Eco is building an economy, and a prosperous economy requires a wide variety of individuals. Eco has spent over a year and a half building a community of like-minded, Web3 native individuals who all believe that money can and should work better. We have attracted people with a wide variety of skill sets and have interacted with them through activities and projects designed to be as inclusive and open as possible.
With the launch of the Eco Protocol, we have a wonderful opportunity to attract and interact with builders, a group that has historically been difficult to engage in the pre-launch Ecommunity. We now have the resources and are currently onboarding new talented community members who have some fantastic ideas for products and services that could be promptly developed for Eco.
The eventual success of achieving our common goal of developing a better, more harmonious financial system will be significantly impacted by our next steps and how we choose to interact with this seed community of Builders.
The Problem
The existing governance framework only permits one proposal per cycle (equal to 14 days) to win the Proposal Phase and move to the Voting Phase, thus builders who wish to begin creating products on top of Eco and submit their plans for community funding may face challenges as the majority of these cycles are being filled by critical protocol update proposals.
Despite the fact that it may not seem like a problem at the moment, in a few weeks we will start to experience the issue of sound infrastructure proposals being “bottlenecked” and halted at the Proposal stage. This could seriously delay the implementation of tools and infrastructure that could greatly benefit the community, as well as discourage local builders from starting to work on expanding the economy.
Given the current cadence of proposal submissions through the governance flow, it is reasonable to conclude that it could take up to 10-12 weeks for a fully prepared proposal to make it through to execution, assuming there are other proposals put forward and that the Eco Association will keep requiring governance cycles to enact critical Protocol upgrades. This delay could have a significant negative impact on the development of necessary tools and infrastructure this community needs to build upon.
The Solution
We propose establishing a sub-DAO currently being called the “Builders Ecollective”, composed of trusted individuals from the community who are already participating in Eco infrastructure development. A portion of funds from the community treasury to be allocated to this group on a recurring basis (via a single proposal each time), who will be responsible for the deployment of these funds on behalf of the community to projects and individuals who are building valuable services and products on top of Eco.
The Builders Ecollective will be accountable to the broader community for how they allocate funds and will provide monthly or quarterly updates on how funds have been deployed along with the current state of each supported project.
As a proof of concept, the group will start by requesting funds for a few community projects that are ready to be implemented and deployed at a level that should support the group for about two months. The Builders Ecollective will detail its goals for growth and development in a follow-up application and request additional funds based on the success and lessons learned from this initial phase.
Setup Details
The initial membership of the collective is proposed to be Dave, Flarcos, Jeremie, Nishaad, Saulo, Shahrukh, Stefan, and Yulston. The Builders Ecollective asks for an initial funding of 800,000 ECO tokens to be allocated to a Gnosis Safe where each member has one voting right. The consensus procedure will be made up of open talks among all the members, followed by a vote on Snapshot to formally settle opinions, and then followed by a transaction on Gnosis Safe to release the funds. The Gnosis Safe will be managed by the signers which are all the members listed below. To be considered for a grant, a candidate must submit an application to the Builders Ecollective DAO on Snapshot, compelling proposals shared in the Eco Forums or via an Airtable form will be whitelisted and be submitted to the DAO. Once they do so and the voting delay of one hour has passed, the candidate’s submission will be regarded as official.
Snapshot details:
- Address: https://vote.ecollective.xyz
- Network: Ethereum
- Authors: Whitelist
- Voting strategy: Whitelist (only Core Builders can vote)
- Voting delay: 1 hour
- Voting period: 72h
- Voting quorum: 5
- Voting type: Basic voting (For, Against, or Abstain) with a single choice
- Controller: Gnosis Safe
- Admins:
- 0x0395dBF11151DfF453A17dCECdAb9116864fD1Ac
- 0x618641efA96FAfac011B5247c8054Ae014D3087e
In the case that an application is accepted and the required number of votes are obtained, a transaction will be constructed on Gnosis Safe so that all signers can approve it. The Builders Ecollective will repay any network fees utilized during the signing process to the members from the fund in the following cycle.
Gnosis Safe details:
- Address: 0x41dF9396db9EC532b3f5CA141a42FE0aCb72fD88
- Network: Ethereum
- Signers: 8
- Threshold: 5
- Signing period: 72 hours
- Signers:
- 0x5C69C5cB8D41A0b3f42fC90172B1B3c95ccC3164
- 0xfEa6186BEeFD1819Df77c724940a6f984905DD44
- 0x25d5C9DbC1E12163B973261A08739927E4F72BA8
- 0x2Be3765f194B15d8C319fb06302b6537cD6cc416
- 0xA35F56071acd3bfC13DDaC4883816e22aE8075e0
- 0x0395dBF11151DfF453A17dCECdAb9116864fD1Ac
- 0x618641efA96FAfac011B5247c8054Ae014D3087e
- 0xEf3DA9c117Ad0C6C0ca36b3f71666fA0873d57D1
- Destination: Original address who submitted the proposal on Snapshot
Process flowchart:
Application Details
The collective aims to speed up the uptake and expansion of the Eco network, to support a robust ecosystem of scalable apps, and tools, among other products. The collective will assist builders who carry out actions that live up to expectations and the Community mission as stated in the Econstitution with a focus on a Value Proposition that illustrate the benefits that users will receive in a direct and appealing manner. Value propositions that clearly show how the product or service meets a need, outline the added value, and justify why it is superior to competing products will be considered for seed funding. The collective will maintain reports that detail the amount of funds allocated to each project and how those funds have been spent. Other reports will include updates on the progress of each project, milestones achieved, challenges encountered, and any changes to the project’s roadmap.
Considering Eco as a long-term commitment, submissions should make an effort to incorporate that vision into their project strategy by facing the incentive program as infrastructure support and not as a final goal. Such visions include the increasing adoption and usage of the Eco currency, promoting interoperability with other projects in the ecosystem, or contributing to the development of infrastructure that supports the growth of the ecosystem as a whole. The project’s goals should align with the values and priorities of the Eco community, such as promoting decentralization, community engagement, or environmental sustainability.
All projects will be required to submit a thorough roadmap and reach milestones to unlock funding installments. The proposed roadmap should be realistic and achievable, taking into account factors such as budget, resources, and team experience. Funding will not be given as a lump sum in advance. The Builders Ecollective will hold funded projects accountable and distribute further funding at each relevant milestone. The Incentive Program is not time-bound and is broken into five phases to support future cohorts of projects participating in the program, view the various phases and a brief description of each one below.
Phase 1 - Submission
- Shared anytime for open discussion and initial feedback on the Eco Forums under a specific category or to an Airtable form.
- Get to know the community that the project will serve.
- Examine the network to see what’s already built and what’s missing.
Phase 2 - Selection
- The Builders Ecollective will respond within one week on the Eco Forums thread or to the contact submitted in the Airtable form. (If the proposal falls under the scope of the Builders Ecollective or not.)
- Submissions will be reviewed based on their overall value proposition, technical competency, and demonstrated ability to deliver on the scope of the project.
- Submissions will be examined for compliance with relevant ethics, law, and regulation.
Phase 3 - Discussion
- Submissions must devote at least two weeks to defend their project.
- Projects can get their own category and be submitted to the Builders Ecollective Discord server.
- Submissions are encouraged to engage with the Builders Ecollective Beta Tester group and demonstrate proof of concept of their project.
- During this time submissions will get feedback or necessary assistance from the broader community.
Phase 4 - Voting
- Submitted anytime to the Builders Ecollective DAO, deadline at candidate’s discretion.
- Following the Discussion phase it will take one week to determine whether the project satisfies the criteria to receive getting funding.
- Final approval will be dependent on the Roadmap, Value Proposition, Experience of the team, and participation in the funding process up to this point.
- Candidates are invited to make any final revisions to the objectives and proposal;
- The Builders Ecollective will vote on the approval of funding or alternatively respond with a counter-proposal if necessary.
Phase 5 - Funding
- Submissions need to be submitted to the Builders Ecollective DAO so they can be regarded as official and voted.
- After approval, the initial funding will be deployed within 72 hours.
- Funds will be distributed gradually and in accordance with the project’s budget.
- The frequency of iterations is determined according to the project needs.
Phase 6 - Maintenance
- The candidate is expected to maintain and update the project.
- Regular performance reviews to assess project success and impact.
- Community Q&A and feedback opportunities.
- Long-term ongoing monitoring and support from the Builders Ecollective.
- Additional funding may be allocated according to the project’s needs.
The Builders Ecollective will consider 4 main categories for metrics and KPIs: Activity Measures; Outcome Measures; Project Measures; and Target Structure. Since no two projects are exactly the same, these will be adjusted for each submission and discussed with the candidates on a per-case basis, including but not limited to, auditability, compliance, data management & security, on-chain activity, userbase growth, net-new revenue, volume, outstanding debt, market disruption, value creation, acquisition or funding cost, risk analysis, organic inbound traffic, amongst others. Proposals only move on to the Funding phase if all parties—candidates and the Ecollective—agree on the metrics and KPIs which will be used for evaluation.
Conclusion
There are two objectives to keep in mind, especially at this early stage of self-governance.
First, Eco must begin proactively interacting with and inspiring talented community members (old and new) who will show up at our doorstep, motivated by our shared objective. It will cost us dearly in the long term if we don’t seize the momentum of a growing community of enthusiastic and motivated builders. Secondly, we also need to be incredibly rigorous about how we choose to deploy our collective funds, ensuring that we honestly and objectively only choose to support projects that (we believe) will create value for this community over time.
Both of these objectives are accomplished by the formation of the Builders Ecollective, and while there will undoubtedly be adjustments along the way, these are vital first steps in formulating a policy of engagement and cooperation with the Web3 building community.
About Eco
Eco is a decentralized currency enabling a new type of Economy, one that works more transparently and in our collective best interest. It’s the combination of something old — the ambition of building a better currency — and something new — the technology for currencies to be managed independently by their communities.
The Eco Currency is designed to be a decentralized alternative to fiat currencies, using monetary policy to evolve and support a growing Economy. The Eco Currency system is, effectively, a governance framework and a monetary policy toolkit with a dual-token system.
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