Indexed

Discussion Thread: https://forum.indexed.finance/t/indexed-growth-committee-investing-in-the-growth-of-indexed/518

Approved Snapshot Vote: https://gov.indexed.finance/#/ndx.eth/proposal/Qmcn4SibSCopSEwZ8MtfUALmcXWF7kEXw4vHhm3imreqtu

Actions

1. Approve the committee gnosis to spend 100,000 DAI from the treasury
2. Approve the committee gnosis to spend 10,000 NDX from the treasury

Summary

This proposal outlines a framework for funding Indexed ecosystem development with grants from the Indexed Treasury. It is modeled on the Uniswap Grants Program, which was carefully crafted by several prominent investors and community figures in the DeFi space.

The scope of this program encompasses anything that helps the project—sponsoring hackathons or gitcoin bounties, media sponsorships, community competitions—anything is fair game. Eventually it could fund (with renewals approved by governance) core protocol development.

Grant administration is a subjective process that cannot be easily automated, thus we propose a nimble committee of 7 members—1 lead and 6 reviewers—to deliver an efficient, predictable process to applicants, such that funding can be administered without having to put each application to a vote. A threshold of 4/7 votes will be required to spend funds from the committee.

We propose the program start with a cap of 100,000 DAI + 10,000 NDX for the first quarter—a sum that we believe is appropriate for an initial pilot—renewable or adjustable after each epoch of six months.

Purpose

The mission of the Indexed Growth Committee (IGC) is to identify and pursue opportunities which help to grow the Indexed ecosystem. These can be inbound requests or opportunities proactively pursued by the committee. The point is: to get more people involved in the growth of the project it is crucial to have a single point of contact responsible for filtering and reviewing the work proposals.

Budget & Renewals

• Max budget of 100,000 DAI + 10,000 NDX for the first quarter.
• Budget to be assessed after the first quarter and every six months thereafter.

Each committee will have a term of 2 quarters (6 months/one epoch), after which the program needs to be renewed by NDX governance, excepting the initial committee which will require renewal after the first quarter.

Initial Committee

Gnosis Safe: 0x45Ad0ef471ed7cDaD80B9D77fC43a2dF43E0d4C8

Lead: Lito Coen (0x79C4213a328E3B4F1D87b4953C14759399dB25E2)

Reviewers:

1. Fabian Spiegelberger (0xED9c975cC9d4d5B482332bbB78207A59F2aac4F0)
2. DBuck (0xB203df26AF3666f4214661f7f903C46EDF9403b0)
3. Gregoire Le Jeune (0xE75E1BA066AcEC0428e6b631e1594F98e0D78268)
4. Jeddi (0xc035C9F4272F8dBD3FEdd40C77C8B5D9B07c72f5)
5. Jascha Samadi (0x20314e5D826B739CbcAC702c23a2Ab4c40Fb0940)
6. Louis Guthman (0x283C8A919F63bAd7D9858ffDF16259C0740DFdAD)

Methodology

1.1 Budget

This proposal recommends a max cap of US$100,000 + 10,000 NDX per quarter, with the ability to reevaluate after the first quarter and then biannually at each epoch (two fiscal quarters). While the IGC will be the decision makers around individual grants, respective budgets, roadmaps and milestones, any top-level changes to the IGC including epochs and budget will require a governance vote.

The IGC will be funded by the Indexed treasury via ERC20 allowances.

1.2 Grant Application Process

Grant applications to the IGC need to be submitted publicly in the forum. We will create a new “Grant” category for this purpose which is where all applications need to be submitted. Applications must be well-written and contain all the relevant information such as price, scope of the proposal, timeline, benefits etc. so that the committee and the community have all the information at hand.

In rare circumstances, if the committee reaches out proactively to a service provider and wants to keep it private for competitive reasons, it is acceptable to publish the proposal afterwards.

1.3 Committee Compensation

Operating a successful grants program takes considerable time and effort.

The lead should be compensated for their time. The reviewers will not be compensated for their time as we project that the commitment will be minimal to start (2-5hrs).

We propose the lead be compensated US$75/hr capped at 10 hours/week. This compensation will come from the the quarterly budget, which will be allocated to the IGC multisig from the NDX treasury. In keeping with the committee’s commitment to the community, hours and duties will be logged publicly and transparently.

2.1 Priorities

Initially, the program aims to start narrow in scope, funding peripheral ecosystem initiatives, such as targeted bounties, education material, tooling & dashboards, media sponsorships, and other low-stakes means of building out the Indexed brand & ecosystem. Over time, if the program proves effective, the grant allocations can grow in scope to include, for example, listings on centralized exchanges, integrations into other dApps and eventually core protocol development.

2.2 KPIS

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

• Total number of initiatives funded
• Quarterly increase in applications
• Project engagement post-event/funding (no of holders, TVL etc.)
• Overall community engagement/sentiment

2.3 Timeline

The grants program will be managed on a quarterly basis and reviewed every two quarters after the pilot.

After each quarter the committee will be required to submit a report on key metrics to the community.

Conclusion

This program is meant to be the simplest possible MVP of a Indexed Ecosystem Grants initiative. While the multi-sig committee comes with trust assumptions about the members, our hope is the community will approve this limited engagement to get the ball rolling in an efficient structure. After the first quarter the burden of proof will be on IGC to show empirical evidence that the program is worth continuing with renewed funding from the treasury.