[Round 10 Proposal] Governauts Rewards Systems Research Initiative

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Hi due,
thanks for your question!

There are differences between research projects and building tech, and that’s why I’m grateful for the chance to clarify.

1. “‘Core research team confirmed’ isn’t really a deliverable”
   We put the step research team confirmed in our roadmap, because we’ll review the research scope next week with members of Ocean DAO and Ocean Pearl. Depending on that, we’ll see if we focus on analyzing the existing grants process or on parameter setting and simulations for new components like Conviction Voting. This will have an impact on what expertise we’ll need in the core research team.

2. “stick to actual and specific deliverables”
   Defining the actual questions is part of the research process. We could certainly take the OCEAN DAO roadmap, pick one element, work on it as pre-defined in our proposal and come back in 3 months. We think it’s better to dig deeper before we define our actual deliverable.
   Here’s an example: What is the actual motivation behind aiming for "more stable funding available to support larger teams "? (see OceanDAO roadmap). Ask OceanDAO teams, ask the stakeholders! This gives us insights on the best mechanism to choose (conviction voting? combination with grant process?) and how to configure the mechanisms we choose. And only then we choose the method like we a) run simulations or b) set up an experiment with stakeholders, resulting in the actual deliverable.

3. On our metric Grant efficiency.
   We are 100% pro ROI calculation.
   Metrics suggested are Datatoken Consuming Volume or TVL, however we can come up with new metrics, in case we think it’s more appropriate. https://github.com/oceanprotocol/oceandao/wiki/On-Roi
   In our case, our aim is to take a metric that a) Rewards Systems can most directly drive, and b) we can measure the outcome in USD.
   Grant Efficiency checks both boxes.
   Actually we’ve started with ‘TVL in the voting process’, driving OCEAN demand. But it’s hard to draw the direct line between reward system improvements and TVL due to network growth. We’ve discussed this on Discord, here’s the full conversation: https://discord.com/channels/612953348487905282/776848812534398986/894591592273416223

Hope this helps, happy to answer on any further questions!

[due]

@akrtws_TE_Academy

We put the step research team confirmed in our roadmap, because we’ll review the research scope next week with members of Ocean DAO and Ocean Pearl. Depending on that, we’ll see if we focus on analyzing the existing grants process or on parameter setting and simulations for new components like Conviction Voting. This will have an impact on what expertise we’ll need in the core research team.

That’s exactly my criticism. You should have come up with a set of specific deliverables before you make a proposal to the OceanDAO. Not after. I think you’d expect that from others too.

I think it’s vital to understand the functioning of the oceanDAO due diligence process, as this way is how the “project standing” of the OceanDAO works. With your current set of deliverables for example there’s basically no work that you’re committing to doing until the next round in November. So why should anyone vote for you?

What are the actual steps towards “Core research team confirmed”? And why is it the only deliverable until November? Also you say that in total you need 60k USD. So the deliverables you’ve mentioned; will you fulfill them all with the 20k USD of this vote until March 2022? Or will you raise more money in the OceanDAO until then?

I’d heavily favor a set of deliverables for the much shorter term (e.g. October) and then reapply. I know that there’s a potential conflict of interest here as you’re arguably getting special treatment from OPF members but being total real: This is how things work for most projects in the community. And they should work this way for you too.

@akrtws_TE_Academy

Defining the actual questions is part of the research process. We could certainly take the OCEAN DAO roadmap, pick one element, work on it as pre-defined in our proposal and come back in 3 months. We think it’s better to dig deeper before we define our actual deliverable.

I think its irrelevant to discuss your preferred mode of working and if research has a different process than other knowledge work. The OceanDAO is flexible enough to encompass all work; it’s a matter of framing in the proposal. The reality is that the OceanDAO has a set of rules that apply to all its participants; so also to you.

@akrtws_TE_Academy

What is the actual motivation behind aiming for "more stable funding available to support larger teams "? (see OceanDAO roadmap). Ask OceanDAO teams, ask the stakeholders! This gives us insights on the best mechanism to choose (conviction voting? combination with grant process?) and how to configure the mechanisms we choose.

The only person that continues to talk about Conviction Voting is Trent. Actual Ocean stake holders are asking for improvement to problems; they’re not asking for specific solutions. Already there you can evaluate buy-in towards what should be a favorable outcome of the oceanDAO research.

@akrtws_TE_Academy

Metrics suggested are Datatoken Consuming Volume or TVL, however we can come up with new metrics, in case we think it’s more appropriate.

I think one problem with assuming that all burned Ocean tokens are bad Ocean tokens is that a model-building approach is skewing reality. I’ve been active in votes that ended up burning tokens and in each it was better burning tokens than investing them into projects. A few things should be considered in general:

• Not all Ocean holders have a homogenious opinion about the future of the Ocean project
• It’s very good that there’s a wide range of diversity of opinions as this will strengthen the OCEAN token over time.

So as a counter balance to the popular OPF employee view that all Ocean tokens should always be invested; I’m happy to be the one providing arguments in the other direction.

IMO, the outcomes of R6-R8 - also the tokens that were burned - were in the interest of all Ocean token holders. The OCEAN token market confirms this.

All this to say that you should frame yourself as any other OceanDAO member and use the metrics available to everyone. Thanks.

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Hey due, thanks for your comments!

First: this is Community Research Initiative
Before we kick-off the program in Mid November, we

• design the educational lectures
• confirm mentors for the program
• scout for and select the community researchers (in total 20, best fit to cases!), and make sure they are available and committed
• confirm facilitators (we’ll need to cover 3 months in total, with 1-2 sessions per week!)
• further specify the scope (as outlined in my message earlier)

This is why we apply for a grant now. I’ve added this to the milestones on top.

Second: We are acquiring additional funds from other partners to cover the total funds needed. So no follow-up proposal at OceanDAO for Rewards Systems.
However - in the spirit of Grants Efficiency - I’d be glad to continue collaboration with OceanDAO for token engineering education & research

For the rest of your comments, I see that you have something to say about developing DAO rewards systems. Welcome to the research group!
Please register here: https://forms.gle/zNNLdi8aUKystz3QA

[realdatawhale]

Hey TE-Team,

We just submitted our vote for this proposal and good luck. It was nice to e-meet you in the townhall too !!

If you have time, go ahead and review our Proposal on the Port. Let us know whether you have any comments.

Cheers,
Data Whale

[amirmabhout]

Glad to see academic efforts, cultivating new concepts like Governance and Decentralisation into a new educational branch. Especially at a field like crypto where the pace, sometimes doesn’t give enough time to do some research beforehand, this effort long term can make this environment into a healthier and more transparent ecosystem.

I saw that you wish to analyse the data from the OceanDAO and wondered what data that would exactly be?

Also another branch to consider in the study of the voting process is perhaps ethical issues on transparency and privacy. Votes are anonymous, but the process which enables the votes leverage the publicly accessed ledger. For someone who has the knowledge how to query it, one can see wallets who voted on each project and see which projects were voted before in previous rounds and with time, it might reveal some patterns or hints into the identity of the wallet owner. It makes sense for each project participant to when holding tokens, to vote on their own project as well, which makes wallets easier identifiable. Is it ethical to make it transparent and have votes with identity where technology behind it, enables it in an indirect way? Or is it better to change how the voting is done to make wallets completely anonymous? And how it affect the health of the voting process as well as the dynamics in the DAO, can be sth to debate.

Thanks for TE efforts, enabling a progressive Ocean DAO!

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Thanks for your support @realdatawhale!

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Thanks for your support @amirmabhout!

You’re raising relevant questions! You might be interested in the work of Trueblocks and this TE Academy session recording:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TL1MTGM3uMf87YIbYpS5Wmh2eQlqizrp (start at minute 00:35:00)

For OceanDAO we will certainly aim for the full picture with all off-chain & on-chain data collected, plus qualitative data to understand the context. And, as mentioned earlier: define research scope first.

[idiom-bytes]

Thank you for the engagement with OceanDAO, and core DAO design/engineering initiatives.

I’m extremely excited about the engagement from TEC, and see a lot of impact from the contributions and community.

I have voted to support this project.
All the best in R10!

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Thanks for your support @idiom-bytes!

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Many thanks to everyone who supported our proposal, thanks for voting YES for Token Engineering research.

And thank you to those who asked critical questions!
We’ll work hard to prove that funds have been spent efficiently - can’t wait to kick-off the program!

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

MEET THE TOKENENGINEERING COMMUNITY:

We’ll host an on-site/online event on
Wednesday, Oct 13 at 7pm CEST
at FullNode Berlin.

Join us to learn more about the Reward Systems Research Initiative
and other news from the Token Engineering global community!

Sign-up here to receive the calendar invite with all details:

Introduction to Token Engineering

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

First: thanks a lot @everyone who supported our proposal. Grateful and proud that you support Token Engineering #OpenScience.

We are now opening applications for the research program.
Please register by Sunday Nov 07, 2021 in case you’d like to actively take part as a co-researcher, more details available here: https://tokenengineeringcommunity.github.io/website/docs/academy-welcome/#dao-rewards-systems

Addtionally, we’ll host an amazing lecture program open to the public - so stay tuned for more updates!

Looking forward to meeting y’all there

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Great news!
We promised to get additional funding partners on board - and so we did:
Boson Protocol and NearDAO confirmed to support this program as partners! Plus we are currently in phase 2 of a Gnosis DAO proposal - so there’s even more to come

[Deliverable Checklist] @AlexN

Milestone 1 / End of October 2021
Core research team confirmed
Milestone 2 / End of October 2021
1-3 co-funding partners confirmed
[ ] Milestone 3 / End of November 2021
min. 20 TE Community Researchers onboarded
[ ] Milestone 4 / End of December 2021
Educational program delivered, mind. 8 public lectures provided on topics like computer-aided governance, game design, behavioral economics, currency design, monetary theory, and token engineering
[ ] Milestone 5 / Mid January 2022
Check-in with TE Community Researchers, review research plans (OceanDAO/OceanPearl.io and research group)
[ ] Milestone 6 / End of February 2022
Presentation of research results
[ ] Milestone 7 / Mid March 2022
Workshop with Ocean DAO team/OceanPearl for follow-up proposals, implementation etc.

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Hi everyone,

here’s an update on our project!

• our proposal at Gnosis DAO to come on board as a partner for Rewards Systems was confirmed with 100% YES votes!
• last week we’ve onboarded in total 41 community researchers to our research initiative.

Again, we have an amazing mix of backgrounds, skills and world views. I highly recommend to watch one of our session recordings, like this one - or just drop by and listen in, here’s our session calendar:

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/2?cid=Y19oOXZjbHFzNHRxcTVzdmRzZjNmMWxlc3NsNEBncm91cC5jYWxlbmRhci5nb29nbGUuY29t

We meet twice a week, objective in this first phase of the program is analyzing data and metrics to measure network health.
See you there!

---

[Deliverable Checklist] @AlexN

Milestone 1 / End of October 2021
Core research team confirmed
Milestone 2 / End of October 2021
1-3 co-funding partners confirmed
Milestone 3 / End of November 2021
min. 20 TE Community Researchers onboarded
[ ] Milestone 4 / End of December 2021
Educational program delivered, mind. 8 public lectures provided on topics like computer-aided governance, game design, behavioral economics, currency design, monetary theory, and token engineering
[ ] Milestone 5 / Mid January 2022
Check-in with TE Community Researchers, review research plans (OceanDAO/OceanPearl.io and research group)
[ ] Milestone 6 / End of February 2022
Presentation of research results
[ ] Milestone 7 / Mid March 2022
Workshop with Ocean DAO team/OceanPearl for follow-up proposals, implementation etc.

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Additionally; I’d like to invite all of you to our full-day gathering - open to the public:

DAO REWARDS SYSTEMS ASSEMBLAGE

on Dec 10th

Expect talks, discussions and workshops about:

• Defining Success and measuring value add in DAOs
• The Challenge of Rewards Systems
• Community Evolution
• Intrisic/Extrinsic Motivation
• Information overload and steering activities
• Ownership Rewards, power distribution and equal opportunitites
• DAOs and UBI …plus case presentations and tools!

Confirmed speakers:
@Owocki / GitcoinDAO
@Liviade / TECommons
@pet3rpan / MetaCartel
@keikreutler / Zodiac
@duartedao / TheDAOist
@fifthworldzach / Coordinape

Please register here: https://forms.gle/GgrVAHVtCDGjjQbb7

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Dear Ocean DAO,
here’s an update!

Our Rewards Systems Research Initiative finished phase 1with two major events:

a) We’ve hosted a full day of talks and discussions about DAO Rewards Systems open to the public! The recordings are available here, if you are interested in all things rewards, this is a really unique collection to binge watch over the holidays

b) And there’s more: Our community researchers have explored the Ocean DAO grants system, and came up with first analytics and metrics for Ocean DAO system healthiness. Check the PRESENTATIONS HERE!

And make sure to join our Discord in case you have comments or questions.

See you next year at Token Engineering!

---

[Deliverable Checklist] @idiom-bytes

Milestone 1 / End of October 2021
Core research team confirmed
Milestone 2 / End of October 2021
1-3 co-funding partners confirmed
Milestone 3 / End of November 2021
min. 20 TE Community Researchers onboarded
Milestone 4 / End of December 2021
Educational program delivered, mind. 8 public lectures provided on topics like computer-aided governance, game design, behavioral economics, currency design, monetary theory, and token engineering
[ ] Milestone 5 / Mid January 2022
Check-in with TE Community Researchers, review research plans (OceanDAO/OceanPearl.io and research group)
[ ] Milestone 6 / End of February 2022
Presentation of research results
[ ] Milestone 7 / Mid March 2022
Workshop with Ocean DAO team/OceanPearl for follow-up proposals, implementation etc.

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

Dear Oceanors,

our research teams are on the home stretch for Governauts Rewards Systems!

Make sure to mark your calendar for Final Presentations
on Thursday, February 24, 4pm UTC

See you there!

---

[Deliverable Checklist] @idiom-bytes

Milestone 1 / End of October 2021
Core research team confirmed
Milestone 2 / End of October 2021
1-3 co-funding partners confirmed
Milestone 3 / End of November 2021
min. 20 TE Community Researchers onboarded
Milestone 4 / End of December 2021
Educational program delivered, mind. 8 public lectures provided on topics like computer-aided governance, game design, behavioral economics, currency design, monetary theory, and token engineering
Milestone 5 / Mid January 2022
Deep Share at Ocean Townhall #59 (alternative to Check-in with TE Community Researchers, review research plans)
[ ] Milestone 6 / End of February 2022**
Presentation of research results
[ ] Milestone 7 / Mid March 2022**
Workshop with Ocean DAO team/OceanPearl for follow-up proposals, implementation etc.

[mPowered]

Awesome, looking forward to the presentation

mPowered

[akrtws_TE_Academy]

[Deliverable Checklist] @idiom-bytes

Milestone 1 / End of October 2021
Core research team confirmed
Milestone 2 / End of October 2021
1-3 co-funding partners confirmed
Milestone 3 / End of November 2021
min. 20 TE Community Researchers onboarded
Milestone 4 / End of December 2021
Educational program delivered, mind. 8 public lectures provided on topics like computer-aided governance, game design, behavioral economics, currency design, monetary theory, and token engineering
Milestone 5 / Mid January 2022
Deep Share at Ocean Townhall #59 (alternative to Check-in with TE Community Researchers, review research plans)
Milestone 6 / End of February 2022
Presentation of research results, a recording is available here
Milestone 7 / Mid March 2022
Workshop with Ocean DAO team/OceanPearl for follow-up proposals, implementation etc.
We’ve conducted a session with the OceanDAO parameters and DAO engineering teams on March 1st, sharing the results plus invite both to a follow up workshop on DAO contributors rewards with TE Commons and the Governauts.

[idiom-bytes]

Thank you so much for this amazing collaboration, rich contribution, and inspiring work @akrtws_TE_Academy!