April 2023 Grants/Bounties/Retrospective Awards Round Results

Grants / Bounties
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Hello everyone! We have concluded discussions and scoring for the April 2023 Grants/Bounties/RA Award Round. I’m happy to announce the following award winners. For those who did not receive an award, please note that applicants are welcome to re-apply. The next round is scheduled to start on July 1. Kindly note that we have implemented a new policy for dashboard applications, wherein funding will only be approved retroactively. This measure has been put in place to ensure that we derive the maximum possible value, given the large number of dashboard developers in the space. See more comments about this below.

This post also begins the fourteen-day clock during which, according to RPIP-15, “[a]nyone MAY file an RPIP disputing a grant, bounty, or retrospective award within two weeks of the announcement of recipients. Such an RPIP SHALL be subject to a snapshot vote.” Any awards not subject to such a challenge will become official on May 17 at 23:59 UTC.

Award Denominations

Awards were denominated in USD for the purposes of committee discussions and voting on finalized award amounts. Awards were then converted to RPL at the current ratio ($47/RPL) as of shortly before this posting (and then rounded up to the nearest RPL).

Proposal Scoring Process

You can find the GMC scoring rubric and discussion here.

As we wrap up our second reward period the GMC remains committed to refining and enhancing our processes to establish a clear framework for fairness and excellence in the future.

Awards, Average Overall Scores, and Feedback

Below is the list of award recipients, along with any specific information on the payout structure, the acceptance criteria (for grants), and any other notes that the committee wished to have as part of the official documentation for the decision. The average score - from 1 to 15 for grants and bounties and 1 to 5 for retrospective awards - is also listed. You can also find this in Google Sheets here. That Google Sheet also contains anonymized feedback from committee members to the applicants/community for each submission.

Number Proposer Title Awarded? Amount (RPL - RPL at $47/RPL) Amount (USD) Pay structure Other Acceptance Criteria Average score
GA022301 Valdorff DeFi Opportunities Page Yes 28 $1,300 $217/mo (4.25 RPL) / 6 months May be renewable at 6 months 13.75
GA022303 killjoy UPS Grafana integration Yes 15 $705 mentor’s requirements 10.86
GA022306 jasper Twitter Spaces (transfer) Yes 60 $8,460 $1410/mo (30 RPL) / 6 months May be renewable at 6 months 12.38
GA022312 shfryn poap design and distributions Yes 11 $500/mo / 1 month May be renewable at 1 month 8.75
BA022303 Valdorff Treegen Testing Support Yes 32 $1,500 15
BA022304 jcrtp Hybrid Grafana docs Yes 10 $470 14.83
BA022305 jcrtp Native Grafana docs Yes 10 $470 14.83
BA022306 jcrtp Node Operator FAQs docs Yes 2 $94 2 RPL per question 14.67
BA022307 jcrtp Liquid Stakers FAQs docs Yes 2 $94 2 RPL per question 14.67
BA022308 jcrtp Support Notif. for Smartnode Yes 215 $10,105 14.33
BA022310 jcrtp RocketArb for closes Yes 100 $4,700 12.57
BA022314 calurduran GMC Admin Yes 162 $7,500 $1250/mo (27 RPL) / 6 months May be renewable at 6 months 15
RA022301 Calurduran Rocket Arb Part 2 Yes 100 $4,718 12.86
RA022302 Calurduran Governance Facilitation Yes 100 $4,700 13.86
RA022303 Calurduran IMC Work Yes 104 $4,900 13
RA022304 Valdorff Migration Edge Cases Yes 53 $2,500 15
RA022305 Valdorff Snapshot POAPs and Template Yes 9 $400 11
RA022306 Valdorff LEB Research Yes 168 $7,875 12.57
RA022307 Valdorff Rocket Watch Yes 851 $40,000 13.57
RA022308 Valdorff RocketArb x AllNodes Yes 22 $1,050 $525 (11 RPL) to each recipient 14
RA022309 Valdorff odao guessing website Yes 11 $500 11.71
RA022310 peteris Treegen Spec Support Yes 96 $4,500 15
RA022312 Fornax ETH Denver Volunteers Yes 287 $13,500 To be distributed to all ETH Denver volunteers 11
RA022313 Fornax Smartnode Contributions Yes 64 $3,000 15
RA022314 Fornax Work on #support Yes 319 $15,000 14.17
GA022302 woh RocketPhone No 5.67
GA022304 ramana Frontend staking website No Would have liked to have seen more on UI/UX plan 7.67
GA022305 ramana Whale splitter contract No Please resubmit w/ mentor’s requirements 11
GA022307 ramana RP model high-order logic No Dev team suggests resubmitting this as a bounty for a research document on how formal verification might work for Rocket Pool, what components are suitable for formal verification, and what the concrete steps are to achieve the desired outcomes of such a project. 6.4
GA022308 mmurthy Karma delegate dashboard No - Dashboard Policy 8.56
GA022309 Arif Analytics for Rocket Pool No - Dashboard Policy 6.75
GA022310 drdoofus Rocket School University No Because of ongoing similar funded project Rocket School, Please resubmit next period 9.33
GA022311 ramana rocketsafetyRPC No 8.25
GA022313 peterkrulis Stablecoin backed by rETH No 2.13
BA022301 Valdorff Improve Dune RP analytics No - Dashboard Policy 13
BA022302 Dondo Engineering Internship No 4.71
BA022309 aliask Staking tax tool No 9.14
BA022311 jasper Enhanced Dune board No - Dashboard Policy 9.14
BA022312 jasper Node diversity research No 8
BA022313 ramana RocketProof No N/A
RA022311 xer0 Rocket Pool Lodging No 3.57
Final Vote

After numerous discussions on the individual submissions, the committee voted on the slate as a whole. The final vote was 7 in favor 1 opposed, and 1 no vote, with relevant abstentions for conflicts of interest from ShfRyn (GA022312, RA022305), Fornax (RA022312, RA022313, RA022314), Ken (GA022306), and Joe (BA022304, BA022305, BA022306, BA022307, BA022308, BA022310).

Dashboard Policy

For this round, we encourage anyone that submitted a dashboard grant or dashboard bounty to please resubmit as a retroactive award upon completion of the work. Keep detailed records of the work involved in order to be compensated fairly. The GMC places a high value on arguments that detail the uniqueness of the work. This policy is still in discussion and is subject to change in future rounds. We encourage community feedback and participation on this discussion.

ETH Denver Volunteering

This application put the GMC in a tough spot because 8/9 of the members were volunteers and thus had a conflict of interest. In order to resolve this, the members of the GMC have decided to exclude themselves and their immediate family members from the reward. This decision of exclusion is subject to change pending a community forum poll.

RPIP-18 Conflicts Of Interest

It has come to our attention that the GMC was not fully adhering to RPIP-18, which requires any GMC member who submits a grant application to abstain from scoring, voting on, or participating in GMC discussions about any grants during the application period for which they are an applicant. Last round, although Waq and Ken recused themselves from participating in their own grant applications, they did participate in the deliberation and voting of the other grant applications, despite having submitted their own grant applications. This oversight was due to a lack of awareness of the separate instructions regarding GMC members’ exclusion from ALL grant considerations in the award period when they have submitted a grant.

In the interest of transparency, we have taken immediate action to correct this mistake. It is worth noting that Ken and ShfRyn had grants for this period. Although we do not see visible conflicts within these grants, we invite the community to challenge the rewards from round 1 and / or round 2 if they disagree. The GMC acknowledges this mistake and will do everything within our power to ensure compliance with the protocol guidelines moving forward.

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I was looking over the awards and wanted to flag for people that, unlike last round, this round we had lots of RAs where people nominated others for the awards. The names listed here are the names of the nominators, not the awardees (which makes total sense for tracking purposes).

I’m mostly flagging that so that people don’t think that Val and I just received a bunch of RAs or anything like that - we are just profligate nominators of others.

Also thank you to the whole committee for the work you did on this round of awards. I remember how much work it was for Round 1, and even though I was not a part of Round 2, I really appreciate that we have community members willing to give of their time in this way.

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Congrats to the recipients.

A few thoughts:

  1. Rocket Watch has been underpaid, in my view. I’ll talk to the recipient but I would support a challenge expanding the remuneration for that RA.
  2. The GMC should establish a process for community members to avoid working on the same Bounties. For instance, I am interested in executing BA022308 (Smartnode notifications), but I do not want to either step on someone else’s toes nor have mine trod upon.
  3. Twitter Spaces appears to have gotten hit with a paycut. Unclear if this was intentional, but you’ll be hearing from jasper, I’m sure. At any rate, I’m supportive of correcting it to parity with the amount the team is currently compensating that work.
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I would agree on point 2 that anyone pursuing a bounty should have to register their intent with the GMC so conflicts with others can be avoided.

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Thank you for your hard work GMC!!

I will lodge the same concern that I did last award cycle. This process seems opaque and it is challenging to determine whether some or most of the GMC did their due diligence based on these results.

Voting as a bloc does not make much sense to me as opposed to tallying votes for individual awards. As a small example, recusing oneself at one stage and then voting to approve one’s own submission at the final stage opens the door for the appearance of impropriety or quid pro quo. Did the individual in opposition disapprove of the process or disapprove of one important decision or disapprove of a host of choices. Did a single individual make all the critical decisions and the others just registered their approval for the final vote?

And I really can’t think of a great reason that an individual would not vote at all (as opposed to voting to abstain). That person should explain their reasoning.

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I appreciate your feedback, it’s definitely a work-in-progress.

We score each application individually before meeting together on a call to share our opinions. We had two calls to discuss everything which totaled to about 3 hours.

The individual that voted no on the final slate did so because they didn’t agree with some of the rewards. That individual was not a part of the scoring process or any of the discussions. They gave no comment on which awards they didn’t agree with.

The individual that did not have a final vote was a part of all of the ongoing discussions and scoring. Members were given 48 hours to make a final vote, and I did not receive his within this window.

I intend to develop a system that can effectively monitor and track the activity and participation of committee members, taking inspiration from Valdorff’s system that successfully tracks IMC member involvement. However, at this time, I believe it would be unfair to single out specific members by name.

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Thanks, that’s a reasonable take!
My take: We elected 9 individuals to govern what is essentially the R&D arm of a billion+ dollar project. I realize we are all kinda friends with feelings, but if there are individuals that are not fulfilling that mandate (note: I don’t blame ‘em, it’s unpaid labor), the DAO deserves to know.

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As an aside, sort of, I’m sure it’s been discussed to death, but GMC should get paid. Even if it’s just a little. It’s too important to depend on volunteering.

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I disagree on purely factual things like “did not get a vote in”, “was absent without pre-informing”, etc. Specific comments are very different in that being able to freely express an opinion privately actually lubricates conversation.

At the same time, it’s important not to confuse “overextended themselves and failed” with “is a bad person and worthy of derision”. In general, but especially in a volunteer situation.

But yeah - it’s important that the pDAO have some usable information to gauge member contributions and use that to vote next time around.

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