January 2023 GMC Call for Grant Applications - Deadline is January 15th

[calurduran]

This thread is for applications for Rocket Pool’s January 2023 (Round 1) grants. Please only post grant applications in this thread. If you would like to discuss and/or ask questions about any applications you see in this thread, we ask that you do so in this separate forum thread which has been established for all community discussions related to this round of applications. Only those grant applications that are posted in this thread and timestamped by January 15, 2023 at 23:59 (11:59 PM) UTC will be considered.

Please note the following differences between grants and bounties. Grants are intended to be applied for by those who are wishing to carry out the work themselves. Bounties are open-ended goals that could be met by anyone, including those other than the proposing party. In other words, if I believed that Rocket Pool needed a fifty-foot paper mache orange rocket for publicity purposes and I wanted to be the one to built it, I would apply for a grant. If I instead thought Rocket Pool needed a fifty-foot paper mache orange rocket for publicity purposes but I wanted it to be open to whoever built it first to claim the reward (similar to a prize), then I’d apply for a bounty.

Also please note that the below application was edited to turn it into a copy/paste format on January 5th. Applications submitted previously are not expected to re-submit in the new format.

To guide you in your application, the GMC has established the following goals and the following scoring rubric:

GMC Goals

Grants, bounties, and retrospective awards should make it easier and/or more attractive to do one or more of the following:

become a node operator

operate a node, mint rETH

hold or use rETH

improve the quality of life for the protocol and its community.

Grants Rubric

The Grants rubric involves scoring each of the three categories from 1 to 5:

If the application is successful, to what extent does it further the GMC goals?

To what extent can the application be feasibly carried out by the person(s) proposed to complete it?

If the application is successful, how large is the benefit to the protocol relative to the size of the proposed costs

The maximum score is 15 and the minimum is 3.

Grants Application

Please copy paste the template below into a reply. Answer the questions there, entering N/A where appropriate:

## Grants Application

## Project

### What is the work being proposed?

### Is there any related work this builds off of?

### Will the results of this project be entirely open source ([MIT](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT), [GPL](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html), [Apache](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0), [CC BY](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

## Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

### How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

### How does this help rETH holders?

### How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

### How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

### How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

### How does this help RPL holders?

### What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

### Will the resulting project be open source?

## Team

### Who is doing the work?

### What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

### What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

### How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

### How will the work be maintained after delivery?

## Payment and Verification

### What is the acceptance criteria?

### What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

### How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

### What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

## Conflict of Interest

### Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

### Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?```

[adalhi]

=== Project ===

What is the work being proposed?
RocketPool Monthly Financial Reporting

Is there any related work this builds off of?
NA

Will the results of this project be entirely open source ? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?
Yes

=== Benefits ===

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?
NA

How does this help rETH holders?
Answer in community section below.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?
NA

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?
NA

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?
Inform the community about the financial state of the DAO and the impact of governance votes, crypto news and trends on the protocol.
These reports will be the go to for the community to be informed about RocketPool, similar to how investors in traditional finance look into financial statements to get information about the state of their equity holdings.

How does this help RPL holders?
Answer in community section above.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?
NA

Will the resulting project be open source?
Yes and shared here on the forum.

=== Team ===

Who is doing the work?
Asymmetric Defi

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?
Three Years in TradFi (Structured Equity Derivatives), Flipside Analyst, Uniswap & Aave Grantee.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?
12 Monthly Reports

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?
NA

How will the work be maintained after delivery?
NA

=== Payment and Verification ===

What is the acceptance criteria?
NA

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?
600 RPL for 12 Monthly Reports (50 RPL per Monthly Report)

For the first quarter :

• 50% upfront : 75 RPL after the grant validation.
• 50% after completion of three reports : 75 RPL.

If the reports ara satisfactory, payment for the next 9 Monthly reports :

• 50% upfront : 225 RPL
• 50% after the completion of 9 reports : 225 RPL

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?
NA

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?
NA

=== Conflict of Interest ===

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).
No

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?
No

[Patches]

=== Project ===

What is the work being proposed?

• The Rocket Rescue Node - a collection of BN/CC pairs running in a guarded environment which Node Operators can use as a fallback in emergencies and during maintenance.

  • Tech Spec: Rocket Pool Rescue Node - Tech Spec · GitHub
  • Draft grant proposal, for records keeping: Click Here
  • Some older discussion, for records keeping: Click Here

Is there any related work this builds off of?

@poupas has a functional proof-of-concept which has been running since the merge. This upgraded version adds features and addresses some of the limitations of the prototype.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Development is nearing completion, and several components are already open sourced:

• Click Here for github
  • credentials library released under GNU AGPL copy-left license
  • rescue-proxy application released under the same
  • rescue-api application still unreleased, but will be released under the same
  • rescue-ui application still in development, but will be released under the same
  • infrastructure repository to remain private for the near term

It is our goal to open source as much as possible without compromising the security of the rescue node, so it’s likely all of the above projects will eventually be open sourced. I’d expect the infrastructure one to be open sourced last, as it is sort of the least re-usable anyway.

=== Benefits ===

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

A theoretical pool staker with concerns about the performance of a non-professional staker may have their doubts assuaged by the knowledge that they have recourse for outages in the form of the rescue node.

How does this help rETH holders?

The rescue node provides additional financial security for rETH holders by improving the overall performance of the token. Simply, the rescue node facilitates better uptime for node operators, and since penalties for missed attestations are socialized across rETH holders as well as the node operator, there is a direct financial benefit to rETH holders.

Cost/benefit analysis will follow below.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

The main benefit is in the form of added confidence. A potential node operator who is concerned about their ability to administer their own node may, similar to the theoretical pool staker above, find assurance in the availability of the rescue node to cover “worst-case” scenarios.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Following the merge, certain client combinations popular with Rocket Pool node operators became unreliable, and many node operators used the rescue node to either wait for bugfixes from client teams or change clients and resync without suffering downtime.

Since then, several more node operators have used the rescue node to resync after their chaindata became corrupt, or to switch clients due to ongoing reliability issues.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

Beyond the benefits listed above, the rescue node would be an exemplar of community members building services and tools to help one another.

How does this help RPL holders?

Tangentially, at best- improving other elements of the protocol adds value to its token.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

We’re pursuing some ways to grant access to solo stakers, which would help the people keeping Ethereum decentralized by running their own validators.

Will the resulting project be open source?

Yes, see above

=== Team ===

Who is doing the work?

• @poupas - Prototype, rescue-api, design, infrastructure + security
• @Patches - rescue-proxy, credentials library, design, general administrative stuff
• @hanniabu - rescue-ui
• @sleety - logo
• @ken - continuity insurance / bus factor mitigation
  Pull Requests from the broader community are encouraged

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

• @Patches - see my oDAO application for a full CV: Click Here
• @poupas - built and ran the prototype all on his lonesome
• @hanniabu - Several community projects with Ξther αlpha
• Sleety/Ken - Satellite roles for the project, so I won’t go into detail on the backgrounds, but you know who they are

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

We’re already running the prototype, and development on the other components is very close to completion. I expect we’ll be in beta before the proposal deadline, and launch quickly from there.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

We’ve been testing the rescue-proxy on prater for a few weeks now. The credentials library and rescue-api application have unit tests, and we will manually do Large testing when each component is ready.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

Maintenance will fall under the purview of the rocket scientists who feel technical enough to contribute. @ken will play a role in determining which rocket scientists have direct access to the nodes.

Due to certain trust assumptions, the list of maintainers will be made public to the degree that the maintainers are willing to identify themselves. We will try to keep the list short to minimize theft vectors.

=== Payment and Verification ===

What are the acceptance criteria?

A service fulfilling the above Tech Spec, with a website to issue authentication tokens and provide information and instructions to node operators who wish to use the Rescue Node.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

We’d like to be paid for a few categories:

1. Past costs - optional, but it’d sure be nice to be reimbursed

• Poupas has provided €172.15 out of pocket for the prototype, from before the merge until now
• Patches and Poupas have each provided $452.08 out of pocket for the lease for the proposed service, paid through January 31st, 2023

2. Development - time spent creating the service
   It’s hard to value one’s own time. In my draft, I requested 50 RPL to be split between myself and Poupas for putting in the engineering time. Now we’ve picked up hanniabu and asked sleety to make a logo, so I’ll amend the request to:
   • 25 RPL each for Patches/Poupas (about a month and a half of work, part time, each)
   • 15 RPL for hanniabu (Admittedly, this is just a finger in the wind)
   • 7.5 RPL for Sleety (Again, I don’t know how to price a logo design for a public good)
3. Ongoing costs - $406.40 a month, currently. We may decide to launch another VPS to host the UI/API components, but it would be quite a small one.

We’ve been thinking about this service as a public good, and since the maintainers will be Rocket Scientists who will receive a portion of the RS oDAO node income, we are not looking for ongoing compensation for maintenance.

Ideally, the GMC will work with us to pay for the ongoing costs, and pay us for development / past costs in a one-time payment after launch.

We intend to have a Donation link on the Rescue Node website, but would like to direct those funds to a wallet that the GMC controls. We’re not interested in receiving more (or less) than the upkeep costs. By directing donations straight to the GMC we avoid tax liability for them.

Full disclosure- @superphiz has provided poupas and patches with 100 and 50 RPL respectively, and the anonymous rpl-benefactor provided each with an additional 10 RPL. Phiz was characteristically vague about what the funds were for, but we used them to fund the initial costs of the rescue node. Due to receiving them when we did, we were able to secure hardware from OVH during their Black Friday sale, which substantially defrayed the infrastructure costs. The GMC is free to interpret this as paying for past and current efforts. It’s my understanding they ultimately originated from Worthalter.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

Fortunately the project is nearly complete. However, given the open source nature of the work, progress happens quite transparently. We’re also willing to make regular progress reports on development, and ongoing usage reports to the GMC after delivery.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

We’ve discussed several funding mechanisms, including requesting payment in RPL for access, or trying to fund the node from donations. However, given the nature of the project as a public good, we feel that a grant from the pDAO treasury is most apt.

=== Conflict of Interest ===

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

@ken is a member of the GMC. He does not stand to benefit financially from this grant.
@Patches, @poupas and @ken are Rocket Scientists, which makes them members of the oDAO.

Ken’s role on the project is largely for continuity planning. Should poupas or I vanish, Ken has the ability to recover the various accounts used to lease hardware and register domains to ensure that the project continues.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

The recipients of the grant identified above as being compensated for their time/effort will benefit financially rather directly. Other than that, no, I do not believe we will benefit.

=== Addenda ===

Trust Assumptions

The largest security concern with the rescue node stems from tip/mev theft. Please familiarize yourself with this article: Exploring Eth2: Stealing Inclusion Fees from Public Beacon Nodes | Symphonious

In general, any public-facing beacon node has a vulnerability on this front. A bad actor could query the rescue node to set the fee recipients to their own address. As such, the tech spec mitigates this issue by tracking the appropriate fee recipient for any given validator, and rejecting requests to change it. Rocket Pool has a unique advantage in this area, because a valid fee recipient for a given minipool is either the smoothing pool or a fee distributor contract whose address is well-known. However, two areas of trust remain:

1. A node operator using the rescue node is explicitly trusting its maintainers to act in good faith. If one maintainer went rogue, they could feasibly steal tips/mev for any proposals submitted through the rescue node.
2. A node operator using the rescue node who has solo validators, and decides to use the rescue node for their solo validators as well, must have mev-boost enabled. This is because the beacon node specification requires a signed message for the register_validator endpoint, which tells us that the owner of the validator is the one setting the fee recipient, whereas the prepare_beacon_proposer endpoint does not- non-mev-boost validators only call the latter.

Any node operator who uses the rescue node will be asked to acknowledge that they understand and agree to these risks, and additionally to agree that they will not share their rescue node credentials with any third party.

Cost/Benefit Analysis

The main two beneficiaries of the rescue node are node operators and rETH holders, albeit in slightly different ways:

1. rETH holders benefit by improved performance from node operators. The fewer attestations missed by the protocol, the better the APR.
2. Node Operators benefit more directly- the fewer attestations they miss, the more commission they earn and the more rewards they earn on their own staked Ether.

A perhaps overly simplistic cost/benefit model would simply look at the total funds lost by the platform holistically for each missed attestation, and extrapolate to the number of validators such that the cost of the service is equal to the missed funds.

Based on today’s per-attestation reward of 14 Twei and today’s Ether price of $1200, an offline validator misses out on 1.7 cents in rewards per epoch, and incurs a penalty of 1.3 cents, for a total cost of 3 cents per epoch. Per day, an offline validator loses $6.75 (a bit over half in opportunity costs and a bit under half in penalties). The rescue node costs $13.54 per day at $406.40 monthly, so if an average of 2 validators (NB: minipools, not nodes) are using the rescue node, it breaks even holistically.

Now, there are other costs to being offline (missed proposals/mev/tips for example is an immeasurable cost, and I haven’t factored in sync committees, as they are quite rare), so the actual break-even is likely lower than 2 validators. Of course, if Ether appreciates or depreciates, the breakeven shifts, as the infrastructure costs are fixed.

At 455 RPL per inflation period (13 months), this would represent 1.12% of the yearly budget of the GMC.

[Valdorff]

=== Project ===

What is the work being proposed?

A defi opporunities summary page updated fornightly. This may be a simple google document, or may get moved to something like GitHub Pages.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

The defi opporunities document at Rocket Pool Defi - Google Docs

Will the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)?

Sure

=== Benefits === - enter N/A where appropriate

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

It provides up to date information on what kind of yield they can expect with rETH in defi.

How does this help rETH holders?

It provides up to date information on what kind of yield they can expect with rETH in defi and shows them where to get it.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

No direct benefit

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

No direct benefit

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

More knowledge of Defi opportunities may improve the impact of incentives. More knowledge of potential Defi opportunities may drive rETH demand.

How does this help RPL holders?

No direct benefit. Some indirect benefit from the above answer.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

The defi projects that work with RP that are on the page would benefit some.

Will the resulting project be open source?

Sure

=== Team ===

Who is doing the work?

Val, primarily. If anyone else is interested in doing this reliably (not ad hoc!). Val is more than happy to delegate and have rewards directed to them. @anyone – please holler if you’d like to take this grant over. I just want the job done

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

Val put together the current document and has updated it.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

About 1-2 hours every 2 weeks for pure updating. Some additional ad-hoc time when new protocols or pools are added.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

Not applicable, really.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

Delivery is ongoing; arguably the whole task is maintenance

=== Payment and Verification ===

What is the acceptance criteria?

Check version history and see that regular updates did in fact occur

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

10 RPL every 2 weeks, or a rate of ~5 RPL/hr. I’d propose until the next GMC round.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

The selected platform will have version control. This exists on the current google doc, and would on GitHub Pages as well.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

None

=== Conflict of Interest ===

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

Val is a member of the IMC. I think this is probably more of a “I’ll have to research less” than a conflict, but worth listing.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

Not beyond the payment and aid to RP.

[ArtDemocrat]

=== Project ===

What is the work being proposed?
Translation of all Rocket Pool guides to Spanish, as well as maintaining these as per all required future changes.

Context for this proposal:
It is important to support the decentralization of the Ethereum network and the education around ETH staking in regions and languages which we cannot reach with English. For this, a full translation (and maintenance) of the Rocket Pool guides to other languages will play a key role for new markets and languages to engage with the Rocket Pool staking and node operation technologies.

Is there any related work this builds off of?
No. All work required is based on all the guides which exist already on the Rocket Pool website’s guides section.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?
Yes, in the sense that these documents would be available to the public. At the same time, all this work would remain part of Rocket Pool and its pool of resources.

=== Benefits ===

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?
It opens the doors to staking ETH for rETH, and for running Rocketpool nodes (either full nodes or Mini Pools), to all the non-bilingual (or partially bilingual) Spanish-speaking population worldwide.

As per Crypto ownership by country 2019-2022 | Statista, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Chile, Peru, and Mexico stand within the top 50 countries in terms of crypto penetration in 2022 (even ahead of countries like Germany, Italy, Sweden, or France). Based on their total population (327 million) and respective crypto adoption %, we come to an addressable market of 56M Spanish speaking crypto-owning people who could potentially engage in staking.

How does this help rETH holders?
This would help non-bilingual (or partially bilingual) Spanish-speaking rETH holders to understand better the benefits, implications, constraints, and other relevant information around holding rETH.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?
Rocket Pool’s educational guides translated to Spanish would enable non-bilingual (or partially bilingual) Spanish-speaking people with an interest in spinning up Rocket Pool nodes, to do so. It would also enable Rocket Pool to create closer ties with Spanish-speaking crypto community, deriving in a potential increase of adoption in Hispanic markets.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?
See answer above. It does not help people in particular who already run a node, but rather opens the door for new markets to engage with Rocket Pools staking and node running technologies.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?
It contributes to growth the Rocket Pool community in a new language and markets, bringing in diversity and potentially new use cases or challenges which can be used as food for though to be tackled in other regions of the world (hardware- and software-wise, for example).

How does this help RPL holders?
Increasing the adoption of Rocket Pool as a staking and validating service increases the demand for RPL, bringing value to its current holders.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?
I believe all staking projects would benefit from better education around this topic in non-English-speaking markets where educational resources are not available. Rocket Pool’s guides translated to Spanish could play a role in this mission, contributing further to Ethereum’s worldwide decentralization and permissionless staking.

As per Countries - ethernodes.org - The Ethereum Network & Node Explorer, currently ~60% of all mainnet notes stand in 3 countries (USA, Germany, and Singapore). Needless to say, this is a stat which we want to have as decentralized as possible.

Will the resulting project be open source?
Yes, in the sense that these documents would be available to the public.

=== Team ===

Who is doing the work?
ArtDemocrat (myself, the grant requester) who is happy to dox himself in case personal communication is required with the GMC members.

On top of that, I believe it will be healthy to bounce questions, definitions, and interpretations of the translated guides with Spanish-speaking members of the Rocket Pool community (or external crypto-interested individuals) in order to ensure the translation work is solid and clear. I would also be happy to partner with a “supervising” or “sparring” Spanish-speaking community member who helps me co-develop the Spanish guides.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?
ArtDemocrat is a native Spanish speaker who has spend his entire professional career abroad, learning about the important nuances around correct language utilization in order to ensure effective communication and process efficiency. Just a big crypto supporter, member of the Bankless DAO, who was deeply impressed by Rocket Pool after watching Ken and Marceau in the Bankless bull case episode, and who wants to contribute to the space in a non-tech-heavy way. He is a regular person with a job in a crypto company, who FOMOed into crypto in the 2017 bull cycle, and is currently in the process of setting-up a couple of Mini Pools himself.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?
The milestones of the work would be defined following the current chapters / pages split of the guides. I propose to deliver between 1-4 pages per week (subject to each page’s length and complexity).

At this run rate, I estimate all the guides could be translated entirely between 2-6 months, with page translations being shared with the GMC as soon as each individual translation is completed.

I assume there would need to be work done in order to upload the guides to the Rocket Pool webpage, format them, and link all hyperlinks, which would fall out of the scope of this grant (but I am happy to support with if if desired by the GMC).

The voice of English Youtube explanatory videos that are currently available in the guides could potentially be translated as well (TBD) as a follow-up task/grant, in collaboration with the authors of the videos. Just an idea…

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?
I would be happy to test the documentation with my own non-crypto native social circle to test the clarity and effectiveness of the translations. Similarly, any Spanish-speaking members of the Rocket Pool community are highly welcome to test, proofread, suggest, and improve the translated guides.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?
If desired by the GMC, and whenever it becomes necessary. I am a member of the Rocket Pool discord, hold RPL and I am in the process of spinning-up a some Mini Pools myself. I will stay close to the project in the future.

=== Payment and Verification ===

What is the acceptance criteria?
I am not entirely sure what would “acceptance criteria” mean in this case, but I could think of using the confirmation of other Rocket Pool experienced Spanish-speaking community members that the guides produced are clear, and serve its purpose, in order to consider the tasks as completed.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?
The proposal covers a 1 time grant request for the translation of all guides, in the form of:

• 5 RPL per translated page delivered
• 250 RPL upon completion in time (between 3-6 months) and form (all pages, signed-off, and if desired, verified by a Rocket Pool Spanish speaking members, and/or a member defined by the GMC) of all Rocket Pool guides.

After the main task is completed:

• 5 RPL per translated page which is added to the guides in the future
• 0 RPL for ongoing maintenance on minor wording or concepts adjustments in the guides

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?
I am happy to define this in more detail with the GMC directly. I would propose setting-up a private document repository which the relevant GMC members can access at all times to confirm the work is delivered. We could evaluate as well implementing weekly notifications sent to a discord channel, email, or any other form which the GMC defines.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?
N/A

=== Conflict of Interest ===

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).
None.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?
No.

Thank you for putting together such a cool initiative for the community!

[waqwaqattack]

Grants Application

Project

What is the work being proposed?

This is a grant application for Rocket Fuel, a daily youtube show and podcast about everything happening in the Rocket Pool community.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

This work will continue from the existing Rocket Fuel episodes and social media presence.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

This is closed source currently, but I am willing to make it open sourced if it is possible for a project like this. With this grant, I will be in the position to never having to monetize Rocket Fuel with ads/sponsorships etc.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

Rocket Fuel is a crucial information source for people wanting to learn about what they can do with their rETH and why rETH is better than competitors. I frequently share information about price premiums/discounts as well as give information about the best mediums of exchange.

How does this help rETH holders?

I frequently share information about using rETH in DeFi.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

It gives people information on the Rocket Pool ecosystem and community which will helps them reach a more informed decision about staking.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Rocket Fuel shares information about the latest updates in software, protocol changes, etc.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

The Rocket Pool ecosystem and community are thriving. It is incredibly difficult for an individual to be current on everything happening in the community. Simultaneously, being up-to-date is extremely desirable for community members due to their significant financial investments. Rocket Fuel provides a daily summary of all activities in the ecosystem. It has become an anchor of the community.

How does this help RPL holders?

Rocket Fuel shares news about things that impact RPL holders.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

None directly. However, I do cover Rocket Pool integrations and partnerships with other protocols that might benefit them adjacently.

Will the resulting project be open source?

At the moment, it is not open-sourced, but this is something I am willing to discuss.

Team

Who is doing the work?

Waqwaqattack has been making Rocket Fuel episodes since August, and he will continue making and distributing content.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

His experience is that he has already been doing the work for months.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

The proposed work is a daily episode (5 a week) covering news from the Rocket Pool community. There will be a reasonable number of “vacation” days built into the schedule - especially around holidays.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

NA

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

The work will be available on YouTube and podcast hosting services. It will always be ad and sponsorship free.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

The acceptance criteria is the continuation of Rocket Fuel episodes

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

This grant is seeking 310 RPL per rewards cycle. The grant is seeking funding for the calendar year 2023. Running Rocket Fuel is a full-time job. This rate is much less than a traditional salary for a media content production job - especially one in a complex field.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

Episodes will be released to the community. Any breaks will be made clear as early as possible.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

These costs are already significantly lower than the cost of a similar position if it was a formal job or contract work.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

Waqwaqattack is a member of the GMC.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

This grant will allow me to continue working on Rocket Fuel full-time as a way of becoming an income source. The grant itself will benefit me financially. However, this will not impact any other financial income in any way.

[knoshua]

Project

What is the work being proposed?

Analysis of oDAO duties and alternative solutions

I will produce a paper that identifies each oDAO duty and why it is currently needed. I will explore what it would take to replace these duties. Some alternatives may rely on Ethereum protocol changes. In some cases wide ranging changes to Rocket Pool might be necessary. I will identify areas that need further research and development (which could serve as inspiration for future bounties) and formulate clear asks for the Ethereum core devs.
Stretch goal: Actionable designs or implementations

Is there any related work this builds off of?

I’m not aware of any work specifically looking into this. Some proposed designs for individual oDAO duties might build off of existing solutions and are going to be cited as such.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes.

Benefits

This applies to potential and existing rETH stakers and node operators: The oDAO as a trusted actor is the least desirable aspect of the protocol and removing the oDAO or reducing their duties is a stated long-term goal of the project. Working towards that goal might attract new protocol users currently turned off by this trusted aspect or increase the confidence of existing users in the protocol.

How does this help RPL holders?

RPL holders would benefit from increased adoption as detailed above. In addition, oDAO rewards make up 15% of the protocol’s inflationary spending. If that spending can be reduced, it could allow for lower token inflation and benefit every RPL holder.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

N/A

Will the resulting project be open source?

Yes.

Team

Who is doing the work?

knoshua

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

I have an academic background in Mathematics and Economics covering a wide range of topics, including Game Theory, Mechanism Design, Number Theory and Abstract Algebra. I specialized in Probability Theory, Statistics and Finance.
I have taught myself Solidity and have developed a very good understanding of the rocket pool smart contracts.
Some of my past contributions to rocket pool include:

• Design for rETH lock removal (included in Redstone)
• I added some ideas to the Smoothing Pool Design
• Atlas Research
• Small improvements and bug fixes to Atlas smart contracts ([1] and [2])

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

Total duration of this project will be 12 weeks (20 hours/week). A final paper will be published at the end. After 4 weeks and 8 weeks, a WIP version of that paper will be released.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

N/A

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

N/A

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

Delivery of the report after 4, 8 and 12 weeks.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

400 RPL per reward period (5 RPL per hour) over three periods.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

Reports will be public.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

None. I’m already very familiar with the code base and the oDAO duties and have thought about alternatives before. This will give me a head start compared to third parties, making this proposal very competitive.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

No.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

Not beyond the grant payment itself.

[timlaimuoingin]

Project

What is the work being proposed?

Translating Rocket Pool official docs into Chinese and Vietnamese

Is there any related work this builds off of?

NA

Will the results of this project be entirely open source. If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes

Benefits

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH, rETH holders, RP Community, RPL holders?

Blockchain is not limited by geography or languages, so the easier people access the materials, the more accessible the project is to reach wider audiences. Let’s make Rocket Pool multi-lingual friendly!

Will the resulting project be open source?

Yes

Team

Who is doing the work?

I handle Vietnamese translation, my friend is Chinese, and other peers double-check the results.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

I’m Vietnamese and my friend is Chinese. Both of us have more than two years of experience in the blockchain industry and work for a blockchain project (can’t be disclosed) that backed by Binance Labs, Spartan, and Parafi…

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

The step is straightforward. We just need a link to update the file when we finish.
The guide is about 70,000 words long. We estimated it would take a month to translate and recheck to have the desired quality for both Vietnam and Chinese.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

We will have 1 or 2 colleges to have us double-check the docs. But if you want, we can upload it partly for Rocket Pool team members to check

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

NA

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

• Translating every section from the docs
• Accurate, easy to understand

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

The cost estimation to translate all the docs in two languages is $2,000. The RPL amount would depend on the exchange rate at the payout date.

We would love to receive the payment when delivering the products.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

NA

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

NA

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose?

We both ask for and want to complete the bounty ourselves.

[DataNexus]

We’re very grateful for the GMC for initiating this process! Data Nexus helped build the Rocket Pool subgraph just before the launch of the network.

At that time it was used to power the rp-metrics-dashboard created by VGR. The metrics page was compensated work, and VGR compensated us for the time spent building the initial version of the subgraph. Since then, the protocol has added new functionality and the subgraph has become less reliable - and thus needs some maintenance work.

Grants Application

Project - Rocket Pool Subgraph Update

What is the work being proposed?

A subgraph is an open API that can be utilized to query aggregated information from on-chain events. In laymen’s terms, we listen to the blockchain and as people interact with the protocol we update information in an exterior dB that stores key rocket pool metrics. The subgraph is served by a decentralized group of server operators (indexers).

Is there any related work this builds off of?

The current deployed subgraph.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes. The repo was transferred to the Rocket Pool Team.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

Most of the answers are all common with the fact that the subgraph aggregates protocol information in and is stored by a distributed group of server operators.

Since the subgraph aggregates protocol information it exposes:

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

• Metrics regarding staking ETH for rETH (APY, total volumes etc.)

How does this help rETH holders?

• Metrics regarding individual holders activity (balance adjustments, rETH:ETH ratio etc.)

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

• Metrics aggregating node operator data and RPL staking data (though the node specific information is not nearly as useful as beaconcha.in)

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

• By offering rich data we can improve UX in giving new node operators key information they need to make decisions. A lot of this is largely already accomplished, but the subgraph can also be a data source for this.

How does this help RPL holders?

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

• Any project desiring to display Rocket Pool’s information can benefit from this.

Team

Who is doing the work?

• We have a smaller team who builds and indexes subgraphs. In addition to our work with The Graph we also run stake ETH through Rocket Pool.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

• I have 6 years of DBA experience (prior to starting Data Nexus) and have been working for the past year and a half focusing on blockchain indexing with The Graph. As mentioned earlier, we built the first iteration of the subgraph and have since worked with other’s on building out their API.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

• Key things that would be targeted in this maintenance round are:
  • Smoothing Pool Interactions
  • New RPL functionality (such as stakeRPLFor() on the RocketNodeStaking contract)
  • The prior version assumed only 1 BalancesUpdated() would be emitted each day which has lead to missing checkpoints.
  • Initial methodology for tracking individuals profits has a cumbersome indexing loop that can be optimized.
  • Subgraph should be templated so it can be deployed on the other networks that rETH and RPL are on.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

• We will test the information through looking at on chain activity and using identified nodes & stakers are test cases (such as our own node which currently does not display due to a few new contract interactions).

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

• The Rocket Pool team now has ownership of the subgraph (we transferred it a few months back) and has stated that they’re looking to maintain it. We’re putting this grant in to help alleviate some of the tasks on their TODO list.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

• Subgraph is successfully tested and deployed to The Graph protocol and indexers are returning expected information.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

• We’re estimating this round of maintenance to cost $13,000 in RPL for development, testing, query/migration assistance and technical documentation updates. We would request this upon completion of the work.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

• GMC can monitor our working repo for progress status

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

• Subgraph ownership has been transferred to the Rocket Pool team. It could ‘save costs’ to have the team work on it, however we wager that their time is better spend in continuing to develop the protocol.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

• No

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

• We run an indexer on The Graph. So there is a conflict of interest in that we will be paid a portion of the query fees (split proportionally with all other indexers). This does not equate to any large figure at the moment.

[outsider_analytics]

Project

What is the work being proposed?

Ethereum user cohort analysis, with a specific analysis of RPL holders and pool operators.

When analyzing Ethereum, it’s useful to understand it in software business terms. Gas fees can be split into operations (rewards) and earnings (burn), and then user (eoa) spend can be detailed in cohorts. The health of these cohorts will give great insight into the future cash flows and price of Ethereum staking opportunity. By speaking the language of analysts, as one myself, I hope to help finance natives understand the opportunity of staking

Is there any related work this builds off of?

Not particularly

Benefits

How does this help RPL holders?

The project will help investors better understand the Ethereum ecosystem better and therefore be more likely to stake. More investors using Rocket Pool to stake will help RPL holders and the whole decentralized movement.

My thesis, which may be proven true or false, is that RPL holders will also have a meaningfully better-looking cohort analysis than other LSD providers. That should help the investibiiity case for Rocket Pool and RPL. If this thesis is false, it would be good to know so changes could be made.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

The Ethereum network as a whole would be advanced in a nice way by this analysis. I don’t think this work would directly impact any projects.

Will the resulting project be open source?

Always

Team

Who is doing the work?

Outsider Analytics (Brian Wilkes, CFA)

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

I am a data scientist, financial analyst, and Ethereum enthusiast! I am working full time finding cool data projects that can further the Ethereum ecosystem, with an emphasis on zk tech. I really like the Rocket Pool project and ethos and would love to get involved! I have completed 2 Ethereum Foundation Grants that are most relevant to this application.

Ethereum Foundation Grants:

1. Found and created a database for all ZKPs verifying on main-chain: blog post
2. Merge Data Challenge Prize Winner: blog post

Github: outsider-analytics

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

• Within seven days: Put together a full and detailed deliverable and get feedback
• First Month: Get data together and see metrics (and get feedback)
• End of Second Month: Write a blog post about the Ethereum network as a whole, as well as specific rocket pool analysis.
• I am kicking around a simple front end to show the analysis in cohorts in real time (1 day cron job), but I think that would be out of scope for here.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

I would love to have feedback and accountability throughout the process. I am open to suggestions as to how best to do that within the community

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

This would be a one-time analysis. However, the database would all be open-sourced, and I would be open to rerunning the analysis after a period of time. I fully expect to rerun the overall Ethereum analysis on a regular basis.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

I would submit the blog post for approval after completion. If it meets expectations and brings value, then I will publish it!

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

500 RPL upon completion

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

Through the milestones mostly. Also, since payment will come on delivery, no review will really be needed until the final submission.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

I have considered a simple front end for the data and nixed it to save costs.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

Nope

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

Nope

[toniw]

Grants Application

Project

mevboost.pics + tornado-warning.info

What is the work being proposed?

Including information about block validators on https://mevboost.pics and tornado-warning.info

Is there any related work this builds off of?

Already existing content on the mentioned websites.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes, MIT.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

Provides people an overview of the different participants in the ecosystem and helps them comparing the size of individual staking providers such as Rocketpool, Lido, Coinbase ect. Allows a comparison of custodian staking vs. pooled staking. Enables insights into censoring-practices by individual participants and may unveil them.

Screenshots are frequently shared across social media, in academic puplications and blog articles and are great to quickly communicate information.

How does this help rETH holders?

Information.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

Information.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Information.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

Information.

How does this help RPL holders?

Information.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

Every other staking pool, custodian staking provider, ect. Eg. Lido, Coinbase, Bitcoin suisse, ect.

Will the resulting project be open source?

100%.

Team

Me, Toni Wahrstätter (@nero_eth on twitter).
I’m a Ethereum researcher/Phd student enjoying to contribute to the broader Ethereum community through OSS and academic research.

Who is doing the work?

Me, Toni Wahrstätter.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

mevboost.pics and tornado-warning.info are already up, running stable since the merge. Incorporating validators would be the next logical step.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

• Build the data pipeline to aggregate and identify validators (includes identifying the largest staking service providers such as rocket pool, lido, coindbase or binance that all require different heuristics to be applied in order to identify their respective validators).

• Create more and more charts depicting the validator market.

• Add validators to tornado-warning.info

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

Yes, everything is tested.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

Yes, I’m eager to maintain these projects.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

The charts must provide an informative overview of the validator market.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

200 RPL

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

Directly on the websites or in the public github repo.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

The whole setup is written to require low RAM space so that small servers can be used to update the websites.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

No.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?```

Yes, I’m the recipient.

[fornax]

Grants Application

Project

Rocket BUIDLers workshop

What is the work being proposed?

We’re proposing to organize and present a workshop about the Proteus project in Denver during the BUIDL week event (February 24th to March 1st, before ETHDenver). We aim to demonstrate how cheap and easy it is to become a Rocket Pool Node Operator running your own node at home, how it can be fun building a piece of the hardware, and how easy it is to set up the Rocket Pool smartnode.

ETHDenver and the BUIDL week are among the main Ethereum events, with an expected audience of thousands of Ethereum-aligned people, making it the perfect place to disseminate the word about Rocket Pool in a more engaging way.

The RP team will only be present during the main event, so this is an opportunity to establish a presence for the protocol during BUIDL week.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

The workshop would be based on the Proteus project by Joe Clapis and the Rocket Pool smartnode by the Rocket Pool team and contributors.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license, or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

The project doesn’t involve any new software development. The hardware project is an IP of Joe Clapis and will not be made public. Any training material created will be made public through a GitHub repository or similar medium.

BENEFITS

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

With this workshop, we expect to increase the number of users hosting minipools with Rocket Pool, which would increase the rETH supply, making it easier for users who want rETH.

How does this help rETH holders?

Increasing the number of Node Operators using Rocket Pool would help diminish the risks from a single NO impacting the rETH value. We can also expect users to migrate from VPS services making Rocket Pool and the Ethereum network even more decentralized.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

Some of the workshop participants would be convinced by the simplicity of the Proteus solution and the smartnode stack, making the decision to become a Node Operator with Rocket Pool easier.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Existing Node Operators could replace their existing solution with Proteus, reducing their energy costs, or adding Proteus as a fallback node, making their setup more resilient to failures.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

We aim to increase the number of RP Node Operators and to disseminate the Rocket Pool brand at one of the biggest Ethereum events worldwide. Training material will be made available to the Rocket Pool community.

How does this help RPL holders?

New Node Operators would buy and stake RPL, increasing its value.

The exposure of the Rocket Pool brand at such a big event could lead to more investors buying RPL.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

Joe Clapis (and Proteus parts providers) would profit from any eventual Proteus sales made possible by the workshop.

Will the resulting project be open source?

This grant does not involve any new software development. Any training material created will be made public through a GitHub repository or similar medium.

TEAM

Who is doing the work?

0xFornax is championing this grant based on the work from Joe Clapis, with his authorization. Yorick and 0xFornax will prepare/present it on Joe’s behalf during BUIDL week at a rented venue. Other Rocket Pool volunteers are welcome to help during the workshop.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

Joe is the lead smartnode developer and creator of Proteus. Yorick is a member of the Rocket Pool oDAO and an expert on Ethereum nodes. 0xFornax is a Rocket Pool community enthusiast and smartnode contributor.

What is the proposed work breakdown, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

Upon acceptance, training material will be prepared by the team and made available to the GMC no later than February 16th.

The workshop would take place during ETHDenver or the BUIDL week, according to the space availability. February 24th to March 5th.

No other work would be required after the workshop.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

Proteus has been through a prototyping phase and is thoroughly tested.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

The training material resulting from this work will be made available to the Rocket Pool community and serve any future training needs requiring eventual updates.

There’s no other maintenance expected as a result of the workshop. New node operators would be welcomed and receive the Rocket Pool community support, as usual. Joe would be responsible for handling any Proteus orders made possible by the workshop.

PAYMENT AND VERIFICATION

What are the acceptance criteria?

This grant request would be subject to acceptance by the event organizers. According to BUIDLWeek Event Hosts | BUIDLWeek Event Hosts, during BUIDL week there are 90-minute slots costing $1,500. We’re going to apply for a slot and expect the application to be accepted by the event organizers.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

$1,500 worth of RPL to rent an official venue during BUIDL week. This is subject to the workshop proposal being accepted by the ETHDenver organization.

$1,000 worth of RPL to be offered as a bounty to one hackathon team with the best work related to RP. This is an optional amount for the current grant proposal and aims to increase the RP exposure to hackathon teams, which usually consider sponsor bounties when defining what to do for the hackathon. This would be added to any bounty provided by the RP team and doesn’t match a proper “bounty” as defined by the GMC as it would be a generic prize offered for the best work related to RP and not require a specific feature to be implemented.

$600 worth of RPL to acquire a Proteus unit as a prize for workshop/ETHDenver participants. The specifics of how people could engage and try to win the prize would be discussed with the RP community (possibilities include a raffle for the event participants or a contest for improvements to RP/Proteus). This prize would greatly expand the interest in Rocket Pool during the event and is very aligned with the BUIDL week ethos.

$600 to acquire a Proteus unit to 0xFornax, which will be used to create training material and represent compensation for this work.

$250 worth of RPL to offer as a Poapathon design bounty: (1st Place $150 / 2nd Place $100)

Yorick has declined to be paid for the workshop

The total grant proposal cost is a one-time payment of $3,950 worth of RPL at the moment the workshop is accepted by the event organizers.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

Training material will be prepared by the team and made available to the GMC.

The workshop is expected to happen at BUIDL week, where GMC members can either directly participate or verify the results using the expected social media coverage by the event organization and the Rocket Pool volunteers.

What alternatives or options have been considered to save costs for the proposed project?

Renting an external Maker space has been considered but it would miss most of the benefits compared to an official event venue.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

0xFornax and Yorick have no conflicts of interest. Joe Clapis, the creator of Proteus, is a member of the Grants Committee and will abstain from voting.

Will the recipient of the grant or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

The recipient of the grant would have a financial benefit equivalent to one Proteus unit. 0xFornax doesn’t have any vested interest in any organization that would benefit from this grant (ETHDenver would benefit from renting a space, poap designers would benefit from the poap bounty).

[daGscheid]

Grant Application

Project - “Rocket Pool Node Setup in Stereum”

What is the work being proposed?

---

Our main goal with this grant is to offer an additional avenue to set up & maintain a Rocket Pool Node for a broader audience through our Ethereum Node management software called “Stereum” alongside other Ethereum related services like execution/consensus clients, SSV clients, etc. Stereum is free to use & simple to set up. There is no command line step involved and through our GUI Launcher you are able to access & manage an Ethereum Node securely without losing any amount of control.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

---

Stereum is an existing Free & Open Source Ethereum Node Setup Tool.
Simplified SAID: You use Stereum to connect to a server (cloud, VM, local), choose how you want to install your node and in a few steps, your server is prepared and your node installed. Through the Launcher you execute the commands on your server.

You can try out Stereum for free yourself, or (if you feel a little lazy ) just take a look to see how easy it is to set up a Node with Stereum

Stereum features a simple to use UI that:

• enables “One Click Installation”, which supports Stereum user with a preset selection for:
  - Staking
  - MEV boosted Staking
  - SSV Network Operation
• enables “Custom Installation”, which enables you to select all services independently (to pick & choose)
• handles the configuration of said node, including monitoring (Grafana + dashboards), basic OS maintenance and config import/export (encrypted).
• supports use of multiple node configurations on the same machine
• supports Checkpoint Sync & soon a new form of client synchronization we are calling “SyncLink”. An additional client component which will enable you to easily sync nodes off of each other in the future.
• simplifies Network Switch - lets the user experience the benefits of staking on testnet and switch to Mainnet with the same settings
• simplifies Client Switch - Switch your clients with a few clicks

=== Benefits ===

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

---

N/A

How does this help rETH holders?

---

N/A

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

---

Over the course of the two milestones we want to offer a Rocket Pool themed One Click Installation option (including / excluding MEV Boost) reducing the Node Setup to three clicks to help onboard people who are intimidated by the current CLI option. And while the designs should be far from considered final, we hope the following videos will give you a better idea of what we had in mind:

Display Rocket Pool specific Alerts & Notifications for monitoring

And support various Rocket Pool Pool management commands (node, service, minipool)…

And make pool creation, import & maintenance as easy possible, by guiding through, displaying and monitoring various stats surrounding the minipools.

To give you a better feeling on how the complete Rocket Pool Node Setup User Flow - by importing a wallet or by creating one inside of Stereum could look like. (PLEASE NOTE: designs are not final & subject to change):

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

---

The integration has not only a goal of helping newbies in setting up their own node, but also takes great pride in supporting veterans with simple access to necessary node components. F.e. with a simple double click on of the node clients, you can access it logs and take a look under the hood of the Ethereum Node OR With a click you can open and close the port to use your RPC endpoint.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

---

• more different Minipool Operators by broadening access to less technical minded users.
• more different Minipool Operators means a more decentralized protocol & Ethereum Network
• supports existing Node Operator with a quick setup way in case of emergencies.
• more teams involved with & around the Rocket Pool client leads to long term resilience (higher chance to capture obscure bugs).

=== Team ===

Who is doing the work?

---

The work is done by the Stereum team of the RockLogic GmbH. Including externals, our Stereum team is 10 men large.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

---

RockLogic GmbH was founded in 2012 and is operating out of Austria, companies core business is in IT server management for banks, with additional gained experience in various development projects. We follow and started with the work on the predecessors of Stereum whenever the beacon chain first came into being.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

---

Milestone 1# - Minimal Setup for Public Testing & Feedback

We want to start with a simple implementation with the first milestone that we can open up to public testing.

This will result in:

• Rocket Pool Node Setup in Stereum (with 1 execution and 1 consensus client pair)
  • Install via OneClickInstaller (including / excluding MEV Boost)
• Support Rocket Pool management options
  • RP Wallet Creation
• Rocket Pool Minipool
  • Creation
• RP Grafana dashboard
• Rocket Pool Theme for Stereum
  • selected on One Click Installation
• Automated Tests

Milestone 2# - Refined Setup for Recommended Usage

Building on the first milestone, we want use the second milestone to cover all RP operations within the UI.

This will result in:

• Rocket Pool Node Setup in Stereum
  • Install via OneClickInstaller (including / excluding MEV Boost)
  • Install via Custom Installation
• Stereum UI to fit Rocket Pool
  • f.e. Rocket Pool Element for Stereum Dashboard
• Support Rocket Pool management options:
  • RP Wallet Creation
  • Import Existing RP Wallet
  • Claim Rewards & Change Addresses
  • Import Existing
• RP Grafana dashboard
• Rocket Pool Theme for Stereum
  • selectable in Settings
• Rocket Pool Theme for Stereum
• Rocket Pool Specific Stereum Notifications
• Stereum Node Monitor Mobile App Alerts
• “Rocket Pool on Stereum” - Guides

PLEASE NOTE HERE AGAIN: The designs are subject to change (especially later when released through feedback)

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

---

To ensure our users high quality over the span of an implementation, we usually start by writing an extensive list of automated tests, we are relying on additionally to the manual testing occurring every day - be it through us or some of our more dedicated users.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

---

In our development will start by writing automated tests. Through care, some user feedback and mostly testing, testing, testing. Furthermore, the closer we get, we are planning to maintain by simply making use of Rocket Pool + Stereum ourselves.

Through the work on Stereum, we follow along with the changes the clients teams make & the pulse of Ethereum, so it is nothing new for us to adapt to active development.
Though it will certainly raise some new challenges - Rocket Pool will be our first Non Core Mainnet Protocol Implementation outside of our plans to release a Gnosis one in Q1 next year.
The difference magnitudes of funds at stake however, is nothing new to us: With Stereum 1.0 you could already stake on Ethereum Mainnet before and with 2.0 it is available since summer 2022. We take safety of our users funds immensely serious. It is our highest priority and if you need something, we also try to be there for you Saturdays & Sundays.

=== Payment and Verification ===

What is the acceptance criteria?

---

The development of an Open Source licensed UI component in Stereum for Rocket Pool, that simplifies the complete setup and maintenance of a Rocket Pool Node over multiple milestones featuring RP specific branding. The result is free of charge and doesn’t cut interest with the protocol. All development to fullfil this - including testing, maintenance and an open ear - is included in the grant amount.
Additionally we also hope for feedback from the RP community members & especially the grant committee with every milestone.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

---

We would like to handle the development on a per-milestone basis, which are work over the duration of 6-8 months in total, starting after the transfer of the initial funds.
If possible every milestone accomplished involving a small feedback round at the end on how we could further improve our RP implementation.

PHASE	Percent	AMOUNT (in RPL)
INITIAL	60 %	3600
MILESTONE 1#	30 %	1800
MILESTONE 2#	10 %	600

If the paying entity is NOT considered a business under VAT law of Austria 20 % VAT apply additionally.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

---

We want to track our progress in Github for everyone to see, however, a more farrow and concentrated feedback from the members of the committee is something we would wish for as soon as a working setup version with the first milestone is available.

There are a lot of things our team will have to consider (f.e. how to handle potential payment abstraction / 3rd party wallet handling in Stereum’s UI if necessary) and for potential arising question, we would also prefer to have some sort of direct way to relay them to the core development team in the form of a Discord Text Channel. We can promise them, we will not annoy them often, but it could turn out beneficial for both.

=== Conflict of Interest ===

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose?

---

The RockLogic GmbH - company behind Stereum - is also a LIDO Node Operator, onboarded in Wave 4 alongside some of the core client teams & staking veterans.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?**

---

We would be happy to offer a free & easy OpenSource GUI Installation for Rocket Pool. For us Rocket Pool will be another option we would like to offer our users, which will potentially grow RPL’s userbase & open up a number of new RPL minipools. As of more complicated interest entanglement, we could speak of none we haven’t disclosed.

[lefterisjp]

Grants Application

Hello,

Happy new year!

This is Lefteris from rotki. We had discussed about applying for a grant for Properly account for assets managed via rocketpool nodes · Issue #3770 · rotki/rotki · GitHub last year and the kind people from your discord mentioned that from January this would be possible.

I had posted this originally in the bounty forum topic but was asked to move here as there is now a dedicated post for grants.

Project

rotki is a local-first, opensource portfolio tracking and accounting tool that aims to protect user’s privacy. We want to offer the tools crypto people need to manage their portfolio properly without compromising their privacy by sharing data with centralized apps.

What is the work being proposed?

Implement the above issue and specifically the spec outlined in the issue above. Can’t repost, since I am still hit by the new user limit.

The idea is to support rocketpool nodes staking both for portfolio tracking and accounting properly in rotki.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

This builds on top of rotki, the opensource portfolio tracker.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source ([MIT]

The results are 100% opensource and released under AGPLv3.

Benefits

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

They can use rotki to do portfolio tracking and accounting for their ETH staking! rotki offers them a solution that is private and local so they can do all of the above without compromising their data by sharing it with centralized applications.

How does this help rETH holders?

n/a

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

They will have a way to both track how much they have staked (as opposed to how much is part of the protocol) and also do accounting and calculate profit/loss.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

Same as above.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

Same as above.

How does this help RPL holders?

n/a

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

Anybody using the RPL protocol and staking would stand to benefit for the reasons stated above.

Will the resulting project be open source?

Yes, 100% opensource.

Team

Who is doing the work?

The rotki team.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

We have been in the field since 2014, the rotki project started in 2017 and has been going on since then. Check our github. Can’t post link due to limitations for new users.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

It’s a pretty straightforward grant. The only milestone is implementation, testing and inclusion in a production release of the spec outlined here.

1. implementing the spec outlined in the issue
2. Adjusting through user feedback.
3. Creating a UI for it.
4. Including it in a rotki release.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

We have automatic CI testing, for which we will need to write tests, so yes testing is included.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

As part of the rotki product. We maintain all old modules and provide (to the extent we have time) support for bug fixes via our discord and github.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

Finishing the milestone described above and having i available in a production release of rotki.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

The rough cost estimations for the work required to complete this feature is $15,000 and includes all the work detailed above plus testing.

The RPL amount would depend on the exchange rate at payout date. With today’s price of $25.34 it would be ~592 RPL.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

You can download and use the aforementioned release of rotki.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

The costs are simply the development hours required. There is no extra costs to cut, nor are we trying to ask money for things we won’t do.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

No affiliation with GMC.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

rotki is an opensource tool. All our code is open, but the production version has also the option for a premium subscription 10.79 EUR/month as of this writing. The rocketpool validator staking info would be part of the free version but would be limited in the number of validators info can be provided for. Also the per-day view would be closed off, but totals would be available.

[Paris]

Grants Application

Project

What is the work being proposed?

We’d like to build a Rocket Pool community dashboard on Alphaday that aggregates Rocket Pool news, on-chain data, social media, dev resources and much more into one customizable UI.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source

Most of our front-end is open source

Benefits

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH, rETH holders, people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time, people already running a Rocket Pool node, the Rocket Pool community, RPL holders and what other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

Market research we conducted in 2021 concluded that crypto users are overwhelmed with information and spend a lot of time jumping from one news source to another, from one social site to another, and usually have dozens of tabs open to stay up to date with everything happening in a community.

We aim to provide a single end-point from which Rocket Pool users can consume all the information they could possibly want. We would like to create a dashboard that aggregates the following information into a single community dashboard:

• The latest Rocket Pool official announcements and blog post content
• A feed of all news mentions of Rocket Pool from coindesk, cointelegraph and 20+ other news sources aggregated from across the internet
• A calendar containing all Rocket Pool events including Rocket Pool Governance votes, meetups, hackathons with Rocket Pool bounties, AMAs
• Podcast feed containing the latest appearances and interviews given by Rocket Pool team members
• Youtube stream containing educational Rocket Pool content.
• Rocket Pool Documentation, Dev Docs, Bug Bounty Program
• Integration with Rocket Pool Governance Forum to show the latest and trending discussion topics
• Discord & Telegram Integration to show a feed of latest discussions
• FAQ, Whitepaper, RPL tokenomics information
• Rocket Pool Careers integration to show the latest open jobs listed
• Rocket Pool Overview, ETH2 Staking, rETH Token
• Rocket Pool on-chain metrics including TVL, Unique User Deposit Wallets and other metrics pulled in from Dune Analytics

Team

Who is doing the work?

Alphaday

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

Alphaday’s co-founder is Deniz Omer and has been involved in the Ethereum space since early 2016 and joined Kyber Network in 2017 as Head of Ecosystem Growth before quitting to start Alphaday full-time in 2021. He previously worked at Thomson Reuters for a decade building financial products that rivaled the Bloomberg Terminal. He is also currently a Venture Partner at IOSG.VC

Alphaday’s co-founder Felipe has also been involved in Ethereum since 2016 and was a Developer Advocate at Pegasys and Consensys before quitting to work full time on Alphaday.

Alphaday’s third co-founder is DeFiDude who used to be a community manager at both Aave and Kyber Network before co-founding Alphaday.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines? How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule? How will the work be maintained after delivery?

If we receive a grant it will take us roughly 2 months to create and develop the Rocket Pool community board including integrating the discussion forums, blog post, social feed, jobs listing, TVL and other on-chain metrics. For the next 12 months we will provide maintenance including having an Alphaday content analyst quality-checking the dashboard every day and ensuring the Calendar widget is up-to-date with latest Rocket Pool events, all news mentions across the internet are captured by the dashboard, any updates not automatically captured by the Alphaday aggregator engine is manually added to the board, and other maintenance tasks.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

NA

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

35 RPL upfront cost for development.

4 RPL per month for the next 12 months for maintenance.

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

No conflict of interest

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

No

Useful links:

Live Product: https://app.alphaday.com/

[qz-clrfund]

Thank you @calurduran for putting this up! Here’s clr.fund’s application!

Grants Application

Rocket Pool QF round

Project

clr.fund

What is the work being proposed?

To fund a quadratic funding round on behalf of the Rocket Pool community

Is there any related work this builds off of?

Yes! It builds off MACI and prior clr.fund rounds such as the EthStaker round.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes in the sense that the results of the round and the tools using it will be open source. No in the sense that the exact votes cannot be made open source due to MACI.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

• Lower search cost for community to find projects working on public goods they could use or care about. Because the issue with web3 seems to be underutilisation of public goods, not overconsumption. Examples include translated documents or guides.
• Culture of collaborative public goods funding but collusion resistant so adversaries can’t just band together and extract from the funding pool. This can also become a schelling point for the Rocket Pool community on a regular basis to support their own ecosystem!
• Community preferences expressed regularly through supporting public goods they care about and it is shown through the amounts the projects/people get from QF. Not only are people extrinsically rewarded, the intrinsic motivation that is derived from knowing that the work you do is valuable is incredible.

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

• Access to documentation: By including projects that care about translating the Rocket Pool ecosystem’s important documents and canonical references, people looking to stake can also cross potential language barriers.
• Discovering cultural alignment: When people are looking to stake ETH, they are generally cautious and will want to look around the ecosystem. They can now evaluate the Rocket Pool ecosystem holistically as each QF round brings together the might of the entire ecosystem of public goods and expresses the Ethereum culture that Rocket Pool aspires towards.
• Direct help: By including projects that help the Rocket Pool ecosystem, people can directly benefit from having a place to find projects that could help them as they seek to become a part of the ecosystem.

How does this help rETH holders?

1. rETH holders are inherently incentive-aligned with the health of the Rocket Pool ecosystem. By fostering a culture of funding public goods in the Rocket Pool ecosystem, it can help create a flywheel of growth where important projects can earn the recognition they deserve. This flywheel can then be adopted by the overall ecosystem too.
2. rETH holders would definitely like to see more rETH minted. By stewarding a healthy community, more people can see what sets the Rocket Pool ecosystem apart from the rest and thus choose to stake with Rocket Pool.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

1. Running a node for the first time is a daunting experience (any firsts can be scary) and thus lowering barriers to entry is key. Barriers such as language, documentation, guides, walkthroughs, and support. The common thread amongst these barriers is that they can be surmounted either through a centralised entity providing all this support as with most tech companies, or they could be community-sustained. Creating a community that funds public goods is more aligned to the values of the ecosystem rather than the centralisation risk.
2. People looking to run a Rocket Pool node would want to have a better experience staking ETH. Projects that work on UX take time to reach maturity and adoption, thus good projects might not even see the light of day. QF gives these projects a fighting chance with both funding and recognition, thus if they do succeed, the staking experience will get better.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

1. People that seek to redistribute their profits (potentially inspired by our recent Rocket Pool fan sassal0x) can now have a democratic way to support community projects. They could, in the future, simply allocate a portion of their profits to a regular QF round as part of their voluntary contribution to the ecosystem’s public goods.
2. Projects that help improve the experience of running a node but do not have a model towards sustainability could now be funded and supported for the good work that they do. These projects will directly improve the node operating experience.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

The Rocket Pool community can come together regularly in celebration of their ecosystem and provide a tangible benefit to the important projects in their ecosystem. Many projects require some sort of incentive to think about switching or joining an ecosystem and this could also be a way for exogenous growth of the Rocket Pool community but done in an endogenous way (the community funds projects they care about).

Unlike typical grant programs that are usually done with a grants administration team and limited by the budget of foundations and/or DAOs that provide funding, QF can:

1. Scale with the community
2. Give the community a voice in grant funding allocation
3. Support smaller scale projects (order of $100s in funding)
4. Set new norms of mutual support and collaboration within communities

How does this help RPL holders?

To recap, RPL serves two purposes: first, as supplemental insurance against slashing that Node Operators are required to provide before creating new minipools; second, as the governance token used to vote in the Protocol DAO.

Therefore RPL holders benefit when:

1. There are more RPL holders. This provides a larger bulwark against slashing.
2. There are good projects for the Protocol DAO to support. As RPL holders are more incentivised to participate in the ecosystem.
3. There are more quality participants in the Rocket Pool ecosystem. RPL holders want not just more people, but also active members that participate.

A QF round can help with the governance aspect of RPL holders by providing a community-centered method for supporting healthy participation in the ecosystem by creating a participation mechanism for people in the ecosystem that care about Rocket Pool (or people not currently in the Rocket Pool ecosystem but care and would like to help out, the slight distinction being that even non-RPL holders might donate). This is also a form of governance that doesn’t rely on committees which increases voter load and fatigue.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

A Rocket Pool QF round helps to further the norm of having the community come together to fund public goods throughout the Ethereum ecosystem. It will be used as a reference for other ecosystems thinking about trying QF and might just inspire them to do their own too.

Organisations looking to collaborate or be a part of the Rocket Pool ecosystem can also get a view into the projects within this ecosystem and help them with their decision making.

Will the resulting project be open source?

Yes! It’s a core principle we uphold.

Team

Who is doing the work?

Auryn, Yuet, QZ

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

Auryn - clr.fund founder and long-time contributor to the Ethereum and DAO ecosystems. Also a co-founder of Gnosis Guild.

Yuet - lead developer and has run several rounds

QZ - led grassroots efforts at GitcoinDAO as part of the public goods funding workstream, joined clr.fund in late 2022

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

Expected to take a total of 8 weeks. Breakdown is as follows:

• 2 weeks to prepare and rebrand the web application for the round
• 3 weeks lead time for community projects to sign up for the round
• 3 weeks for the round itself

Additional items:
Curation of participants will be important and we will want to onboard important community projects to be a part of the round. Also, KYC may be needed for grantees. As this is a Rocket Pool round, we will suggest that GMC can conduct KYC for grantees prior to the round. If this is not possible, there are also alternatives!
Choosing an L2 to host the round will be important too.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

We will do testing as part of typical development efforts through automatic unit and end to end testing

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

We will maintain the Rocket Pool QF round page for 6 months after the event has ended. If we want the page to be permanent, one option is to host the results on IPFS.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

NA

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

The payment schedule will depend on when GMC decides to run the round and the RPL should be sent before the grant begins to form the matching pool for QF.

There is ~35k RPL (at 25USD/RPL this totals 875k USD) allocated to GMC according to this forum post. We are proposing starting with a 50k USD matching pool or a 100k USD matching round which is ~11% of the total GMC budget. We successfully ran a 375k EthStaker round and thus are confident in handling a matching pool of this size. The Rocket Pool community is large and thus there might be many participants for the round.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

The round is run when a date is decided and we will be working closely with community members to curate and spread the word that the round is occurring.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

NA

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

No

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

No

[kriptobetyar]

Grants Application

Project

What is the work being proposed?

Translation of the RocketPool Guides to hungarian.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

The english version.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes, it will be opensouce.

Benefits

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH? How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time? How does this help rETH holders? How does this help RPL holders?

Unfortunately a relatively high percentage of the hungarian population speaks little or no english.
I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find more up-do-date statistics than this one:

Foreign language skills statistics

But I know for a fact that the hungarian education system got even worse since 2016.
See one of the latest news regarding this topic:
“Hungarians Soon To Get Diplomas without Language Exam” @ hungarytoday dot hu

I’m the founder of a small crypto-community here, and even people who know some english tell me that they prefer transtated information, especially when it comes to more technical stuff like crypto.
As a big fan of Ethereum I usually write about ETH-related topics, and I’ve already got questions from my followers regarding liquid staking and RocketPool.

Due to these facts I belive that this translation could be really beneficial not only for hungarians looking for information on rETH and RPL, but even for more tech-minded people interested in running a node.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

The benefits for current holders and the broader Rocket Pool community are increased geographical and cultural diversity.
The hungarian crypto-space is still quite small even compared to the size of the population, and most of the information that gets translated and discussed are daily news and market-related stuff.
So by havig this translation available, RocketPool could easily have a high advantage over other projects.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

The translation could even help those hungarians, who already have a node running, as they could double check their setup using the translated guide.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

The whole Ethereum ecosystem could benefit from increasing diversity.

Will the resulting project be open source?

Yes.

Team

Who is doing the work?

It would be me, “kriptobetyar” or K.B. for short.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

I’m a developer by profession. I’m also the founder of the aformentioned community on Facebook/Discord, where I usually post about crypto fundamentals and technical details related to the latest news.
So I’m not a professional translater, but I’ve been reading and translating technical stuff on a daily basis since years.
I made the hungarian traslation for two of my favourite lectures of Andreas Antonopoulos on YT. (‘Courage to innovate without permission’ and ‘Unprecedented: Rules Without Rulers’)
Currently I’m in the process of translating the “What is ETH? Best explanation (2022)” video from Bankless. (Not as a grantee, but I’m planning to apply retroactively.)

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

I’m planning to complete the work in the following 1-2 months.
I would upload pages one-by-one as soon as they are finished.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

I could have the results checked by people I know, and also I’d be happy to show them to any hungarian-speaking member of the RocketPool community.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

I’m open for discussions about maintenance.
(And I’m planning to apply for funding the translation of the developer guide and other RocketPool-related contents as well.)

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

All pages/sections of the guide are translated, the contents are equivalent to the english version.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

I’d like to request $1200, payed upon completion. The exact amount of RPL would be calculated based on the exchange rate at that time.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

As the original content is on Github, I’m planning to upload the translated pages to a new public repo using the same file format and directory structure.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

N/A

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

No.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?

No.

[deukey]

Grants Application

Project

What is the work being proposed?

Translate Jasper(jasperthefriendlyghost.eth)’s recent article titled “Why Paradigm Was Wrong: How rETH Will Flip stETH”(Link: Why Paradigm Was Wrong: How rETH Will Flip stETH — jasperthefriendlyghost.eth) into Korean (including translations of parts to be updated in the future) and publish it and keep translating for updated contents.
However, translation of inserted pictures is excluded.
The results will be published on Korean blog services.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

1. Jasper’s article “Why Paradigm Was Wrong: How rETH Will Flip stETH”: Why Paradigm Was Wrong: How rETH Will Flip stETH — jasperthefriendlyghost.eth
2. Chinese version 为什么 Paradigm 错了：论 rETH 将如何逆袭 stETH — EthereumCN

Will the results of this project be entirely open source (MIT, GPL, Apache, CC BY license or similar)? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

Yes.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

• General Answer -
  Korean crypto people suffer from a lack of information, mistranslated information, and slow delivery of information.
  In particular, there is a lack of information about Ethereum staking in South Korea. As a result, there are many cases where people hold Ethereum but are unaware of staking.
  A very small percentage of Korean crypto people are aware of Lido, very little others are interested in solo staking, and most of them only know Ethereum staking as Cex staking.
  Although I have been working hard on Twitter an “Rocket Pool Korea”, awareness of Rocket Pool and LSD among Koreans is still very low.
  Jasper’s recent article can be a valuable resource for Korean crypto people about Rocket Pool and LSD in general.
  Jasper’s article can be repeatedly referenced for at least a year, contains a wealth of information, and emphasizes Rocket pool’s competitiveness, so it needs to be translated into multiple languages.
  There may be concerns that Jasper’s article may be difficult for the general crypto public in Korea, who do not even have the concept of LSD.
  However, it can be read by famous crypto influencers in Korea, inform them about RP, and then slowly information about RP can be spread from them.
  Although there will be little immediate effect of my translation, this translation will slowly spread the power of Ethereum staking and the importance of LSD to Koreans for at least a year in the future.
  It will also facilitate the introduction of rETH and Rocketpool nodes in South Korea.

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

This can spread the concept of LSD and its benefits to Korean readers.

How does this help rETH holders?

Decentralization of Ethereum nodes can be improved by improving the regional distribution of nodes.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

This can spread the future promise of operating Rocket pool node to Korean readers.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

NA

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

This promotes the growth of the Korean Rocket pool community.

How does this help RPL holders?

RPL prices are expected to rise due to new Korean entrants.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

Awareness of Ethereum staking can be improved.

Will the resulting project be open source?

Yes.

Team

Who is doing the work?

Me alone. If necessary to meet the deadline, some parts can be outsourced to some members of the Korean Ethereum community. In this case, the grants will be distributed accordingly by me.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

I have been active in the Rocketpool community since 2021. I am running a Rocketpool node and have a thorough understanding of RPL tokenomics.
I’m not an Ethereum expert or an economics expert, but with the help of dictionaries and Google, I can translate jargon. Also, I can understand some Western memes and translate them into Korean terms.
I am not a translation expert either, but as part of my main job, I have experience translating several professional reports.
My main job is to write documents, so I am good at writing documents.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

1 - initial translation : ~ 29th January (about 2 weeks)
2 - review : ~ 1st February (3 days)
3 - final review and editing: ~ 3rd February (2 days)
4 - publish and promote: ~ 4th February
5 - Translation of updated parts: Anytime until the end of 2023

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

The work can be tested by reverse-translation (via machine translate) or peer review and the testing is not included in the schedule.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

After translated and published, my work(translated article) will promoted in some of the Korean crypto community.
Once a month, I’ll check the original article for updates, and if so, I’ll translate that updated part.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

Translated article published at least 1 website(blog service).

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

Jasper’s article has 13223 words.
13223 * 80 won = 1,057,840 won = $855 (USD)
1 RPL = $28, so $855 = 30 RPL
So, I demand 30 RPL.
I’ll be paid after translation is finished and there is at least 1 publishing.

How will the GMC verify that the work’s deliveries match the proposed cadence?

You can check the amount of translation to see if all parts have been translated, and translation verification is possible with machine translation for random parts.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

NA

Conflict of Interest

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

NA

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?```

NA

[json]

Project

KlimaDAO

What is the work being proposed?

KlimaDAO would like to formally create a close partnership with the Rocketpool community, DAO, and Protocol. This partnership will include Rocketpool becoming a Klima Infinity partner, opening a line of communication to help individual node operators and or protocol participants become carbon neutral, and exploring ways to automate offsetting for node operators.

We believe that both the contributors and communities from both protocols share similar values such as decentralization. Furthermore, liquid staking will become an essential part of the Ethereum ecosystem. KlimaDAO has created a track record of significant partnerships and tooling for entities both on and off chain. We would like to offer those same solutions to the individuals that are helping to secure the network that we both exist on. Lastly, this partnership is another proof-of-concept that web3 can be utilized for real-world application.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

No.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source? If not, which parts will not be, why, and under what license will they be published?

KlimaDAO’s code and github are entirely open source: h ttps://github.com/KlimaDAO/klimadao

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

Rocketpool will become the first major LSD protocol to become carbon neutral. KlimaDAO has been partnering with major protocols (e.g. Alchemix, Polygon) to change the narrative that blockchain is bad for the environment and to pay off the carbon footprint debt that Ethereum’s PoW has created.

Moreover, this will open up the possibility for the individuals supporting the network to offset their footprint in a completely permissionless, trustless manner.

How does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH?

One potential avenue for this outcome would be those that share similar values (e.g. decentralization) and those that are being onboarded into Web3 via ReFi (regenerative finance) to go to Rocketpool first. In addition, KlimaDAO will form a marketing partnership with Rocketpool to help amplify the partnership. Lastly, KlimaDAO will be able to use this type of content at the numerous conferences that the DAO leaders attend.

How does this help rETH holders?

Holders will be able to know that their LSD is the first carbon neutral staking derivative out there. It has the potential to align with their values all the while being able to achieve this in a permissionless, trustless manner.

How does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?

It could give the ability for new Rocket Pool node operators the ability to offset their operation.

How does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?

It will give the ability for those that have historically been supporting PoW till now to offset their operation.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

The Rocket Pool community will be supporting Web3 for off-chain impact such as the Voluntary Carbon Market. The community will have an open line of communication in the KlimaDAO server to ask any questions they may have.

How does this help RPL holders?

Similar to the above answers, RPL will be able to know that they’re supporting the on-chain carbon market, which we believe is the future of the compliance market. RPL holders will know that their protocol is carbon neutral, has taken a stance against the negative blockchain narrative, and showed support for the reality that Web3 can and will make a significant impact in our day to day lives.

What other non-RPL protocols, DAOs, projects, or individuals, would stand to benefit from this grant?

KlimaDAO and the entire Klima Infinity cohort, which now includes major protocols, Voluntary Carbon Market, and blockchains.

Will the resulting project be open source?

Yes.

Team

Andrew Bonneau - Head of Partnerships & Co-Founder

Json - Klima Infinity Business Development

Vishal Kapadia - Head of Customer Engagement

Liam Ellul - Head of Business Development Infinity

And more at our Twitter: h ttps://twitter.com/KlimaDAO

Who is doing the work?

Json - Klima Infinity Business Development

Klima Infinity Team - (Devs, Partnerships, Marketing)

Rocket Pool Team/DAO

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work? What experience do they have with such projects in the past?

The KlimaDAO contributors are industry experts with numerous years of experience in the Voluntary Carbon Market and Web3. KlimaDAO is also closely partnered and advised by leaders within the compliance markets. If the community would like a detailed breakdown of experience we can provide.

Rocketpool is a global leader in Ethereum staking.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work, in terms of milestones and/or deadlines?

1. The DAO/Protocol Team would work with KlimaDAO to offset the historical emissions. This will be done via the KlimaDAO permissionless retirement aggregator.
2. The DAO/Protocol Team would help with co-marketing that Rocketpool is now carbon neutral.
3. The DAO/Protocol Team would work with KlimaDAO team to open a line of communication for node operators to offset their emissions future, past, and present.
4. The DAO/Protocol Team would work with KlimaDAO team to create a way for node operators to opt-in and automate their carbon offsetting.

How is the work being tested? Is testing included in the schedule?

Testing will be required for offsetting automation, however, everything else has been tested and is a proven tool.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

A channel will be opened up on the KlimaDAO discord server. Maintenance for automation will be dependent on the scope of the work and the final state of contracts.

Payment and Verification

Payment upfront for historical offsetting and officiating Klima Infinity partnership is required. Individual node operation offsetting will be dependent upon the node operators unless Rocket Pool wants to match contributions for PoW contributions.

The historical footprint of the Rocket Pool is approximately 693.85 tonnes. KlimaDAO proposes to offset 1000 tonnes. However, KlimaDAO would love for Rocket Pool to contribute to offsetting Ethereum’s historical footprint in addition to the proposed amount, we will leave the amount of this additional contribution up to the community and team.

Cost varies depending on the type of tonnage used.

Example:

BCT - $0.94/tonne

NCT - $1.68/tonne

MCO2 - $1.86/tonne

More information about the on-chain carbon market at our carbon dashboard: h ttps://carbon.klimadao.finance/

Based on the contracts here: 🤝 Contracts & Integrations | Rocket Pool

Methodology for estimating carbon footprint here: https://carbon.fyi/

0x2cac916b2A963Bf162f076C0a8a4a8200BCFBfb4 - 55.32 tonnes

0x1d8f8f00cfa6758d7bE78336684788Fb0ee0Fa46 - 29.70 tonnes

0x4D05E3d48a938db4b7a9A59A802D5b45011BDe58 - 608.83 tonnes

Total: 693.85 tonnes

What is the acceptance criteria?

Transaction hash for the historical offset, marketing material posted, and automated offsetting group chat created.

Future goal would be to have the ability for node operators to opt-in to automated offsetting.

What is the proposed payment schedule for the grant? How much RPL and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

100% of the historical offsetting payment upfront which only costs anywhere from $930-$1860. Additional historical contribution is dependent on the decision of the community and team.

Marketing and automated offsetting should require no funding.

How will the GMC verify that the work deliveries match the proposed cadence?

KlimaDAO will provide GMC an update on activity 1 month following the acceptance of the grant. If automated node offsetting is desired, KlimaDAO will give regular updates to GMC. Frequency of updates will be proposed and agreed upon by both parties.

What alternatives or options have been considered in order to save costs for the proposed project?

N/A

Conflict of Interest

None, this is for the benefit of the entire Ethereum ecosystem.

Does the person or persons proposing the grant have any conflicts of interest to disclose? (Please disclose here if you are a member of the GMC or if any member of the GMC would benefit directly financially from the grant).

No.

Will the recipient of the grant, or any protocol or project in which the recipient has a vested interest (other than Rocket Pool), benefit financially if the grant is successful?```

No. The retirement aggregator only helps to bring volume and demand to on-chain carbon and this only indirectly helps KLIMA liquidity. However, the amount of offsetting proposed should have a minimal impact.