[DRC] dYdX Ecosystem Development Program -- Funding Allocation Proposal

Proposals
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Summary

  • The dYdX Ecosystem Development Program (“DEP”) has another 14 months left on its existing term and only about $4M remaining in available funding. Given the pace of grant distributions and development on the dYdX Chain, there is likely insufficient funding for the DEP to finish its term.
  • The Treasury subDAO, under its current mandate, can make discretionary distributions to fund operational expenses across the dYdX ecosystem. We are requesting a $4M contribution from the Treasury subDAO to fund the DEP for the remaining 14 months of our current term. The funding will be reserved as eventually payable to the DEP, and delivered within reasonable timing depending on DEP’s runway, allowing the DEP to forecast its budget capabilities and continue paying contributors. The Treasury subDAO meanwhile can continue using undeployed capital as intended.
  • Instead of requesting DYDX from the Community Treasury, an allocation from the Treasury subDAO will transition the DEP to a more sustainable funding model, allowing the protocol to redistribute revenue towards scaling and maintaining itself through the DEP.

Background

The dYdX Ecosystem Development Program (DEP) (formerly known as the dYdX Grants Program) was launched in January 2022 with a mission to grow the dYdX protocol through partnerships, growth initiatives, and community contributions. We use grants funding to onboard new contributors, partner with professional providers, and grow the ecosystem. These grants are disbursed with the goal of maximizing positive impact on the dYdX protocol in whatever way possible.

Now completing its third year of contributions, the DEP has approved over 200 grants to more than 150 unique grantees with over $13M in funding. Grants have been funded across a wide range of categories, including core chain development (e.g. market mapper, CCTP bridging), protocol infrastructure (e.g. Mintscan support, indexer), growth initiatives (e.g. launch incentives, affiliate program), research and development (e.g. MEV solutions, LP vaults), and community engagement (e.g. local events, tooling).

For more information on the program’s design, structure, and contributors, please refer back to our most recent proposal completed in March of this year, and our website. That proposal approved the DEP for an additional 24 month term with a budget of $12M DYDX, which is set to expire in March 2026. We are now ten months into this term.

This current term has been our busiest one yet. We’ve approved 65 grants with over $7M in funding, averaging 6 grants and just under $700k per month. Roughly 50% of the funding distributions in our three years of operations have come from these past ten months. The transition to and growth of the dYdX Chain have radically changed the opportunities available to contributors and the scale at which we can help the protocol grow.

Below, we’d like to highlight some of our most impactful projects funded this term. We think these grants highlight the scale and breadth of our contributions to the dYdX Chain. A full list of all our approved grants, including previous terms, can be found here.

Grants Funded

  • The Skip team integrated their ABCI++ oracle, Skip:Connect, to the dYdX Chain. The addition of Skip:Connect’s sidecar oracle solution, leveraging vote extensions, has improved both stability and speed of price updates for the chain. This integration also introduced the Market Map, a custom solution for listing and updating markets on dYdX. This solution will allow the protocol to exponentially scale market listings, allowing users to launch hundreds of markets. Ultimately, we expect this feature will attract more volume and onboard new users looking for new markets to trade.

  • Skip:Connect also expanded the price feeds available for launching new markets, including decentralized exchanges on protocols like Solana and Base. Partnering with a group of dYdX validators and Helius, the dYdX Chain now supports markets from these protocols. Our hope is to add as many price feeds as possible, allowing dYdX users to trade perpetuals on any token they want. Again, the goal is to attract more volume and new users wanting to trade new perpetual markets.

  • MegaVault was launched in November, a feature that enables users to deposit USDC to provide liquidity to markets and receive yield in return. We recruited Greave, an affiliate of Gauntlet, to onboard as the operator, responsible for allocating liquidity and maintaining the trading parameters to maximize yield and reduce risk. MegaVault will add liquidity and reduce trading spreads across all active dYdX markets, improving the trading experience for users. It also offers dYdX users an additional yield-bearing product, adding to the protocol’s stickiness for users and deposits.

  • dYdX Unlimited has also added functionality for affiliates to earn trading fees generated by their referrals, a popular mechanism among exchanges to incentivize promotion and improve user onboarding. Kuyen Labs joins dYdX to build custom frontends, directly integrated into the primary frontend, and launch a VIP program with the goal of targeting high-impact KOLs and partnering institutions.

  • Before market specific vaults and MegaVault were released, we experimented with DMM agreements with Raven and Velar Technologies. Both provided liquidity and improved spreads on long-tail dYdX markets through dedicated market making services. These engagements helped support the launch of new markets, including popular memecoins like MOTHER, laying the foundation for the future growth of vaults and MegaVault. Eventually, the DEP transitioned to providing liquidity directly via LP vaults, with over $1.5M deployed to support the launch of new markets and improve liquidity across the protocol.

  • We partnered with Blockaid to implement real-time detection and signature blocking of malicious applications, providing an additional layer of security to dYdX users. Blockaid was the first to detect a compromise with dYdX v3 and worked with the team to help resolve it.

  • With the migration from Ethereum to dYdX Chain, trading venues and centralized services were slow to implement DYDX. We engaged popular centralized exchanges, including Binance, Bitget, and Kucoin, to incentivize the migration. By adopting DYDX, we aim to grow adoption of the dYdX Chain and improve the onboarding experience for new users.

  • Nethermind developed full-feature trading clients in Python and Rust, two popular languages among programmatic traders, with in-depth code examples and sample bot implementations. Our goal is to make trader onboarding as smooth as possible, allowing market makers and retail users alike to trade programmatically.

  • The dYdX frontend initially supported only a limited number of browser-based wallets, with a focus on Ethereum-based users. To help scale adoption and improve onboarding for non-Ethereum users, we recruited both Keplr and Phantom to add support for their wallets on the exchange. Our goal is to make dYdX the destination exchange for users on every ecosystem.

  • Originally adopted at the launch of the dYdX Chain, Chaos Labs has returned for another two iterations of trading incentives - the original extension approved in April included a $10 million budget and with the launch of dYdX Unlimited Chaos launched a revised program to maximize growth and liquidity on dYdX Chain.

  • Newmetric has deployed a custom, highly specialized full node with the goal of improving trade execution for programmatic traders. Today, users depend on efficient peering routes with validators to optimize order gossiping and eventual execution. Through this grant, we provide dedicated access to a high performance RPC endpoint with direct peering to the majority of validators, improving trading capabilities and the overall network performance.

Looking ahead, we are targeting new areas of growth and improvement for the protocol. These are high level themes that will guide our thinking about what to fund and which contributors to partner with. Admittedly, it’s hard to project forward with a lot of specifics. The protocol’s needs change frequently, and quickly. In this term, a few of our largest grants (e.g. Market Map, MegaVault Operator) came suddenly based on protocol developments. It’s our role to work quickly to get these initiatives across the finish line. Below, we explore a few of the themes we’ll be focusing on in the coming months:

Expanding access to dYdX
As a standalone app-chain, the dYdX Chain is technically siloed from other ecosystems, and more importantly non-dYdX users. Users need to bridge assets to the dYdX Chain, typically using a third-party bridge, before they can start trading. This experience can sometimes be a bottleneck for user onboarding. Instead, we’re exploring opportunities to abstract away that entire experience, allowing users to interact with dYdX directly without thinking about the chain itself.

Grants in this category may include:

  • Integrating dYdX into existing platforms and products (e.g. wallets, exchanges)
  • Abstracting the bridging experience (e.g. direct deposit to dYdX contracts)
  • Improving access to MegaVault (e.g. integrating MegaVault to existing frontends)

Redirecting flow to dYdX
The new affiliate system enables order flow originators, such as aggregators and wallets, to earn fees from referred accounts. This creates opportunities for partnerships with leading platforms that drive trading flow to dYdX. One-time grants can incentivize protocol onboarding, encouraging platforms to prioritize dYdX, while the affiliate fee-sharing model ensures sustained incentives.

Grants in this category may include:

  • Protocol integration with leading aggregators, including fee-sharing
  • Additional affiliate-based incentive programs to attract more KOLs and user onboarding

Improving the trading experience
Ultimately, what matters most is that users love trading on dYdX. Throughout this term, we’ve funded grants that improve market liquidity, trading execution, programmatic access, and tooling for traders. Our goal is to make dYdX the best place to trade, and we’ll continue funding grants that make this goal possible.

Grants in this category may include:

  • Improvements to protocol infrastructure and services that impact trading UX
  • More tooling and programmatic interfaces for interacting with dYdX

Funding Allocation

Our initial budget request of $12M, approved in March of this year, may not have been sufficient to support the growth and development of the dYdX Chain. Frankly, we didn’t anticipate the scale at which contributors would be able to participate in the dYdX Chain. We also had large initiatives emerge throughout the term, including the Market Mapper, MegaVault, and the Affiliate program, all of which are being led by contributors funded through grants.

As of today, the DEP has roughly $4M available to fund new grants. In the past, we have typically waited until the end of our term to renew the program with additional funding. In fact, we’ve often been able to renew the program without any new contributions from the Community Treasury by repurposing our remaining budget. However, we now face a new challenge: our current funding is not sufficient to complete the term. The average monthly distribution over the last nine months was just under $700,000. This accounts for big changes to the protocol, including the Market Mapper and MegaVault. We now estimate that a budget of $500,000 per month going forward would be enough to continue funding critical projects and attract top-tier talent. With the $4M available, we have just over $285,000 per month to spend over the next 14 months. As such, we will likely need additional funding if we hope to maintain our current level of support for dYdX.

The Treasury subDAO is earning USDC through both DYDX staking yield and a protocol revenue share. Assuming the DYDX staking APR remains above 6% and trading fees remain at about $50M per year or more, we anticipate that the Treasury subDAO will earn at least $8M annually, if not more. Rather than requesting DYDX from the Community Treasury, we are requesting $4M of funding from the Treasury subDAO’s capital to support the DEP’s budget for the remainder of the current term.

The purpose of this allocation is for the Treasury subDAO to earmark these funds such that the DEP can confidently budget its future distributions. An allocation of $4M, with the existing $4M on hand, would help us meet our target budget of $500,000 per month. Since most grants are not paid out until completion, the DEP doesn’t need access to the funds immediately, we just need to know our funding budget to approve them. The Treasury subDAO can maintain full ownership and control over all of their funds and deploy them as intended. Throughout the term, we expect to make requests for capital contributions to the Treasury subDAO based on our payment obligations, up to a maximum aggregate amount of $4M until the end of the current DEP term. The requests will be shared with the community through forum posts that outline our spending, existing budget, and upcoming approvals or initiatives that warrant additional capital. The amount requested will be based on our needs to compensate contributors within a given time frame, such that any unused capital can remain with the Treasury subDAO. We plan to provide the Treasury subDAO with sufficient notice for funding requests, so they have enough time to ensure enough liquidity should they want to make a capital contribution to the DEP.

This approach introduces a more sustainable funding model for ecosystem growth, while also improving capital efficiency. The protocol effectively sustains its own maintenance, development, and growth by reinvesting revenue through the DEP, all without draining the Community Treasury. Meanwhile, the Treasury SubDAO’s USDC remains available for other use deemed appropriate by the Treasury subDAO, subject only to the eventual timely delivery in the event of DEP’s funding requests.

We acknowledge that this is an experimental approach and will likely require adjustments over time. Still, we feel it’s important to take steps towards transitioning the DEP to a more sustainable funding model that allows the protocol to grow without depleting the Community Treasury.

Trust Changes

Additionally, we would like to use this proposal to ratify changes to the set of Trustees serving the dYdX Grants Trust. As a reminder, the DEP was established as a Guernsey Purpose Trust, with five Trustees and one Enforcer serving on behalf of the community. The Trust currently consists of the following members:

Trustees
Felix Lutsch
Bora Nam
Colin Chan
Abra Tusz
Wintermute Trading

Enforcer
Cliffton Lee

We propose making the following changes to the Trust:

Remove
Abra Tusz as Trustee
Felix Lutsch as Trustee

Add
Lemma Solutions as Trustee
Polkachu as Trustee

Felix and Abra have asked to step down from their roles as Trustees given new roles and priorities that are limiting their capacity. We are grateful for their contributions and support to the program.

Lemma Solutions currently serves as Operator for the DEP, a role that involves managing payments and reconciliation. However, we have found the role’s efficiency to be constrained by the lack of signing authority on the multisig. We believe that the Operator role should also be a Trustee, such that they have limited authority over the multisig, including payment uploads and execution. Given their involvement in the DEP, Lemma is now experienced in the other responsibilities of the Trustees, including new grant approvals. Their broader experience with DAOs and protocols lends itself well to these responsibilities. This improvement to our workflow coincides with Abra opting to step down due to conflicting priorities.

Polkachu, an active dYdX validator and protocol contributor, has experience serving in similar roles across other grants programs. In our experience, Polkachu is among the most diligent and responsive contributors, with tremendous knowledge of protocol infrastructure. This experience will be an enormous asset to the DEP. Polkachu will abstain from any potentially conflicting decisions, like funding grants that may impact the validator set.

Proposal

We propose that the dYdX community supports having the Treasury subDAO allocate up to $4M of their own funds to funding the dYdX Ecosystem Development Program during the next 14 months (the remainder of the DEP’s current 24-month term), expiring in March 2026. Additionally, we propose removing Abra Tusz and Felix Lutsch as Trustees on the dYdX Grants Trust, and appointing Lemma Solutions and Polkachu as new Trustees to replace them.

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I’ve always been curious about why, in a project that claims transparency and decentralization, all the trustees and almost all grantors have some conflicts of interest.

Why do trustees combine roles in the grant program with work in major grant recipients? I’m not saying they necessarily exploit these conflicts of interest, but still.
Why is Polkachu a trustee if they receive grants from the program and a large portion of the grants are directed towards something with the Validator set?

Why does an operator become a trustee? What is the operator even reconciling there? On average, you have one multisig transaction per month. What competencies do they have regarding what the project needs?

Are there not enough competent people? Why create such a structure that fundamentally lacks decentralization and is all initially within an inner cycle?

Such a structure will never produce anything groundbreaking. Brilliant ideas are born from discussions and debates, and this kind of staffing policy is comparable to forming governments in banana republics.

Everyone is in an ultimate comfort zone. It’s time to wake up and realize that dydx has lost its leadership position.
The community aspect of the program has completely failed, and the forum is dead.

Before requesting additional funding, I would like to see a detailed report on the outcomes of the grants—what worked, what didn’t. What does the program want to fund in the future, and so on. Otherwise, it’s an ultimately complimentary report, but dydx’s market share has shrunk significantly.

I don’t even want to comment on some of the grants, where someone was getting 6k a month for a Korean Telegram group with 50 people. And your community grantor didn’t express any desire to provide the results of that grant. DMM was presented as a success in the report, but the cost-to-results ratio is rock bottom.

You’re free to ignore my post, as you usually do, but then don’t be surprised when you have to beg questionable KOLs to attract users for huge sums of money, while half of crypto Twitter adds .HL to their nicknames for free.

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The Treasury SubDAO acknowledges the importance of the dYdX Ecosystem Development Program (DEP) funding proposal and appreciates the DEP’s contributions to the growth and innovation of the dYdX ecosystem. We will take the vote results into strong consideration when making our decision.

As the Treasury SubDAO, we remain committed to fostering collaboration with other subDAOs to achieve the shared goals of dYdX. We believe that working together will ensure the long-term success and sustainability of the protocol. However, we are also in the process of building a runway and portfolio to provide crucial support to dYdX during market downturns and ensure long-term financial sustainability.

The yield generated on the staking program is intended to financially support the dYdX ecosystem, aligning with our collective vision for its continued development and growth. To achieve both financial sustainability and ecosystem growth, we should find the right balance on how to best leverage these funds. Given the current trajectory, the DEP’s ask seems reasonable. Should market conditions drastically change, further considerations might be required.

We look forward to engaging with the community and other subDAOs to optimize resource allocation and drive dYdX’s success.

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It’s a great idea to leverage the Treasury subDAO’s in protocol revenue to fund DEP, as it makes the entire process more sustainable. As a community signer for the Treasury subDAO, I find it great to see such initiatives to redistribute a portion of the revenue to support and maintain DEP.

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I think there’s no doubt that DEP funding should be done through a Treasury subDAO. It’s simply an investment, and to understand its feasibility, a thorough evaluation of past work results should be conducted.
During the vote to extend DEP for two years, there was also a wish for funding community-oriented grants to develop our community and attract retail users.
From my perspective, can assess the community part of the grants as an absolute failure. Dydx Champions hasn’t funded anyone (by the way, I applied for a grant under this initiative—a month of pointless emails that led nowhere), and I’ve already mentioned the Korean Grant Manager in the post above.
There are no successes in this part at all. It’s time to decide whether this direction should be reformed or closed entirely.

After I saw the proposal for new trustees, I realized that absolutely no one from the inside is going to ask any questions about where the program is heading, and all people are chosen solely based on loyalty, not competence.

So, I believe this moment is very fitting to discuss all issues related to the program.

The only real competitive advantage dydx has is decentralization and transparency, at least on paper. We either bet on this or just keep pretending everything’s fine, while the “dumb market” somehow chooses the competitors.

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I want to publicly share my decision earlier this year to step down from the lead trustee position. I took on this position to participate in a decentrally governed funding process of a leading DeFi project that just transitioned to a new infrastructure stack and ecosystem that I am deeply familiar with.

Following a new full-time commitment I realized I am not the right fit for this work any longer and am grateful to the new trustees that will step in my place. I am grateful for the trust placed in me and for the chance to work alongside Reverie and the rest of the DEP team and playing a part in the funding of both core as well as community initiatives.

Best,
Felix

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Hey Rv,

Appreciate your thoughts. I’ll try to address your points in a few bullets below:

  • Trustees are chosen for their expertise, dependability, and commitment to dYdX. Polkachu and Lemma offer valuable insights and have proven to be highly reliable contributors. Polkachu is an expert in protocol infrastructure, while Lemma brings cross-ecosystem experience and operational expertise. Yes, Polkachu was one of multiple validators selected to help with node services. That shouldn’t impact their ability to help with new opportunities through expert insights, while abstaining from potential conflicts.

  • The program is now shaped by a diverse set of Trustees. Bora brings deep Cosmos experience, Colin offers perspective as a community contributor, Wintermute is a leading market maker, Polkachu is a top infrastructure provider, and Lemma brings DAO/operational experience. Funding decisions are guided by their unique experiences and insights across all areas of the dYdX protocol.

  • I’ve been active on the forum for over three years now. In my opinion the past few months have been the most active and exciting times for dYdX. Always more to be done of course, but I wouldn’t be so quick to say it’s dead.

  • Keep in mind we are not even halfway through our term and most of our grants are long term projects that take time to play out. We shared updates on a few of them above, and we’ll continue to update the community through our community reports.

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To make a reasonable and well-informed decision, we believe the post currently lacks sufficient accouting data to justify the request for an additional $4M for the DEP. We encourage the author to provide detailed context explaining this need, particularly given the rapid decline in holdings following the already debated $16M budget. A full breakdown of current expenditures as well as the pending application trends to justify expanding the program with an additional 25% increase. Providing accounting details is necessary for transparency and accountability. This information is crucial to evaluate whether these additional funds will be effectively utilized and to shape our stance on this proposal.

We invite the DEP to review this proposal and add more financial substance to it, this will allow community members and validators’ representatives like us to strike a decision.

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Hey, Carl,
Regarding the opinion that the forum is dead, that’s quite subjective. Almost all discussions and proposals haven’t led to any changes, including the rewards program and all suggestions from Nethermind. The forum has completely ceased to be a place that influences the direction of protocol development.

Next, could you clarify what’s going on with the community part of the grant program in your response? Initially, there were two grantors, and then it seems like @RoboMcGobo started helping Reverie. However, he’s also the lead grantor in Osmosis and works at Stride. How much time does he actually dedicate to dydx—15 hours a week at best? Let’s list some achievements from the community side during the program.

I totally agree with @Govmos on wishing for some financial transparency and progress reports on the grants. The size of some grants raises eyebrows. For instance, $200k for the frontend of an affiliate program (where the developer can’t correctly calculate the volume brought in by affiliates) and $300k for managing the VIP program seems questionable to me. I mentioned the Korean grant manager above. Perhaps @mgg could comment on this grant.

I don’t want to get into any nitpicking here—I’m not an audit expert on this program—but we do need some sort of reporting to assess the feasibility of further investments.
Maybe bringing in an external auditor (not me, of course :slight_smile: ) would be a good idea, considering the grant program costs the treasury a significant amount of money.

I think it should be relatively easy for you to do the reporting since you have an operator handling some “reconciliations”.

Among the trustees, it’d be great to see fewer Cosmos-oriented folks and more individuals focused on end users. It’s almost always the same people here and in Osmosis, all with conflicts of interest that hinder the work.

I get the benefits of working with a small, tight-knit group—better communication, faster decision-making—but we should really take a look at the token price and dydx market share from the beginning of the last phase of the program compared to now. It might point to the fact that we’re heading in the wrong direction.

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Hey RV! Thanks for the questions and comments here regarding my role in the program. Happy to clarify this a bit:

As outlined in the DEP renewal proposal last March. I’ve transitioned somewhat out of the community grantor role and am now supporting on the strategic grants aspect of things. Although I do continue to act as the primary touchpoint for community grants which I handled in the previous iteration of the program, resolving questions and handling renewals for these grants (some recent examples of this include the validator tools and dutch-speaking content and marketing renewals with Silk Nodes and Crypto Insiders)

It’s true that I am involved in other ecosystems, but imo this has acted more as a benefit to dYdX than a hinderance. As an example, we’ve been able to bring folks over from those ecosystems to participate in dYdX committees (like the MEV committee) that we probably would not have otherwise known about but for my involvement with those ecosystems. As you mentioned, having fresh faces involved in dYdX is important, and it can be helpful to have people with a diverse range of experiences on board to help onboard new contributors.

That’s just a small example of course, but thought it might be helpful context!

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Hello @RealVovochka and dYdX forum:

Happy to share updates specifically around the Korean community grant to answer your question!

We have found independent and highly skilled community managers to be a really powerful contributor to regional growth for the protocol in numerous factors. These include: local (language and cultural) knowledge, business development and community building background, strong network already in the region, ability to appeal to traders and larger partners (institutions, startups). Because each geographic region is different, the approach and outcome is different for each initiative.

In this way, the local community manager acts as a leader for the protocol on the ground, and is able to test out new ideas for community building, gather information about the market, and build unique partnerships. There is an experimental twist to this role, but not without oversight and fast pivots away from what doesn’t work.

Some highlights from Korean partnership:

  • Brought dYdX in touch with many listing teams in Korea who want to support the protocol such as Coinone, Bithumb, and UpBit
  • Maintained and grew Telegram community (Telegram: Contact @dYdX_Korea)
  • Korean community calls and AMAs
  • Liaison with local CEXs
  • Presence at Korea’s main blockchain conference
  • Also provided: market research and mainstream media coverage

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I hope this clarifies the purpose and results of the partnership.

Thank you

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Thank you for your answers
Let’s break it down:

  1. It’s completely unverifiable; dydx foundation has a BD lead for the Southeast Asian market. @Hisashi
  2. A group with 400 people averaging 20-40 views per post. Unacceptable for such a hot crypto market as Korea. Since the renewal of the Korean Manager in September, there have been 2 (two) messages from chat participants, excluding translations of official social media posts into Korean by the Admin.
  3. The AMA with James and Provalidor was on May 29 in the Telegram group, where one question was asked by someone other than the group admin.
  4. Liaison with local CEXs—see point 1, duplication of roles, and completely unverifiable.
  5. The QuantStartCon you mentioned in the photo happened on May 11.
  6. The Korean manager was absent from the Korean channel on Discord.
  7. “Market research” unverifiable. Market research on the Korean market is publicly available from professional organizations that specialize in this type of analysis.
  8. Attending crypto conferences in Korea should have been carried out and funded under the Dydx Champions program, which, as I understand it, has completely failed.

My conclusions on this grant: The initial experiment at 3k a month might have made sense, but after this experiment didn’t yield significant results in terms of publicly verifiable information, extending it to 6k a month is an absolutely pointless waste of resources.

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Then why wasn’t it done? It seems like now would have been a perfect time to do it.

Firstly, I don’t understand the rush with this proposal. DEP still has enough funds to operate for a few more months, so why put the proposal to a vote after just 5 days of preliminary discussion without answering all the questions?

If even in such an obvious situation as this vote, @polkachu couldn’t find the abstain button and let their stakers decide, you’d have to be extremely naive to believe that Polkachu will avoid conflicts of interest in the future.

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Thank you for your suggestions.

The recent swift support by ACX International on Discord, the successful detonation of Megavault (in progress) and the positive return of the accountability cycle in this forum.
I feel these are good signs that the perspective is returning from the hazy skies to the trader’s POV.

Given the leadership transformation that has recently taken place in the Cosmos community, I think it is the right time to devote the main part of the financial DAO to subsidising protocols. @karpatkey

However, I also feel that the increase in expenditure needs to be clearly explained and I share the same view as @Govmos in this regard.
And the incentive to avoid ineffective subsidies would also be a necessary point. @RealVovochka
(Hisashi was an exceptionally talented Japan BD, but unfortunately has already left the Foundation).

On a minor note, could you please fix the problem of not being able to view the dashboard? Tokens are expiring. @mgg @carlbergman

Also, I think, also set a milestone for unsuccessful grants,
if unsuccessful, the reasons for the failure should also be disclosed.

By disclosing the reasons why the expected results were not achieved,
future grant applicants will have a deeper understanding of the pain points in advance.

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Good point. We have voted abstain. Sorry about the oversight.

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Chiming in here personally on my perspective and highlights of community grants : Both the scope and scale of the DEP are unique, in its ability to work cross functionally between grantors and trustees for rigorous decision making, and in broader coordination with the DAO and community.

A notable function of the community bucket is being able to flexibly fund and test initiatives where the strategic grants are naturally more rigid. The community side has been able to successfully fund long-term projects that serve critical functions to the protocol, such as integrations and community infrastructure–whats more, we have also been able to rapidly fund unique content for special launches, as well as funding one-time events that show the support and presence dYdX has worldwide.

In order to better understand this diverse set of functions, I’d encourage a look at the following resources Funded Grants | dYdX Ecosystem Development Program, x.com, and https://www.dydxgrants.com/.

Feedback, ideas, and general sentiments are welcomed. Looking forward to the next phase of the program and continued discourse on the forum.

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Mackay, please don’t waste time writing posts like these; they come across like a student’s essay trying to hit a word count by throwing in some fancy terms. “Cross-functional work, rigorous decision making” is just bla bla bla.

If you want to provide genuinely useful information, talk about the community grants funded since March and their outcomes with some metrics. You could mention why the dydx champions initiative hasn’t funded a single person, even though it was probably proposed over a year ago.

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Thank you everyone for participating in this proposal. Since the vote passed, we are now in the process of appointing our new trustees to the Trust. The updated paperwork will be added to our website’s FAQ here for public access.

With regards to additional funding, any request to the Treasury subDAO will be made in the form of a public forum post outlining our remaining budget and spending plans, such that the community can review as well. We’re excited to embark on this new journey towards a more sustainable funding model!