CGP Hackathon Sponsorships in 2023

CGP Hackathon Sponsorships in 2023

Authors: Adam, Harsha, CGP Domain Allocators

Compound Grants Program seeks an additional $100k in grants budget to sponsor these ETHGlobal hackathons:

  • ETHGlobal Toronto
  • ETHGlobal New York
  • ETHOnline (Remote)

CGP seeks quality builders

Compound grants program has already accepted 12 proposals, amounting to a total committed amount of $200k to builders. All of the funding is happening transparently and can be tracked on https://questbook.app/

However, we need to attract the best builders to continue to make CGP an ongoing success. Particularly,

  • Increase awareness among top builders that Compound grants are back.
  • Increase inflow of builders for proposals in security, multichain-cross chain, and Dev tooling domains

The invite for builders can more formally be seen here in the form of well-defined RFPs :

Impact

Uniswap and Aave regularly sponsor events. Their presence in hackathons inspires builders to build on top of their solutions.

Compound has previously sponsored hackathons too. Speaking to the team, we learned that the impact of Compound sponsoring the hackathon was limited to brand recall.

However, CGP aims to sponsor ETHGlobal events with the specific goal of getting more builders to build the RFPs laid out by the 4 domains.

Case studies from CGP 2.0

What we get

  • Partner Table - to explain the RFPs and help builders lay out a development roadmap
  • Workshops (Recorded and in-person) - increase awareness of RFPs by building MVPs of desired projects
  • Connected to the builders - Dedicated channel in the online ETHGlobal community and connect with teams building on the compound.

We should use sponsorships with a laser focus on inviting builders to the already listed RFPs.

We know what we want, we know who can build them, and we know where to find them.

We will pick winners only if they’re building something in response to the RFPs listed.

What exactly will we be paying for?

  • ETHGlobal’s sponsorship fees for participation as a protocol in the three aforementioned events.

  • Community member passes for protocol community representatives (ranging from $500 - $1,000 per person, per event). The number of community members that can represent varies from event to event. We decide this by self-nomination and polling on the forum posts for each event.

  • Compound Grants hackathon sponsor bounty prizes ($5,000 - $10,000 per event).

  • This specific grant will NOT include stipends for travel and lodging fees for participants in the in-person events.

Can I participate in a capacity beyond simply voting for this proposal?

Yes! We encourage community members to participate in the events. You may participate as a volunteer mentor, a judge, a hacker, or a presenter.

Adam from Compound Labs will participate as a mentor, developer workshop presenter, and judge for the Compound Grants bounty prizes in each event.

Community members may organize a presentation for the events that are based on the Compound protocol or Grants and must drive audience participation in the protocol community or Grants.

9 Likes

I’m a Domain Allocator for Dev Tooling for CGP 2.0; I am in support for sponsoring EthGlobal hackathons. These hackathons will help us spread awareness about CGP and specifically the RFPs that have been created by the domain allocators. I totally agree that we should have a focus on these RFPs to ensure that we actually get some impact by sponsoring as against a wishful “brand presence” that is both subjective and impossible to prove/disprove.

3 Likes

Let’s get a temperature check on this proposal. Please vote!

  • I would vote AGAINST this proposal and I will post a reply that shares my thoughts
  • I would vote FOR this proposal as is

0 voters

2 Likes

Just adding my two cents here that I believe this proposal is well-timed for driving talent and attention to Compound with the GCP 2 program hitting its stride and at the tip of the protocol’s multichain growth phase. CGP’s dapps and protocol ideas domain has some smaller, education-oriented proposals; where those proposals are complementary to this initiative, they may be supported directly within the protocol ideas CGP 2 domain.

2 Likes

I am the domain allocator for Multichain/Crosschain for CGP2.0 and I believe this is a great way to generate further support for the grants program and Compound.

This hackathon greatly complements CGP2.0 and can funnel participants to contribute to Compound via CGP2.0. With the amount allocated to CGP2.0, this will help raise awareness and attract talented contributors to Compound .

1 Like

I’m the domain allocator for the Security Tooling Domain of CGP 2.0. I support this proposal as a way to build pipelines of applicants and interested parties that can build on Compound.

Many Compound competitors are already very active in sponsoring hackathons and this ensures Compound is not left out of the talent growth.

2 Likes

[Update]:
The proposal is put up for voting here: Compound
We will be sharing the progress of the voting on this thread.

2 Likes

Update:
The proposal is live for voting now!

Update:

The proposal has been successfully passed and executed. Thank you everyone for the support.

ETH Global Hackathons can receive the amount only in USDC or USD. Hence will need to make the swap to USDC to transfer the amount. Please let me know if there are any concerns or suggestions.

We will be doing the swap in small portions over the course of the day on 10th March.

1 Like

I am a grant recipient and working on the Compound Academy.

https://compound.education

Our goal is to provide users and developers with onboarding and education resources for Compound III. While we are currently developing guides, I believe that offering developer courses would be extremely beneficial. This would allow developers to be better educated before and during hackathons.

2 Likes

What is the update here? I can see on etherscan that the COMP was transferred to an EOA but nothing has been done with it. Additionally, it is highly preferable for COMP that is designated for community usage to not be in an EOA.

1 Like

Hi arr00, thanks for writing. here is the update.

The 1962.7 COMP tokens were in the QB-Grants Wallet which is a signer on the grants SAFE. We are exploring ways to exchange it to USDC, since ETH Global team is accepting only in USD/USDC. For swapping the tokens, we have transferred to a wallet to connect to dex for easier execution. However, we appreciate the feedback from you to do it through a multi-sig maybe by using tools like wallet-connect, and totally agree with it. Hence transferring the tokens back to the Grants multi-sig SAFE. (Transaction Details)

Also - the delay is for the following reasons:

  1. Swapping through a dex like Uniswap has a huge slippage which is not leading anywhere close to $100K
  2. With the SVB crash and Circle announcing deposits in SVB, we requested confirmation from the ETH global team if they still want the funds in USDC. They do want in USDC and got the confirmation yesterday.
  3. We spoke to other community members who’ve had this problem in the past, and we were advised to find a liquid venue to sell the COMP like Coinbase.

Here is the current problem we are facing. The COMP price is currently at $43. We have requested the funds when the price is $50. We wrote to ETH Global team regarding the same. If ETH Global can’t move forward with less than the full 100k USDC, we will take the feedback from the community to either request for more funds or return the funds to the treasury.

1 Like

Update here:

We have performed the swap and received 87,128.483 USDC
Requested the next steps for transferring the funds to the ETH Global Team. With the updated price, there are going to be few changes in the features offered. Will update the forum here once confirmed.

Thanks to @allthecolors and @madhavanmalolan for coordinating the execution of the swap.

2 Likes