I want to acknowledge @CipherLabs and @RealVovochka’s feedback. Albeit not perfect, Reverie has added value to the protocol, and no one else has stepped up and proposed a compelling alternative to the Grants Program to this day.
With this proposal, Reverie will be doing the heavy lifting with strategic initiatives, while two community members will support community initiatives. The trustees, whom I am hoping will be active community members, will have to approve the grants, as well as the payments initiated by the operator. The operator initiates the payments, which again have to be approved by the trustees, and updates the community and relevant dashboards.
Regarding the operator role being redundant, I don’t believe this to be the case. There has to be a clear distinction and ownership of responsibilities within the DGP, and delegating the operator’s tasks to grantors or trustees would not ensure that. The operator will have to deal with duties such as verifying that each outgoing payment corresponds to an invoice and that the invoices received by the Grants Program are compliant (having an invoice number, service description, address, date, amount, etc.). Having an operator means that we can potentially improve payables turnover (paying grantees faster) by initiating more frequent payment runs, as well as providing grantees with a dedicated contact person for any payment-related inquiries or concerns. Other things such as record-keeping, auditing, verifying wallet addresses, or bank accounts (in case we deal with fiat payments), and publishing reports and updates are important tasks that cannot be automated.
I have been interested in joining the Grants Program in the past. Even though I would be open to being a trustee, I believe that having a background in accounting would make me an ideal candidate for the operator role of the DGP v1.5 Extension. I will not tire you with lengthy introductions since I have already introduced myself more than once here and here. To answer the questions posed by Reverie: I want to contribute to the DGP because I believe I can improve the relationship we have with our creditors (grantees), and because I simply like the protocol and want to play a role in its development and growth. With the upcoming v4 mainnet launch, I would like to see funding go towards interactive dashboards that visualize the state of the dYdX chain. I think GMX is doing a fantastic job with their dashboards from which we can take inspiration.