GIVeconomy Season 3 WG Proposal

karmaticacid · March 22, 2024, 11:55pm

GM! Another day, another WG proposal. This time with GIV!

The GIVeconomy has been in a somewhat dormant “basic sustain” phase for the last several months, but with the crypto bull market whispering sweet nothings in our ears, it’s time to breath some life into this beast!

The GIVeconomy WG is responsible for all things GIV - GIVbacks, GIVpower, GIVstream, GIVgarden - if you can “GIV” it a name, it probably falls within our jurisdiction. We launched the GIV token back in 2021, and since have been making GIVbacks happen on the reg, maintaining GIVpower & the GIVfarms (along with RegenFarms), and many other things, which we’ll get into.

We missed posting for Season 2, so this post will be a recap of Season 1 and the interim proposal-less “Season X”, along with some plans & hopes for the upcoming Season 3.

Past Seasons’ Recap

Season 1 (July-Oct 2023)

In S1, we requested $23,031 to cover contributor costs to complete the following:

Deliverable	Status	Description
Launch GIVbacks & GIVpower on Optimism	DONE!	This was released in 2023
Calculate & distribute GIVbacks & $nice for each round	Ongoing	We are a little behind on distributing GIVbacks, but this has been happening regularly.
Maintain GIVpower staking rewards	Ongoing	They are flowing until April 30, rewards extending proposal coming soon.
Maintain FOX/xDAI RegenFarms & Cult RegenStream	Ongoing	The FOX farm has been archived, but FOXstreams & Cultstreams are still flowing.
User support related to GIVeconomy questions	Ongoing	@WhyldWanderer & @NikolaCreatrix have been holding it down!
Update documentation	Ongoing	Many things were updated e.g. GIVpower instant boost & GIVgarden, but there is still more to do as we keep making changes
Regular GIVbacks are out tweets & emails	Ongoing	Been happening, will keep happening
Social media campaigns on GIVbacks & GIVpower to increase usage	Ongoing	Leveraging QF, we included GIVbacks & GIVpower pushes in our comms for all rounds.
Targeted influencer marketing on referral program	Didn’t happen	We did some outreach to influencers, but never initiated campaigns (changeover of comms leadership). Now the referral program doesn’t work anymore.
Improve emails for projects, showing updates in the email	Didn’t happen	We did migrate our whole email service within the dapp WG, but this issue was never addressed.

This proposal passed on July 17, 2023.

Interim “Season X” Recap

From Oct 2023-March 2024 (now), the GIVeconomy WG has still been active, covering things as they come up, and maintaining regular systems. Because no official proposal was in place, I will simply list notable things that have happened in this period:

Improved GIVpower with “instant boost” so that projects are resorted within 5 min
Did an audit of how users are using GIV incentives & made decisions around adjusting our incentives program this next time.
Maintained GIVbacks recirculation checks, GIVbacks distributions & related comms
Maintained GIVfarm products & features including RegenFarms & GIVpower staking
Started and nearly completed a GIVgarden deprecation (finishing out frontend tasks now)
Began scoping out migrating our GIVbacks process out of Aragon (as it is being deprecated)
Got everything in place to get GIV on LBank, marketing starting soon.
Agreed on a path forward towards separating “GIVbacks eligible” from “verified” & scoped out attestations solution (and then this moved to DApp WG).

Spending

Our only real expense covered in the GIVeconomy WG is contributor salaries, as subscriptions & plans overlap w/ the dApp WG. And GIV needed for incentives, exchange listing, etc. has been and will continue to be requested via separate stand-alone proposals.

Season	Date range	Spending (on Salaries)	Major Milestones
1	July 1 - Oct 1, 2023 (3 mo)	$15,991	Instant Boost, Optimism GIVbacks & GIVpower
X	Oct 1, 2023 - Mar 1, 2024 (5 mo)	$11,848	Extending GIVpower rewards, GIVbacks for ETC, GIVpower incentives audit, GIVgarden migration, getting GIV on exchanges

Reference: GIVeconomy Budget spreadsheet

GIV Token Health

You can see the GIV token on CoinGecko here. Some observations:

GIV token last week was up at highs we hadn’t seen for a year
GIV token is roughly following the same trajectory as ETH, performing actually a little better in the last month
Trading volume on Optimism is much higher than on Gnosis, and both Coin Gecko & CMC are missing the bulk of trading volume

GIV (green) & ETH (blue) 3 mo. Chart - from CoinGecko

GIV (green) & ETH (blue) 1 year chart - from CoinGecko

GIV token Trading Volume on Coin Market Cap

GIV token trading volumne on honeyswap, gnosis chain

GIV token trading volume on Optimism through velodrome

General Observations from Recap

We requested $23,301 in S1 and spent only $15,991, meeting nearly all goals (minus minor comms improvements)
In the 5 months that followed, with no working group proposal, we actually achieved quite a lot of important progress, keeping things afloat & even making improvements, spending only $11,848 or an average of $2370 per month.
We are moving towards a bull market, and should start strategically working with the GIV token to maximize impact. If the GIV token succeeds, we’ll have a lot more budget to play with and can do more across the entire org.
One comparatively expensive bit of work is GIVbacks recirculation checks done by Griff. He has pretty low bandwidth as well, so this becomes kind of a bottleneck for the GIVbacks process, and I don’t think is the most effective use of his specialized skills - we should change this.
GIV token is performing relatively well, but the bulk of its action is being missed by major sites, making our token semi-undiscoverable

Season 3 Deliverables & Budget

4 options are available - GROW, SUSTAIN, SHRINK and NO (WG halts or suspends activity)

Grow

What we will do

Feature Development

Bring the GIVeconomy to other chains/networks as promised by won grants - things we are looking at include Polygon zkEVM, Arbitrum, Mantle, etc.
Create GIVeconomy analytics dashboard(s) to give clear pictures of the state of the GIVeconomy, demonstrating circulating supply, locked GIV, GIV liquidity pools, etc.
Expand GIVpower to include two tiers of projects: “GIVbacks eligible” & “verified”, following the implementation of project attestations
Integrate Connext bridge to create seamless connections between GIV liquidity

Non-dev Feature Development

Plan & strategize how to integrate Gurves w/ QAcc & work being planned w/ Polygon
Improve UX & narrative around GIVpower - create more, comprehensive benefits for top projects
Improve the UX of the GIVeconomy - consolidating pages, adding links to integrated features like Stake Together, etc.
Develop & implement a new system for checking recirculated funds for GIVbacks that doesn’t depend on Griff
Improve our GIVbacks distribution process, migrating away from the soon-to-be-deprecated Aragon DAOs

Token exposure

Fix GIV token listing information & logos on major sites - e.g. show liquidity to CoinGecko, fix token logos on Uniswap & major DEXs
Investigate, create proposals & follow through on approved paths for getting GIV listed on CEXs
Audit GIV token liquidity set up, create strategies to move GIV liquidity around to maximize exposure & use

Comms, Marketing & Community Building

Create & execute on marketing strategy associated with GIV listings on exchanges
Create & execute on a new, simplified marketing strategy for GIV (e.g. leveraging meme coin strategies) to help increase sell pressure
Review & improve GIVeconomy documentation
Integrate Givers NFTs into marketing strategy, creating new discord channel & roles corresponding to QF rounds

Maintenance

Distribute GIVbacks & $nice tokens for each round, and post corresponding comms messaging
Maintain & top-up GIVpower rewards program, integrating feedback from GIV-dumping research
Manage support tickets related to GIVeconomy

Core Metrics

GIV out-perfoms ETH over this 3 month period
Increase GIV token trading volume by 100%
Add GIVeconomy to 1 major chain
Number of GIVeconomy metrics that can be tracked by dashboard: 10
Get GIV listed on 2 CEXs
average 7-day volume on GIV connext bridge: >$50k
Givers NFTs sold: 30

Breakdown	Estimated S3 (3 month) Cost
Development	$22,800
Design	$4,500
PM	$25,500
Comms	$10,000
Total	$62,800

Note: devops and services are covered by dapp wg but still needed for GIVeconomy

Sustain

What we will do

Feature Development

Bring the GIVeconomy to other chains/networks as promised by won grants - things we are looking at include Polygon zkEVM, Arbitrum, Mantle, etc.
Create GIVeconomy analytics dashboard(s) to give clear pictures of the state of the GIVeconomy, demonstrating circulating supply, locked GIV, GIV liquidity pools, etc.
Integrate Connext bridge to create seamless connections between GIV liquidity

Non-dev Feature Development

Plan & strategize how to integrate Gurves w/ QAcc & work being planned w/ Polygon
Develop & implement a new system for checking recirculated funds for GIVbacks that doesn’t depend on Griff
Improve our GIVbacks distribution process, migrating away from the soon-to-be-deprecated Aragon DAOs

Token exposure

Fix GIV token listing information & logos on major sites - e.g. show liquidity to CoinGecko, fix token logos on Uniswap & major DEXs
Investigate, create proposals & follow through on approved paths for getting GIV listed on CEXs
Audit GIV token liquidity set up, create strategies to move GIV liquidity around to maximize exposure & use

Comms, Marketing & Community Building

Create & execute on marketing strategy associated with GIV listings on exchanges
Create & execute on a new, simplified marketing strategy for GIV (e.g. leveraging meme coin strategies) to help increase sell pressure

Maintenance

Distribute GIVbacks & $nice tokens for each round, and post corresponding comms messaging
Maintain & top-up GIVpower rewards program, integrating feedback from GIV-dumping research
Manage support tickets related to GIVeconomy

What we won’t do "

Expand GIVpower to include two tiers of projects: “GIVbacks eligible” & “verified”, following the implementation of project attestations
Improve UX & narrative around GIVpower - create more, comprehensive benefits for top projects
Review & improve GIVeconomy documentation
Integrate Givers NFTs into marketing strategy, creating new discord channel & roles corresponding to QF rounds

Core Metrics

GIV performs as well ETH over this 3 month period
Increase GIV token trading volume by 100%
Add GIVeconomy to 1 major chain
Number of GIVeconomy metrics that can be tracked by dashboard: 10
Get GIV listed on 1 CEXs
average 7-day volume on GIV connext bridge: >$50k

Breakdown	Estimated S3 (3 month) Cost
Development	$17,600
Design	$2,400
PM	$19,600
Comms	$8,400
Total	$48,000

Shrink

What we will do

Feature Development

Bring the GIVeconomy to other chains/networks as promised by won grants - things we are looking at include Polygon zkEVM, Arbitrum, Mantle, etc.

Non-dev Feature Development

Plan & strategize how to integrate Gurves w/ QAcc & work being planned w/ Polygon
Improve our GIVbacks distribution process, migrating away from the soon-to-be-deprecated Aragon DAOs

Token exposure

Fix GIV token listing information & logos on major sites - e.g. show liquidity to CoinGecko, fix token logos on Uniswap & major DEXs
Audit GIV token liquidity set up, create strategies to move GIV liquidity around to maximize exposure & use

Comms, Marketing & Community Building

Create & execute on marketing strategy associated with GIV listings on exchanges

Maintenance

Distribute GIVbacks & $nice tokens for each round, and post corresponding comms messaging
Maintain & top-up GIVpower rewards program, integrating feedback from GIV-dumping research
Manage support tickets related to GIVeconomy

What we won’t do "

Expand GIVpower to include two tiers of projects: “GIVbacks eligible” & “verified”, following the implementation of project attestations
Improve UX & narrative around GIVpower - create more, comprehensive benefits for top projects
Review & improve GIVeconomy documentation
Integrate Givers NFTs into marketing strategy, creating new discord channel & roles corresponding to QF rounds
Create GIVeconomy analytics dashboard(s) to give clear pictures of the state of the GIVeconomy, demonstrating circulating supply, locked GIV, GIV liquidity pools, etc.
Integrate Connext bridge to create seamless connections between GIV liquidity
Improve the UX of the GIVeconomy - consolidating pages, adding links to integrated features like Stake Together, etc.
Develop & implement a new system for checking recirculated funds for GIVbacks that doesn’t depend on Griff
Investigate, create proposals & follow through on approved paths for getting GIV listed on CEXs
Create & execute on a new, simplified marketing strategy for GIV (e.g. leveraging meme coin strategies) to help increase sell pressure

Core Metrics

Increase GIV token trading volume by 50%
Add GIVeconomy to 1 major chain

Breakdown	Estimated S3 (3 month) Cost
Development	$13,900
Design	$1,600
PM	$12,700
Comms	$3,600
Total	$31,800

Next Steps

Conclusions & Final Notes

The GIVeconomy has been in dire need of some TLC, and I think it’s time to kick things up a notch! We are seeing meme coins with no utility with higher market caps If we position GIV & the GIVeconomy well before the big crypto boom, it will bring so much opportunity & much-needed resources to our team, and ultimately enable us to grow more accross all WGs.

This proposal will remain open for advice process for one week (and maybe a few days more) and will move to Snapshot voting with all other WG proposals for final approval from the DAO.

aabugosh · March 26, 2024, 9:34am

I think this is great @karmaticacid, and it’s awesome to see an emphasis on the GIV token.

A few questions I have are:

How come we’re not trying to get more RegenFarms? Isn’t it a good way to get some revenue (for the setup fee), get more users interacting with Giveth and potentially open up the opportunity for token swaps?
Speaking of token swaps, are we planning more of those?
For “Create & execute on a new, simplified marketing strategy for GIV”, I think that needs to expanded on more (although maybe that’s a separate discussion). For example, we could also include some things we can test out like framing GIVbacks more like Airdrops (just in terms of how we market it), and integrate it with bounty / points platforms like Galxe, layer3, zealy etc.

freshelle · March 26, 2024, 1:29pm

This is a great game plan for GIVeconomy @karmaticacid! I’m still sinking in the differences between Grow, Sustain and Shrink. Can you also please add the “what we won’t do ” in Sustain and Shrink? I think this would help us compare the options more easier. Thank you!!

mitch · March 27, 2024, 2:41am

On the topic of CEX listings - each one looks to come with a hefty listing fee.

How will the GIVeconomy deal with those listing fees? Will they have a separate proposal asking to receive the money from the DAO or how should we approach it?

Another point here regarding project attestations and two tiers of GIVpower. Since we won the Optimism Grant, Giveth will be focused on fulfilling those grant requirements within our tight 3 month deadline, after that we will work on implementing the system within Giveth. So you may not need to have the two tiers of GIVpower worked on within this season.

NikolaCreatrix · March 27, 2024, 4:24pm

I really appreciated reading this overview @karmaticacid and all the insights, thanks for the recap!

I love seeing the attention to GIV token coming back, gurves are fun, and so many more things in the proposal. I also think that addressing the system for givbacks recirculation review is so timely.
My favorite version is Sustain in both the GIVeconomy and QF WG proposals as it seems to cover all the important strategic moves and plans and feels somewhat healthier considering that both WGs are very important right now and Lauren as the PM can re-align her focus gracefuly while onboarding more help. And then the next season can be pumped up again!

I like @aabugosh 's question about more RegenFarms, I am curious if it’s deemed as a success in the past? In anyway if I had to choose one or another - gurves are winning, then the rest can follow…

Also I wouldn’t mind seeing some longterm roadmap comparisom to where we are now. But that might be something interesting to think of in the other working groups too.

karmaticacid · March 27, 2024, 7:16pm

Thanks everyone for your comments, I’ll leave some responses here in bulk.

@aabugosh @NikolaCreatrix - If a community reaches out to us and request a RegenFarm (through any contributors or in our discord), I’d be happy to add the implementation work to the scope of the GIVeconomy WG.

I think it’s an interesting idea to do some outreach to communities suspected of creating airdrops in the near term and seeing if they want to add something - it would drive traffic to the dApp & support our existing systems… but tbh the “grow” proposal here and its contents is already more than I think we can probably handle.

We’d need to hire more competent PMs if we want to effectively add more things to scope, and I already feel like Giveth is kind of on the upper limit of demand on our resources - but it’s a valid point and I appreciate the idea.

@aabugosh - In the fundraising WG we are working on grant writing for integrating new chains, and some of these proposals are offering token swaps/shared liquidity as options.

I also have a point about “Audit GIV token liquidity set up, create strategies to move GIV liquidity around to maximize exposure & use” under “Token exposure” in all the proposals which includes this exploration.

We have having meetings already with Denitsa @Griff @OyeAlmond @Stee on the marketing strategy. These are good ideas & we can include them in that effort, also happy to have you participate if you want to be looped in.

@mitch - for budget requests outside of salary payment work scoping, we’ll create additional proposals. So basically - the work required to talk to a CEX, find out how much we’d need to pay, what the opportunity would be for GIV - this would be covered by this WG proposal, as would be the work required to write a proposal requesting more funds. The funds going to the CEX will be separate proposals, not covered here.

This also goes for things like “the amount of GIV we need to keep GIVpower incentives going” - we’ll make a proposal requesting for more GIV outside of this.

Noted. Let’s see how long this takes and what the results on these votes.

@NikolaCreatrix - Not sure what you mean here. I did summarize the work we did since the last seasn & provide some info around GIV’s performance. What else are you wanting to see?

karmaticacid · March 27, 2024, 7:21pm

I added them @freshelle

NikolaCreatrix · March 28, 2024, 1:31pm

Thanks @karmaticacid, responding to your question

I am not suggesting it’s necessarily part of this proposal season, what I’m lowkey suggesting for the future is putting our seasonal plans into a bigger roadmap perspective. We have one, right? Long-term roadmap (5 years +)? Maybe it needs to be audited first. Maybe this type of comparison is done only once a year. I just think it would be interesting and potentially helpful in terms of keeping our focus or at least understanding where different initiatives and goals fit into the bigger roadmap plan. So it would be something like providing stats and recap but also showing where we are on the roadmap regarding our long-term goals and how the short-term plans correlate with it. cc @mitch

This is just an idea on how to make the seasonal proposals even more sophisticated.

MoeNick · March 31, 2024, 12:08pm

Nice post @karmaticacid

I think this is the most important WG in Giveth and for sure $GIV is the sign of capitalizing all the expenditures we made so far. I mean if our diluted cap market raises, it means we have a return of investment on all the features and activities we did on Giveth, if not, we just spent and Griff’s investment did not have any return.

I have some feedback, IMO we need a much higher Comms, and Marketing budget for these core metrics, I can see only a 10K for Grow. AFAIK there are some marketing agencies usually working for meme coins, using influencers, and advertisements and building animations and clips. If we want to raise GIV to $1 again, we should spend more on marketing and our sales channels.

karmaticacid · April 2, 2024, 7:51pm

Great Feedback @MoeNick!! We have discussed in the GIVeconomy & gov calls… that if we want to have a budget for specific initatives… like even for hiring a marketing agency… that goes BeYOND this WG proposal, then we will make another forum post…

But I agree, I think we probably even need a bigger budget to cover marketing even without an agency, Hopefully, we get the “grow”!