Implementing a GIV "claim window" and a GIVbacks "minimum donation amount"

[karmaticacid]

TL;DR

This is a proposal to add a minimum donation amount of 1 USD equivalent for GIVbacks eligibility, and a “claim window” of 9 months (after which, if they user does not claim, the GIV can return to the DAO for redistribution).

Preamble & Justification

At the launch of the GIVeconomy in December of 2021, we allocated 1 million GIV for “GIVbacks” each 2-week period (round) until December 2026. Now that we are about halfway through the program, we are looking at ways to make GIVbacks more long-term sustainable and extend our GIVbacks allocation window into 2027 and beyond.

Upon analysis, we have determined that there is currently >6 million GIV that has been allocated to addresses that have never once claimed from or interacted with the GIV token distro. The GIV token distro allocates GIV to address when they earn rewards through GIVbacks, Praise rewards or vesting.

Some considerations:

• We have been distributing GIV from GIVbacks on Gnosis Chain or OP Mainnet to the addresses that donated to verified projects via any other EVM-compatible chain. We have not made any checks if the donor address was a multisig or contract and if it exists on the GIV distribution chain, so it is possible that some of these allocations will never be claimed.

• While we notify donors about GIVbacks through email, dapp notifications, social media posts, newsletters, and discord announcements, some donors simply are not engaged with the community and perhaps never expected or wanted to receive a reward for their donation.

• As our platform grows we see more and more very small donations from possible airdrop farmers or bots that bog down our GIVbacks review and distribution processes.

Proposal

We are proposing to make 2 universal changes to our GIVbacks program & GIV distributions mechanisms program (that will apply with or without pending changes in GIVbacks V2 - Scaling the way we reward public goods donors), as follows:

1. Implement a GIV “claim window”

In order to rescue GIV allocated addresses that are likely never to claim it, we propose to “claim back” GIV that was allocated to addresses that meet the following two conditions:

1. The address should never have interacted with (/claimed from) the token distro.

2. The most recent allocation of GIV should have been at least 9 months (270 days) from the date of Giveth DAO reclaim (i.e. the address cannot have been allocated any “new” rewards).

2. Implement a 1 USD minimum donation amount for GIVbacks eligibility

In order to reduce overhead on our GIVbacks program and reward true donors, we propose to implement a 1 USD minimum donation value (for a single donation to a single project) in order for that transaction to be included in our GIVbacks distribution calculations.

*Note: If/when we migrate to GIVbacks V2, the minimum donation amount for GIVbacks eligibility will still apply with respect to “raffle” entries".

Signaling

This proposal will be on the forum for at least 5 days for advice process before moving to Snapshot for a vote. In the meantime, we are open to feedback, questions, comments, or signal your preference in the following poll:

• Yes! Implement both the 270 day claim window & $1 USD min donation value
• Implement 270 day claim window ONLY
• Implement $1 USD min donation value for GIVbacks ONLY
• Neither

[mitch]

I am a big fan of implementing the minimum 1 USD, I think it will remove a lot of noise from our GIVbacks calculation and admin overhead of running GIVbacks.

Question though: If I donate for example 5 USDC to a project and select to donate 10% of that to Giveth will I get $5 worth of GIVbacks or only $4.50 worth of GIVbacks? Considering I would donate $4.50 to the project and $0.50 (10% of 5) to Giveth.

Since we consider the donation to Giveth as a separate second donation this amount could be under the 1 USD threshold even though the total amount transacted was over 1 USD.

[mitch]

Secondly, I voted against implementing a claim window. I think it adds unnecessary work and complexity to maintaining the GIVeconomy. GIV allocated to an address through farming rewards or GIVbacks never leaves the TokenDistro unless someone calls claim for the given address.

There are also some users who might have genuinely forgotten about their token rewards from the early days, it might be a nice surprise for re-engaged users to find they already have some unclaimed GIV waiting for them. crypto is kinda crazy so these things can happen!

IMHO I think the GIVeconomy has bigger fish to fry than clawing back GIV allocations from dormant users.

[karmaticacid]

@mitch

Question though: If I donate for example 5 USDC to a project and select to donate 10% of that to Giveth will I get $5 worth of GIVbacks or only $4.50 worth of GIVbacks? Considering I would donate $4.50 to the project and $0.50 (10% of 5) to Giveth.

Good question & good point. I think there are a few solutions we could consider:

1. Make the min $1 USD a “cumulative” donation amount to verified projects in the round… So you qualify even if you make 10 x $0.10 donations in the round.
2. Give GIVbacks for all the donations to giveth project, regardless of the size.
3. Make a more complex solution (but probably not too hard) were we check if the donation was made through the x% check box, and include it as long as the original donation is over $1 USD.

… whatever we do, I think your $0.50 in that example case above should get GIVbacks.

Also I think now, considering he donation minimum in general, we should make the actual minimum $0.90 USD equivalent… and we tell people it’s $1.00, so that people who donate $1 but give a small % to giveth are not penalized.

[karmaticacid]

@mitch

Secondly, I voted against implementing a claim window. I think it adds unnecessary work and complexity to maintaining the GIVeconomy. GIV allocated to an address through farming rewards or GIVbacks never leaves the TokenDistro unless someone calls claim for the given address.

It’s true that the GIV doesn’t leave the Token Distro unless someone claims it, but I think adding a clause to our rewards program isn’t a huge amount of overhead.

I also think that we can limit the work required here by not “claiming back” every time someone is over the claim window, but we can do the work once the unclaimed & allocated GIV amount (that meets the conditions) reaches a significant amount - like now, for example, where there is over 6 million GIV allocated that meets these conditions.

It’s a small change, that we can add to our docs, that allows us to re-access neglected GIV later when we need it, without needing to do this whole gov process again.

[Griff]

I just don’t think $1 makes a meaningful change for us, I would much rather push for $5-$20 so that people donate more in QF rounds.

Also I might add an exception that donations to Giveth and our Matching pool always get GIVbacks?

[karmaticacid]

The vote to determine what minimum USD value should be implemented for GIVbacks eligibility is live on Snapshot. Please vote! Added more context in the body of the vote.

https://snapshot.org/#/giv.eth/proposal/0xd306d86d2c02328c5dc1bd7949cac1cbe49408ec564d9b6645d63b256616348a

[wmb81321]

Based on the findings on the Giveback’s recirculation assessments, I think would be good criteria from $20-$50 or higher

It’s better use an amount which “you can feel your reward” jeje

[mitch]

Well to counter that argument I would ask that we be mindful of relative purchasing power outside of western economies.

$1 or even $5 might not seem like a lot to some people, but be mindful that in other areas of the world $5 might be relative to $20 or more in terms of relative purchasing power.

so having to spend $5 or more on a donation to qualify for GIVbacks might not seem like much to us, it could be a steeper ask from others.

[karmaticacid]

The vote for implementing a “claim window” for inactive GIV allocations is up! Please flex your GIVernance
https://snapshot.org/#/giv.eth/proposal/0x6bb75975839c993db2cddd9254fd18f3fb20624cca00551408e4e9fe3ee0a4f2

[Krrisis]

Heyhey, been a while, interesting to read up on this.

I think a higher amount for a cumulative amount makes a lot of sense.
So eg. only GIVbacks if the total donation is more than $5.

Right now I see that the snapshot vote is for a single donation to a single project, which I definitely can’t support, this is way too high. In an ideal world people would give more, but esp with QF this doesn’t seem too realistic. Or is there currently a high percentage of people giving 5 or 10 dollar per project? Not sure if GIVbacks is enough incentive for people to 10x their donations? I donate because I care, not for the return. The return is just a nice cherry on the cake.

So tl;dr: cumulative would make a lot of sense to me and would vote yes to this, either 5 or 10.

Little sidenote on the process: I see right now $10 is winning simply because you are the ‘whale voter’ here Lauren (with Griff supporting this direction I see in the comments).
Gitcoin is not acting very DAO like at the moment but I do like that we’ve always upheld our logic of needing at least 5 stewards commenting on the forum before anything can go to a vote. Now this seems to be a pretty big impact decision with maybe not a lot of discussion?

Personally just happened to see this because of a chat message, so no blame in any direction, but man… there’s work to be done to increase DAO governance participation… (in all DAOs)

[Krrisis]

I think it makes sense to implement this for any future GIVbacks.
But feels a bit weird to do this ‘after the facts’?

If this was an official defi project I think this vote would be highly contentious, as you are changing the rules after distribution (if I’m reading this correctly). It feels a bit like rolling back the blockchain.

If you do this for upcoming distributions you could just consider the distributed GIV as burnt GIV, in the sense that it will never be used or exchanged, so it will not influence the token price anyway. Reclaiming it and redistributing could actually negatively influence the price (as people will sell it).
Just for consideration, I’m pretty sure my comments are a bit too late anyway, as it’s already live on snapshot.

[karmaticacid]

Hey @Krrisis!

So excited to see you here in the forum, thank you for chiming in!

@Krrisis

I think a higher amount for a cumulative amount makes a lot of sense.

@Krrisis

Right now I see that the snapshot vote is for a single donation to a single project, which I definitely can’t support, this is way too high. In an ideal world people would give more, but esp with QF this doesn’t seem too realistic.

The challenge with making this a cumulative donation the development & process overhead/scope creep, but I do think it’s an interesting idea.

Btw, smaller donations (over $1) will still count as “votes” in QF, they just wouldn’t be eligible for GIVbacks if, for example, this vote passes w/ a $5 minimum.

I hope you cast your vote in Snapshot though, this is great feedback!

@Krrisis

Little sidenote on the process: I see right now $10 is winning simply because you are the ‘whale voter’ here Lauren (with Griff supporting this direction I see in the comments).
Gitcoin is not acting very DAO like at the moment but I do like that we’ve always upheld our logic of needing at least 5 stewards commenting on the forum before anything can go to a vote. Now this seems to be a pretty big impact decision with maybe not a lot of discussion?

Yeah, I’ve been trying to get more opinions in here. We posted to twitter, posted in a discord announcement tagging everyone, and I’ve been DMing it to other contributor “whales” that I know haven’t voted. I think the idea of having at least 5 stewards commenting before things move to a vote is interesting and perhaps we can consider implementing something like that for future votes (i.e. adding it to our advice process requirement, which right now only requires a 5 days from posting to vote setup.)

[karmaticacid]

@Krrisis

If this was an official defi project I think this vote would be highly contentious, as you are changing the rules after distribution (if I’m reading this correctly). It feels a bit like rolling back the blockchain.

If you do this for upcoming distributions you could just consider the distributed GIV as burnt GIV, in the sense that it will never be used or exchanged, so it will not influence the token price anyway. Reclaiming it and redistributing could actually negatively influence the price (as people will sell it).

A few points:

1. I think this can be thought of as similar to implementing a “claim window” on airdrops, which many defi projects do, and Giveth did as well, after-the-fact with the GIVdrop. I think that if this vote passes we can commit to communicating via email, discord & X that it is happening before redirecting the GIV.

2. Since we have been distributing GIVbacks assuming every donor wallet is an EOA, it’s possible that some of the GIV distributed here has been sent to multisig addresses on the wrong chain, so is likely never to be claimed.

3. For “redistributions” we won’t just proportionally allocate this out to existing addresses, but rather, it would be used to extend GIVbacks or praise rewards programs for longer. I think it doesn’t necessarily mean more sell pressure.

@Krrisis

Just for consideration, I’m pretty sure my comments are a bit too late anyway, as it’s already live on snapshot.

Please vote no if you think this shouldn’t pass!

[karmaticacid]

Hey Folks! The minimum donation amount for GIVbacks eligibility snapshot has passed with $5 as the top choice!

EDIT: We will be adding this to our documentation, communicating with our audience & implementing at the start of the next GIVbacks round - Round 72, starting on Sept 17, 2024. Note - donations will need to be at least $5 to be eligible for the “raffle” of GIVbacks V2, but for the proportional GIVbacks (V1), donations of any size wil still be eligible during round 71.

cc @WhyldWanderer @aubree @OyeAlmond

[forestkeeperio]

[karmaticacid]

Hello again! The ‘claim window’ vote has also passed! We will be adding this to our documentation and putting out a tweet before “claiming back” and untouch GIV allocations, but will be implementing this shortly thereafter.

[forestkeeperio]

LEts gooooooo, this is great

[karmaticacid]

Hey folks!

Just a quick update here. We have put out all relevant comms announcing the new minimum threshold & claim window (through X and email newsletters).

We have also made changes to the UI to remind people that they need to donate over $5 to be eligible for GIVbacks.

We have also update the GIVbacks documentation here with information about the minimum threshold and here mentioning the claim window.

This implementation is now complete!