[temp check] Proposal for new Service Provider Streams

[AvsA]

@Esk3nder.eth

The total budget is roughly 10% of what the DAO made this year. I would argue to have an annual review which would adjust this total budget and drop projects that fall off the total diminished (or increased) budget.

Also while it’s up to the governance to call the stream, I’d implement it differently than what Labs do it, but rather more similar to how sablier and super fluid does: there’s a capped maximum budget allocated for the stream where we deposit a given amount. If the DAO does nothing then eventually that amount will drain out and the streams stop automatically.

The difference between just doing an annual grant giving is that if the new process takes a few extra months then the current service streams are uninterrupted while we vote and the new ones are adjusted seamlessly without skipping a single block.

[slobo.eth]

Having more dedicated teams working to improve ENS has a lot of upside.

I’m excited that the discussion so far has been mostly around how vs. IF.

It may be reasonable that for the first iteration, the streams have an initial end date of 1 year or 15 months. This way, there’s no “set it and forget it” risk for a pilot program.

After each team has had enough time, 9-12 months, they can collectively or individually put up a proposal to the DAO to remove the end date of the stream. This would make the stream indefinite, though it would always be revocable by the DAO.

As a steward responsible for funding builders, I see this as a good addition. I may even participate.

[lefterisjp]

I like the idea a lot. As both an ENS delegate and someone who is trying to find ways to fund opensource development through grants, ENS ones included.

Small grants are cool, but for software development they are not really sufficient. At rotki we tried to apply for the large grants but were rejected. A different method must exist somewhere.

[accessor.eth]

Should this conversation be held in a publicly facing forum via text or a call where people can voice their opinions?

IMO I think a good call would suffice. A working group meeting is not going to be able to facilitate this matter. I would like to voice my opinion on this.

@slobo.eth

This would make the stream indefinite, though it would always be revocable by the DAO.

As a steward responsible for funding builders, I see this as a good addition. I may even participate.

To be quite honest, this comment is pure adage of Goodhart himself and it is more than infuriating. I need not say anymore. It’s astonishing. ’ lets make indefinite streams so I can pay myself '. I’ve already made my arguments but not in the manner that they should of been.

Call me crazy but being this relaxed about funding streams scares mne. The DAO deserves more than this.
This is a serious topic that shouldn’t result in 100’s of thousands of dollars laying around.

[cap]

After more than a year and a half in the ENS DAO as a member, delegate, and builder, I’ve never read anything that got me more excited and happy than this! Thank you for this proposal @AvsA! I’m overwhelmed with joy.

I’ve committed all my free time to building on ENS and I’ve spoken to a lot of founders who do the same. I truly believe there’s no better way to allocate the money than to support projects and teams that have meaningfully contributed (and are still contributing) to the ENS ecosystem.

The issue I’ve been facing for over a year and a half now is that we build on ENS and only on ENS thus making our funding options very limited (to the ENS DAO only) or seeking outside funding (angels/VCs). We don’t qualify for any other source of public good funding and trust me there’s nothing I would’ve liked more than to build my platform as a fully open-source public good, complimentary to the ENS. This stopped us from ever dedicating our full time, energy, and focus to it.

Regardless of any circumstances, we managed to build a solid project that helps people manage subnames, with a lot of different features and use cases to it, and are still building new stuff because we like it and we’re simply builders who like building.

The bottom line is, every time I spoke to someone who has been building something on ENS the main concern they voiced was funding and the question of ‘how much longer we can keep this going like this’. So I’m pretty sure that this proposal will get 100% full-steam-ahead support from the people who have been building on ENS.

I also want to say and acknowledge that ENS DAO has supported builders before and has done a great job in some cases. What I am also saying is that this proposal is the missing piece of the puzzle to take it to the next step and make the support for ecosystem builders perfect.

Just my two, very modest and honest, cents.

[lightwalker.eth]

This is the most growth-inspiring thread I’ve ever read on the ENS DAO Forum.

It means a lot to see comments in support of this proposal already filling the thread. There’s a massive opportunity here to help ENS grow.

We have a community with a lot of talent. I’m thankful for the ENS grants that already exist, but it’s required economic masochism for talented builders to wholly dedicate themselves to helping ENS grow. The status quo with a lack of more sustainable funding structures for entire teams of full-time dedicated builders is really holding ENS back. There’s so much more to build for ENS that requires organizational-level efforts to achieve!

For the questions raised above about the ENS Treasury, we can look to point III in the ENS DAO Constitution:

Any income generated to the ENS treasury is to be used first of all to ensure the long-term viability of ENS, and to fund continuing development and improvement of the ENS system.

We’ve already completed Purpose 1 to “ensure the long-term viability of ENS”. It’s now time for the DAO to do more with Purpose 2 to “fund continuing development and improvement of the ENS system”. There is more than sufficient resources to run this as a pilot program for at least an initial 12-15 months and measure the results.

I’d encourage everyone here to look at this program as an opportunity, rather than exclusively as an expense. Providing financial support for teams of talented builders to sustainably dedicate themselves to the growth of ENS is going to produce results. If good teams are supported it can easily create a positive ROI for the ENS DAO. We have an opportunity here to “grow the pie” so that more and more talented builders can be supported across time.

Everything we’re building at NameHash Labs is planned to be open sourced and freely licensed for the ENS ecosystem. We’ll soon be making some big launch announcements for NameKit, NameGuard, and a (proposed) ENSIP for an ENS Ambassador Program. Everything we build is infrastructure that is not only dedicated to ENS, it is specifically designed to result in the outcome of ENS growth. We’re definitely interested in this program and advocate for its swift approval!

[accessor.eth]

I think using the 0xSplits vesting stream that @trent from The Protocol Guild used for their pilot program that supports Ethereum Core Developers would be perfect for this. Service providers could simply pull as needed and would reduce noise as its acts as a true mechanism for funding.

[nick.eth]

@AvsA

A total budget of $3.6M/year of a stream would be announced, as well as a series of goals and projects we’d like the service providers to work on. Service providers would then provide a pitch deck listing the projects they intended to create, plus some documentation to showcase their capacity to deliver and a requested budget (each individual ask not exceeding $1M/year).

Very supportive of this idea!

I’d suggest that for simplicity, there should be a basic fraction of 3.6m that all grant requests have to be. For example, $225k. If all requests are multiples of 225k, we know we can accept up to 16 ‘units’ of budget.

I’d also suggest that we have an annual ‘reelection’; existing streams would be included in the voting, but it’d be an opportunity for the DAO to take a moment to reassess each recipient, and evaluate any new applicants. Changes could happen outside this process, but this would be an opportunity to do an all-up review.

@AvsA

Would these projects be open source? What about companies that already make money?

I think we should be more prescriptive in this regard. Anything developed using funding from a stream should be open-source.

[accessor.eth]

Lets also ensure that we are sending funds to actually pay for service from providers.

@slobo.eth it appears that you have blocked me from sending you messages.

Tx for funding the Identity Server - SpruceID
→
200000USDC still sitting in safe with only 50k w/d 400_ days ago

this would suggest that the server was likely never paid for, perhaps.

[alextnetto.eth]

I’m a big supporter of this idea. This is the best opportunity for long-term ENS builders to innovate and improve ENS. It is also a way to decentralize one of the aspects of the DAO: development.

As a builder, I can relate to wanting to make more extensive contributions towards ENS and needing a way to do it while being sustainable. I don’t want to be repetitive here, agree with all points raised by @cap and @lightwalker.eth.

@nick.eth I’d suggest that for simplicity, there should be a basic fraction of 3.6m that all grant requests have to be. For example, $225k. If all requests are multiples of 225k, we know we can accept up to 16 ‘units’ of budget.

That’s a great idea. I also would like to bring some suggestion for which project/ideas would eligible for this funding program.

1. Apps that “build on ENS” (vs. improve the ENS system itself) are excluded. Examples of apps that “build on ENS” include everything from XMTP to OpenSea to Uniswap.
2. Agree to release all work produced under this funding program as open source with a permissive open source license (a non-copyleft open source license) that guarantees the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute, while also permitting proprietary derivative works.
3. Come from a team that has already demonstrated a track record of skillful technical execution in the ENS Ecosystem. This could be demonstrated through the receipt of prior ENS DAO grants or other clear technical contributions.
4. Identify what work or approval dependencies (if any) their proposal creates on ENS Labs. For example: If a proposal is to change core ENS Contracts, then it creates an approval dependency on ENS Labs. Any proposal creating any dependency on ENS Labs must receive an approval from ENS Labs to be open for consideration.

Looking forward to this big step towards growing the pie, thanks for raising this @AvsA .

[accessor.eth]

We could also use ENS Domain Names and Sub Names as a way to classify payments to better track financial endeavors!

[nick.eth]

@accessor.eth

@slobo.eth

This would make the stream indefinite, though it would always be revocable by the DAO.

As a steward responsible for funding builders, I see this as a good addition. I may even participate.

To be quite honest, this comment is pure adage of Goodhart himself and it is more than infuriating. I need not say anymore. It’s astonishing. ’ lets make indefinite streams so I can pay myself '. I’ve already made my arguments but not in the manner that they should of been.

That’s not at all what slobo said, and this kind of hostile behaviour is not helpful.

[caldonia]

Excellent proposal here.

ENS isn’t just a technology. ENS is a network of apps and users. The value ENS creates in the world is proportional to the network effects ENS achieves. We must continuously invest in growth to realize the potential impact of ENS on the world.

If ENS can institute programs like this, it will attract more organizational-level teams to build on it full time, a momentous and critical landmark in a protocol’s next phase of growth.

[AvsA]

The snapshots are live.

Also I’d like to disclose that I’m an angel at superfluid which is a stream company. It’s not a significant chunk I’m orders of magnitude much more exposed to ENS, and I’m an investor because I’ve been a supporter of streams for many years and not the other way around.

For that reason I’ll remove myself from implementations decisions regarding the proposal if it passes. We can do a custom contract (like labs has), use sablier or even superfluid.

[Limes]

I’m voting in favor of this proposal.

I see this proposal as a discovery tool that gives ENS the ability to take different stances on the design and implementation of the ENS user experience.

This approach can encourage a diverse set of solutions, creating more ‘shots-on-goal’ and leading to a richer ecosystem.

One point I want to make is that, in the event of an underperforming service provider, starting a proposal to retract funds is a large amount of friction and is presumably unlikely to happen. I’m fine with this because the alternative is setting up an oversight board with its own sets of trade offs and costs, but if we’re being honest, absent an obvious malicious provider, these are essentially one year commitments with options to extend.

[lightwalker.eth]

This post is written to all ENS DAO Delegates and offers a case for you to vote for a budget cap of $3.6m in the active Snapshot Voting for New Service Provider Streams.

There’s a general consensus on the merits of Service Provider Streams in this thread.

But why vote for a $3.6m budget cap? Why not less?

Here’s some important rules in the proposed Service Provider Streams framework:

• Projects must obtain a minimum of 1 million ENS in approvals to proceed.
• Eligible projects will be ranked by vote count. A greedy algorithm will then be applied to select the highest-voted projects, provided the cumulative budget does not exceed the preset limit.

We should note how it’s going to require a LOT (!!) of positive signals for any project to attain the minimum floor of 1 million ENS in approvals. For evidence, let’s look at some of the latest DAO votes completed:

• There were only 1.6 million total votes cast for each of the recent [4.4.X] ENS DAO Working Group budget requests.
• The ENS Meta-Goverance Working Group only received 1.3 million votes in approval of their budget request.

When service providers are submitting their projects to the ENS DAO for voting we can expect quite a high quality standard will be required to attain the required 1 million+ ENS in votes.

Every project passing through this demanding quality filter can be expected to be an excellent proposal. They will need to come from strong teams and show a clear plan for creating value for ENS and helping ENS grow.

I’ve been speaking with other dedicated builders in the ENS Ecosystem. Assuming the DAO approves this Service Provider Streams concept the aggregate total of really good proposals is going to sum to several millions.

If a budget cap for the overall Service Providers Streams framework is limited only to $1.2m this puts a high probability that multiple teams with fantastic proposals and a strong consensus of support from the DAO of over 1 million $ENS votes will be left out in the cold. That will really suck for ENS.

Appreciate that a cap of $3.6m is a lot of money. It is ! But if you’ve run teams of talented developers before you’ll be familiar with how shockingly fast developer salaries add up.

No one is making a case for it being good to spend $3.6m. This vote isn’t about spending money. It’s about investing into the continued growth and success of ENS. We have so much potential with ENS and there is so much remaining work to be done. These investments can produce a strong return in the growth of ENS.

Let’s not starve ENS of the resources needed for a more diversified set of builders and visions for how ENS can fulfill its mission. The DAO has these resources available. The endowment is mature, cash flows are positive, the funding for this program is capped at a maximum, any service provider who underperforms can have their funding stream terminated, and Clause III of the ENS Constitution already makes the case for the need and approval of funding improvements to the ENS system.

[cap]

I agree with all of your thoughts here. I also want to highlight the following:

@lightwalker.eth

This vote isn’t about spending money. It’s about investing into the continued growth and success of ENS. We have so much potential with ENS and there is so much remaining work to be done. These investments can produce a strong return in the growth of ENS.

I look at this proposal as ‘addressing the opportunity’ rather than thinking of how much it would ‘cost’ the DAO. And the opportunity is big, especially since the criteria for eligible projects is well defined by AvsA in his proposal above.

[accessor.eth]

I agree. It is rather important for ENS DAO, ENS Labs, contributors to implement using ENS Domains in all aspects of ENS matters. Given the the recent reflection regarding the DAO and Working Groups previous and ongoing expenditures; we should consider using ENS Names in every payment officially affiliated.

This would include using subdomains as labeling identifiers for outbound payments.

Requiring all official wallets to be properly labeled. I’m not sure who is in control, where they are located or what names the DAO controls. I think it’s important to create a master list of all name and addresses.

All assets shouldto be identified and indexed.

• what the asset is (mainly wallets)

• those who have been granted authority, i,e, authorizers, approvers, reviewers et al.

• a schedule of when granted authority will (or may) change due to election or assigned position changes.

classification and labeling

          {endpoint}.{q#yy}.scholarship.{wg}.ensdao.eth
            {endpoint}.{q#yy}.bounty.metagov.ensdao.eth
 {endpoint}.{q#yy}.{project}.{subgroup}.{wg}.ensdao.eth
                name.q3-23.personnel.metagov.ensdao.eth
                       servicer.q3-23.stream.ensdao.eth
                member.servicer.q3-23.stream.ensdao.eth
        .......etc.

If ENS isn’t setting the standard for name use, then who will?

[meta8.eth]

I think I was the only proposal in the last Grant round that actually utilised subdomains and even a sub sub domain in which I nominated for any potential pay funding.

And also the key term amongst all of this debate needs to be highlighted that:

Investing > Spending

For example, Nick himself asked Vitalik for funding for ENS…i for one at pretty certain that Vitalik new that he was investing in the future of Ethereum. So perhaps this needs to be the mindset of more delegates moving forward.

Guarding the keys/vaults to this virtual castle for too long isn’t going to get us very far…in a world whereby we vouch for pure trust-less decentralisation, we cannot forget the moments “trust” and belief in people doing the right thing.

Like a farmer who has no access to water for his crop until the owner of the dam upstream releases the supply, much the same is for the builders and creative innovators in the barren sand Pitt of Web3.

Don’t be the guy who thinks the dam was built all by itself…

[AvsA]

I’ve created a new thread to announce the EP number and snapshot vote:

[EP4.7] Create Provider Streams is now live on snapshot

The service provider ENS Proposal has now a EP number of 4.7 and is now live on snapshot! Previous Temp Check Snapshot

I also replied on the matter of 1M ENS support

[EP4.7] Create Provider Streams is now live on snapshot

A comment on the 1M ENS requirement: While it’s true that this is purposefully a high limit, It’s not at all unattainable. In fact, every single winning snapshot proposal has achieved that (including every steward that ever got elected), and it’s also the minimum quorum on tally. It’s also much higher than any one delegate can achieve. So I think a 1M ENS support is a good indicative of a broad ecosystem support.