Rewarding Contributions in $TITAN

You can find the associated discussion on the Discord forum here.

Summary

This proposal seeks to clarify how contributions in Koios DAO are rewarded in our non-financial Governance token, $TITAN.

This proposal has the following objectives:

1. Get $TITAN flowing into the hands of contributors
2. A simple system for calculating budgets that will ensure proposals to secure funding does not get blocked by the significant debate around allocations
3. Flexibility for experimentation on the DAO Organisational Structure and Rewards mechanisms at the Guild and Project level.

The aim here is a "good enough" framework we can iterate on and improve as the DAO matures. It is NOT intended to be perfect or permanent.

Motivation

Since the start of Koios DAO in September, many contributors have been pouring their time into helping move the DAO forward without clarifying how they will be rewarded for this. Addressing this is key to ensuring a healthy community for the long term. By rewarding contributions in our Governance token, $TITAN, we can ensure the people contributing most to the success of the DAO are also the people with the biggest say in Governance decisions via their $TITAN vote. While this will not help pay people's rent, it will help reward actions and incentivize activities that can result in meaningful meat space funds, i.e., projects receiving grants funding or generating revenue distributed between contributors and the treasury.

Specification

The flow of $TITAN to Contributors

In the pursuit of simplicity for Season 1 (JUNE - AUGUST 2022), this proposal suggests that all contributions across the DAO share the same primarily trust-based process for rewarding contributions:

• For now, a 100 $TITAN per Guild reward for the upcoming three months (33 $TITAN per month). We opt-in for simple now. A more complex possibility for the future could be an agreed flat hourly rate denominated in $TITAN to serve as the basis for calculating budgets across the DAO. In that case, members would provide input on the number of hours, and we calculate the budget with a fixed hourly rate of $TITAN/hour).
• Payments will be made in September '22 if the proposed output per Guild is delivered.
• Guilds and Projects divide their own budgets. We keep it simple for now, Guilds and projects within those Guilds do not yet define their own budgets (if desired, it could be an option for later phases where contributors estimate their own hours where for bounties, time to complete is estimated and then multiplied by an hourly rate in $TITAN)
• For later phases: Projects expected to drive revenue will suggest a % split of revenue between contributors and the DAO Treasury. To be included in their Budget Application and discussed/voted on by DAO Members. Possible revenue models: access to grants web3 partners, access to subsidies via public partners, selling NFTs, and creating liquid tokens.

Budget Calculations

For now, we act with an uncapped budget of $TITAN. The supply could be capped in the future, but we are not ready for final tokenomics in this phase. In this Governance Token Proposal, no $TITAN allocation goes to the Community Treasury. All $TITAN will be distributed over active members, and the Koios DAO holds no $TITAN on its own (yet). The supply, for now, is infinite till we feel comfortable enough to make decentralized decisions about final tokenomics.

• Seasonal length equals the Minor periods of 6 months (4 months of classes, 2 months of preparation). Each start of a new minor = start of a new budget period. S1 being the exeception, as we are half-way of this period, hence S1 is covering three months.
• This means that upcoming Season 1 (jun-aug, 3 months), there will be 700 $TITAN & $5,000 available to be allocated to Guilds, Projects, and other initiatives. If initiatives arise, a new proposal should be submitted.
• The seasonal $TITAN rewards could be much more significant for people who were contributing more. This is a good thing as it further decentralizes Governance power into the hands of people contributing the most. We grow into this as the DAO and contributions grow.
• Guilds can include Projects/initiatives run by the Guild in their budget, or they can apply for a budget separately as a Project. Each can have a mixture of "salaried" roles and $TITAN bounty pools, or only one or the other.
• It is up to the team how to approach this, but budgets must be approved by the DAO.
• Each Guild will have to create a proposal with SMART deliverables.
• Co-creation and discussion will be done in threads in Discord, so all can join and add. We fully understand that not everything is measurable nor perfect in execution. Hence a lot of the allocation will also depend on social contracts.
• It is recommended that rewards are sent to contributors monthly (at most) to reduce gas fees. However, in S1 this will be done after three months.
• The Operations team will provide a spreadsheet for tracking transactions before the start of Season 2.
• Due to the speed of starting and experimenting, we will not apply the formal process yet but do a quick launch & start. But the formal process is written in the next paragraph.

Budget Application Process (Season 2)

Existing Guilds and Projects can skip to Phase 2; new ones must start at Phase 1

Phase 1 - Conversations and Brainstorming

• Post to Discord: share your idea in a relevant discord channel to get feedback and have it out in more detail. If you're unsure of the correct channel, use #general. · Generate Consensus and form a team: gain support for the idea from at least 5 other DAO members committed to scoping out and delivering the idea. Remember, your proposal will need to be voted on by the community. Hence, their support is vital for the budget to be approved.

Phase 2 - Form a Team and Draft Budget Application

• Form a team: get commits from at least 3 other people who want to be actively involved in the Guild / Project and appoint a team captain. Team captain has the responsibility to create measurable deliverables (as SMART as possible) & submit the proposal and the division of the allocated $Titan Tokens
• Create a draft proposal: use the template to create a draft Budget Proposal and share it on the forum for feedback for at least 5 days.
• Gain support of fellow Titans in #rising-titan channel (S1) or a Budget Steward (S2): for S1, a Budget Stewards Committee is not yet been created but solved by social contracts in the #rising-titans channel (group discussion). The committee's first members are the guild leaders and the top 5 verified members from our early contributor rewards round, chosen by DAO members. A Budget Steward role will be created on Discord and discourse to identify these people. Budget Stewards cannot support their own projects.

Phase 3 - Forum Vote

• Add a vote to the Budget Application post on discourse
• For a later phase: If at least xxx people vote and at least xxx % support the proposal, submit your successful budget application via xxx (example Form from another project).

There are specific requirements for submitting Budget Applications:

• Projects must have at least one Champion to serve as the primary point of contact for the rest of the DAO, including the budget application. Guilds must also identify who plays this role in their structure.
• Projects must have a discord thread or channel where DAO members can join the conversation. In addition, new proposed Guilds should provide an overview of the Category to be created.
• For a later phase: projects must have a Project Page in the Developer DAO Notion Projects table, Guilds a Page in the Guild section on the Notion Home Page. (OR WIKI?)
• For a later phase: a multisig setup with at least 3 signers and budgets will be sent to this address.

The Operations Team will act as a processor of Budget Applications and allocate funds to Guild/Project multi-sigs during Season 1. This may sound like centralization and a single point of failure; however, the purpose is solely to enact the will of the DAO based on the Budget Application Process.

Budget Distribution, Accountability, and Visibility

Budgets will be distributed monthly by the Operations Team. However, in Season One, after three months, due to the summer holiday and first trial. To help DAO members maintain visibility of project progress and ensure some level of accountability during Season 1, Guilds and Projects must submit a bi-weekly update to the forum to receive the next month's allocation. No updates, No $TITAN.

Suppose an update is submitted and the Operations Team has any reason to question whether or not the next month's budget should be issued. In that case, they will refer this to the Budget Stewards to Vote on allocating/not-allocating the next month's budget. This vote will be publicized via a sesh bot poll restricted to people who hold the Budget Stewards discord role. However, for S1, this will be done in retrospective order and via group discussion in #rising-titans (as we start small).
This process will be improved during Season 1 as we figure out better ways of coordinating work and sharing updates across the DAO. Ideally, the Budget Stewards are either an elected committee or are tied to a threshold of $TITAN holdings, then delegated power by the DAO to make these decisions on behalf of members.

Upcoming Airdrops

1. Airdrop 1: Voting. Did the public key join the Dao before the 26th of June? 1 $TITAN
2. Airdrop 2: Joining DAO. Did the public vote on any proposals before the 26th of June? 1 $TITAN per vote, capped at max two votes.
3. Airdrop 3: Passing Minor. Is the public key owned by somebody that finished either a 15/30 ECT Blockchain minor or a 15/30 ECT Trading minor successfully in the study year 2021/2022? 1 $TITAN
4. Airdrop 4: List of partners & previous contributors (round 1). To receive 10 $TITANS are 20 people who made critical contributions to the KoiosDAO in the past: ⭕ THUAS (5 persons) ⭕ Field specialists (1 person) ⭕ Community members: (6 persons) ⭕ Diverse Field partners (8 persons) • In the future, other Airdrops might happen.

Drawbacks/Acknowledgements

In the pursuit of simplicity and forward momentum, a few compromises have been made and should be acknowledged:

• Valuing all work across the DAO equal reward in elevated Governance via $TITAN allocation. This is imperfect as the value generated on hourly contributions is not flat and is something we should explore in more detail during S1.
• Trust-based system for rewards rather than an explicitly outcome-based system. We're relying on social constructs to ensure lots of $TITAN isn't wasted, and it is unclear how well this will work in practice. Still, it massively simplifies getting $TITAN into the hands of contributors.
• All rewards being in $TITAN does not help people pay their bills. However, it is hoped the incentivization of action by rewarding in $TITAN will drive initiatives that generate grant funding or revenue, which is then distributed to contributors who brought in that funding/revenue on their project.
• These calculations cannot be perfect, and there is a reasonable chance we could go over the budget for Season 1.

Next Steps

• Guilds and Projects to start creating budgets using this model (Kidsune is available for support whenever needed).
• Community call each Tuesday @ 6PM CEST in Voice Channel of Titan Discord.

Credit

Lots of inspiration from Developer DAO and forgmonkee's posts at BanklessDAO. Thank you legends 🙏❤️️