Round 19 - GMC Call for Grant Applications - Deadline is December 7

This thread is for applications for Rocket Pool’s November 7, 2024 - December 7, 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 December 7, 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 19:

  • Application Period (November 7 - December 7)
  • Negotiation Period (December 8 - December 23)
  • Scoring Deadline (December 24)
  • Final Voting Amendments, Discussion and Finalization (December 25 - December 28)
  • Award Announcement (December 29)
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?

### Have you already been compensated by the RP protocol in any way for this 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).

### 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?

Rocket Pool Validator Monitoring Integration with ethseer.io

Name of Grant

Rocket Pool Validator Integration for ethseer

What is the work being proposed?

This project will integrate Rocket Pool validator monitoring into ethseer, creating an open-source monitoring solution for the Rocket Pool community. The integration will connect with Rocket Pool smart contracts to track node operator performance, validator status, and rewards in real-time through ethseer’s open-source infrastructure. Node operators will access comprehensive performance metrics through ethseer’s interface.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

This integration builds upon ethseer’s open-source existing blockchain explorer infrastructure, which currently provides comprehensive monitoring for Ethereum validators. The implementation will be leveraged by Migalabs indexer (Goteth) to process Rocket Pool-specific data. This approach ensures consistent performance monitoring across different staking pools while maintaining the specific requirements of each.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source?

Yes, all code developed for this integration will be released under the MIT license and published on GitHub. This includes indexer modifications, and frontend components developed specifically for Rocket Pool integration.

Benefit

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders & rETH holders Access to transparent, real-time validator performance metrics.
Potential NOs Access to comprehensive network statistics and performance benchmarks to evaluate operational requirements and expectations before joining the network.
NOs Real-time monitoring of validator performance, rewards, and network metrics through a reliable, established platform. Enhanced visibility into individual and network-wide operational metrics.
Community Access to an additional open-source monitoring tool that enhances network transparency and provides valuable operational insights.
RPL holders Greater visibility into network health and performance metrics that may impact protocol value and growth.

Which other protocols would benefit from this grant?

The integration architecture developed for this project will serve as a template for other staking protocols seeking monitoring solutions. The open-source nature of the project allows other protocols to leverage our implementation for their own monitoring needs.

Work

Who is doing the work?

MigaLabs.

What is the background of the person(s) doing the work?

Migalabs is a Blockchain ecosystem observatory. We have built and maintained open-source services within the Ethereum ecosystem, engaging in collaborations with teams Lido, Obol, Protocol Labs, and Attestant.

What is the breakdown of the proposed work?

The project will be completed in three phases over eight weeks:

Phase 1 (Weeks 1-3): Backend Integration

  • Smart contract integration
  • Indexer modifications
  • Database schema updates

Phase 2 (Weeks 4-6): Frontend Development

  • Node operator dashboard implementation
  • Validator performance metrics
  • Data visualization components

Phase 3 (Weeks 7-8): Testing and Documentation

  • Integration testing
  • Performance optimization
  • Documentation creation
  • Community feedback integration

How is the work being tested?

Testing will occur throughout development, including unit tests, integration tests, and community beta testing. The final two weeks are dedicated to comprehensive testing and refinement based on community feedback.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

Our team will maintain the integration as part of ethseer’s regular maintenance schedule. Although the regular maintenance of Ethseer ensures the Rocket Pool community with this data, all major updates will be executed under new grant proposals with the goal of building a long-term relationship that benefits the Rocket Pool staking ecosystem.

Costs

What is the acceptance criteria?

The integration will be considered complete when:

  • All specified features are implemented and tested
  • Documentation is complete and published
  • Code is released under MIT license

What is the proposed payment schedule?

Total budget request: $8000 USD

  • 50% upon proposal acceptance
  • 50% upon final delivery

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

We request payment in LUSD.

How will the GMC verify delivered work?

We will provide regular GitHub updates and milestone demonstrations. Each phase will include documentation and results for review.

What alternatives have been considered to save costs?

We leverage existing ethseer and Goteth infrastructure to minimize development costs and ensure long-term maintainability.

Have you already been compensated by the RP protocol?

No, we have not received any previous compensation from Rocket Pool.

Conflict of Interest

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

No conflicts of interest to disclose.

Will the recipient benefit financially if the grant is successful?

No direct financial benefits beyond the grant compensation. The integration will be freely available to all users.

Name of Grant

Rocketpool AI Assistant

What is the work being proposed?

The creation of an all knowing Rocketpool Telegram assistant/bot that can help with:

  • onboarding community members
  • onboarding node operators
  • answering any question related Rocketpool or the Rocketpool community
  • general education for all things Rocketpool related

Is there any related work this builds off of?

This work builds off x23.ai, where we build AI tools and agents for DAOs and delegates. We already support some Rocketpool data (which can be seen here) and hope to expand it to more official sources.
We also have a live Optimism Governance bot that you can test here, which will be similar to the Rocketpool assistant in terms of capability.

Related to this section, we will aggregate various sources from the Rocketpool community including official sources, blogs, forum posts etc. We may also include the recently accepted Cyfin educational resources when completed. We do not believe this conflicts with their grant, but further improves it (and enriches the Rocketpool community) by making the information more accessible.

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?

There are no plans to open source the work for now, but we hope to do so in the future in some capacity.

Benefit

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders Potential rETH holders will be able to ask natural language questions to get the answer they need straight away, e.g. ‘how do i get started staking?’
rETH holders rETH holders may have questions related to the community but not have enough time to stay on top of it all. The assistant will be able to provide summaries and directly answer questions they may have.
Potential NOs Potential NOs will be able to chat naturally with the assistant as they are setting up a node, or when they have questions, and get immediate answers.
NOs Node operators can stay up to date on the RocketPool community by asking questions and/or troubleshooting issues with natural language
Community The community will have another source of information that aggregates all official sources, thereby making the community more productive
RPL holders RPL holders will get a better handling of the community and what is going on, especially if they don’t have time to check all the relevant sources.

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

The assistant would be exclusive for the Rocketpool community, trained on Rocketpool sources, so it is unlikely that other communities would benefit. However if someone outside the community wants to get a ‘pulse’ or is analyzing Rocketpool, the assistant may be helpful.

Work

Who is doing the work?

x23.ai, a company based in the Netherlands. I (David) is the founder and main developer.

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

I’ve been in crypto since 2014, previously contracted for Coinbase and was the 4th engineer on the Aave Genesis team. I’ve been building x23.ai for nearly 1.5 years. We’ve received grants from the top DAOs including Optimism, Arbitrum, Lido, Aave, etc.
We have already built similar assistants, see Optimism Governance bot and our core business is at the intersection of AI and crypto.

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

Month 1:

  • aggregation and parsing of data sources
  • setting up pipelines as needed

Month 2:

  • integration of data into model pipeline
  • testing and iterating

Month 3:

  • this would serve as a buffer in case technical hurdles are encountered which slow down the previous steps.

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

Yes testing is included. If successful, a post will be made on the forums for early testers to try it before a full release to production.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

We will maintain it for at least 12 months

Costs

What is the acceptance criteria?

The criteria would be a telegram bot which anyone in the community can chat to and get immediate accurate answers.

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

$12,000

  • 50% upon proposal acceptance
  • 50% upon completion of acceptance criteria

Is the applicant requesting RPL or LUSD?

Ideally 50% RPL and 50% LUSD would be ideal to align incentives

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

We will post monthly updates on the forums

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

The project builds upon our existing work and infrastructure, saving immense cost in both development and maintenance of the project.

Have you already been compensated by the RP protocol in any way for this work?

No

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).

We work with other protocols/DAOs, including ones that may be competitors to Rocketpool. However this does not influence the level of service or create any meaningful conflicts as we do not have access to any non-public information.

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, this only benefits x23.ai

Notice: This message marks the closing of the nineteenth (19) 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 December 29th. 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.