this. And it could be absolutely brilliant.

            Thesis #1: Market value
            Americans donate 500B USD per year to charity. Americans provide 17B USD per year for crowdfunding. The US stock market cap is 50T USD, while crypto market cap is 2.5T USD or 1/20th of the stock market. If we use that as a proxy we derive that the crypto charity / crowdfunding potential is 26B USD per year. For America alone. Multiply with 3-5 for a global number. Say crypto charity / crowdfunding potential is 50B/year conservatively.

            Thesis #2: Digital identity
            The importance of digital identity is increasing by the day. In meatspace, we spend most of our money on our home as it is our primary extension of our identity and status. Digitally - how do we extend our identity and project our status? First it was PFP's. And they go for millions right. Next, we want other random NFT's - but we are lacking places to showcase our NFTs. No showcasing - no gain to my digital identity. So here comes the Metaverse, and with the metaverse we now have a space to showcase our extended identity. But showcase with what content?

            Thesis #3: Tyche enables the Human desire to be seen
            With Tyche, we can create a charity/fundraising marketplace, capturing a decent portion of that 50B USD / year. The DAO, can manage publicity campaigns for these fund raisers rather than disbursing central funds. Everyone that donates/crowdfunds, should get an NFT plaque as proof or their contribution - possibly one statistical, like a contributor list of "names" - possibly one tradable artistic NFT. These NFT's should be possible to be put on display in the galleries of House of Olympus in the metaverse as well as in the persons own individual house in the metaverse. These NFT's become the content that we all will want to showcase as extension of our digital identity.

            Going with the centralization of disbursement power, we dilute opportunities from Olympus and ohmies when it comes to extending our digital identities. Tyche + NFT could unlock a lot of fund raising opportunities. Few want to give money away anonymously. But if people receive acknowledgement and proof of being good citizens - a lot more capital becomes available. NFT is that proof. Just like most not-for-profits do provide some tangible acknowledgement to donors, so could Olympus.

            So, I have nothing at all against grants/charities - its just I see 50B+ MUSD turnover opportunities with decentralizing it and bridging it with the metaverse.

              bubbidubb I have nothing against grants.
              My objection is basically on the principle whether we should keep the authority to distribute DAO funds centralized or decentralized. My heart warms for most things decentralized and the challenge is to unlock needed grant/funds without centralizing the disbursement authority. I believe the Tyche functionality could be the key to unlock this. And it could be absolutely brilliant.

              i'm pretty sure you won't find many objections from contributors within the dao about the vision you outline!

              assuming we're all on the same page - how would you approach arriving at the vision that you have?

              I'll give an example. Zeus wrote a post in March outlining a vision for decentralizing the governance of olympus:

              We want to decentralize this thing as fast as possible. Most of the core components of the system will be in place at launch or soon after. There are plenty of new things to add, but the what and when will be decided by the community.

              However, we need to keep safety in mind. It’s a dangerous move to lock the system or distribute power to the community too early. What if there’s a bug, or one whale buys up enough supply for sole decision-making power while tokens are cheap/supply is low?

              To balance our ideals and goals with reality, we are launching with a Genesis DAO setup inspired by the guys at BarnBridge. The Genesis DAO is an Aragon company composed of team members, investors, and advisors. The Genesis DAO exists for no purpose beyond executing the decisions of the community.

              Now, with the release of gOHM Olympus is much closer to delivering on the vision of achieving further decentralization to the community. This is a remarkably quick turn around. However, to get there there was some centralization whilst setting up structures and stabilizing the system. I'd invite you to think about the grants program in a similar vein - it's a $$$ and time (3.3 months) bounded project - by the end of this period you will start to see the program's plan for decentralizing itself. If you don't then I invite you to link back to this message.

              I'd caution oversimplifying how innovation happens. It's rarely possible to launch right to the end state of full decentralization right away (if you have instructive examples of other cases/projects/protocols/people who have managed this, would find it really useful to learn from) - it's more often (from what I have seen) a journey and destination made up of thousands of actions and steps. Requiring a perfect solution off the bat could likely have the unintended consequence of stifling the innovation we seek.

              This will motivate talent to build together with Ohm. Great initiative!