Round 6 - GMC Call for Grant Applications - Deadline is November 11

This thread is for applications for Rocket Pool’s October 8, 2023 - November 26, 2023 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 (link) 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 November 11, 2023 at 23:59 (11:59 PM) UTC will be considered. Any grants posted after that deadline will be carried over to the next grant period.

This is the second application period that will use the new revised process outlined in RPIP-26. This is the expected schedule:

  • Application Period (October 8th - November 11th)
  • Application Discussion Meetings - one for each subcommittee (November 12th - November 15th)
  • Negotiation Period (November 16th - November 20th)
  • Scoring Deadline (November 21st)
  • Final Voting Amendments, Discussion and Finalization (November 22nd - November 25th)
  • Award Announcement (November 26th)

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.

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, feel free to remove or add sections based on relevance.

## Name of 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

| 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? |

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

## 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 USD $ and over what period of time is the applicant requesting?

### 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?```
1 Like

RocketPerf

What is the work being proposed?

Create and maintain a database of all Rocket Pool validator (consensus layer) duty assignments and performance, and a website for easy visualisation of this data. On the website, people will be able, for example, to see the day-by-day performance of a Rocket Pool node operator’s node.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

  • This grant is inspired by the now-defunct “Attestation Performance” feature of rocketscan.io. Note, however, that no code will be used from that project: our implementation will be fresh.
  • The proposed tool will serve a similar purpose to rated.network, but with more detailed data and an exclusive focus on Rocket Pool validators.
  • We may re-use some ideas and code from previous projects concerned with recording attestation performance, such as independent treegen testing (BA022303).

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?

100% free software, protected by the GPL.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders See aggregate performance information on Rocket Pool as a staking provider, to inform your decision to stake with our pool.
rETH holders Similar to the potential holders, to continually inform the decision to hold rETH.
Potential NOs Set expectations on performance that is achievable by NOs, and the possible variation between NOs.
NOs Track your own node’s performance. Get an indication of where you are doing well or underperforming and may need to improve. Screenshottable performance data for bragging rights.
Community Data-backed performance of Rocket Pool to share in external communications. Insightful information to discuss amongst ourselves.
RPL holders No particular benefits beyond Community and NO indirect effects.

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

The code and approach used might be useful for other projects that want to record and display their community’s beacon chain performance in detail.

Team

Who is doing the work?

Ramana

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

I did RocketTree independent verification of the Merkle rewards trees (the bounty mentioned earlier), which involves collecting attestation performance data for Rocket Pool nodes.

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

  1. Collect attestation data from beginning of time till a fixed recent date for a single node.
  2. Display the data in a useful and interesting way on a website.
  3. Repeat for all nodes.
  4. Continue updating for more recent slots on an ongoing basis.

All intended to be finished before the end of 2023.

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

No testing required, although we remain open to external auditing of the data at all times.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

Ramana will continue to collect and update and host the performance data, striving for very high uptime and being up-to-date (e.g. up to a recent epoch, or at least daily).

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

There is a website that nicely displays attestation (and other beacon chain duty) performance data for all Rocket Pool nodes from the beginning of time till a recent (e.g. late 2023) epoch.

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

$5000 for the development for a fixed snapshot. $1000 per year for ongoing collection and maintenance.

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

Everything is developed in public and open source, and the team is highly responsive to communication on the Rocket Pool discord.

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

You could try to resurrect the rocketscan version of attestation performance instead. We expect it to be faster to start again using tools and infrastructure design we are familiar with.

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.

1 Like

Name of Project

Bankless Academy

What is the work being proposed?

Bankless Academy would like to propose an interactive, illustrated ‘Staking on Ethereum’ lesson, with an onchain quest to acquire and hold rETH.

Lesson Overview:

  • Introduction to Staking on Ethereum
    • Ethereum’s role in web3 and why staking is essential
  • Understanding Ether Staking
    • How staking works
    • The “Internet Bond” analogy
  • Validator Nodes and PoS Consensus
    • The transition from PoW to PoS
    • PoS overview
    • How validator nodes work
    • Validators vs. stakers
  • Benefits of Staking Your Ether
    • Earning rewards
    • Securing the network
    • Network ownership
    • Supporting decentralized systems
    • Supporting green payment networks
    • Long-term investment strategy
    • Risks
  • Economics of Staking
    • Network activity, staking participants, and yield
    • Inflationary and deflationary forces
  • Centralization Risks in PoS Networks
    • Wealth concentration
    • 33% attacks
  • Liquid Staking Tokens Explained
    • The purpose of LSTs
    • Types of LST
    • Risks
  • Rocket Pool and rETH
    • The decentralized option
    • Stake any amount of ETH
    • rETH as a liquid asset
    • Running a Rocket Pool mini-node in the future
  • Onchain Quest: Acquire and Hold rETH

This lesson would feature a companion article in our ‘Explorer’s Handbook’ – a how-to guide, quest walkthrough, and quick reference sheet for users seeking more concise instruction (e.g. Delegating on Optimism).

Is there any related work this builds off of?

The Bankless Academy platform & curriculum.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source?

Yes, see our Github repository here.

Benefits - 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?
Answer: By providing concise information and an engaging walkthrough on staking ether.
rETH holders If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help rETH holders?
Answer: By providing further education around their investment, and increasing demand for rETH.
Potential NOs If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help people looking to run a Rocket Pool node for the first time?
Answer: By providing an entry point into the Rocket Pool platform, and initial information on NO possibilities.
NOs If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help people already running a Rocket Pool node?
Answer: Increased demand for Rocket Pool staking.
Community If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help the Rocket Pool community?
Answer: By providing an entry point for new, educated community members. By giving the community an onchain method of recognising knowledgeable & informed users (via lesson completion badges).
RPL holders If the grant is successfully completed, how does this help RPL holders?
Answer: Increased demand for Rocket Pool staking.

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

The broader Ethereum ecosystem, and any community looking to share concise information and an engaging walkthrough on staking ether. Bankless Academy will also benefit by providing its users with a strong, value-aligned recommendation for decentralized staking.

Team

Who is doing the work?

The Bankless Academy squad:

Tetranome.eth
Project Champion, Content & Design Lead

DidierKrux.eth
Dev Lead

OrnellaWeb3.eth
Marketing Lead

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

We have shipped a number of collaborative content in the past two years, including a lesson with 1inch, multiple lessons with Optimism. We have also shipped content focused on loveable platforms like Revoke.cash and Velodrome.

DEX Aggregators w/ 1inch

Layer 2 Blockchains w/ Optimism

Optimism Governance

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

#1: Beta test of English lesson | January 31st 2024

#2: English lesson deployed | February 14th 2024

#3: Marketing campaign delivered via Bankless Academy & BanklessDAO (Twitter & Newsletters) | February 21st 2024

#4: 5x multilingual lessons deployed (Optional) | February 28th 2024

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

We will host a beta test of the lesson for the Rocket Pool, Bankless Academy, and BanklessDAO communities.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

Bankless Academy will monitor and update the lesson/quest as necessary, to stay functional and up to date.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

N/a

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

$25,000, disbursed upon shipping.

We also have the opportunity to translate and market this lesson + handbook companion in five languages, for an additional $5,000 grant. We are revisiting lesson agreements two years post-launch to discuss conversion rates.

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

#1: Beta test of English lesson | Verified by Rocket Pool forum post

#2: English lesson deployed | Verified by Twitter announcement

#3: Marketing campaign delivered via Bankless Academy & BanklessDAO (Twitter & Newsletters) | Verified by Twitter posts and email newsletters.

#4: 5x multilingual lessons deployed (Optional) | Verified by Twitter announcement and email newsletters.

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

Besides the optional translations, we are open to recommendations for adjusting the lesson scope or included features.

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, Bankless Academy has no affiliation with the Rocket Pool 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?

All funds will go towards lesson development, upkeep, and improved website experience.

Notes:

  • We are open to adjusting the lesson scope and topics covered as the community or GMC recommends.
  • Connection with a Rocket Pool staking specialist, for periodic discussion & review, would add even more punch to a collaboration. Advisory helps us to identify key analogies and make our information as accurate & concise as possible.
1 Like

SphereX-Protect

What is the work being proposed?

Background - SphereX-Protect is a decentralized exploit prevention solution that enables smart contracts to automatically revert malicious transactions, including zero-day attacks, before they’re finalized. Legitimate transactions are approved regularly, even while under attack. For more details, explainer videos and documentation, please refer to spherex.xyz

The current work being proposed is deploying SphereX-Protect to Rocket Pool contracts and protect Rocket Pool’s protocol from malicious transactions and suspicious behaviors.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

SphereX-Protect is an existing security product built by SphereX Technologies. It includes on-chain components, automatic integration pipeline, dashboard, and advanced simulation engine. The existing capabilities were backtested on dozens of use cases of historical attacks, proving effective in blocking malicious transactions.

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 existing code for SphereX-Protect on-chain components is transparent, available and licensed under SphereX’s license terms.
The resulting integrated (Rocket Pool’s) contracts remain licensed as before.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

Group Benefits
Potential rETH holders Better security inspires trust and creates competitive advantage over alternative liquid staking protocols
rETH holders Peace of mind for deposited funds, guaranteed continuity of the protocol even while under attack
Potential NOs Better security inspires trust and creates competitive advantage over alternative liquid staking protocols
NOs Peace of mind for deposited funds, guaranteed continuity of the protocol even while under attack
Community N/A
RPL holders Peace of mind for deposited funds, guaranteed continuity of the protocol even while under attack

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

None.

Team

Who is doing the work?

SphereX R&D team

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

SphereX R&D team-members are all veterans of elite Israeli cyber units, with extensive experience in cybersecurity, data science and blockchain. We’ve gained experience in backtesting SphereX-Protect into dozens of historical incidents of attacked protocols, and also deploying SphereX-Protect with design partners

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

(a) Integration - Integrate SphereX-Protect code into Rocket pool’s contracts - 1 Week

(b) Backtesting - Simulate Rocket pool’s historical transactions, extract runtime features and analyze transaction behavior - 1 Week

(c) Testnet Deploy - deploy integrated contracts to testnet/private blockchain, create a dashboard - 1 week

(d) Experimenting with the product on testnet/private blockchain - simulating legitimate traffic, malicious attacks, analyze transactions behavior, operation and control, etc - 1 month

(e) Decision Making Milestone - The Rocket Pool DAO needs to approve the deployment of the integrated contracts on-chain.

(f) Deploy on-chain - Deploying the integrated protocol on chain - 2 weeks

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

We have two tests to make sure that SphereX-Protect does not negatively affect the protocol:

  1. Dev Tests - After integrating SphereX-Protect into Rocket Pool’s contracts, we run all the dev tests to make sure they successfully pass.
  2. Backtesting - Running all Rocket Pool historical transactions in simulation that analyzes the behavior of every transactions with SphereX-Protect

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

SphereX will provide full support during the project itself, and given that Rocket Pool decides to deploy the product on-chain (milestone ‘f’), SphereX will provide full support for additional 12 months

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

  • Publishing a github repo of the integrated contracts
  • Publishing a dashboard with a full execution behavior analysis of Rocket Pool’s historical transactions
  • Deploying integrated contracts on testnet / private blockchain.

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

The overall cost of the project is $32K divided into the aforementioned milestones. Payment is due at the end of any milestone and prior to start working on the next milestone:

(a) (1 week) Integration - $2.5k

(b) (1 week) Backtesting - $3.5k

(c) (1 week) Testnet Deploy - $6k

(d) (1 month) Experimenting - $4k

(e) Decision Making Milestone

(f) (2 weeks) Deploy on-chain + annual support - $16k

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

All the resulting work is shared and published, SphereX will share and present the results of every milestone, and we’re open for discussions, questions and clarifications.

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

SphereX has automated and scripted whatever’s possible in order to minimize costs and make the product scalable.

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).

N/A

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?

N/A

Name of Project

RocketPool Tokenomics Simulator

by Nethermind Research

What is the work being proposed?

The proposed work consists of two related parts:

  1. The design of a multi-agent simulation engine to analyze tokenomics proposals.
  2. The analysis and coding in the engine of a few selected tokenomics proposals.

Design and Development of a Multi-Agent Simulation Engine

The first part involves designing and developing a multi-agent simulation engine to analyze tokenomics proposals. This engine will model the behavior of Node Operators in terms of collateralization and provide insights into how different proposals may impact the network, taking into account factors such as the number of pools and collateral amounts.

Analysis of Selected Proposals

The second part of the work focuses on analyzing and coding selected tokenomics proposals within the multi-agent simulation framework. In collaboration with the Rocket Pool community, a set of proposals will be carefully examined, prioritizing those with significant potential to affect the protocol, feasibility of implementation, and alignment with the community’s vision. The deliverables will include comprehensive analysis reports and recommendations for each proposal. Throughout the process, close monitoring of the RPL price and its impact on protocol growth will be conducted, along with the identification of any potential risks. Parameter tuning will also be performed to optimize the proposed solutions when applicable. We have shared in detail our approach in building these simulations with the community on the governance forum. This can be found here.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

This proposed work is based on:

  1. Our previously published research on the governance forum.
  2. Community discussions and proposals, both existing and forthcoming, aimed at increasing the collateral posted by node operators.
  3. The community’s existing knowledge about Node Operator behaviors and the Rocket Pool protocol.

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?

100% free software.

The project will use Python and the Mesa library to build the multi-agent simulation engine.

Mesa is an Apache 2 licensed software.

Benefits

This project aims to offer significant benefits to the community:

  • Our vision is to create a collaborative tool that empowers community members to contribute their modeling ideas and assumptions. This tool will be accessible to anyone in the community and will facilitate the generation and testing of new tokenomics concepts. Users will have the ability to explore ideas such as creating new types of minipools, adjusting collateral requirements, and modifying commissions. One of our core principles is modularity, which means that the tool will be designed in a way that allows for easy updates to reflect changes in tokenomics. This flexibility ensures that the tool remains relevant and adaptable as the ecosystem evolves.
  • The simulation engine will foster a highly responsive and engaged community where stakeholders can actively shape and refine the tokenomics framework. We believe that it will speed up the decision-making process and allow any member of the community to experiment and test ideas. This will also serve the protocol in modeling and deploying future upgrades.

For Node Operators benefits will include:

  • Make the RPL demand better aligned with protocol growth. This should lead to lower RPL volatility and better price appreciation for RPL.

rETH holders should also benefit from the fact that NOs are better incentivized to have high collateral levels which in turn will make the protocol safer.

Overall, better tokenomics will accentuate Rocket Pool’s competitive advantage and benefit all stakeholders.

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

N/A

Team

Who is doing the work?

Nethermind Research team.

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

Our team background and experience in the DeFi space is extensive and diverse. We have a group of highly skilled individuals with backgrounds in finance, risk management, quant modeling, and financial trading. Many of our team members are CFA charter holders and have worked in prestigious financial institutions such as Santander and Nomura, as well as established hedge funds like Janus Henderson.

Our head of DeFi research will be personally managing the project. He has experience building simulations in TradFi and building complex quantitative tools for DeFi protocols. Nethermind can also rely on a large team of engineers and developers who have developed tools for financial institutions and protocols.

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

  1. Design and Development of a Multi-Agent Simulation Engine

We propose building a multi-agent simulation engine to enhance the decision-making process within the governance forum.

  • The first step will involve detailing how to model the behavior of all the agents, including Node Operators, Traders, and others. This important step will be agreed upon and debated with members of Rocket Pool and the community to ensure consensus. We estimate that this process will take approximately 2 weeks, with 1 week dedicated to documenting the agreed-upon model. This documentation will serve as a valuable resource for future upgrades and tool documentation.
  • Further data analysis may be required to validate assumptions or improve the modeling of certain agents. However, this will only be pursued if necessary or if there is disagreement within the community.
  • Subsequently, we will begin developing the multi-agent tool based on the model described in the previous step. The simulation engine will incorporate the collateralization behavior of Node Operators, providing valuable insights into the impact of various proposals on the network. Key factors such as the number of pools and the amount of collateral will be measured.
  • Deliverable: We will ensure that the code repository for the simulation engine, along with its documentation, is made available to the Rocket Pool community, enabling future development and refinement.
  • Time to deliver: The estimated time to deliver the completed project is 2.5 - 3 months. However, it is important to note that the timeline could extend depending on the modeling complexity required by the community.
  • Cost: The project is estimated to cost $35k.
  1. Analysis of Short-Listed Proposals:
    • As a collaborative effort, we will work closely with the Rocket Pool community to identify and incorporate a few selected proposals we would like to examine.
    • These proposals will be chosen based on their potential impact on the network, feasibility, and alignment with the community’s vision.
    • Deliverable: We plan to model each proposal in the multi-agent simulation framework and produce an in-depth analysis report with recommendations. We will track the RPL price, and its impact on protocol growth and identify potential risks. When relevant, we will run parameter tuning to optimize the proposal.
    • Time to deliver: 2 - 4 weeks per proposal, depending on the level of complexity. That will be 2 weeks of work for a mid-senior analyst per proposal.
    • Cost: We estimate an indicative price of $15k for the implementation of two proposals.

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

The testing process for the work will involve several steps to ensure the accuracy and coherence of the simulations. Each module will be tested individually to verify its functionality and performance. Additionally, a comprehensive sample simulation will be executed as a sanity check to detect any anomalies or unexpected behavior.

During the testing phase, various aspects will be closely monitored. This includes validating the stability of user balances to ensure there are no instances of negative balances. Additionally, the simulation will be monitored for any sudden and unexplained drops in prices or irregularities in the number of minipools. These checks will help assess the coherence and reliability of the results generated by the simulations.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

Comprehensive documentation will be provided to ensure ease of use and enable community members to take ownership of the tool and make changes as needed. The documentation will be designed in a user-friendly manner, offering clear instructions and explanations to guide users through the tool’s functionalities and customization options.

In addition to providing documentation, we are committed to fostering knowledge transfer within the community. We are open to organizing workshops and creating informative videos that will empower community members to understand and utilize the tool effectively. These resources will serve as valuable learning materials, enabling users to leverage the full potential of the simulation engine and explore new tokenomics ideas. Please note that workshops and educational content are not included in the project timeline and costing.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

  • Delivery of the tool as specified by the community with documentation
  • Running of the base example with appropriate metrics
  • For the assessment of tokenomics proposal, the delivery of the evaluation report will be key.

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

Project 1: Simulation Engine

The first payment will be made once we have delivered the specifications as agreed with the community. This constitutes 20% of the total cost for the engine, which is $7k.

The remaining payment, amounting to 80% or $28k, will be made once the tool has been delivered.

Project 2: Tokenomics Proposal Analysis

Payment will be made after the associated report has been delivered.

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

Set up bi-weekly calls with members of the GMC (or Rocket Pool if more appropriate) to discuss progress and give access to the GitHub repo.

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

When building an economic model, it’s important to consider the trade-off between a complex model and a simpler one that is faster and easier to update. A complex model can incorporate a wide range of factors and interactions, allowing for a more detailed representation of the agents’ behavior. However, complex models come with certain drawbacks. They typically require more computational resources (and more cost) and time to develop, implement, and update. They also have more parameters that need to be calibrated.

Our objective is to create a streamlined model that can effectively represent the key factors driving tokenomics. This approach brings several benefits in terms of speed and ease of maintenance. By focusing on fundamental features and interactions, we enable faster simulations and more efficient updates to the model. Simpler models also tend to be more transparent and easier to interpret, facilitating clear communication of the model’s behavior and findings to the community.

It is also important to stress that no model is perfect. All models involve simplifications and assumptions that may introduce some level of error or uncertainty. It is crucial to acknowledge the limitations and potential sources of error in the model and to communicate these uncertainties transparently to the community.

Conflict of Interest

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

Nethermind has recently done work for Lido. We researched mechanisms to make Lido’s network Sybil and white-labeling resistant. More details on this can be found at A proposal for partnering with Nethermind to design a mechanism for a good validator set maintenance - Proposals - Lido Governance

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.

Name of Project

Rocket Pool Sabbatical

What is the work being proposed?

This grant is to make an ongoing quarterly honorarium that is awarded to those community members who have had the most positive influence on Rocket Pool; this honorarium is intended to supplement or replace their regular income to allow dedicated time for RP projects, as well as provide formal recognition of previously unreimbursed accomplishments; additionally it provides a formal title for high performing community members. The recipients will be decided directly by the pDAO, rather than the GMC. The amount is 500 RPL per award (2000 PRL/year); while currently this is unlikely to allow all people to work full time, the vision is that with a rising RPL price this award will be used to take a true sabbatical and dedicate three months to RP activities, effectively allowing 4 part time positions per year.

Proposed mechanism (rough):
  1. Nominations: On a yearly basis, a forum post will accept nominations.
  2. Community poll: forum poll (max vote of let’s say 5 options)- anyone over 10% moves on to application phase.
  3. Application: Nominees make a CV of unreimbursed RP activities and detail the activities they will pursue with the grant
  4. Vote: Snapshot/pDAO vote- maximum 3 choices. The top 4 voted individuals receive the award that year. You can vote for yourself; delegates can vote for themselves.
  5. Award: Each chosen member is awarded during that year’s quarter based on their rank in the vote. The expectation is that they perform the activities detailed in their application during the year; however, because this grant is largely retrospective, the award will not be withheld or decreased if recipients do not do expected activities [this deviation will just be noted in any further awards].
Proposed pDAO decision will rely on:
  1. Nominee’s unreimbursed RP activities:
    A) Activities paid for by the GMC or other RP bodies do not count, even if those reimbursements were felt to be suboptimal; however, if desired applicants can specify reimbursed activities on their application in which case the previously reimbursed amount will be deducted from the RP Sabbatical grant [if chosen].
    B) If the nominee already has has already been awarded through this grant, only activities since that vote can be considered.
  2. Nominee’s proposed use of the sabbatical time
Other nuts and bolts:
  1. After the first awarded sabbatical, a community member will be granted the title of Assistant Professor; after the second, Associate Professor; after the third, Full Professor (these titles are USA-centric, definitely open to other titles). After 3 awards, no further awards can go to the same community member from this grant; the pDAO should consider hiring that person full time.
  2. Professorship can be stripped with a 75% pDAO vote (ie, for maleficence or activity not becoming a RP community member); awards that have already been disbursed cannot/will not be clawed back.
  3. Detailing non-RP uses of a sabbatical is also completely acceptable (eg, the pDAO decides that a 3 month vacation to Tahiti has been earned because of the level of dedication previously), although this will likely make the application somewhat less desirable to the pDAO.
  4. Activities listed in the application cannot be subsequently reimbursed by the GMC or other RP bodies.
This addresses a couple of issues that seem worth solving:
  1. The pDAO doesn’t have a great way to recognize and elevate people who have provided great service for the pDAO. The Rocket Scientist label has community input, but it is decided by the team.
  2. There is not a great way for the GMC to reward ongoing efforts or non-discrete projects. Similarly, valuing these efforts has been extremely challenging.
  3. While the pDAO may have the resources to hire people on a full-time basis, it is ill-equipped to deal with the process of maintaining employees (e.g. hiring decisions, valuation, continual review, or gracefully firing someone who is underperforming without that person getting pissed and exiting the community). By allowing subsequent years awards, we can reward good return on investment without the negative connotations of consciously revoking a grant.
  4. This grant takes some large reimbursements out of the hands of the GMC and place them on the greater pDAO.
  5. Because this grant awards lifetime contributions (or since last Sabbatical award), eventually it will be given to the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th most valued community members. I feel this could act as motivation (ie, you don’t have to necessarily compete with the 1-2 highest availability members) if you keep up activities over several years.

Is there any related work this builds off of?

Not really.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source:

What the recipients choose to do with their time is up to them and will be listed on their application; obviously, choosing open source that can be used by the community in perpetuity should be valued.

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

Group Benefits
Community This grant provides retrospective and prospective awards for a wide range of activities; while the grant will need to be approved by the GMC, the actual awardees will be decided by the pDAO. The activities this grant reimburses will affect a wide range of stakeholders- most of those recipients are likely to have helped rETH stakers, RPL holders, NOs and potential NOs, etc. This strengthens the pDAO’s controls over the pursestrings for some larger grants, provides some incentive for community members to continue to work hard for RP as this grant relies on lifetime contributions, while giving the community aspirational models to follow.

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

n/a

Team

Who is doing the work?

The GMC is approving the grant, but the voting will be done by the pDAO and the work done by community members.

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

see above

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

The proposed sabbatical activities will have no milestones or deadlines, except what is mentioned in the nominee’s application. The failure to meet those milestones will not result in revoking any granted monies.

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

see above

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

see above

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

The pDAO will vote on a yearly basis; the award will go to the top 4 voted community members.

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

The pDAO will vote on a yearly basis; the award will go to the top 4 voted members in order (first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter); if approved for another year, the same process will occur.

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

No verification is needed

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

Hiring full time members; deciding on large retrospective reimbursements on a per-case basis.

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 soon will be on the GMC; if approved, it is likely that some GMC members will get this grant; in fact, because the GMC is not reimbursed, time spent on GMC business should be considered by the RP community.

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, it is extremely unlikely that I would be awarded and by submitting this application I am attesting that I will decline any monetary award through this grant.

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Name of Project

Implementing Monitoring of Ethereum’s P2P Network using AI models

What is the work being proposed?

Our proposed work builds upon the foundation of our previous project, Tikuna, which was initially funded by the Ethereum Foundation and aimed at enhancing security monitoring for the Ethereum blockchain network. In collaboration with Rocketpool, we plan to integrate Tikuna’s capabilities and provide Rocketpool NOs with the Tikuna’s benefits to monitor specific metrics, such as: Peer Count, Slots, Max. Inactivity Score, Participation Rate, Network Liveness, Epochs, Libp2p Count, Libp2p Peers average scores, P2P repeat attempts, P2P message missing, Participation Rate, Peers, Validator Counts, Avg. Balance, Validators, Validator Queues, Queue Lengths, P2P Attestation recovered broadcast and P2P Committee attempted broadcast.

Tikuna utilizes an innovative approach primarily centered around the application of unsupervised Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models, a type of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs). These techniques enable effective detection of various peer-to-peer (P2P) security attacks. Through
extensive empirical testing, we have already demonstrated substantial improvements in detection performance, achieving a high level of accuracy in identifying and classifying threats, including Eclipse attacks, Covert Flash attacks, and other Ethereum blockchain P2P network layer vulnerabilities.

In addition to its detection capabilities, we also have developed preliminary versions of monitoring and security dashboards for the community. These dashboards provide valuable insights into node behavior and status, making them valuable resources for the Rocketpool ecosystem and its participants.

Ultimately, our goal is to make Tikuna easily accessible without requiring an understanding of the complex underlying code and to contribute to the Rocketpool ecosystem’s reliability and security.

Will the results of this project be entirely open source

Apache

Benefits - enter N/A where appropriate

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

NA

How does this help rETH holders?

NA

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

Operating a node validator on a blockchain network can pose significant challenges, particularly for individuals running one for the first time. Issues such as managing uptime, addressing security threats, and optimizing performance can be daunting. In this context, Tikuna plays a vital role in providing essential support.

Tikuna offers real-time monitoring capabilities, helping to keep the validators operational and synchronized with the blockchain. Furthermore, it assists users in optimizing node performance through comprehensive network monitoring. The inclusion of user-friendly dashboards and historical data analysis empowers novice operators, equipping them to make well-informed decisions about their node operations. This support is instrumental in simplifying the node-running experience for newcomers to the Rocketpool ecosystem.

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

Experienced Ethereum network node validators can derive substantial advantages from an AI-powered monitoring tool, such as the one we propose with Tikuna.

The utilization of AI’s advanced analytics capabilities provides an additional layer of protection for node operations. This enhanced security ensures that even experienced node validators can uncover and address security threats and vulnerabilities that might otherwise remain unnoticed when relying solely on traditional monitoring tools.

In summary, Tikuna not only supports newcomers but also provides invaluable assistance and enhanced security to those who are already proficient in managing Rocket Pool nodes.

How does this help the Rocket Pool community?

We aim to improve the security of the Rocketpool ecosystem by providing validator security monitoring tools powered by AI. We have already carried out a research project supported by the Ethereum Foundation to build Tikuna, a security monitoring system for Ethereum’s P2P network. We plan to integrate Tikuna into the Rocketpool NOs, include different clients and enhance the privacy and practicality of collecting validator data.

How does this help RPL holders?

NA

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

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?

The proposal will be executed by a team of professionals with extensive experience in their respective areas:

  1. Dr. Andres Gomez Ramirez serves as the CEO of Sakundi, an organization dedicated to security and privacy research for blockchain networks. He has a Ph.D. in cybersecurity from the University of Frankfurt and CERN. As a computer scientist with a deep understanding of information security, machine learning, and computing infrastructure setup, he is responsible for providing technical and scientific leadership for the project. His role encompasses leading research activities and overseeing the design and development of our organization’s products.
  2. Loui Al Sardy holds an M.Eng. in Software Engineering for Industrial Applications and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the School of Engineering at Erlangen-Nuremberg University (Germany). With a strong background as a test engineer at a software development company, Loui has acquired valuable experience over the past seven years. Additionally, Loui has conducted research studies on “Intelligent Evolutionary Constraint-based Testing Approaches for Software Vulnerabilities Discovery.”
  3. Francis Gomez Ramirez is a computer scientist who obtained his degree from the Universidad Nacional of Colombia and has expertise in Project Management from UNITEC University. With a 12-year tenure at Grupo Bancolombia, Francis has demonstrated exceptional proficiency in managing infrastructure and suppliers. Notably, he has led groundbreaking AWS cloud migration processes and has successfully implemented infrastructure automation using pipelines in Azure DevOps. These accomplishments reflect Francis’s technical prowess and exceptional problem-solving abilities.

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

  1. Conducting a comprehensive investigation into the seamless integration of our existing monitoring and security tool, Tikuna within the Rocketpool ecosystem. Days: 9. Budget 20%
  2. Integrate the Tikuna security dashboards in order to make them available to Rocketpool users to overcome the complexity of the existing code. Following the integration and enhancement phase, rigorous testing will be conducted to verify the functionality, accessibility, and user-friendliness of the Tikuna security dashboards for Rocketpool users. Days: 30. Budget 80%

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

We will validate the effectiveness of our developed solution through testing in real-world scenarios. This testing will be conducted using the infrastructure provided by our partner, Edenia, to simulate a live environment. Additionally, we will test our solution on our dedicated Blockchain nodes to ensure a comprehensive and robust evaluation.

The testing phase is an integral part of our project schedule, allowing us to assess the functionality, performance, and security of the solution under various conditions and use cases.

How will the work be maintained after delivery?

To ensure long-term sustainability, we will further develop Tikuna after this grant. This approach will allow us to evolve the project into a fully sustainable and user-friendly product, enriched with additional features and functionalities.

Payment and Verification

What is the acceptance criteria?

Rocketpool users have access to our security dashboard, enabling them to monitor their node validators by easily installing the source code available from our GitHub repository.

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

Project Start Date: 1-Dic-2023

Project End Date: 30-Jan-2024

Total Days: 60

Work Days: 39

Budget
Principle Researchers Costs:

  • Andres Gomez Ramirez - Lead security researcher
    Hourly rate: $45
    Number of hours worked per person*: 156
    Total: $7,020

  • Loui Al Sardy - Security researcher and developer
    Hourly rate: $40
    Number of hours worked per person*: 156
    Total: $6,240

  • Francis Gomez Ramirez - Security researcher and developer
    Hourly rate: $35
    Number of hours worked per person*: 156
    Total: $5,460

Number of hours worked per person: 4H per day, 20H per week.

Operating expenses:

  • Server infrastructure:
    Total: $2,000

Grand Total: $20,720

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

To ensure the GMC can verify that our work aligns with the proposed cadence, we will provide the following:

  1. A comprehensive GitHub repository containing detailed documentation of our solution allows for a transparent review of the project’s development and implementation.
  2. Test results derived from the live environment testing at our partner’s side demonstrate the real-world functionality and performance of our solution.

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

To optimize project costs by minimizing the project’s duration, we have explored the following strategies:

  1. Utilizing our partner’s infrastructure (Edenia) for testing purposes instead of procuring or renting similar infrastructure, effectively economizing on infrastructure expenses.
  2. Implementing a component reuse strategy, incorporating certain components from our existing Tikuna project. This approach streamlines development efforts and reduces the need for additional resource allocation, thus contributing to cost savings.

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

This message marks the closing of the sixth 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 November 26. 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 .

1 Like