Thank you all for keeping this draft going. I had planned on replying sooner but needed more time to come up with a thoughtful reply. I have been reading all your suggestions and hope we can reach consensus soon:
Committee member stipend
At first glance, 5K COW per month may seem steep, but I do think it can be justified. This amount will be set for the entire grant phase. At this early stage, it is not crystal clear yet what workload and tasks, in practice, will be expected from a committee member.
@Kubesqrt mentions this could be clarified by estimating how many hours weekly or monthly are likely required to full-fill each task under the GrantsDAO.
Given that the workload and required tasks arenāt yet known, Iād recommend that we initially stick to a 6-month grants period. After this, we can reassess the grant period length again. I think after the first grants period, a better understanding can be had of efforts required.
@prometheus made a point of making sure there is sufficient support from the CoWDAO governance members to greenlight the GrantsDAO and its committee. Specifically, in a scenario where there are no applicants or very few, a stipend on the higher end might give the impression of a low return on investment if there are no equally balanced results in return.
That being said, for the coming 6-month period, my assumption is that there will be sufficient work in setting up the committee, the grants environment, and defining the grant application process itself. At least for this period, I personally would find the current suggested stipend justified, given we can clearly define what can be expected from the committee in this first period.
Proposal: Stick to 5K in COW and revisit this number after 6 months. After the first grant period we can revisit the stipend amount again.
Committee structure
@netrunner.eth proposes having a total of 7 committee members, consisting of 3 CoW core team members and 4 community members. The rationale here is to prevent a tie.
At first glance, introducing more committee members could slow down the grant process. A scenario I could see happening in practice is dealing with the situation where there are unresponsive committee members.
One solution could be to define a fixed day per month where votes are counted. In the case of a committee member not casting their vote, their voting power would be void.
A consequence of this approach would be that, regardless of the number of committee members we have, a tie could still happen.
I think a few aspects need to be defined:
- How to deal with the absence of one or more committee membersā votes?
- What is the minimum vote count required for a GrantsDAO vote to be valid?
For instance, imagine only 4 out of 7 members voting. But 1 out of the 4 voting committee members is against the proposal. Would the GrantsDAO vote still pass?
In the above scenario, a pragmatic approach could be to set a requirement of at least 4 YES votes for any GrantsDAO proposal to pass. This ensures that the COWDAO does not have unilateral voting power to decide on grant proposals.
Proposal: Go for a committee member count of 7 instead of 6: The chances of getting at least 4 votes with 7 members are higher.
Grant process transparency
We need to make sure the process of proposing, observing, and reviewing grant proposals is fully transparent and visible to all parties (including the general community). Also, as @Kubesqrt points out, a monthly report should be shared in the GrantsDAO environment by the committee to provide transparency on how the grant funds are distributed.
Proposal: Have a specific GrantsDAO environment setup by the committee. In addition, responsibility needs to be taken by anyone from the committee to ensure all committee members are timely alerted about the need to vote on a proposal (e.g. by email, Discord, or otherwise). @Master_CoW mentioned this tool to me https://www.questbook.xyz/ which could be considered by the committee once the GrantsDAO is set up.
Conflict of interest as a committee member
A point raised by @Kubesqrt is whether committee members would be able to apply for grants as well. I fully agree with his point of view that we should allow this but have a committee member abstain from any voting on their own proposals. The only way I can see this being enforceable is through a combination of mutual trust within the grants committee and the voting power distribution in place.
Committee member vs. core contributor
As for what Iād define as a committee member and a core contributor,
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Committee member: part of the GrantsDAO committee (e.g., 1 of 7) that fulfills their responsibilities in relation to the grant proposals and voting.
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Core contributor: This is any contributor committing significant/full time contributing to the CoW Protocol under the GrantsDAO. Essentially anyone not directly working under the Portuguese entity (the CoW Team) but directly working for the COWDAO as part of the general core team, through the GrantsDAO. Anyone wanting to become part of the core team under the GrantsDAO needs to go through the grant application process.
Grant payout tokens
I acknowledge @netrunner.ethās suggestion on reducing the COW token selling pressure and paying out grants in DAI. I would suggest letting grant recipients and core contributors denominate their grant/pay in a specific stable fiat currency, using any stable token (e.g. EURS, USDC, etc.). I think a condition here should be that the payout token has sufficient liquidity (< 3% slippage on swaps).
Having said that, Iām personally not opposed to payout grant recipients in COW tokens if desired. Iād leave this up to the committee to decide on, once it is formed.
As for individual grant applications vs. grants for core contributors, Iād make a distinction in the method used for payouts:
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For grant applications, I think itās appropriate to use the CSV airdrop module or a manual transaction to pay out a grant after the committee approves such an application and/or a specific milestone of a grant application.
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For core contributors and committee members, it is expected that the grant/stipend amount will remain consistent during the whole grant period. Therefore, Iād opt to pick Sablier.finance (or any streaming method) to automatically have the payouts happen. In the event that the streamed pay must be terminated abruptly, the GrantsDAO can intervene with a snapshot vote.
Again here, I would leave it up to the committee to decide on these specific details.
Moving this proposal to Phase II
In order to expedite this proposal, Iād encourage us to push this to phase II (Snapshot) before the end of next week. In my previous reply I mentioned a couple of points we needed to define before moving forward. I will list them again and see what input weāre still missing or need consensus on:
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- Define the 4 committee members from the community (the other 3 are from the existing core team) that want to fulfill the obligations defined for the GrantsDAO under this CIP proposal. Any interested community member must submit a brief application outlining their motivations and prior commitments, as well as the (ENS) address they wish to use as their signing wallet.
Status: Thus far we have the following community members signaling (or have been brought to my attention) wanting to become a committee member:
Anyone else interested should express this here as soon as possible and in addition, provide their Ethereum address/ENS.
From the CoW team we would need 3 members. @middleway.eth and @Master_CoW expressed interest. When preparing the snapshot vote, the CoW team will supply the 3 Ethereum addresses on their end.
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- Define the allocated stipend (in COW or stable token) for each committee member for the defined responsibilities for the 6 month period.
Status: Mixed suggestions on the stipend amount for community members taking part in the committee. Personally I would accept and vote in favor of starting out with 5K COW per month for the coming 6 month period. Keeping in mind that the GrantsDAO (and the COWDAO for that matter) always has the possibility to intervene at any point, through voting.
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- Define and prepare the snapshot execution parameters to set up the GrantsDAO Gnosis Safe with the grant committee ownership structure and the Gnosis Safe (which will hold grant funds) with the 2 DAOs being the signers. Funding would be setup for the first grants period of 6 months.
Status: I will coordinate this step with the CoW core team once we have found consensus on all points and move this forward to phase II, which involves setting up a Snapshot vote.
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As for defining the details around managing the GrantsDAO, Iād leave that up to the committee to organize once the GrantsDAO is formed.
, which is why I would like to nominate myself as a member of the grant program.