While I think rewarding the big builders in the ecosystem is a good thing, I am not really happy with this.
The Tier 1 reward is about half a million USD at current price (which is rather low right now). That is a lot, if we compare it to what the DAO payed out so far (only 3 projects in the 50k-100k region, none higher).
We should primarily allocate tokens for build tasks that don’t have a return for the builders itself, but provide value to the ecosystem as a whole. Instead of having teams propose for grants, we can of course also hand out rewards to already completed tasks.
However, many projects had or will have an ICO and thus fund themselves, so giving away free tokens would just add to the profits. I also do not think we are in a position to give away millions of dollars worth in tokens right now. We would have to measure the value the projects provides in some way and then pay out based on this.
The only real way I see for for-profit projects would be to have TEA essentially OTC-buy a stack of tokens, like a VC would do. This would help keeping liquidity and could return yield back to TEA.
I think it’s a good idea to reduce the capital to 0.3%-0.5% of the 12% total. At the same time, it can be calculated that this is also a considerable amount of money. We are currently in the most critical year of IOTA construction. I think the fund release period should be shortened to 12 times a year. If the project can make profits independently within a year, it can go out independently without TEA financial support. If it cannot make a profit independently after one year and can still bring better services to the community, the project can apply for TEA support again
I am also generally in favor of supporting community projects that have undoubtedly “donated” significant time, resources, etc during this prolonged bear market, but the amount allocated to the chosen projects seems quite high. If I understand it correctly, the tokens are intended to remain in the IF’s war chest until market conditions improve, and still only used sparingly so that the treasury is not depleted quickly.
I do understand that the tokens are essentially being taken from the community to seed this war chest, so it does make sense that some of these tokens would be used to support community projects, but it will be difficult to come to community-wide agreement on the allocations.
I voted NO due to the points already brought up in the posts above. I think it’s important to help projects already building for years now to bring and hold value in the ecosystem. I’m just not sure if it’s enough and sustainable to give fix sized tranches to them. Not every project has the same need for funds. Some already have a value-stream, others are doing important work without a clear idea, how to create one.
The token reserve of TEA has to be used with care. We need to find a sustainable way of funding and supporting the projects. Especially the ones which do not have a self-sufficient value-stream even though they do important work for the ecosystem.
Sorry that I do not have concrete suggestions myself, but I wanted to bring my thoughts to this discussion. Just voting with NO would not make any sense to me because I know from experience that there’s a need to find funding for some good projects, to keep them running.
In my opinion, the overall funding will not change, but the 15 community projects need to be upgraded to 30 community projects, and the support time will be reduced from two years to one year. There are also upper limits on the number of supports in different areas of community projects. For example, the upper limit of financial support for DEX exchange projects should be 2-4. Non-profit projects should also have corresponding quotas to receive support. Among IOTA’s early community projects, there are Many non-profit projects are excellent.
Voted no as well, but I do like the basics of th proposal… would like to see it amended in another draft to include accountability and fiscal responsibility added, as others have mentioned. Very good first draft, however.