Information from the moderators:
The candidate has asked to be allowed to submit this review after the details of the challenge have already been revealed and after all reviews of the other candidates have been published.
He has not seen the message in his forum DM’s that invited him to participate in this challenge sent out on 19 November.
As he did not respond to this invitation message, he was not included in the initial challenge.
Therefore, remember that his response below is based on much more available information than the other reviewers’ in their challenge had to work with.
Before submitting this review, the candidate had the ability to access all information stated in this post: Shimmer Grant Reviewer Test challenge
Especially:
- Read all reviews of the other Grant Reviewer candidates that did a review of the same proposal
- know that the Polkadot Treasury committee accepted this proposal for the described budget in their Grant program.
Original post:
I’ve added my review for the Grant Reviewer Test challenge below for the proposal Crypto APIs Shimmer Spending Proposal 3
As a committee it is not simply our responsibility to accept or decline proposals, but to also find potential value within them that might support ecosystem expansion, and to provide feedback to proposal creators which may present further opportunities.
After reviewing the current proposal, I have chosen to neither decline nor accept the submission but have put forward a request for resubmission based upon the following points.
Overview
-
It is evident the team have extensive experience and their participation within the IOTA and Shimmer ecosystems, as well as their established infrastructure, network, and community, could facilitate the onboarding of valuable new developers, organisations, and projects to the IOTA community.
-
As this is clearly a project proposal written for a specific blockchain, the lack of specifics relevant to Shimmer technology is evident. With a more clearly defined proposal targeting Shimmer technology there would be greater relevance in certain aspects of the proposal.
-
The development of open-source SDKs supports the community with strong tooling. This can also bring value in allowing already existing projects the simplicity of migrating to Shimmer, bringing further value from outside the community.
-
An already existing explorer for the Shimmer network makes this part of the proposal obsolete.
-
A request for a resubmission of the proposal that focuses on the wallet SDKs and targeting the specifics of Shimmer technology, with a shorter timeframe and lower budget would be more likely to be approved.
Breakdown
Team
Highly experienced, established, publicly recognised, and historically successful in their development history.
Motivation
Offering an agreeable motive that supports decentralisation and democratisation of technology, the inclusion of multiple communities in the solution, providing evidence for value of not just technology for the Shimmer community, but also exposure for the Shimmer ecosystem to other network communities.
Reputation
A very well connected and supported project team, with extensive network in the DLT and non-DLT spaces. A strong clientele base, as well as historically successful providers of open-source projects in other communities.
Proposal
Clearly this has been written to focus on a specific blockchain and not the Shimmer network, needs to focus more specifically on the technology at hand. It would be expected that research be carried out prior to the submission of a proposal, and a greater understanding of the underlying technology be presented in any further submissions.
KMS – brings important tools to the community, whilst also providing an interoperable approach for current projects using this system to migrate and connect their projects to the Shimmer ecosystem.
Public Shimmer Nodes – a beneficial tool for the community having access to free and reliable infrastructure, although this does not clearly define or represent the infrastructure for the Shimmer network. With a bit more of an understanding and insight into the design of the system for the Shimmer network, this would provide value.
Block Explorer – as a publicly accessible explorer already exists in the Shimmer ecosystem, this part of the project is obsolete, and again clearly written for a blockchain, and not Shimmer technology.
Milestones
The initial milestones and timeline were acceptable, but with a change in project scope it is recommended to reduce the scope to the majority of content in phase one, and the relevant few sections of phase two. Redefining this into two separate milestones with clear objectives, rewritten to support the alterations highlighted in this review.
Payment
It is hard to assess the full viability of the grant payment without access to a full breakdown of costs. A more detailed overview of the expenses would help here. With a reduction in the timeline and product scope, a reduction in the resource allocation would be expected in a further submission.
| Reviewer Matrix Tally | |
|---|---|
| Relevance | 1 |
| Plan & Funding | 4 |
| Execution | 4 |
| Team Verification | 4 |
| Originality | 2 |
| ------------------------------------ | ---- |
| Overall project score | 15 |