RIP-18: Treasury Allocation Q1 2024

SUMMARY: This proposal will seek to create a breakdown to deploy ResearchHub Foundation Community treasury funds responsibly for high-priority items for the Q1 2024 timeframe (January 1st 2024- March 31st 2024). In order to prevent congestion by posting numerous proposals, improve the pace of execution and remain flexible with our strategies, we propose to allow the community leaders to deploy funds in a responsible manner that adheres to the percentages outlined below.

MOTIVATION: The Q1 2024 budget will primarily focus on supporting open source developers (namely focused on development of a reputation system), the current core members, increasing inbound contributors, and deepening liquidity.

PROPOSAL: We propose to have the following high level breakdown of assets in the treasury with a budget of 2.5 million RSC for Q1 2024 as well as any earned ETH/USDC through the quarter. Of particular note is the adjustment from RSC based payments to contributors to RSC pegged to USD. All percentages/amounts are the maximum percent that can be allocated for that category unless voted on otherwise:

RSC Breakdown

• 20% (500K RSC) - community leads bounties - (maximum for Q1) for Community Leads monthly compensation. This includes operations, governance, coordinating partnerships, coordinating contributors, moderation, marketing & events, growth and overall organization.
• 20% (500K RSC) general contributors (maximum for Q1) - This can include events/actions such as payment to guest speakers, legal expenses, open source developers, Youtube and social media content creation, journal clubs, online or in-person conferences, webinars or other community engagement.
• 60% (1.5M RSC) Liquidity (maximum for Q1) - This will include any methods for bootstrapping or adding liquidity to RSC

ETH/USDC Breakdown

Ability to claim any fees earned from Uniswap at any time. With the ability to convert ETH to USDC, and vice versa in order to accommodate the needs of salaries, cost of tools and services.

• Up to $10,000 (in ETH or USDC) per month to cover a part of core contributor salaries.
• Additionally, up to $5,000 (in ETH or USDC) per month to cover any legal expenses.
• Up to an equivalent amount of ETH can be used to match the appropriate RSC earmarked for liquidity.

ACTION: For the Q1 2024 timeframe, we will deploy treasury assets in a flexible manner that adheres to the above percentages. A new treasury allocation proposal will be submitted each quarter to reflect the intentions for deploying funds for that period of time. All leftover funds from previous and current budget proposals will be earmarked as “reserves” and will remain in the community treasury going forward. These reserves can be used to cover any costs for future projects/expenses contingent on approval from a governance vote.