0x Protocol Treasury Grants Lifecycle

📜 Treasury
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0x Protocol Treasury Grants Lifecycle

This post documents the process for requesting grants from the treasury and will be updated as needed to remain current.

Context

Background

The 0x Protocol Treasury was launched in April 2021 and currently comprises assets allocated by 0x Labs, Polygon Foundation, Celo Foundation, and Arbitrum Foundation (aliased on L2). While the overall purpose of the treasury is not enforced and ZRX holders have full control over what to do with the funds, the suggested usage is to fund projects that benefit the 0x ecosystem. (Note: Funds received from external sources may be restricted with regards to how they can be used.)

To help with identifying potentially high-impact projects and distributing funds, the 0x Ecosystem Value Experiment (0xEVE) has sponsored or allocated grants to ~20 teams within the 0x Protocol ecosystem.

Using lessons learned from that experiment and other grant programs, the process for grant disbursements from the treasury is being updated as outlined below. (Note: We expect that the process will be updated again if the community votes to adopt ZEIP-95 (currently in draft), which will implement a new onchain governance system.)

Considerations and Best Practices

  • In general, grants are not intended to subsidize projects that have already received substantial VC backing ($1M+ or equivalent)
  • To the extent possible, development grants should be packaged in discrete, milestone or deliverable-based requests
  • Marketing grants, such as those where the main use of funds is to attract or incentivize users, are less preferable than development grants
  • Requests for grants involving routine, API-based integrations are generally discouraged and should be supported by some other compelling factor, such as a new use case or novel application of technology
  • Notwithstanding the previous consideration, for expectation setting, to balance cost/benefit/risk tradeoffs, we generally use a working number of $5k for the value of API-based integrations
  • Grant requests associated with the core protocol contracts or that directly benefit the protocol layer will be prioritized over API integration or other similar (higher-layer) requests (such as applications)

Grant Proposal Process

0x Treasury Grant Lifecycle
0x Treasury Grant Lifecycle1461×252 11.9 KB

The flowchart above summarizes the lifecycle of a grant proposal. Ideally, the process should take approximately 5 weeks from the initial forum post to execution and disbursement (if approved).

To initiate a temperature check and onchain proposal, a minimum amount of ZRX voting power is required (10k ZRX for the temperature check and 100k ZRX for the onchain proposal). To prevent this requirement from being a barrier to teams or individuals applying for a grant, delegates may initiate votes on behalf of grant requestors.

Regardless of grant size, grant recipients are expected to deliver a final report summarizing the disposition of the funds and the outcomes achieved. Generally, this could take the form of a forum post in the thread of the original application and discussion.

1 – Governance forum post - the first formal stage of a grant proposal

  • Use the forum to publish and seek feedback on a proposal. Proposals should conform to the templates below.
  • Forum posts should be accompanied by at least a 2-week discussion period for the community to review and provide feedback and for the proposer to respond and adjust their proposal as appropriate.
  • We suggest that requested grant amounts be made in fiat (USD) and be split 50:50 between ZRX and the native token of the proposer’s primary chain (if applicable).
  • If no delegate (or tokenholder with the requisite voting power) moves the proposal to a temperature check after the initial 2-week discussion period, the proposer may consider the proposal in its current form rejected or tabled until sufficient voting power in support is achieved

2 – Temperature check - a simple, non-binding vote to gauge whether there is sufficient community support to proceed to an onchain vote

  • Use the snapshot space to host a temperature check. Generally, the voting choices should be For, Against, and Abstain.
  • Temperature checks should have a voting period of at least 5 days. To initiate a vote, the proposer needs to have at least 10k ZRX. The vote is considered successful if it reaches a quorum of 1M ZRX votes in the affirmative and there are more votes for than against.
  • Depending on the outcome of the snapshot vote, a proposal can either proceed to an onchain proposal or go back to the forum for further discussion, after which another snapshot vote should be held.

3 – Onchain proposal - a formal, onchain binding vote to decide whether or not to approve and fund the proposal

  • An onchain vote can be initiated by directly interacting with the zrxTreasury smart contract (Etherscan link).
  • Onchain votes have a voting delay of 10 days on average and a voting period of 3 days. To initiate a vote, the proposer needs to have at least 100k ZRX. The vote is considered successful if it reaches a quorum of 10M ZRX in the affirmative and there are more votes for than against.
  • Prior to submitting a proposal onchain, we recommend that a 30-day EMA price from TradingView (Coinbase) be used to convert the requested fiat amount into token amounts.
  • While there is no hard and fast rule regarding cutoff of the forum discussion, once an onchain proposal is submitted, the content cannot be changed and will proceed to a vote as submitted. Proposers can decide whether to respond to questions that may arise after the proposal is submitted, keeping in mind that not responding may impact voter sentiment.
  • If an onchain vote fails, there will be a cooling off period of 45 days before the proposal can be resubmitted. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, submitting repeat proposals (i.e., the same proposal without material changes) is discouraged.

Templates

All grant applications should use the following templates.

Governance Forum Post Template

click to expand 
# GRANT REQUEST: [TITLE SHOULD INCLUDE TEAM OR PROJECT NAME]
 
## Basic Details

**Project name:**

**Point of contact:**

**Team background:**

**Other sources of funding and approximate amounts (grants, VC, etc.):**

## Project Details

**Describe the problem being solved:**

**Explain how the funding will be used:**

**Indicate whether your solution/product will integrate directly with the 0x Protocol contracts (such as the 0x Exchange Proxy) or via APIs. If APIs, please list them (if known):**

**List any critical milestones and dependencies (if applicable):**

**Describe how the solution/product benefits the 0x Protocol Ecosystem:**

**Do you agree to tag your solution/product for visibility in [0x Explorer](https://0x.org/docs/developer-resources/0x-explorer-tag-guide):**

**What are the actual and/or target usage metrics (such as users and volume) for your solution/product:**

**Provide links to any of the following for the project (if available):**
**Demo:**
**Website:**
**Twitter:**
**Discord/Discourse/Community:**
**Github:**
**Other:**

## Funding Request

**Grant amount requested (in fiat):**

**Grant amount by token (ratio of tokens):**

**Receiving address and chain:**

Snapshot Template

click to expand 
## Temperature Check | GRANT REQUEST: [TITLE SHOULD INCLUDE TEAM OR PROJECT NAME]

### Goal of Vote

This snapshot vote is to gauge community sentiment regarding the [TEAM OR PROJECT NAME] grant proposal. The grant application and forum discussion can be found at [LINK TO GOVERNANCE FORUM POST].

### Action Proposed
Award [GRANT AMOUNT REQUESTED IN FIAT] to [TEAM OR PROJECT NAME]

### Snapshot Vote

FOR = proposal should move forward to an onchain vote 
AGAINST = proposal should not move forward at this time
ABSTAIN = voter has conflict of interest or other factor affecting vote

Onchain Proposal Template

click to expand 
# Z-[#] GRANT PROPOSAL: [TITLE SHOULD BE THE SAME OR SIMILAR TO SNAPSHOT TITLE]

## Summary 

This proposal seeks authorization of a [$VALUE] grant from the treasury to [TEAM OR PROJECT NAME]. The community has discussed the merits of the proposal in the governance forum and signaled support for moving forward to an onchain vote: [LINK TO SNAPSHOT] 

## Grant Details

**Amount:** [$VALUE] in [TOKEN]
**Price reference:** [TOKEN] 30-day EMA as of [DATE] = [$PRICE]  
**Receiving address: **[WALLET ADDRESS] 

## Proposal Details 

See detailed explanation at [LINK TO GOVERNANCE FORUM POST] 

## Action Required 

Send [#] [TOKEN] to [WALLET ADDRESS]

Scoring

Grant Proposal Scoring Rubric

Expanding on the original cost/benefit/risk scoring framework used by 0xEVE, the following rubric inspired by the Optimism Grant Council is provided to help voters assess grant proposals. A maximum score of 37 is possible, and we recommend that for a proposal to be funded, it should achieve a minimum score of 22.

Merits 1 2 3 4 5
Team qualifications Unclear ability or motivation to deliver on plan Potentially able to deliver on plan Reasonable chance to deliver on plan Likely to deliver on plan Exceeds what is required to deliver on plan
Likelihood of success Clear flaw in design or strategy that cannot be easily remedied Difficult to see the project being successful Reasonable chance for intermediate-to-long-term success Likely to have long-term success Substantial likelihood of long-term success
Experimentation and Uniqueness Virtual copy of other projects in a crowded field Exhibits minor differentiation, but resembles other projects; Not novel Utilizes existing tech or infrastructure but has novel applications or use cases Novel in its use of technology or expands the reach of 0x Protocol to new users Expands the limits of 0x Protocol via protocol-level features, functionality, or infrastructure
Benefit to 0x Protocol Ecosystem Unlikely to bring substantial usage or value to the 0x Protocol ecosystem Has the potential to bring substantial usage or value to the 0x Protocol ecosystem Likely to bring substantial usage or value to the 0x Protocol ecosystem Has the potential to generate long-term, sustainable value for the 0x Protocol ecosystem Likely to generate long-term, sustainable value for the 0x Protocol ecosystem
Risk Assessment 1 2 3 4 5
Work plan Little to no detail describing the proposed work to be done Minimal level of detail describing the proposed work to be done Reasonable level of detail describing the proposed work to be done Thoughtful plan demonstrating a mature approach for managing the work to be done Thoughtful plan referencing timeline, milestones, deliverables, metrics, and/or desired outcomes
Budget detail Little to no detail describing how the funds will be used Minimal detail describing how the funds will be used Reasonable level of detail describing how the funds will be used Reflects a thoughtful cost buildup approach Connects budget to timeline, milestones, deliverables, and/or desired outcomes
Grant size Grant size significantly outweighs projected benefit Grant size is considerably larger than expected benefit Grant size is proportional to expected benefit Expected benefit outweighs grant size Expected benefit meaningfully exceeds grant size
Discretionary (add or subtract up to 2 points based on your overall confidence and assessment of cost, benefit, and risk)

Links

:classical_building: Governance - 0x Labs: Governance and Research Forum

Snapshot

0x · GitHub

Discord