Round 10 - GMC Call For Grant Applications - Deadline is March 10

Grants / Bounties
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This thread is for applications for Rocket Pool’s Feburary 12, 2024 - March 10, 2024 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 March 10, 2024 at 23:59 (11:59 PM) UTC will be considered. Any grants posted after that deadline will be carried over to the next award period.

This is the expected schedule for round 10:

  • Application Period (February 12th - March 10th)

  • Application Discussion Meetings - one for each subcommittee (March 10th - March 25th)

  • Scoring Deadline (March 26th)

  • Final Voting Amendments, Discussion and Finalization (March 27th - March 30th)

  • Award Announcement (March 31st)

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.

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

When evaluating grant applications, the GMC takes into account the following goals:

  • 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

Grant Application Template

Please copy paste the template below into a reply. Answer the questions there, feel free to remove or add sections based on relevance.


## Name of Grant

### 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?

## Benefit

<please enter N/A where appropriate>

| Group | Benefits |
|---|---|
| Potential rETH holders | If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help people looking to stake ETH for rETH? |
| rETH holders | If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help rETH holders? |
| Potential NOs | If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time? |
| NOs | If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node? |
| Community | If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help the Rocket Pool community? |
| RPL holders | If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help RPL holders? |

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

## Work

### 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?

## Costs

### What is the acceptance criteria?

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

### Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

### How will the GMC verify that the work delivered matches 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?
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Name of Grant

Rocket Pool Google Adwords

What is the work being proposed?

Expand awareness of Rocket Pool’s offerings, specifically rETH and the process of becoming a node operator. The proposed work involves setting up and managing a Google AdWords campaign targeted at individuals and organizations interested in Ethereum staking.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

This project would build off of any previous marketing efforts aimed at increasing awareness of Rocket Pool. If traditional media buying or digital advertising campaigns have been conducted in the past, those experiences will inform the AdWords strategy, including targeting, messaging, and budget allocation.

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

N/A

Benefit

| Group | Benefits |

|—|—|

| Potential rETH holders | Increase in awareness and understanding of rETH, leading to potential adoption and investment. |

| rETH holders | Enhanced visibility and credibility of Rocket Pool could increase demand for rETH, potentially improving its value and liquidity. |

| Potential NOs | Detailed information and visibility of the process and benefits of becoming a Node Operator (NO) could increase the number of individuals and entities interested in joining the network. |

| NOs | Increased adoption and network growth could lead to more staking and rewards opportunities for existing NOs. |

| Community | Strengthening the Rocket Pool ecosystem, fostering a more vibrant and engaged community. |

| RPL holders | Enhanced brand visibility and network growth could drive the demand for RPL, positively impacting its value. |

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

Ethereum as a whole would benefit from increased staking, I believe.

Work

Who is doing the work?

Me.

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

20 years in Product Management & Marketing. Most recently averaged spending $800K/mo in 2023 for a live streaming business focused on performance and conversion in the B2C sector.

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

Account setup - 1 week
Launch & Activation - 1 week

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

Negligible testing is needed since we would only be sending traffic to the main Rocket Pool site. Given our product, there’s no traditional “successful conversion” metric. This would act more as an awareness campaign.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

Recurring maintenance fee as described below

Costs

Test budget - $50,000
Setup fee - $5,000
Management fee - 25% of Budget

What is the acceptance criteria?

Traffic is being directed to Rocket Pool’s website via Google Adwords

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

Setup fee - Upfront
All other fees - Net 30

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

USD for the ad spend since I don’t want to take any upside/downside risk. I’m guessing USD might be difficult, so USDC would be fine.

RPL for all other work is fine.

How will the GMC verify that the work delivered matches the proposed cadence?

Google Analytics will have this information, invoices will be provided, users can be added to the Adwords account

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

Optionally, we could target specific sites, but I feel that would be a different proposal.

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

Concerns

I know Google was going to start letting crypto ads on to the platform, but it’s not clear to me that we will be allowed. Updates to Cryptocurrencies and related products policy (December 2023) - Advertising Policies Help (google.com)

I don’t see any ads when searching for Ethereum, Lido, etc. - so it may indicate that this may not be allowed by Google. Alternatively, we could pivot to Facebook/Bing/Reddit. Reddit is likely the best fit for us.

1 Like
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Sleety Graphic Design

What is the work being proposed?

Designing 5 banners for the recently approved beaconcha.in advertising grant. The sizes for the banners are:

  • 320x90
  • 590x90
  • 760x90
  • 970x90
  • 1370x90

Is there any related work this builds off of?

Having a skilled graphic designer should increase the effectiveness of the beaconcha.in advertising campaign the GMC is funding. The campaign intends to promote new node operators.

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

N/A

Work

Who is doing the work?

Sleety

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

They have designed many professional design materials for Rocket Pool in the past.

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

Upon completion of the work the GMC will you for the beaconcha.in advertising.

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

The GMC will coordinate a thread and will confirm the content within the banner before Sleety works on the project.

Costs

$300

What is the acceptance criteria?

5 properly sized banners that the GMC verifies the quality of.

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

$300 upon verification of quality from the GMC

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

RPL

How will the GMC verify that the work delivered matches the proposed cadence?

The GMC administrator has a background in graphic design and the work will also be presented to the marketing subcommittee.

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).

Sleety is not a member of the GMC. The GMC administrator is submitting the grant on his behalf after negotiations with him. The GMC displayed an interest in Sleety creating the graphics for the beaconcha.in advertising.

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

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POAP Raffle Funding

What is the work being proposed?

Creating a fund for POAP raffle events to be administered by ShfRyn.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

This application was inspired by recent feedback from the committee.

I was recently awarded a six-month grant to create more POAPs. I have had some successful POAP events recently (RPL Stake Party, Ramana Buying Party), where I believe if a raffle was also incorporated it could have scaled the reach significantly.

Benefit

<please enter N/A where appropriate>

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders N/A
rETH holders N/A
Potential NOs Displaying a fun community = more NOs
NOs Potentially small extra rewards and interactive fun events.
Community POAP events are great for community building.
RPL holders Some of the events are geared towards buying RPL.

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

N/A

Work

Who is doing the work?

ShfRyn

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

At the end of 2023 a raffle was held for the Upgrade Master.

Upgrade Master POAP Thread

Upgrade Master Raffle

The raffle rewards included the winner having their name on the raffle POAP and 3 RPL (donated personally). The raffle was largely successful with 63 participants across 199 POAPs.

Here’s one comment from Ken:

This was a lot of fun. Thanks for organizing this.

Another successful raffle was the RPL Client Diversity raffle last year that included over 130 participants - https://rplclientdiversity.com/

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

I propose having a $2,100 budget to fund raffles.

If approved I will create a new wallet (raffle.shfryn.eth) where the funds are escrowed.

Here’s some event types I propose creating a raffle for in the future:

  • Upgrade Master (These are held after there has been several node upgrade POAP events. Each upgrade grants 1 raffle ticket. I suggest doing these quarterly or twice a year)
  • RPL Buy Party
  • RPL Stake Party
  • (GMC Member Ideas Here!)

Here is the prize pool I suggest for each POAP event:
$500

  • First Place - $250
  • Second Place - $150
  • Third Place - $100

If the GMC believes it’s necessary, I’m also open to some sort of verification or approval for each event from the GMC

The $100 will be reserved for sending gas. There will be no organization or facilitation fee.

$2,100 would fund four events with this award suggestion.

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

If the GMC believes it’s necessary, I’m open to some sort of verification or approval for each event from the GMC.

Costs

$2,100 held in a new wallet address managed by ShfRyn.
(Alternatively you can keep the funding in the GMC multisignature wallet, or some sort of smaller multisig managed by less GMC members, but that would add administrative overhead for the admin and the committee.)

What is the acceptance criteria?

The GMC will be able to see the POAP raffles along with the winners. I verify all my POAP recipients, so there’s very low risk of sybil attacks.

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

$2,100 upfront. A lot of events come out of nowhere, ideally already having access to an approved funding amount would allow us to capitalize on external market events and setup POAP events quickly.

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

RPL

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

I’m just throwing a suggested budget out there, please counter if you have any alternative funding amounts.

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).

I am the GMC Administrator. This should amplify the effectiveness of my POAP grant, but I will receive no extra compensation from this 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?

No

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Notice: This message marks the closing of the tenth round of Rocket Pool grant applications. Any applications submitted after this will not be considered for this round. The GMC will announce the award recipients in a new thread here on the forums around March 31st. The community will then have two weeks to issue any challenges before funds are disbursed. Thank you to all who applied and thank you to everyone who has followed along. Anyone who would like to comment on existing applications is encouraged to do so in this thread.