Marketplace RFP: Submission Timeline and Artifacts
The DAO approved [7.1] [Social] SPP3: Marketplace RFP by Snapshot vote. This post opens the RFP under the authority of that vote. It publishes the binding process timeline, the application format, and the evaluation rubric the committee will score against. It follows the same structure as the SPP3 Submission Timeline and Artifacts, adapted for a single-award, marketplace-specific selection.
The short version: one award of up to $500,000, funded from the $1,560,284 uncommitted SPP3 budget, milestone-gated, for a term co-terminating with the SPP3 cohort (approximately 11 months). Submissions open Wednesday, July 22 and close Wednesday, August 5. The committee may make zero awards if no application meets the bar. The unallocated remainder returns to the DAO treasury.
Applications for the SPP3 Marketplace RFP are now open. The submission window closes August 5 at 23:59 UTC.
-------> Submit your application here <--------
Timeline
| Phase | Dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Artifacts published | July 20 | This post: timeline, application format, rubric |
| Submission window | July 22 August 5, 23:59 UTC | Two weeks |
| Public Q&A call | July 29 (time announced in this thread) | Open to all prospective applicants |
| Committee evaluation | August 5 – August 19 | Interviews and product walkthroughs as needed |
| Award announcement | On or before August 28 | Public rationale and winning score published |
| Service agreement + KYC | Immediately following announcement | Runs concurrent with the executable vote |
| Executable vote | August 31 – September 9 | 7-day on-chain vote plus 2-day timelock; funds the stream contract for the award amount |
| Stream begins | On or around September 9 | On execution, once KYC is passed |
The committee may extend the submission or evaluation window if circumstances warrant. Any extension is announced in this thread before the original deadline passes.
Artifacts
| Artifact | Status |
|---|---|
| Program Terms | Published |
| Award Notice | Published |
| Public Q&A call | Wednesday, July 29; time pending, announced in this thread |
| Submission form | Pending; posts in this thread before the window opens July 22 |
Eligibility Gate
Applications failing any condition below are returned without scoring. This is a hard screen, not a quality judgment.
- The proposal is for an operational ENS marketplace: discovery, listings, offers, and name purchases, with renewals and portfolio management as primary features;
- The requested amount is between $200,000 (the SPP3 program minimum) and $500,000 (the RFP cap);
- The applicant operates a live product today, or presents a credible go-live path measured in weeks, not quarters;
- The primary deliverable is a service to ENS.
- No active conflict of interest exists between the applicant and any committee member under the SPP3 conflict of interest standards;
- The applicant is not a ratified SPP3 cohort provider; teams already funded under SPP3 are ineligible for this award;
- The application includes acknowledgment of the SPP3 Program Terms and Award Notice.
Eligibility is open to any team, including existing marketplace operators and prior SPP3 applicants who were not selected. Ratified SPP3 cohort providers are, however, ineligible. Prior participation in SPP3 is neither required nor disqualifying.
Research, satellite products, and growth services detached from marketplace operation are out of scope per the ratified RFP
Application Format
The intake mechanics mirror SPP3. A submission form collecting administrative fields, plus a single submission document. Submissions are stored confidentially, visible to the committee and, on request, the accountability body or ENS Foundation. They are not shared between applicants.
Administrative fields: team or organization name; primary contact and ENS handle; payment address; requested amount; prior relationship to ENS and SPP participation, if any.
Submission document (Markdown, PDF, or hosted URL) covering, at minimum:
- Product state: live URL or demo access, launch date, and current usage. If pre-launch, a dated go-live plan;
- Traction evidence: on-chain attribution of registration and renewal revenue, completed secondary sales, active wallets, and repeat usage. Label estimates as estimates;
- Scope of funded work: what the award pays for, item by item, with a definition of success the committee can verify;
- Milestone structure: build milestones through go-live and traction milestones after it, each with a specific date and an independent verification method;
- ENSv2 readiness: a statement of how the product handles migration UX and hierarchical ownership flows;
- Post-award revenue model: how the marketplace sustains itself after this award, with current unit economics where available;
- Budget: itemized against the funded scope.
The committee is able to negotiate budget-to-scope alignment during interviews.
Evaluation Rubric
Each application is scored 1–5 per criterion, in 0.5 increments, weighted to a final score out of 5.0. Each criterion receives a single score: the rationale factors listed under a criterion guide that score but carry no internal weights and are not scored separately. This rubric adapts the SPP3 rubric to the marketplace vertical, and revenue carries the heaviest weight because attributable protocol revenue is the reason this vertical is being filled.
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| M1: Prior Delivery and Marketplace Impact | 25% |
| M2: Scope Clarity and Milestone Credibility | 20% |
| M3: Revenue and Adoption | 35% |
| M4: ENS Alignment and ENSv2 Readiness | 10% |
| M5: Post-Award Self-Sustainability | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
The SPP3 cohort rubric carried a 5% discretion factor for cohort shaping. A single-award RFP has no cohort to shape, so that factor is retired.
M1: Prior Delivery and Marketplace Impact (25%)
Execution credibility, evidenced by what the team has already shipped and what it produced. The central question is whether this team has operated a marketplace, or comparable transactional product, at the quality bar this award requires. This criterion is backward-looking: it scores the record, not the plan.
Rationale factors:
- Operating history: has the team shipped and operated a live transactional product, for how long, and at what scale;
- Attributed impact: verifiable on-chain evidence of registrations, renewals, or sales the product drove;
- Evidence quality: public, independently checkable artifacts versus self-reporting.
Strong looks like: a live product with a referral or attribution trail the committee can verify on-chain, in the pattern of the H1 2026 data cited in the RFP, where marketplace referrals accounted for 20.5% of new-registration revenue and 19.9% of renewal revenue. Weak looks like: portfolio credentials without transactional products, or impact claims with no attribution mechanism.
M2: Scope Clarity and Milestone Credibility (20%)
Whether the committee can tell what the award buys and recognize on-track versus off-track at every checkpoint. Milestones must be output-defined, dated, and independently verifiable; go-live is a required milestone, and the stream pauses if it is missed without committee approval. Activity framing (“continue development,” “grow the user base”) scores a 2 at best. Every milestone should answer four questions: what ships, how completion is verified without relying on self-report, when, and what on-track looks like at the check-in before it.
M3: Revenue and Adoption (35%)
The heaviest criterion, and forward-looking: whether this award produces incremental growth in ENS registrations, renewals, and secondary activity beyond the product’s current run-rate, and whether the team can measure it.
Rationale factors:
- Protocol revenue connection: direct, attributable path to registration and renewal revenue, measured on-chain;
- Traction gate credibility: proposed traction milestones, attributed revenue, active paying wallets, completed sales with anti-wash filters, retention;
- Adoption breadth: users and inventory reached, including unified listings aggregating external venues;
- Measurement and attribution: referral tracking, dashboards, or on-chain markers the committee can check without the team’s help.
Strong looks like: projected revenue grounded in the product’s own current attribution data, with traction gates the team proposes to be paid against. Weak looks like: addressable-market arithmetic, vanity metrics, or gates the team cannot lose.
M4: ENS Alignment and ENSv2 Readiness (10%)
Whether the product treats ENS as its home rather than one chain among many, and whether it is built to survive the protocol’s next phase: migration UX, hierarchical ownership flows, and compatibility intent with ENSv2 as specifications land. Concrete engineering plans score above statements of enthusiasm.
M5: Post-Award Self-Sustainability (10%)
This is bootstrap funding, not a seat. There is no renewal expectation and no ongoing quota. Scored on the credibility of the post-award revenue model: fee structure, current or projected unit economics, and a path to covering operating costs from marketplace revenue by the end of the term. A team that needs a second award to survive scores lower here regardless of product quality.
Award Threshold
The committee will not recommend an award for an application scoring below 3.0 weighted. If no application clears that bar, no award is made and the full remainder returns to the treasury, consistent with the ratified RFP. The winning score is published with the award announcement.
Payment Structure
The award is milestone-gated in two halves. Roughly 50% streams against build milestones through go-live, with objective acceptance criteria per milestone. Roughly 50% releases against traction gates verified on-chain: attributed protocol revenue, active wallets, completed secondary sales, and retention.
Go-live is a required milestone; the stream pauses if it is missed without committee approval. Amounts not released by the end of the award term, which co-terminates with the SPP3 cohort, return to the DAO treasury. Funding moves by on-chain executable: a passing vote funds the stream contract for the award amount, and the stream begins once KYC is passed. Exact milestone definitions, dates, and acceptance criteria are negotiated into the service agreement before the stream begins.
Committee Process
Selection runs under the published SPP3 process. Evaluation and the award decision are made by the SPP3 committee with a quorum of three of four Member seats. At least two committee representatives, inclusive of the Chair, attend each interview; sessions are recorded for absent members. Standard SPP3 conflict of interest rules apply: any member with a prohibited relationship to an applicant recuses from that evaluation, and material relationships are disclosed to the Chair.
Once the submission window opens, all program discussion with applicants runs through the structured interviews, the public Q&A call, or this forum thread. No private backchanneling.
What Happens Next
The submission form link posts in this thread before the window opens on July 22. The public Q&A call is scheduled for Wednesday, July 29; the time and dial-in will be added here. Questions about the process or the rubric are welcome in this thread and will be answered before the window closes.