Thank you @Seanny for taking the time to create this poll where you could gather all the concerns that we (the Grant Support Squad) and the community have.
As @yararasita mentioned, we have discussed your points of view since the proposal was published, and we decide to give our opinions based on our roles assumed in this Taskforce created named Grant Support Squad.
So, as a Grant accountability Manager, I believe that pausing the Grant program is not a solution to mitigate the concerns regarding DAO Treasury.
However, what we need is to continue engaging with the community to keep building and developing tools a) to have more information to vote on the proposals (Conscientious Voting); b) to ensure that the projects funded are accountable; c) to have Grant´s Categories that fit correctly with the community needs; d) to review Grant´s program framework. The consequence of all these actions will be grants that bring more value to Decentraland.
my analysis in addition to what Yararasita exposed:
As the Grant Program has a dynamic process to fund projects, the analysis should be divided into periods and analyzed. To start we need to define parameters to compare between periods.
- When was this analysis made? 11/16/22
- When was the Grant Program (GP) initiated? 6/1/2021
- When was the first Grant funded? 7/1/2021
- When was the Grant Program upgraded? 10/15/2021
- When was Facebook´s rebrand and how did it impact the Value of DAO treasury? 11/21
With these inputs, since the Grant program was created, the DAO has funded 126 projects representing a total of $7.5M USD.
Let’s dive deeper and divide the information between the first period of the grant program and what happened when the Tiers were increased (grant program upgrade),
- From 6/1/21 to 10/15/21: 17 projects were funded representing $58.800, 0.78% of the total projects funded.
- From 10/15/21 to 11/16/22: 109 projects were funded representing $7.455.969, 99% of the total projects funded.
The grant request size increase (grant program upgrade) happened at the same time as Facebook’s rebranding, and as Alastor reported in their grant this “set off a rush of land sales and a spike in token price…The effects of this announcement lasted ~6 months before cooling down and beginning to return to pre-spike levels, roughly coinciding with the broader market downturn”.
This is a clear example of how a piece of news related to WEB 3 Ecosystem could impact directly our token. So, if the next announcement will be “Decentraland has paused the Grant Program to take care of the DAO Treasury”, how could this “headline” impact us?
From my point of view, it will affect us in a negative way and it could be worse than keeping alive the Gran ¨rogram to still work to resolve the concerns and create a better DAO that could be used as an example for other communities.
Back to the numbers. Between Nov 2021 to May 2022 (period analyzed above) the DAO has funded 54 projects representing $4.7M a 63,57% of the total projects financed, so the greater percentage of the treasury spending was during that period. 5 ($676.000) of these projects are actually active (the vesting contract is not over) and 49 have finished their vesting contract period. So, The question would be what happened with these last grants?
Let´s see what happens with the last 49 Grants mentioned,
- 14 were categorized as Incomplete (they didn´t finish what the community voted) representing $970.000, 12% of the total projects funded.
- 35 were categorized as Finished (they accomplished what the community voted) representing $3.1M, 41% of the total projects funded.
So, the DAO has invested $3.1M in projects that the grantees could finish and complete. In other words, 41% of the total projects were completed.
But you will be wondering where goes the rest of the money. A total of 39 projects are actually ACTIVE (the grantees are still working to achieve their goals) representing $2.9M, 40% of the total projects funded by de DAO. So, at this point, we can’t categorize them as incomplete or not, but we can affirm that most of them are on track.
Another thing to consider is that the DAO has recovered $565.842 representing 7.52% but the important thing here is, this could be a way to mitigate spending funds that have not been located in a proper way according to the Grant Program Framework. In other words, we are creating tools to monitor what´s going on with the active grants and we keep working on this as you may know with the New Committee.
Conclusion:
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In the first 6 months of the Grant Program, the DAO funded almost $4.8M. Then, during the next 6 months, $2.9M. So the tendency is going down and the reason for this is because the community is having more vote conscience. That means that “better” proposals are passing the threshold because the community believes not all the grants could give value to Decentraland.
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As @yararasita exposed, pausing the grants program is not a solution for the concerns that Seanny raised, however, this poll should work as a kicks start to push the topics mentioned at the beginning of this answer. In a few words, the core units and the community don´t have to lose focus on:
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designing a Framework for New Committee who decides when to revoke grants, to provide transparency, decentralizing the role of the Grant Support Squad and the DAO Committee, and start our role as providers of information to the New Committee.
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Debating the Code of ethics.
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Restructuring the Grant framework: we are working on requests for changes to the form for requesting grants that follow the Grants Framework, with the objective of giving the DAO more information about the grant being requested to have better context for voting. We will implement a Final Report for the grants finished, to understand how our grantees add value to Decentraland, and how our Grants program adds value to the community contributors. Measuring these impacts will help us understand the changes needed to make the Grants Program better in the future. All this information is in our renewal
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Restructuring the Grant program: as Yemel Jardi published in the following poll, we are working side by side to create new categories with other requirements, which includes changes of VP thresholds, review grants categories and defining budgets per category, that aim to take care of the DAO treasury. This would limit the “money expenditure” funnel on grants programs during this financial crisis and aligns with what your proposal is looking for and in what we are working on (Conscientious Voting)
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Diversification of the DAO Treasury: The community has voted here and the diversification is implemented. However, don´t forget that the Grant program funded a project to have more clarity on this topic, and everyone could see the results here.
In short, we need to keep building and developing more tools to mitigate concerns and not pause a key asset that our DAO has that creates engagement in our community.