This is an apparent consensus vote, open to ROOK and xROOK token holders.

• Vote 'No objection' if you agree with the proposal.
• Vote 'Object' if you disagree with the proposal. If voting ‘Object’ to the proposal, you are encouraged to voice your reasoning on the Rook Forum. Objections that are backed by a strong argument may potentially hold more weight than a simple objection vote.

Sophon Recommendation

The Sophons reached a consensus of "no objection", with all four recommending in favor of this proposal (one abstained due to unavailability).

Results

KIPs that receive > 50% ‘No Objection’ votes do not automatically pass. On completion of the vote, ‘Object’ votes will be analyzed and discussed by the Rook team and community. If a significant number of objections occur, the vote will either be marked as ‘Failed’ or enter a reconciliation phase. For more information, see the Rook Governance Beigepaper.

Proposal Full Text Links

LINK Forum post LINK Github post of record

Proposal Text

kip: 43
title: q1 and q2 2023 labs budget request
category: budget
author: @DaddyMatty (matt@rook.fi)
status: sophon review
created: 2023-01-30
revised: 2023-02-09 to adjust for updated costs; 2023-03-13 to include Q2
replaces: KIP-34
dependencies: KIP-34

Proposal

Allocate USDC for Rook Labs through June 2023 in accordance with the Official Budget as defined below.

References

1. Rook Labs multisig holdings
2. Rook Treasury multisig holdings
3. KIP-34
4. Q4 Report
5. Labs Ledger
6. KIP-30
7. KIP-36
8. Budget Memo

Background

Summary

This budget outlines current and forecasted needs for various areas of Rook Labs operations for Q1 and Q2 of 2023 (“Budget Period”).

This budget, if approved, will allow for the transfer of $589,725 in USDC from the Rook DAO Treasury (0x9a67F1940164d0318612b497E8e6038f902a00a4) to the Rook Labs multisig (0xa8b0a855BE21568B93f32805b244158Cc61AD006). The funds requested in relation the current assets held by labs [1] are as follows:

Based on the Treasury’s financial position [2], this net funding amount would equate to less than 3% of our stablecoin balance as of March 13, 2022.

Recap/Rationale

In September 2022, Rook Labs requested funding through KIP-34 [3] to support the ongoing operations and development of key Rook processes and infrastructure through December 31, 2022. More specifically, this proposal requested an allocation of 17 ROOK and 560,177 USDC to be transferred from the Treasury wallet to the Labs wallet.

Rook Labs used this budget to make progress on multiple fronts during the budget period, all of which can be found in the Labs Q4 report [4]. Labs also showed strong financial discipline in their spending, using approximately 70% of the budgeted USDC through December 31, 2022.

The “budget-to-actual” tables below provide further detail of this discipline during Q4. “Actual” data presented below and pulled from the Lab’s Ledger [5] are for October 1, 2022 through December 31, 2022. The following schedules present the Labs’ utilization of funding vs. what was allocated by the DAO:

As seen above, all teams ended the quarter with a surplus except for the Engineering team. The deficit for this team can be attributed to the fact that Labs reimbursed various infrastructure expenses paid for personally by the CTO dating back to February 2022. These funds were not originally included in the Q4 budget calculations, but Labs had sufficient surplus funds from elsewhere in the budget to cover the expenses; no additional funds were needed from the DAO Treasury. This deficit was formally announced to the DAO on December 1, 2022 and documented in a Budget Memo [8].

The following schedules present the outflows by function from the Rook Labs’ dedicated multisig:

Term and Total Request

For the first and second quarters of 2023, Labs is budgeting total USDC needs of approximately $695k and 0 ROOK units, respectively; however, because of the disciplined spending in the prior quarter, there is a large surplus of approximately $105k USDC already in the Labs wallet that is expected to offset this funding need by roughly 15 66%. The net funding amount of approximately $590k is expected to fund Labs through June 30, 2023 (“Budget Period”). The schedule below reconciles budget funds to funds remaining from prior funding cycles:

The following schedules present the summary of Q1 and Q2 2023 budgeted costs by both Labs function and cost category:

Budget Detail: Individual Team Allocations

Engineering

The schedule below presents the summary of USDC needs through June 30, 2023 for the Product and Protocol Engineering teams.

• Key Highlights:
  • These teams are expected to continue with the current contractor engineer as well as two other new engineers to assist in our internal product development.
  • Dues and Subscriptions is comprised of various ongoing subscriptions, of which AWS is expected to cost 60,000 USDC and Datadog is expected to cost $30,000.

Growth

The schedule below presents the summary of USDC needs through June 30, 2023 for the Growth team.

• Key Highlights:
  • The majority of budgeted funds (48,625 USDC) for this team are for costs assumed during Rook's presence at ETHDenver. These costs include conference registration fees, sponsorship fees, the cost of the booth, and selective contributor travel expenses.
  • There are $10,000 USDC budgeted for our Growth Team to have a strong presence at the Consensus conference occuring in Q2.
  • There are 24,000 USDC in budgeted funds reserved for part time Growth/Community Specialists to support the DAO’s efforts.

Organization

The schedule below presents the summary of USDC needs through June 30, 2023 for the Organization team.

• Key Highlights:
  • There are $50,000 in costs budgeted to accommodate research, professional fees, and further coordination of compliance based considerations to proactively prepare for the tough regulatory environment faced by the industry.
• All other funds being requested relate to ongoing dues and subscriptions.

Studio

The schedule below presents the summary of USDC needs June 30, 2023 for the Studio team.

• Key Highlights:
  • The majority of the budgeted expenses for this team relate to paying external parties for various marketing and branding initiatives including:
    • Content syndications (partnerships)
    • Speaking opportunity placements
  • The Studio Team is requesting approximately 13,700 USDC to continue the Starbased community content service that has been utilized since Q2 of 2022.
  • The remaining funds will primarily be used to fund various contractors to assist on copywriting, graphic design work, and video/content creation

Treasury

The schedule below presents the summary of USDC needs through June 30, 2023 for the Treasury team.

• Key Highlights:
  • The majority of the budgeted expenses for this team relate to support two existing contractors that have been assisting on recurring Treasury initiatives.
  • Other Expenses include $15,000 USDC in requested funds to support the productization of the stablecoin swap strategy being developed under KIPs 30 and 36 [6, 7]

Leadership

The schedule below presents the summary of USDC needs through June 30, 2023 for Leadership.

• Key Highlights:
  • Other expenses are comprised of a 300,000 USDC discretionary budget. While not strictly defined, these discretionary funds could be leveraged for items such as:
    • Opportunities that require greater levels of confidentiality or speed
    • Team deficits as a result of unforeseen circumstances
    • Legal costs
    • Additional incentives to encourage partnerships

Note: the discretionary budget from the previous quarter was leveraged to pay for AWS bills that had been incurred personally by our CTO dating back to April 2022.

Implementation

Multisig Implementation

This budget, if approved, will allow for the transfer of requested funds from the Rook DAO Treasury (0x9a67F1940164d0318612b497E8e6038f902a00a4) to the Rook Labs multisig (0xa8b0a855BE21568B93f32805b244158Cc61AD006). The current signers of the Rook DAO Labs multisig are:

• @WhatsTheDeetz
• @Pai-Sho
• @JZ
• @Hazard
• @Tommy

Excess ROOK and USDC Rollover

The budget above represents in all cases an upper bound. It isn’t required that Labs spend all of it, and we do not seek to. If excess ROOK or USDC exists at the end of the budget period, it will carry over into the subsequent budget period unless superceded by another KIP.

Specification

1. Transfer 589,725 USDC from the Rook DAO Treasury (0x9a67F1940164d0318612b497E8e6038f902a00a4) to the Rook Labs multi-sig (0xa8b0a855BE21568B93f32805b244158Cc61AD006).
2. As appropriate, provide funding from the Rook Labs multi-sig (0xa8b0a855BE21568B93f32805b244158Cc61AD006) to meet the needs outlined above during the budget period.
3. Ensure proper recordkeeping to provide for ongoing review of any transactions by the DAO on the public Labs Ledger [5].
4. Continue to provide detailed quarterly reporting to the DAO on expenses and revenues.