Balancer Grants DAO Wave 2

This proposal also appears on Balancer's forum.

This draft has been created by the committee of the Balancer Grants DAO. See its previous proposal for establishing this committee here.

Summary

This proposal aims to fund the next cycle (Nov 1st - January 31st) of Balancer Grants DAO. The upcoming program will further accelerate the development of the Balancer ecosystem by improving coordination around Grants, RFPs and Ventures.

The requested budget for this next cycle (3 months) is 50,000 BAL. Similar to the first Balancer Grants DAO proposal, a learnings and review end report will be created at the end of the cycle, and any unspent resources will be sent back to the BAL treasury.

The Balancer Grants committee has already worked together during the first 3 month’s cycle. To maintain continuity and support for the grants that are still running, and the applicants that have applied, we want to have the proposal for the next cycle up and ready on time. The first round has been a success and shows the need and the potential for a bigger Balancer Ecosystem. To get a better idea of what has been done, check out our monthly reports on the Balancer Community Notion. An end report for cycle 1 is being finalized and will be published at the end of the current cycle, which is running until the 31st of October.

From the beginning we have looked at this first round as a time of learning and iterating, building on what works and leaving behind what is useless. With this in mind, the committee requested a lower amount than is often given to grant programs within the crypto space. Now that the committee and the Balancer community is aware of these learning points, the following rounds will no doubt go even smoother than this round already went.

Impact

Looking back on the first cycle, we can say with confidence that the program has been a success. The program has been able to pull in multiple promising and established DeFi projects into the Balancer Ecosystem. To build long term relationships and grow Balancer’s TVL were the main objectives, and the program is clearly delivering. We as a committee have identified multiple opportunities when it comes to ecosystem building and want to act upon these in the next cycle.

Establishing well-aligned yet autonomous units within the Balancer Ecosystem aligns with Balancer’s Decentralization and Ecosystem strategy. Having multiple entities co-develop the Balancer ecosystem creates value-add opportunities and allows the separate entities to specialize further.

PROPOSAL

We propose some small changes to the current setup of the grants program, and advocate to further the decentralization of the BalancerDAO. We believe this can be done through multiple committees, initially funded by the Balancer Grants DAO. We understand that this is a slow and long process, so this will be a learning experience where we want to plant the seeds for the future.

The grant program provides support and funding ($5K - USD $75K, paid in BAL) to projects committed to supporting Balancer Protocol in achieving its mission to become the number one source of liquidity for DeFi. This program is made for groups and individuals that aspire to run a project that builds on the Balancer Protocol or supports the development of the Balancer ecosystem.

The RFP (bounty) program provides rewards for completion of key tasks identified by the Balancer community. It’s the easiest way for anyone to contribute to the Balancer ecosystem. RFPs can be either technical or non-technical and vary in reward size depending on the required skill set and time needed to complete.

The venture program aims to expand the Balancer ecosystem and further align incentives with ecosystem partners through partnership agreements, token swaps and DAO2DAO ventures. We propose to start this off with a Venture Lead role who will be actively building out these types of deals and structures. With the actual outcomes going to the forum and being voted upon by the community. To support this opportunity, it needs some firepower and a dedicated role plus support can bring that.

The end-goal of the complete program is to attract and retain talent and resources to the Balancer ecosystem.

Snapshot Limit

Please view the rest of this proposal in Balancer's forum. The link is at the top of this page. The total ask in BAL is 51,000 and a full breakdown is available on the forum.