A Call to Action: Using the NNS for Growth

[Sal_Paradise]

Overall I think this is as positive step and I have other concerns and that comes down to a strategy of adoption.

Having a clear and researched view of how the IC intends to achieves it’s ultimate goal is paramount ie. A business plan.

Having this in place should essentially give us an idea of where we would see natural demand for the ICP token coming from, not taking into consideration speculation.

What is the strategy of adoption? And how attainable is the overall goal.

Having a step by step implementation plan would be incredibly useful imo and something the community could lean on for guidance.

First step being - which features does the IC currently have that differentiates from our competitors, which could help to bootstrap growth in the short to medium term?

Leading on from this, what is the value proposition of web 2 Vs web 3, which really affects the end consumer or an entreprise business? And how can this promoted?

Sometimes I feel this project has extremely ambitious end goals but literally no plan in place on how to get there

Heres a rough first guide on how I see things progressing

1. First killer use case. BTC and ETH intergradation - as this is taking longer than expected - should there be more resources allocated? Getting this overline is critical. We all know that so whats being done about it. If BTC is nearly done then how long until ETH?

What can be done the devise usecases for the above? Can the gigabrains at Dfinity help? Are we reaching out the Ethereum community for advise?

Can grants be substantially more allocated to help create a vibrant development in this area. I think we could do better here to bounce ideas and engage with external communities

Overnight we could tap into two of biggest liquidity pools and probably the most accessible.

2. Inticing experienced teams of developers, to try and create companies, which actually create real revenue and not just amateur outfits who want to profit from boom and bust / get rich quick token launches. This comes down to clear explanations of the value add of building on the IC and also web 2 Vs web 3 usecases. More of a slow burner but worth the effort due to sustainable income in the long run and more chance of creating a viral application.

3. Entreprise - what is being done here to see whether this is actually a viable use-case?

I don’t see any partnerships or at least any interest from commercial businesses looking or at least researching building on the IC

[InsaneClownPosse]

I like the idea of committee neurons. Are you still working on that @lastmjs?

To add to this, I would think having more macro, geopolitical and philosophical minded people engage in the discussion on the future of governance, tokenomics and the IC in general makes a lot of sense. And it might offer insights hard technical minded people overlook. To become an actual world computer requires collaboration on a broad spectrum of subjects with a diverse range of contributors. Each specialist in their subject can add value by their specific knowledge base, but next to that, to have these specialists communicate with each other and synthesize better development of the IC through their combined knowledge seems ideal. And through this forum (and maybe a future governance discussion dApp (Civol?)) us plebs can add some bottom up liquidity of ideas.

All in all, whatever happens, I think most of us prefer solid structural changes and quality discussion to quick fixes and emotional reasoning.

[paulyoung]

@lastmjs

Personally, I would want the NNS to focus on grants that enable projects that are a step or two below the application layer. Protocol layer concerns, open source projects without sound business models, basically what Demergent Labs is working on. Many projects that raise money have to focus on the demands of their investors. It’s much harder to just receive money to build what needs to be built. I hope the NNS will focus on these types of projects.

This resonates with me as well. Fundraising takes time away from building and has lasting effects.

I think the above proposal has the potential to maximally align people who want to see the platform succeed with projects that are adding value.

In my experience, doing something atypical that adds unique value also means encountering unique challenges and therefore takes longer to get the type of traction investors typically want to see.

I think it would be a shame if projects like Demergent Labs couldn’t continue as they have been due to funding concerns, but unfortunately I can also see how easily that could happen unless we decide to try something new.

[wpb]

A Temperature Check proposal 86639 has been submitted for the NNS Treasury idea. Please go vote and let your voice be heard through the formal NNS governance process.

[MillionMiles]

I think we must clarify the individual purpose of Dfinity Grant, Community fund and NNS treasury.

From my perspective:

Dfinity Grants: Support developer and early project, like Demergent Labs.
Community fund: Support SNS, like Openchat
NNS treasury: Support NNS governance, like proposer, influencer, advisor… (maybe we need a reputation system, like Dfinity forum bage system.)

[Jabberwocky]

So far it looks like voters don’t want this but I think are misunderstanding the idea of a treasury and the benefits it can provided to the project as a whole.

[skilesare]

@MillionMiles

NNS treasury: Support NNS governance, like proposer, influencer, advisor… (maybe we need a reputation system, like Dfinity forum bage system.)

This was not what I was expecting funds to be used for. There are plenty of for-profit companies that need to do marketing and influencing.

DFINITY grants have a bit of a gate on them…it isn’t the biggest hurdle, but having an independent group giving these grants opens things up and gives more freedom to try riskier objectives and unaligned projects. As the NNS’s purpose is to enhance the long-term value of the network, I expected that it would be used for that - funding the code and infrastructure that makes the network stronger. To the extent that PR is involved, I’d assume it would be things like EF DevCon where code is at the center but also provides a rallying point. We don’t need a bunch of twitter bots developed to pump ICP.

[MillionMiles]

@skilesare

I’d assume it would be things like EF DevCon where code is at the center but also provides a rallying point.

Do you mean “EF DevCon” is https://devcon.org/ ? I like the idea if so

@skilesare

We don’t need a bunch of twitter bots developed to pump ICP.

Of course we don’t need twitter bots, I mean we need intelligent leaders who focus on NNS governance, they need be incentivized because their education, their hard work, their contribution…etc.

[skilesare]

Yes and I agree. more characters.

[MillionMiles]

@dfisher

Proposed Solution: An NNS Treasury + NNS Foundation

For NNS Foundation, I have below questions:

1. What’s the mission and vision of NNS foundnation?
2. Who can join the NNS foundation?
3. How to ensure decentralization of NNS foundation?
4. What’s the scope of NNS foundation?
5. What’s the process of decision-making?
6. Who is responsibility for NNS foundation?
7. Who is responsible to evaluate the performance of NNS Foundation?
8. How many ICP per month will be allocated to NNS foundation?
9. How to deal with ICP that is not spent by NNS foundation?
10. How many full-time and part-time headcount in NNS foundation?

[Seb]

While being quite active in the area mentioned (education & development), this will be my first post dedicated to governance.

I disagree that the incentives to participate in governance, education and open source buildings are non-existent.
The incentives are called social reputation, human & political capital and indirect financial capital by contributing to the expansion of the ecosystem.

Baking into the NNS a direct way to fund people that actively participate in the governance is a slippery slope.
I also want to see more organisation supporting tooling, education & community building but we need build to real value to fund that otherwise it just feels like we are shuffling existing value around.

If the NNS is to evolve into one of the most crucial political instance in the world, I would really take my time to introduce such changes. We might be taking decision that will have lasting impacts for generations.
I’m already concerned by the SNS having to go through the NNS. The NNS shouldn’t be creating a pyramidal system for the ecosystem.

To end with some nuance, I do think the idea is at least worth being discussed (maybe more than that it would also need to be “experimented” for a few times) but it highly depends on where the money is coming from and how decentralized the funding system is going to be.
Please take time. Whatever happens this won’t be a game changer.
The ecosystem is also limited by the current lack of human capital not only financial one and this treasury won’t solve the first bottleneck.

[skilesare]

@Seb

Baking into the NNS a direct way to fund people that actively participate in the governance is a slippery slope.

This is a great point and it is one place where adopting “rough consensus and working code” can help. Few people have a problem funding the building of code. If governance is code then we have a much more direct and simple way of funding it.

[wpb]

These are great questions to be answered in a working group. I look at this proposal as an idea for consideration, but all details would be worked out in one or more working groups. The outcome of the working group(s) would be one or more proposals to the NNS for approval. I would imaging the working groups would include an open call for working group participants, published meeting minutes, and published video recordings. There may even be intermediate NNS proposals to verify direction of the working groups.

[aaa10247]

The only profitable dapps on ethereum are stablecoins and exchanges, followed by the ENS.

If the question is “how do we develop profitable apps on the IC?”

The answer is: A rational starting point towards developing profitable dapps on the IC is starting with a proven model ie. launching exchanges and stablecoins native to the IC, followed by a DeFi ecosystem native to the IC. DeFi is a proven model for profitable apps and service on Ethereum. The building blocks necessary for DeFi apps are exchanges and stablecoins. Currently there aren’t any DeFi apps functioning on the IC besides swapping amm’s, there aren’t any exchanges (leveraged trading, perps, options, yield vaults, etc.) or native IC stablecoins (algo, asset backed, collateralized).

Reaching out to existing DeFi apps and services on other blockchains, and offering them funding to launch their apps on the IC might be one strategy. Most popular dapps are multichain already, so facilitating ways to deploy existing DeFi dapps onto the IC might be worth exploring.

Another strategy towards DeFi ecosystem growth on the IC might be through SNS, or a grants programs to fund new teams to build DeFi apps and services on the IC. A targeted fund for DeFi apps would be beneficial.

Then once a DeFi ecosystem native to the IC is established leveraging the momentum gained from that to explore other more experimental revenue models for non-defi related dapps, and new types of DeFi apps that can only be built on the IC.

However, a flourishing DeFi app ecosystem on the IC is a pre-requisite because it brings new liquidity, userbase, and capital to fund other types of innovative non-defi dapps and services. It also provides a user base familiar with the IC ecosystem from using DeFi apps to onboard into these new non DeFi apps.

Ethereum is a great case study illustrating this point. Non-defi apps and services are being developed and explored on Ethereum, but having a functioning DeFi ecosystem was a pre-requisite for the growth of these non-defi apps.

Thus first achieving a growing DeFi ecosystem on the IC, increases the probability of subsequently creating a profitable non DeFi app ecosystem on the IC. Without first developing a DeFI ecosystem, it is more difficult to create a profitable non-defi profitable app ecosystem.

Regarding funding the NNS treasury:

@skilesare

@Seb

Baking into the NNS a direct way to fund people that actively participate in the governance is a slippery slope.

I would agree that following a working group model similar to the ENS might be beneficial, however, funding for this can come from individual grants, an NNS treasury doesn’t seem like the optimal way to provide funding for NNS governance. I don’t see why this effort and funding mechanism needs to be derived from funds coming from the NNS.

There is already a grants program in place from the Dfinity foundation to fund new apps, a Community SNS Fund for apps. And other funding platforms not associated with the NNS where people can request funding for their governance, tooling and community building ideas.

Building this functionality into the NNS and forcing funds to be allocated to this, will create an opportunity for misallocation of resources and grifting.

If there is a need to fund governance in order to support: tooling, education & community building
then there are already plenty of crowdfunding platforms on the IC like crowdfund nft, or even the SNS to fund projects in a decentralized manner. Or develop new apps similar to gitcoin etc. Funds can be raised for these projects through community members individually giving ICP grants, donations, etc. There are plenty of ICP organizations with independent funds available to contribute to these types of projects.

[emmaperetti]

team, are you interested in joining governance technical working group: Technical Working Group: Governance
We started building subgroups: Issues · dfinity/wg-governance · GitHub

[Migel32]

Voters are not afraid of a treasury. I would rather say they are afraid of how it will be implemented. are not afraid of a treasury. They are afraid of how it will be implemented.

[civolian]

The NNS Treasury is an inspiring idea. After reading everything written here and listening to the Town Hall I decided to write a brief specification outlining a radically new solution for it based on Civol. I’m calling it IC Projects for now. We could have a prototype up and running very quickly. In case you’re new to Civol, it’s an asynchronous video forum for decentralized collective decision making that runs entirely on the IC, here’s a demo video.

The idea behind the Civol IC Projects solution is that software projects need not consist entirely of dry code, text and diagrams. The project teams are real people with hopes and dreams. They will be proposing innovative solutions to real IC problems and then put their reputations on the line to build those solutions with the clock ticking and limited resources.

Civol enables the basic problems of project evaluation and tracking to be completely transparent and decentralized. No need for formal working groups or additional foundations, both of which are centralizing and expensive. Everyone who wants to speak and contribute can do so.

An important point I failed to mention in the spec is that voters and speakers who contribute to the discourse during these project evaluations will receive token rewards. That means people who are actively involved in the evaluation will be compensated for their time, expertise, and energy. With up to 6M flowing into the Treasury every month it’s the least we can do.

I will try to go through this topic again and comment on how Civol IC Projects can help solve specific problems people are expressing. I look forward to your feedback on the spec!

[civolian]

@dfisher

Synapse.vote has a disproportionate amount of the voting power. But it too suffers from the same problems as CycleDAO. There’s only so much time that Synapse.vote members can really take out of their day to focus on governance issues.

As a result, ICP’s governance is overly centralized and filled with apathetic voters who want their token to moon but can’t be bothered to do the work to improve the system.

Civol can actually change this dynamic, starting with IC Projects. If the Treasury grows at 6M per month, or anywhere near that, we will be able to reward everyone, voters and speakers alike, for their contributions to project evaluation, in addition to funding all worthy projects.

People who will not engage in NNS governance will in fact engage in the real life drama of projects struggling to be funded and deliver on their promise. This will be true especially when engagement means watching smart people work together on video to solve problems and create serious tech, and voting your level of resonance with everything they say.

[civolian]

@dfisher

If ICP does not fix the demand side of the equation, it will fade into oblivion. And if ICP cannot fix the incentive to participate in governance, the protocol will not autonomously upgrade itself. After all, the DFINITY Foundation expects its voting power and influence over the network to decrease over time.

The answer is Bicameral Governance, NNS + Civol CNS (Community Nervous System). NNS can remain focused on protocol governance. It need not suffer because it’s incapable of supporting motion proposal evaluation and roadmap governance. The Civol CNS is designed to handle those, while greatly increasing decentralization and voter participation as it does so.

Bicameral Governance and Civol as an unprecedented dapp will demonstrate what the IC is truly capable of, and that will in turn bring with it the all critical increase in awareness and therefore demand.

[civolian]

@dfisher

It is also hard to think of how accountability and transparency of funds could be enforced in a system whereby an NNS treasury existed in isolation. Let’s say a good faith actor was able to claim funds but spend them inefficiently. Who would be there looking over their shoulder to determine if they had spent the funds as they said they would?

This is exactly what Civol IC Projects is designed to do, make everything decentralized and transparent. Project teams clearly state their plan and budget. If they are then capable of bringing the Community to consensus on the worthiness of their project they will be funded. Once funds are distributed and work begins, the Community will be able to follow the team’s progress using the same Civol UX that they used to evaluate the project in the first place. And if at the end of the day the project fails the Community will know why and certain reputations may suffer. On the other hand, successful projects will cause their team’s reputations to soar. The incentive will clearly be to impress the Community with excellent work.