Double-up-to-rollup!

general
#1

On the community call earlier this week, we chatted about some possible paths forward.

It seems pretty clear that we would like to migrate to the first rollup solution that is:

  1. production ready
  2. has similar trust assumptions to mainnet
  3. has the infrastructure we rely on (Gnosis Safe, BrightID, and TCR support)

There is a good chance that Arbitrum or Optimisim will satisfy this, however neither are likely to be ready to use in production prior to march 2021. So what do we do in the mean time?

clr.fund has $20k in Ethereum Foundation grant funding that is currently earmarked for the first two “production rounds” of clr.fund. I propose that rather than jumping from $1k per round to $10k per round, as we had originally planned, we “double-up-to-rollup”. Meaning we start running month long rounds where the funding pool doubles each round until we are ready to deploy to a rollup.

With $20k in EF funds, along with ~$4k from the most recent Gitcoin Grants round, we could get three months worth of rounds out of this scheme ($2k round 3, $4k round 4, and $8k round 5). This will give us some time to do a little fund raising for a $16k round round 6, that would hopefully be on a rollup at that point (otherwise we’ll have enough to run round 6 at $8k).

I’ll need to doublecheck with the EF if they are ok with this change, but it seems very reasonable.

In the mean time, we should be:

  1. improving the UX
  2. hunting bugs/vulnerabilities
  3. growing the community and fundrasing
  4. preparing for migration to a rollup
  5. Finding a suitable TCR solution for xDai and wherever we migrate (so we can remove dependency on the multisig)

Keen to hear your thoughts on this plan. (nothing set in stone yet, obviously)

#2

One month is too long. I think the current schedule is optimal: ~2 weeks rounds and ~1 week delay between the rounds). The delay between the rounds could be increased if we don’t have enough funds for matching.

The amount of funding should depend on how safe and secure clrfund is. If round 2 will be successful we can increase funding to $2k in round 3 because the code won’t change too much (only UI will change). For round 4, we will again adjust funding depending on the circumstances.

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#3

What makes you say that?

In my opinion, our current cadence is too rapid and we’re probably better off targeting a round once per month. I base this assumption on the fact that most subscription services operate on a monthly basis, so a monthly cadence is something that people are used to interacting with. Obviously this is a little different to a subscription service, because it requires active participation, rather than setting and forgetting. But I worry that if we aim for more than once per month we’ll just burn out contributors. For example, I’ve found the monthly verification process for Idena is more friction that I’m willing to endure to stay verified on Idena.

Perhaps a contribution period of 2-3 weeks and then 1-2 weeks between rounds is ideal.

I agree with this and I don’t think it conflicts with the goal of doubling each round for the next few rounds. Obviously if we update something or feel uncomfortable with the amount of funding going into a round we can always adjust accordingly.

#4

I just want to know the results sooner :slight_smile:
Another benefit is faster development cycle but it is now less important than at early stages.

Yes, that would be fine too.

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#5

Ok cool, let’s try rolling with 3-week rounds with 1-week breaks between, doubling the funding each round until we don’t have enough funding or need to slow down for security’s sake.

#6

Optimism mainnet launch is scheduled for March 15th, according to this post.

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