Accruing value via RPGF3

Grants/Funding
1

Project Champion: jengajojo
Squad: IMN, Bankless Africa, DAOStewards, Nacion Bankless
Purpose: For-profit
Funds requested: 3.95M BANK
Project wallet(s): TBD

PROJECT TEASER

This proposal suggests investing 3.95M BANK into existing projects in order to qualify for Optimism’s 3rd round of RPGF (link) and generate high returns for the DAO and its projects.

SUMMARY

Project Description

By organising on-ground activities to onboard newbies directly to the optimism chain, we fulfil the mission of banklessDAO and Optimism Collective intent #3, thus qualifying for RetroPGF3 under the ‘End User Experience and Adoption’ category.

Past/preparatory activities

All projects and their champions have been active in the DAO for a long time and have previously contributed to earning OP rewards for the DAO and other projects. In RPGF2, we were able to secure 27567 OP link by not doing anything specific. Here is a chart outlining the ROI of this investment:

Project BANK invested BANK/USD OP obtained OP/USD ROI (USD)
DAOStewards 40,000 155 5,513 7,530 48.5x
Bankless Publishing 100,000 380 5,013 6,870 18x
Newsletter team 40,000 155 5,013 6,870 44.3x
IMN 42,000 160 5,013 6,870 44.3x
The Rug 1,000,000 3,800 2,756 3,780 -
Banklessvault 0 0 2,756 3,780 -
Total 1,222,000 4,650 26,067 35,700 7.7x

*All investment data is pulled from S7 forum & snapshot proposals. The specific amounts invested are estimates based on the cost it took to deliver the specific work as listed here. The goal here is not to be exact on the invested amount but generally to demonstrate that we can generate high returns for everyone by accruing value in RPGFs. In addition to this proposal, we have already submitted a grant request to Optimism DAO to start an online campaign as outlined here.

We believe that working specifically towards stated goals for RPGF3 as outlined here, we will be able to outperform the ROI on RPGF2 in USD value.

RETROSPECTIVE

This is a one-time ask.

SPECIFICATION

In the months of August and September, onground events will be organized all around the world to educate people about

  • The Bankless movement
  • How to use optimism to go bankless
  • Create wallets and perform on-chain transactions on optimism

These events will be held in the following countries:

Country Cost per event Number of events Responsible
Japan 100,000 4 Bankless Japanese
South Korea 100,000 4 Bankless Korean
Mexico 100,000 4 Nacion Bankless
Nigeria 75,000 4 Bankless Africa
Kenya 75,000 4 Bankless Africa
Ghana 75,000 4 Bankless Africa
Turkey 200,000 2 Bankless Turkish
Venezuela 50,000 4 Carlos Melgar <> Nacion Bankless
Honduras 50,000 4 Carlos Melgar <> Nacion Bankless
Peru 50,000 4 Carlos Melgar <> Nacion Bankless
Costa Rica 50,000 4 Carlos Melgar <> Nacion Bankless
India 50,000 4 Baer <> Bankless Malayalam
Total 3,500,000 BANK 46 Events

Events outline:

An entity responsible for organizing events is free to organize events from the following two categories. It does not matter if all events are from the same category, but we recommend focusing on Type B events.

Event Type A: Accelerating adoption through social and environmental impact

Type A events combine social and environmental impact with crypto education. These can be events such as:

  • Beach cleanups
  • Free educational courses on any topic that is relevant to the market
  • Wellness workshops
  • Workshops on protecting natural habitats

Those who attend these events could be compensated in BANK on Optimism chain , taught how to create wallets, swap tokens, etc., and #goBankless.

We have recruited Carlos Melgar, who has experience with on-ground social impact events in South America, to help us replicate this model around the world. He will also assist us with a small ETH budget.

Event Type B: Accelerating adoption via workshops and lectures in university campuses

Type B events are held in universities or other equivalent education institutions with the goal of having a workshop or lecture on:

  • The Bankless movement
  • How to use optimism to go bankless
  • Make wallets and perform on-chain TXs on optimism

Attendees may be compensated in BANK on Optimism chain, taught how to create wallets, swap tokens, etc., and #goBankless.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

Project Breakdown

It is difficult to estimate a global fixed cost for events happening around the world. Based on our experience with Global Events, we want to set a max budget for each event according to location and feedback from the event champion. Some of the BANK from the events budget can be given to participants to test onchain transactions on optimism chain

Category Budget
Total Onboarding Event 3,500,000
Reporting and accounting 100,000
AV editing and publishing 100,000
Buffer 250,000
Grand Total 3,950,000

Coordinator Compensation Breakdown

All other costs besides organizing workshops will be covered via RPGF3.

Compensation eligibility conditions for event organizers:

Each group will receive an upfront seed investment of 100,000 BANK to kickstart the process. For each subsequent event, the group must be able to submit the following artefacts from past events:

  • 3 pcitures from the event, with at least 1 image which includes everyone attending the event.
  • 1 short interview from one of the event attendees with the following guidelines:
    • Interviews can be performed with two phones, one for video and the other for audio.
    • Shorts compatible vertical video recording.
    • Max. 2 mins long.
  • A list of wallet addresses of all participants which have performed on-chain TXs.

KPIs

Factor KPI Success Metric
Events Number of events ≥30
Wallets Number of new wallet addresses created ≥600

COMMITMENTS

The squad, which includes IMN, Bankless Africa, and Nacion Bankless, commits to donating at least 25% and at the max. 75% of all revenue generated by RPGF3 back to banklessDAO multi-sig.

BRANDING

All projects which use the Bankless brand will follow existing practices and commitments to adhere to brand values and principles.

Should this project be funded?
  • Approve
  • Reject
  • Abstain

0 voters

5 Likes
2

It is an interesting and complex proposal which has a lot of “moving parts”: partly investment, partly supporting PG retroactively, partly marketing, partly onboarding etc… As the overarching narrative of this proposal is RoI on our BANK, I think this should be vetted (and endorsed) by the treasury [investment] group. Also, on an aside, I noticed that some of the links were broken.

4 Likes
3

Thanks @Bananachain I fixed them now.

Would be good to hear what the treasury has to say @Icedcool @gruad

1 Like
4

Love the ambition ser!

My main concern is the % of funds that would flow back to the DAO. Why the huge range? I feel like I need more certainty to make an informed vote. Maybe a waterfall breakdown of total RPGF funding received and corresponding percentage sent to the Vault multisig…eg if we receive x OP we commit to sending x % of OP back to the DAO.
It’s a major investment and in some ways a big gamble (with a potential exponential payoff) and I’d like to see a hard commit on the amount of RPGF funding flowing back to the DAO.

I’m also certain Newsletters and BP will have a role in promoting these activities, and it would be appropriate to include these projects in the scope of this proposal as well. Let’s chat about this.

Thanks Jenga!

3 Likes
5

I see in the specification section a chart of BANK allocation for events and onboarding. I support the efforts but am leery of possible lack of accountability. I am likely ignorant of previous efforts by these regional groups but would like direct answer to some questions [direct links preferred]:

  1. Who are the responsible project leads for each of the regional Bankless movements? and how are they recruiting local leaders to bring in new people? if incentives only drive them to bring bodies in and not educate then its IRL sybils we’ll get

  2. What history of delivery do these regional projects have (events, media features, etc.)?

  3. How will the events be advertised to bring new entrants to Optimism and Bankless Naton? i.e. where are people coming from? any other local event efforts we can tie to?

    • I just saw the Event B part. in an academic setting, can we lead these groups to subscribing to Bankless Publishing and starting their journey as Bankless Academy #explorers? Seems like an easy connection to make if they’re already there in person.

  4. timing seems sus/fortuitous (depending on perspective) in leadup to Permissionless Sept 11-13. is that intentional? if yes, are we in contact with anyone at HQ/Blockworks about these efforts?

2 Likes
6

Question 1 was the exact question on my mind.

7

  1. The node champions will deliver these events in each country. These champions have been creating content and hosting events since last year. @yuki @raybankless.eth @0xbaer @CryptoReuMD @thinkDecade will be responsible for the execution. We are exploring Gitcoin passport as a solution to the Sybil problem but there is no user friendly interface which facilities location agnostic verification based on providers which are popular in certain jurisdictions while others are not. Another point is the artefacts that we will collect which includes a group picture of people attending each event to verify number of addresses with number of participants from each event

  2. Evidence from past performance can be found via Global events notion here IMN notion here, Bankless Africa here

  3. No this timeline is arranged with Optimism’s RPGF3 which will start taking in nominations from October. We plan to wrap up activities and produce a report for this.

1 Like
8

In the past round we sent 10% of the funds back to the treasury. Note that we did not do any special activity as a DAO to secure these funds. However in this case, as highlighted in this proposal, we have already asked optimism 7x more funds than this proposal and we are specifically designing this campaign with the measure of success rpfg3 will use to maximize our returns.

The lowest kickback % in this proposal is already 150% higher than rpgf2 as well as any other project that has given back to the DAO

As mentioned in this proposal, all other costs except those involved in organizing events will be reimbursed via Rpgf3. Since we do not know exactly how much OP we will receive and what costs individual contributors may have, we thought it’s best to give a bounded range.

9

I am one of the local chapeter coordinators, Bankless Turkish.

Our content work is consistently continuing for 6 seasons.
You can see our work on

we did not organize any IRL events ourselves yet. But we have been to a conference in Istanbul last November.

We have some frens from university clubs in our discord, we will be organizing with them.

We are thinking of a “first quest” type of onboarding in these meetings. So subscribing to our newsletters would be a step, thank you for the idea.

4 Likes
10

Hello Fren:
-It’s being a while since i’ve been part of the IMN team, and i’ve been aware for the success that every node it’s doing with their BANKS, that actually around 35k, with a lot of commitment and values.
-One of the main problems that we had it’s onboarding new people, because they arrive with rush but get very disappointed with the revenue, but when the people it’s met in real life they engage a lot better than the discord on boarding. So i think that for the bigger nodes, this opportunity to catch new members it’s hugue.
-We hace our personal node page, that it’s within the IMN page, Global Events, and twitter account, for the Spanish Speakin community we were part of ETH México Hackaton, Merge Party, DevCon, NounsDAO amigos, Ledger with Ethereum Mexico partnership, that are at least with 25 people, and now we partnered with Green Pill Mexico to start talking about public goods.
-The more the merrier, i think but the principal reason why the people it’s getting difficult it’s the UX, because the content isn’t accesible in their own language and i’m sure that Bankless Academy is working with this. And of course part of our values are sharing our Bankless publishing translaiton .
-We are commited to give 10% of the grants and funds that we get to the DAO and also 10% to the Nacion Bankless Treasury.
-I hope this answers some of the concerns :smiley:

3 Likes
11

Hi all,

I’m Yuki from Bankless Japan.
We started around 10 months ago and now we have more than 10K monthly views of our newsletter contents.
We haven’t held our own event yet in Japan but we did media partnership for ETH Tokyo and DAO Tokyo and have a close relationship with those organizers.

If this proposal proceeds, we are planning to have the first event as Web X’s side event so we can anticipate more people to join.

5 Likes
12

Each group will receive an upfront seed investment of 100,000 BANK to kickstart the process.

Could you please say more about the seed funding and provide more detail on how the BANK will be spent apart from giving it to participants?

Is a group the same as a node?

The amounts aren’t clear to me. If (for example) Bankless Japan is going to run 4 events and the cost per event is 100,000 BANK, doesn’t that mean they need 400,000 BANK? It says “All other costs besides organizing workshops will be covered via RPGF3.” so I don’t understand where the additional 300K BANK for 3 more workshops comes from in this budget, what costs you included in ‘organizing workshops’, and what amount of BANK you consider appropriate to give to a workshop participant.

What is the plan for groups that don’t manage to provide the evidence from past events?
i.e. if a group is given 100K BANK but then their first event that costs 50K is not sufficiently evidenced, what happens to the other 50K of their seed funding?

What follow up support would be available to workshop attendees? Will they also be shown how to join the node’s Discord server so they can ask questions if they get stuck?

2 Likes
13

I suppose I’m going to be the awkward one here:

Global events are global, but you’re missing underserved areas in the US. There are low income places in my home state that could benefit from this process.

Why leave off the US?

I do understand there’s spots like New York, LA, and so on.

Thats a handful of cities across 330m people.

Follow up questions:

  1. What specifically will you be doing to hold these events.
  2. Who specifically will be apart of this effort (which contributors)
  3. Why this process?
  4. What topics would be specific to the market? Would you be helping with basics or would you be helping with financial literacy?
  5. How would you handle liability insurance in various areas (you’re helping people outside of convention walls with learning. This goes from digital world to real world) right?

At first glance i can’t vote on this. But there’s definitely hope.

2 Likes
14

I should mention that I do know that this is international media nodes but I do believe having nearly 4 million bank for this process and leaving out emerging cities in the states is a huge injustice that I don’t think should be glazed over by any means especially if this is a group that is focused towards 1 billion people going bankless. It’s worth an investigation of looking into programs in inner city areas, universities across the country, and more to set up these events.

1 Like
15
  • Funds will be used to cover costs which include transportation, rent for venue and equipment as well as any pre-marketing activities which are required before the workshop. In case of the Japanese node, each workshop has a budget of 100K with a total of 4 workshops equaling to 400K.
  • Each group will be seeded with 100K, and each consequent payment will be upon fulfilling conditions as defined in this proposal, till the max. budget for that group has been met.
  • Groups who are unable to provide evidence for past events will not receive further compensation
  • It is the responsibility of the nodes to offer followup support, however each attendee will be encouraged to join local content that nodes create.
  • While there is a risk that groups may not be able to provide sufficient evidence on the first attempt, we hope to minimize the impact of this by only working with groups who have shown evidence of delivering events and content in the past.
  • Aside from the actual workshop costs, costs such as time of on-site and off-site contributors as well as coordinators and any other unexpected costs which cannot be covered by this budget will be covered by RPGF3
16

Thanks for the question @homie

We can only work with contributors who have
a. proven experience and reliable contributions in the past
b. who can work with the budget allocated here
c. are avaliable to contribute in this timeline

If you are able to find contributors who can meet these conditions, I am happy to include them in this proposal irrespective of location or other specific filters

Each group will partner with local orgs or rent venues, market these opportunities and host workshops.

Some of them are listed here, you can find the specific ones by following the links I posted in the earlier comments

To get the best risk adjusted return on RPGF3

Topics will be best decided by local groups based on market conditions. We are happy to help out creating a location and cultural agnostic template and appreciate any help that you or others can offer.

I don’t know if liability insurance is relevant here, but I am not a lawyer, neither is anyone in the DAO who specializes in all these jurisdictions. Maybe you can elaborate or reframe the question.

17

It could be country specific, but sometimes (at least here) when you’re dealing with university clubs, you need liability insurance to cover you from any goofball situations that can occur. Or a disclaimer that can try and protect you (the popular “this is not financial advice”)

Probably talking to legal guild will be fine here.

Sounds good. Are you essentially creating a framework that others can use under this initiative in their respective locations?

All well and good, but if this is a proposal, I’m unsure as to why the contributors wouldn’t just all be listed here. A potential answer would be the thought I had above where it seems like this is more of a framework for folks to use in respective areas.

If that is not the case (you aren’t building a framework) it seems like it’s a better ask to look for funds for an initial event (with a planned university, group, etc) and then once that particular KPI is achieved, THEN ask for the larger amount.

18

LFG, full support in coordinating events

19

Are we currently running these events right now?

  • If so, how many people attend these events, and how many of them are new Optimism users (which is their metric of success)?
  • If not, how do we know this effort will be successful? How are you planning on reaching potential event participants (i.e. marketing plan)?
  • Could you share a lesson plan or script?

Big spread here, how do you decide how much goes back to the multisig?

What do you mean when you say that Banklessvault was rewarded with OP? I don’t see it in Hiro’s Post.

In general, I am supportive of this effort. However, this is a lot of BANK, so I really want to understand more about how we are going to make these events successful. Thanks for posting and I am looking forward to hearing more.

1 Like
20
  • Disclaimer is a good idea, we will ask everyone to add it to their pitch
  • Yes, the idea is to create the minimum necessary conditions for contributors to go out their and achieve predefined goals which are agnostic of language or culture, or a framework as you call it. With IMN we learnt that you cannot create a system that works in one place and simply copy pasta it to another place, the best thing we can do is to find the minimum necessary rules for people to coordinate and succeed