[Temp Check] Jito Anchors Funding for Solana Retroactive Public Good Funding (RPGF) Program 2

JIP - Drafts
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[Temp Check] Jito Anchors Initiative for Solana RPGF Round 2

Designed By: OpenBlock Labs

1. Title and Category

Expanding Solana RPGF Support: A Jito Treasury Initiative

Category: Treasury

2. Abstract

This proposal seeks to allocate $200,000 in JTO tokens from Jito’s Treasury to anchor the funding for Solana’s Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RPGF) Round 2. By supporting projects that have delivered significant public good within the Solana ecosystem, we aim to foster innovation, enhance ecosystem resilience, and demonstrate Jito’s commitment to the broader blockchain community.

3. Motivation

The Solana ecosystem benefits significantly from public goods, such as open-source projects, that lack sufficient funding due to the absence of direct monetization avenues. The successful execution of RPGF Round 1 illustrated the potential of retroactive funding to incentivize and reward the development of such public goods. By participating as a key funder for Round 2, Jito not only solidifies its leadership role within the Solana community but also contributes to a sustainable model of innovation and development that benefits the entire blockchain space.

4. Key Terms

  • RPGF (Retroactive Public Goods Funding): A funding mechanism that rewards projects post-completion for their public value to the Solana ecosystem.
  • JTO Tokens: The native cryptocurrency of the Jito ecosystem used for transactions, governance, and incentives.
  • Public Goods: Services or products that offer widespread benefits to the community but are not funded or developed through traditional market mechanisms.

5. Specification

The proposal outlines a contribution of $200,000 in JTO tokens to the Solana RPGF Round 2 funding pool. This funding will be directed towards projects that have already demonstrated their value to the ecosystem. The allocation process will involve community voting to ensure transparency and fairness. A detailed implementation plan will include the establishment of criteria for project eligibility, a timeline for nomination and voting phases, and a strategy for fund disbursement.

Solana RPGF Round 2 Spec

Who:

  • Participants: Blockchain developers, tech enthusiasts, and community members involved in the Solana ecosystem.
  • Delegates: 30 selected based on their contributions and activity within the Solana community. OBL is already working with 56+ protocols and has a lot of data on top-performing protocols, so this will make finding delegates much easier. and also consolidate data into one area for the community

What:

  • Program: Solana Retroactive Public Goods Funding (Solana RPGF) - a funding mechanism designed to support projects that have delivered significant public good within the Solana ecosystem.
  • Funding: Grants allocated retroactively to projects that have already demonstrated a positive impact.
  • Categories: Focusing on tech stack enhancement, developer ecosystem support, governance initiatives, and user experience improvements.
  • Amount: The first round can be $1M in SOL tokens.

When:

  • Timeline: May to September 2024.
  • Nominations: May 1, 2024, to May 15, 2024.
  • Delegate Voting: June 15, 2024, to June 30, 2024.
  • Results Announcement: July 15, 2024.
  • Funding Disbursement: Between July 1, 2024, and September 31, 2024.

Where:

  • Platform: A dedicated portal like this one
  • Community Engagement: Through forums, social media, and other online platforms relevant to the Solana community.

6. Benefits/Risks

Benefits:

  • Enhances Jito’s reputation as a community-focused and innovative leader in the blockchain space.
  • Contributes to the growth and stability of the Solana ecosystem, potentially benefiting Jito’s interoperability and functionality within this space.
  • Fosters a culture of collaboration and public good support across the blockchain industry.

Risks:

  • The potential for projects to not deliver further value post-funding.

7. Outcomes

The desired outcomes include increased innovation within the Solana ecosystem, a strengthened reputation for Jito as a leader in supporting public goods, and the establishment of a sustainable funding model that can be replicated across other blockchain communities.

8. Cost Summary

The total proposed funding amount is $200,000, to be allocated in JTO tokens. This will be drawn from Jito’s Treasury reserves allocated for ecosystem development and public good initiatives.

9. Performance Milestones

  • Completion of Funding Round: Successfully distribute the allocated funds by the end of Q3 2024.
  • Project Impact Assessment: Conduct a review of funded projects’ impacts 6 months post-funding to evaluate the success and areas for improvement in future rounds.

10. Management Fee

There is no management fee paid from these funds. This will all go directly to the grant recipients. OpenBlock is funded by a grant from the Solana Foundation for the operations of this program.

11. KYC / Grant Distribution

Sphere Pay (https://spherepay.co/), our partner, will handle all KYC and grant distributions for this program. The wallet address for the funding will be managed through this Sphere Pay wallet: 3iF1uUy7NTgYUT5joKd8yCs4TKA6eu7sGKApfAaJ6gUW.

OpenBlock Labs is an R&D firm focused on scaling decentralized organizations through data-driven incentive optimization. OpenBlock is backed by notable figures in the crypto space, including: Foundation Capital, Electric Capital, Circle Ventures, AlleyCorp, and others.

The team has backgrounds from a16z, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Two Sigma, Protocol Labs, Amazon, MasterCard, and other top-tier institutions; the highly technical background of our team makes us confident that OpenBlock is uniquely positioned to tackle a problem of this nature.

Twitter: @openblocklabs

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Hi there,

can you share more information about which projects received funding in round 1 and what level of funding?

As a delegate participating in round 1 I was concerned by the inclusion of duplicate enties of some projects as well as weakness of the presented “public good” as well as material misrepresentation by a specific project.

I would be good to know what specific learnings were achieved from that round in both attracting applicants, reviewing and filtering as well as validating the actual public good in validity and impact.

You also ask for $1m in funding but don’t further specify specific number of protocols you’d like to see and expected min, median and max funding granted to these.

Thanks for elaborating

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Just to clarify my comment from X Spaces as my connection was iffy:

Last round had 4 or 5 categories and each category had 100 or so total points that could be allocated to the projects in that proposal. Some categories had 3 or 4 projects and others had 15+, this leads to some projects naturally getting a far higher point scoring when there is less competition in a category.

I’d suggest either making the total points to allocate split across all categories, rather than per category, or ensuring each category has an equivalent or almost equivalent number of projects.

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Yes, we have the exact amounts on who got funding and how much here: OpenBlock Labs

Our specific learnings align with your observations. Please see our retrospective here: OpenBlock Labs

We are asking for $200k worth of JTO and trying to achieve a $1m total round size

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Good point re: category / point distribution. Completely agree - we need to normalize distributions per category based on number of qualified projects.

Other related improvements we intend to make for Category redesign:

  • Rethink Project Categories: The current ones don’t completely satisfy what we’re looking for exactly and can be re-worked.
  • Simplified Impact Metrics: Adopt 3 well-defined metrics for each category to streamline evaluation and ensure understanding of impact among delegates.
  • Verifiable Data Requirement: Require projects to provide verifiable data to back their impact claims, ensuring authenticity and reducing manipulation risks.
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This post doesn’t seem to state anything about what’s requested from Jito. Would recommend it is re-written in a more clear way before going to formal proposal

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Additionally, keep in mind if what you’re asking for falls under the scope of the constitution (https://www.jito.network/docs/governance/constitution-of-the-jito-foundation/). Hopefully, this helps with the direction of the rewrite. Some delegates have suggested it would be best to highlight how our contributions to your initiative will benefit the overall JITO community.

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Gone ahead and done this. Thanks for the feedback!

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Adjusted it. Appreciate the feedback!

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Hi folks,

Following our delegate call earlier today, I’d like to push a few questions I have from this proposal. Personally, I think this proposal is very important, especially when we compare it to similar initiatives like those seen with Optimism. Here’s a few questions/concerns I have after some further investigation:

  1. Reputation/Scoring System: Is there a plan to implement a reputation or scoring system for projects that achieve impactful outcomes, ensuring their progression to subsequent RPGF rounds?

  2. Expanding Focus Areas: Could we broaden the topics? While these current areas are very valuable, I think we can take lessons from other programs to help the Solana community. To elaborate, I believe there is room for some academic/theory driven areas of focus. Of course, given the nature of that area, it would need somewhat more hand holding.

  3. Feedback Framework: While it might sound overly formal, I think establishing a more urgent feedback mechanism for both delegates and RPGF winners is important. From my experience with projects, the absence of structured feedback—or a reliable channel for it—can be quite frustrating. Such a system could significantly enhance the project’s impact and facilitate continuous improvement. While I know this proposes a feedback system after the completion of the project, I think it should have some more urgency to enhance the quality of future projects.

  4. Sale/Lock-Up Policies: What policies are considered for the sale or lock-up of funds with this?

  5. Addressing Power Dynamics: Echoing concerns raised by Lefteris in the Optimism ecosystem, the involvement of different institutions is inevitable as we grow. How do we intend to manage VCs and other influential participants that could possibly enter an RPGF round?

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Thank you for the proposal. In general, we are supportive of RPGF programs for their potential positive externalities, especially as Solana matures and attracts more developers and users; however, we are also mindful of their effectiveness–mostly attributable to the challenge of measuring the success and impact of “public goods”.

We acknowledge the feedback and learnings you gained from Round 1, and have a couple questions:

  • It has been a number of months since the last RPGF. Considering the risk stated in the proposal, is there any post-funding analysis available?
  • Part of the retrospective on round 1 includes implementing metrics to aid delegates on future rounds. Have you identified these metrics? And have you kept track of them?
  • Could you share the details of the application?
  • Does OpenBlock take a fee?

Addressing the above should provide delegates better context for how to think about moving forward on this proposal, voting on future candidates, and avoiding a situation in which this program is just retroactive funding without the “public goods”. For example, having a more objective basis to evaluate candidates can mitigate voting behavior that resembles a “popularity contest.”

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It might be worth requesting investment funding details for candidates. That way, we have context for other parties involved.

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Thank you for your insightful questions and suggestions regarding the proposal. Here are the enhanced responses based on our discussions:

  1. Reputation/Scoring System: Currently, there is no specific plan in place for a reputation or scoring system. However, your suggestion is valuable, and we are considering integrating such a system to track and reward impactful projects over multiple RPGF rounds. An alternative approach we’ve dicussed involves transitioning high-performing projects to a dedicated program where they receive ongoing support and are periodically re-evaluated, thus reducing the need for them to reapply each cycle.
  2. Expanding Focus Areas: We acknowledge the need to broaden and refine our focus areas. Incorporating academic and theoretical research as a new focus area is an excellent suggestion, and an areas Solana lacks compared to the Ethereum research community.
  3. Feedback Framework: Implementing a more immediate and structured feedback mechanism for both delegates and RPGF winners is crucial. To improve upon our current system, we propose adding a feedback phase at the end of the voting process. This will allow delegates to provide constructive feedback to applicants that were not given a vote, enhancing transparency and facilitating continuous improvement across projects.
  4. Sale/Lock-Up Policies: As of now, there are no lock-up periods for the funds distributed. Awards are given at the program’s conclusion based on the results of quadratic voting.
  5. Addressing Power Dynamics: To address potential concerns regarding the influence of VCs and other powerful entities, we plan to establish clear eligibility rules and form a subcommittee dedicated to eligibility.

We look forward to further refining these ideas with your input.

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Thank you for your continued support and insightful queries about the RPGF program. We appreciate your concerns regarding the effectiveness and transparency of the initiative, particularly concerning the measurement of public goods. Here’s a more detailed response to your questions:

  1. Post-Funding Analysis: As of now, we have not conducted a formal post-funding analysis for Round 1. However, we recognize the importance of such analysis to assess the impact and effectiveness of the funded projects. We will conduct this in the future.
  2. Implementation of Metrics: We are actively working on defining and finalizing the metrics that will guide the evaluation of projects in future rounds. Based on feedback from Round 1 and in consultation with new delegates, we plan to implement:
  • Simplified Impact Metrics: Three well-defined metrics for each project category will be adopted to streamline evaluation processes and enhance understanding among delegates.
  • Verifiable Data Requirement: We will require projects to submit verifiable data supporting their impact claims. This will ensure the authenticity of information and minimize the risks of manipulation.These metrics are being refined in collaboration with the initial group of delegates chosen for RPGF Round 2. We aim to finalize these metrics as soon as RPGF Round 2 kicks-off and we have delegates onboarded, to guide the evaluation process effectively.
  1. Application Details: For Round 2, we are updating the application process to integrate the new categories, require verifiable data, and include simplified outcome metrics. The application form from the last round is accessible here, but please note that modifications are being made: Typeform Application Link.
  2. OpenBlock Fees: OpenBlock does not charge any fees for managing these funds. We are funded by a grant from the Solana Foundation, which covers all operational costs associated with running the RPGF program.
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We apologize for the recent delay in our communications, which was due to the extended process of securing a KYC/Grant Distribution provider in collaboration with the Solana Foundation. We’ve chosen Sphere Pay.

I’ve addressed all recent queries on the discussion thread and updated information regarding the management fee and fund distribution details, including the designated wallet address.

Thank you for your patience and continued support as we finalize these critical components to ensure the smooth implementation of the program.

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