Formal Vote - Executable CGP5 - Retroactive Contributor Program Rewards

Abstract

This proposal describes the conversion of points into NEXT tokens as retroactive reward for participants of the contributor program.

Motivation

The Connext Contributor Program was launched to accelerate the decentralization of Connext and to encourage community members of different backgrounds and skill sets to contribute to the growth of the ecosystem.

The contributor program was held over the course of 2 months and 25 days from April 20, 2022 to July 15th, 2022. Participants were able to select one of five tracks based on their interests and skills. These tracks consisted of the Community Leadership, Builders, Content & Education, Routers, and Grants tracks.

Contributors of the program have received points based on the quality of their contributions by using different evaluation criteria. This proposal is designed to retroactively reward participants proportional to the points received via the Connext DAO as a decentralized, community-governed entity in the ecosystem.

Rationale

Contributors of the program have produced meaningful outcomes for the Connext ecosystem and contributed to its growth. Participants of the contributor program provided essential functionalities to the Connext community and have actively helped in raising awareness for the Connext ecosystem.

The proposed CGP provides successful contributors of the Connext Contributor Program with retroactive rewards for their efforts.

Key Terms

Connext Contributor Program

The Contributor Program was a community incentive program designed to encourage community members of different backgrounds and skill sets to steward and take ownership of key aspects of the Connext ecosystem. Participants of the program were given points based on the quality of their contributions to the ecosystem using evaluation criteria developed by Community Leaders.

Contributors

The term “contributor” refers to all participants of the program across all the five tracks (Community Leadership, Builders, Content & Education, Routers, and Grants).

Top Contributors

The top 20% scorers of each track (except for Builders, where we consider every builder to be a top contributor). We feel that this accurately reflects those who put in a meaningful amount of work into their contributions. These are:

• For the CL Track: Contributors with 25 points or more.
• For the C&E Track: Contributors with 15 points or more.
• For the Builders Track: All Contributors.
• For the Routers Track: Contributors with 30 points or more.

Specifications

This CGP proposes a retroactive reward that is based on the evaluated quality of a participant’s contribution calculated in points. To ensure fairness, conversion rates vary for each track. Therefore, assigned points were weighted to adjust for the number of participants in a track, its overall contribution quality, and its cumulative impact. The Community Administrators involved in planning and executing the program do not receive retroactive compensations. A base of 925,000 NEXT are allocated for distribution among the participants of the contributor program.

Exclusions

Due to some issues in verifying a handful of Contributor’s KYC credentials, we are proposing to move forward with the Vote excluding those who have not completed this step. In lieu, we would like to add a caveat for a separate cost of 75,000 NEXT to be distributed at a later date once these steps have been completed, so as to not delay the vast majority of Contributor rewards any longer.

Aside from these exclusions, there are 15 contributors whose addresses are missing. Their rewards total 152,718.57 which will also be held along with the exclusions.

The funds will be held for 60 days, after which they will be returned to the DAO.

Point Conversion Rate

A very minor change was made to the C&E total points (5493.35 vs 5509.46) with respect to the RFC due to some outdated scores and revisions. The column “NEXT/Point” indicates the amount of NEXT tokens that a contributor is entitled to (per earned point):

Track	Total Points	Total NEXT	NEXT per Unweighted Point
CL	2635.81	194,741	73.9
C&E	5493.35	488,466	88.9
Routers	9270	136,979	14.8
Builders	506.66	104,814	206.9
TOTALS	17905.82	925,000	51.6591812
Total NEXT Allocated			925,000
Total NEXT Excluded			75,000

Bonus Rewards

We propose an extra 200,000 NEXT to be distributed among the Top Contributors. These Bonus Rewards will be divided between the tracks according to their weights:

• For the CL Track: 38,460
• For the C&E Track: 46,160
• For the Builders Track: 107,680
• For the Routers Track: 7,700

For each top contributor, the rewards are calculated in the following way:

(Contributor Points / ∑ Track Top Contributors Points) * Track Allocation

The sum of each track’s top contributors points is:

• For the CL Track: 2340.87
• For the C&E Track: 3184.08
• For the Builders Track: 506.67
• For the Routers Track: 6250

KPIs

A selection of different metrics was used to fairly evaluate all submissions by contributors. These metrics included overall submission quality, community impact, execution/originality, and intangible factors. Based on the relative evaluation in each of the aforementioned dimensions, a weighted score was created to score participants.

Payment Schedule

The retroactive rewards will be distributed to the wallet addresses of all KYC’d contributors, which were collected through the submission form.

Steps to Implement

The executable part of the proposal will require the DAO to approve the transfer of 1,200,000 NEXT tokens to the Community Admins multisig on Polygon: matic: 0xb369f4d4B8b5e33516418dDd877194530812AA71 This multisig has 4 signers (with 3 confirmations required):

• TommyR8
• Grraarrgghh
• Stefan
• Anedi

Once funds are deposited to this multisig, it will need to distribute 972,281.43 tokens (1,200,000 - 75,000 - 152,718.57) to 835 addresses using the Safe CSV Airdrop app. This will not be done via executable proposal but separately as that is a more secure and straightforward solution.

The CSV containing the addresses and the NEXT amounts to be distributed to them can be found in the RFC

Transactions and the tests for the executable part of the proposal (1.2 million NEXT transfer to community admins multisig) are linked here:

• Transaction
• Test

This repository has instructions on how to simulate the associated transactions. Instructions for running the simulations are in the README.

Overall Cost

The proposed budget for retroactively rewarding contributors of the contributor program totals 1,200,000 NEXT.