Vote 020: Fund Groda Product Pod

Summary

This proposes to fund the Groda Product Pod. Proposal was raised by SAS on the forum 6 days ago for discussion. No objections have been raised.

Mandate

As Gro DAO further decentralises, I propose forming the Groda Product Pod to:

• Extend functionality of Gro's yield and risk tranching protocol including launching the new version named G^2

• Create new products that facilitate the DAO's mission to empower people to get more from DeFi. E.g. onramp comparator that is currently in testing.

• Maintain and operate existing smart contracts

• Ensure the safety and correctness of product design and implementation

This would lay the foundation to recruiting and retaining engineers, product manager(s), and product designer(s) to work for Gro protocol and other products that aim to advance the DAO's mission.

As security is crucial to any web3 products, smart contract audits would also be under the Groda Product Pod's purview in addition to design & development work.

Composition

Following the framework suggested in this post, the Groda Product Pod will include individual and entity contributors alike who participate in engineering, product design, and product management. It would include existing contributors who work on a full-time basis. The pod could also expand to those who contribute on a part-time or bounty basis once Gro's Github is open.

9 existing contributors would form the initial Groda Product Pod:

• Bin (backend & smart contracts)
• Haywired (design)
• Jimemart (frontend)
• Kat (smart contract)
• Lily (backend)
• SAS (product)
• Wei (backend)
• Wint3rmute (data)
• Wojak (data & analytics)

I would also propose myself (SAS) as the Groda Product Pod's facilitator. My current role as Product Lead has offered me a broad end-to-end view of user research and protocol development. This has positioned me well in facilitating day-to-day decision making in developing the protocol and adjacent products. Before Gro, I was an engineer and then a product leader in web3, FinTech and InsurTech for more than 7 years.

Budget

For the next 6 months, I propose a budget of 610,000 USDC that will be transferred to the Groda Product Pod operational wallet if approved.

For check and balance, the operational wallet will be a 3-out-of-5 multi-sig with 2 full-time contributors in the Groda Product Pod and 3 contributors in the People Pod as signers. To facilitate day-to-day operating expense payment, the 2 full-time Groda Product Pod contributors will be designated as beneficiaries to a spending limit on Gnosis Safe. The spending limit is defined as all budget to be sent to operational multi-sig listed below excluding the full-time contributor cost. The full-time contributor cost will require at least 1 signer from the People Pod for payment -- it should by default be paid out unless the pod acts maliciously, goes missing, or otherwise goes off-path.

Its address and signers will be published once set up for transparency.

• 8.3 full-time contributors: 486,000 USDC over 6 months

• This covers the contributors named above and includes the facilitator compensation

• This will supersede what was approved in Vote 12

• Bounty or part-time contributors: 112,000 USDC over 6 months

• Service provider spend (e.g., Infura, Alchemy): 12,000 USDC over 6 months

I also propose to transfer the following operating expense to the Groda Product Pod's management if this vote is approved.

• 8 WETH per month (smart contract gas spend) approved in Vote 11

• Harvesting is implemented through Gelato. Currently it is topped up as needed through requests made directly to the DAO treasury.

• For ease of implementation, I suggest transferring the USDC amount equivalent of the approved budget for ETH to the Groda Pod operational wallet in one go, so that the DAO treasury does not need to convene monthly to acquire ETH

• Based on ETH price at $1300 i.e. (1300 USDC *8)*6 months = 62,400 USDC

• The sum of 62,400 USDC will be transferred to the Groda Product Pod operational wallet if the vote is approved. As these are earmarked for volatile assets, any excess amount should be returned to the DAO treasury; in case of a shortfall, the DAO treasury would also have a mandate to transfer the outstanding amount to the Operational Wallet without a further vote.

Given the above figures, the spending limit under the 2 Groda Product Pod signers' complete discretion would be (112,000 + 12,000 + 62,400) = 186,400 USDC.

Actual spend will be reconciled with the budget at the end of the 6-month period i.e. end of March 2023. Any unspent budget will be returned to the DAO treasury after the reconciliation.

Additionally, there are other approved budgets that are closely related to the proposed Groda Product Pod mandate. I propose these to remain under the DAO treasury for direct payout under the direction of Groda Product Pod.

• $1mn Immunefi bounty approved in Vote 3 (ongoing)

• $320k audit expenses approved in Vote 3 (audit has been completed; this should be paid out within the next few weeks)

Reporting

Groda Product Pod will update the DAO on its progress regularly through the community channels such as Community Forum, Discord, and Telegram.

In addition, there will be a quarterly report to summarise progress achieved and high-level plans for the next 3 months on the Community Forum. The second quarterly progress report will coincide with the 6-monthly budget report outlining actual spend and proposing budget for the next 6 months.

Voting process

FOR: Approve the budget requested by Groda Product Pod

AGAINST: Do not approve the budget requested by Groda Product Pod

ABSTAIN: No opinion on approving this budget

Next steps

This vote will run for 5 days on a simple majority basis.