Season 4 Research Guild Funding Request
Source Doc Draft Season 4 Research Guild Funding Request - Google Docs
Total budget request from Grants Committee is 668,100 BANK minus 30,800 left over from S3
= 637, 300 BANK total request for S4.
Mission
The Guild’s Mission will be to operate as a Support Node for conducting, guiding, and funding research that aligns with the goals and vision of the BanklessDAO.
To achieve these goals, the Research Guild will:
- Create research bounties
- Track Research Jobs within the DAO
- Fund scope squads and research projects through a grants program
- Write and publish research articles
- Support Research Work and Talent Recruitment for projects across the DAO
The Guild hopes it can contribute to the DAO in various ways, but most importantly support Research Talent and provide an On Ramp to using Blockchain Technology within Bankless DAO.
Summary of Season 3
Many research interest groups have formed this season as Role Holders has been responsive and supportive of member ideas. 3 out of the 10 interest groups will be formalized projects with Scope Squads in Season 4.
We have also found research needs in other projects within the DAO. 2 of our researchers joined the Gov Bot Team, a couple have joined Talent DAO, and we are currently supporting a Grants Research Workstream in Bankless Consulting.
One of the things Research Guild is proud of this season is the ability to collaborate with Bankless Africa on the research and publishing of the Bankless Africa Seasonal Research Report. The research was done in season 3 and we are currently in the writing phase to be published along with the season 4 kick off social media, around April 18th. The featured topics in the report are “Defi Challenges on the African Continent” and the “Stable Coin Research Report”.
The ‘‘Stablecoin Project ‘’ work group has gotten to assist Bankless Africa and help flesh out ways to help fulfill the goal of onboarding millions into crypto and become “Bankless”. Our group has been able to find , define, and identify the three core forms of stable coins and the specific projects in each category. Thanks to the team’s research we were able to work with Bankless Consulting and obtain a grant from ‘Fei Labs’’ to help complete a SWOT analysis for FEI protocol and the TRIBE turbo and launch pad products. This is a great source of outside funding for Bankless and a way for us to diversify our treasury. Thanks to the team’s hard work we have submitted a grant proposal to build out a “Stablecoin Hub” that will unify the research done by the team and hopefully create educational content that can be used, branded, and sold by other parts of the DAO.
As if these accomplishments were not enough I really have to give credit to the Guest Passers that have developed the Roles and Mentored new members since day 1 of the season. They came into uncharted waters and the Pirate Ship sails are now catching the wind and we are on a path of exploration.
Season 4 Goals
-
Onboarding New Research Talent to match up with DAO projects
-
Build Capacity of Guild members to Self Organize and self govern
-
Continue to support other guilds and projects within Bankless DAO
-
Continue to give opportunities to Guild members in understanding and using the basic dao tools (discord, notion, gnosis, sesh.bot, and snapshot)
-
Build out a stablecoin research hub in conjunction with Bankless Consulting and Bankless Academy.
Total Budget Overview for Season 4
We are expected to have a balance of 30,800 BANK in our Treasury. We are asking for a total of 625,100 BANK.
- If Possible we would like 10% of the Value to be in ETH and 25% of the value in USDC with the remainder in BANK. The reason is to reduce selling pressure on the BANK token.
We have a Multi Sig on the ETH mainnet and on polygon.
-
eth:0x2b00Fdf9AadAFEe22Cf56eb59BA367f6aCD0ce10
-
matic:0x3628F8A41eE5112931fBA446610aEaD236Cd2AA3
If any of the funds can be sent to out Polygon MultiSig that would be swell.
Success Metrics
Near-terms ways we can add value
- Refine Project Intake Process and Member Onboarding
- Foster a space for open research interest group Development
- 1 Knowledge Session a month on broad skill development (season 3 gnosis)
Longer-term objectives
- Publication of Research
- Support Roles for Primary Role Holders developed
- Support for more research projects and spaces within the dao
How will we measure success?
- Through delivery of quality research projects, on-time and on-budget, with the quality expected and agreed upon by the guild.
- Happy & Active Guild Members as measured by our Coordinape Sign up forms
- Members learning new skills to contribute to projects and other guilds.
Total Request for Role Holders is 277,000 BANK
Description of Roles can be found here:
Season 4 Autonomous Guild Incentives
Our incentive structure is unique. The goal of our Incentive Structure is to as much as possible incentivize members to commit to action items for the self-organizing of the guild, for joining Scope Squads for research purposes, and for developing research projects. We believe this bounty structure provides opportunities for skill development and motivates DAO members to actively contribute to guild operations.
Guild Self-Administration Bounties
- Gearing Up Update 1,000 BANK = 7,000
- 2 Weekly Sync Meeting Speakers - Run the meetings based off of the Guild agenda - 1,500 BANK remuneration per Sync. Speakers should make sure to update each other’s Meeting Agendas.
- 2 Weekly Sync Meeting Listeners - Adds details to notes submitted so that speakers can focus on speaking and listening to other members, sets up notes for next meeting - 1,500 BANK remuneration per Sync.
Total for 13 weeks = 79,000 BANK
Meeting Agendas are Modified as needed. The following are modifications.
Verbal Project Report Update - 400 BANK remuneration - Should provide notes to agenda prior to meeting
Written Meeting Report added to Agenda - 300 BANK remuneration - Does not need to be present in meeting
- Reports are defined as Noteworthy or Substantial Updates, not getting tipped to copy and paste previous weeks notes if things are on standby.
At 2 verbal and 3 written updates this estimate totals at 22,100 BANK
Guild Research Micro Grants
Join a Scope Squad for Research Support purposes 1-4,000 BANK grant
Join a Project in Project Planning for Research Support purposes 2-5,000 BANK grant
- Must provide update every 2-4 weeks
At 3 squads (2500/) and 3 projects (3500/) a season with avg Grant Funding = 18,000 BANK
Maintain Ongoing Research Channel 3-6,000 bank per season, monthly reporting
- Can request from guild additional micro grants for bounties such as publishing research, “cleaning” research data.
- Guild Members may require Proposals to have community forum support (usually plus forty approval?)
Estimate 2 channels (4500/)= 9,000 BANK
Guild Coordinape
- Our active member Role Tag is @beakers
- There are 31 active members currently attending events in the Research Guild
- We allocate 3,000 BANK per active member with the Beakers Role Tag
- Coordinape will be distributed for weeks 1-4, 5-8, & 9-13 of each season.
- Possibly test bi weekly distributions
- Estimate of 93,000 BANK for season 4
Total in Autonomous Guild Incentives Total 221,100 BANK
Research Work Group and Interest Group Funding
Work Groups -
Bankless Africa Research Work Group 45,000 BANK
Test DAO 45,000 BANK
Health Research 20,000 BANK
Bankless Africa Research Work Group
The bAfrica Research Journal will be published Seasonally and is managed by the bAfrica Research Work Group (#BA Research WG). The journal focuses on identifying web 3 challenges that pertain to the African continent and to deepen the understanding of common web 3 use cases.
In season 3 Bankless Africa was awarded a grant of 15,000 BANK from the research guild for the development of their first Research Journal Publication. The research guild is happy to collaborate on this project and to be able to provide some support in such a meaningful way. The experience of the publishing of the report will also increase the knowledge and talent of research guild members as we learn how to publish research as well.
testDAO-
The Test DAO project will evaluate DAO Tools that are currently available and future tools that will look to find a place in web3. We will continue to evaluate the tools past the initial project phase. We will take suggestions from other guilds, other guild members, and other communities to be evaluated. The Scope Squad for this project is jarisjames, infinitehomie.eth, jmluther, zjodreamer.eth. Passive Contributors will be feems, ashish, and rowan. The end goal is to have a marketplace of evaluated DAO tools that can be utilized by DAO members and other communities. Our research can also be used to curate and evaluate software, and make suggestions for the future.
Health Research -
This research project looks to uncover the mental and physical health problems occurring in Bankless DAO via a survey. By presenting the mental and physical health issues of members in the DAO, we can devise concrete solutions, and present initiatives to improve on the wellbeing of members in the DAO. We would like to find a way to improve both the physical and mental health state of all DAO members by introducing new health initiatives. We applaud and make use of already existing health initiatives such as the #mental-health-channel, DAOyoga and the Readiness column in the WR, but we feel there is a room for more.
Interest Groups-
In the research guild we provide space for the incubation of potential Research Projects. It is here that over time the planning, talent building, and the skill development that is needed to create a project and its social agreements emerges.
Interest Groups are funded at 10,000 BANK per interest group creating a pool of funds for Interest Groups to use if they build a scope squad and go through the project intake process. About 30% of Interest Groups become Projects over the course of a season. Based off of Season 3 experiences of 10 interest groups through the season 3 projects making it through the Guild Governance Framework to formalize as a project.
A snapshot of some of this season Interest Groups:
6 currently active interest groups at 10,000 BANK per group is 60,000 BANK
This list is more than 6 because one interest group will likely become a project and one interest group has agreed to take more time to see how things develop and are not seeking much assistance at this time, looking towards season 5.
Total Project Funding 170,000 BANK
