DIP-8: The Ignite Team
Headline: Establishing the role of the Ignite team
Author: Sam Lewis
Submitter(s): The DIMO Foundation [0xCED3c922200559128930180d3f0bfFd4d9f4F123]
Status: Deployed
Voting URL: Snapshot
Discussion Forum: Discord #🗳️governance forum
Vote Type: Level 3
Abstract
This DIP proposes the creation of a grants team called ‘Ignite’ and describes its role as a catalyst for the DIMO ecosystem. It will fund builders contributing to infrastructure and apps that make DIMO more useful and scalable. This proposal explains who team members are, how they plan to operationalize their goals, and their responsibility to the community.
The DIP proposes allocating 16M $DIMO (1.6% of total supply) to fund grants, bounties, and operations.
Motivation
A focused, funded grants team can accelerate innovation within the DIMO ecosystem. By leveraging the community's talent, we can unlock advancements across infrastructure, security, hardware, developer applications, and community.
Specification
Team Name
Ignite
Purpose & Mission
Providing support and funding to teams that contribute to:
Accelerate development and innovation: Key infrastructure, public goods, and applications accelerate DIMO’s development and adoption. Ignite will tap into the creativity of the community by soliciting innovative ideas and proposals from the public.
Enhance project security: Bounty programs, specifically those targeting security vulnerabilities, incentivize ethical hackers and security researchers to identify and report potential weaknesses in the DIMO protocol’s code. This can help improve the project's security and protect it against potential threats.
Grow the contributor base: Rewards for specific tasks will attract skilled developers, designers, researchers, content creators, and other professionals, and will foster more general community engagement, participation, and excitement.
Team Operating Structure
The following team was carefully chosen for their expertise in web3 ecosystem development, connected vehicle technology, and enthusiasm for the DIMO community.
Sam Lewis - DIMO Contributor (Chair)
Rob Solomon - CFO Digital Infrastructure Inc. (Director)
Yev Khessin - CTO Digital Infrastructure Inc. (Director)
Andy Chatham - CEO Digital Infrastructure Inc. (Director)
Bryan Peters - Cofounder Sobol (Contributor)
MoreReese - DAO Builder (Contributor)
Avi Atkin - Product Manager, 3Box Labs, ex-Ford (Contributor)
Organizing and leading meetings: Sam Lewis
Onboarding / offboarding / compensation decisions require: Majority approval among the chair and directors.
Grant / bounty funding decisions require: Majority approval among all members of the team.
Operating Goals
Overall goals
Specific priorities for the next six months:
To jumpstart the program, Ignite is providing the following guidance for grant categories it is most interested in funding over the next 6 months. You can expect to see specific grants related to these categories listed when the program goes live.
| Category: | Description: | Example: |
|---|---|---|
Infrastructure | Core work on the DIMO protocol, software, or smart contracts. | Account abstraction user accounts |
Data | Tools to make sense of data across the ecosystem | DBC Decoding, VIN Decoding |
Security | Conducting smart contract audits and securely implementing fixes. | Immunefi |
Hardware | Support for designing new DIMO compatible hardware. | Dash Cam |
Ecosystem Growth | Creation of applications, clients, and developer SDKs. | Web3 Turo |
Community | Social events to encourage adoption and community engagement. | Dimo Hackathon |
Effective communication and outreach: Promote the program through various channels, keeping the broader community informed on progress and measurable outcomes. Responsible for the creation, maintenance, and distribution of grant program marketing materials. Additionally, provide the DIMO community with ongoing monthly transparency reports.
Operational excellence: Ignite will implement sound treasury management, tracking, reporting back to the community, and operational procedures to ensure safe, transparent, and effective operations.
Process
Posting grants
Application and selection process: Ignite will implement a transparent, organized procedure to evaluate grantee teams and proposals based on merit and alignment with program goals.
The DIMO grants program information and application forms will be hosted on the Ignite website or in other high-visibility locations. We will publish RFPs and associated bounties for high-value projects, fund programs with specific specialties, and accept general inbound applications from the community.
Grant applications will be primarily judged on the following criteria:
Clear use of funds: Grantees must have a well-defined execution plan and exit criteria.
Ability to execute: Grantees must demonstrate their qualifications and plan to complete their work.
Impact: Projects should create measurable effects on the DIMO protocol and ecosystem, generating value beyond the grant period.
The application process to claim grants:
| Headline | Steps | Time Commitment |
|---|---|---|
Quick Pitch | Applicants fill out applications to get early feedback on their proposal. | < 20 mins |
Full Proposal | Applicants are invited to present a full proposal if their concept meets the guiding criteria and is viewed as potentially high impact. | 1-2 hrs |
Accepted | Ignite team works with Applicants to set exit criteria, provide feedback, and set them up for success. | TBD |
Grants are categorized as follows:
Grant Tier 1: Micro-Scale Projects
Grant Range: $100 - $1,000 ($USD equivalent)
Complexity: Low
Project Scope: Hosting of events, content creation (articles, tutorials, videos), community engagement initiatives, translation of documentation or other content, design work, or social media promotion.
Potential Impact: Limited, but can contribute to the overall health of the DIMO ecosystem by enhancing user experience, fostering community engagement, improving documentation or resources, or increasing awareness and adoption on a smaller scale.
Grant Tier 2: Small-Scale Projects
Grant Range: $1,001 - $10,000 ($USD equivalent)
Complexity: Low to Moderate
Project Scope: Small improvements, bug fixes, or enhancements to existing tools, applications, or documentation.
Potential Impact: Limited, but may improve user experience or increase adoption on a smaller scale.
Grant Tier 3: Mid-Scale Projects
Grant Range: $10,001 - $50,000 ($USD equivalent)
Complexity: Moderate to High
Project Scope: Development of new tools, applications, or infrastructure components; research and development initiatives; security audits.
Potential Impact: Moderate, with the potential to contribute to the growth of the DIMO ecosystem and attract new users or developers.
Grant Tier 4: Large-Scale Projects
Grant Range: $50,001 - $250,000 ($USD equivalent)
Complexity: High
Project Scope: Development of high-impact tools, platforms, or applications; significant protocol upgrades or optimizations; large-scale research and development initiatives.
Potential Impact: Substantial, with the potential to drive significant growth within the DIMO ecosystem and create a lasting impact on the broader community.
Grant Tier 5: Strategic Partnerships & Collaborations
Grant Range: $250,001 & above ($USD equivalent
Complexity: Very High
Project Scope: Collaborations with established organizations or projects that bring significant value to the DIMO ecosystem; development of critical infrastructure or large-scale initiatives that require substantial resources and expertise.
Potential Impact: Transformative, with the potential to significantly accelerate the growth of the DIMO ecosystem and establish its position.
The tranches in which grantees receive funding will be determined on a case by case basis. Variables such as grant size, project scope, agreed upon milestones, and team history will determine how the funding is staged.
Throughout each project's timeline, Ignite will meet with grantees at various intervals. These meetings will allow the team to offer feedback, provide assistance where needed, and track progress.
Posting bounties
In addition to grants, the Ignite team will also post bounties. While the main emphasis will be bug bounties, the team will post a wide range of tasks open for anyone to complete and the reward amounts will be known in advance. Some examples are as follows:
Bug & Security Bounties: Finding and reporting bugs in DIMO’s software. Reviewing DIMO’s code or infrastructure for security vulnerabilities.
Translation and Localization Bounties: Translating DIMO documentation, website content, or other materials into different languages.
Content Bounties: Creating content that promotes or explains DIMO. This could include blog posts, videos, tutorials, social media posts, and more.
Community Bounties: Activities that help build DIMO’s community, educate new users, etc.
Hosting and Payment Process: The Ignite team will host the majority of bounties on the existing DIMO Dework platform. DIMO already has a precedent for using Dework and it has effective built-in workflows for managing bounties, finding the right contributors, on-chain validation of completed work, and paying contributors.
For bug & security bounties, the Ignite team will likely leverage one of the well-known existing players (e.g. Immunefi). Rewards for these bounties will be subject to the size and severity of the vulnerabilities found.
Financial Plan & Ask
Budget
Funding initiatives: This proposal sets aside a pool of 16,000,000 $DIMO tokens as the total allocation for Ignite. Except as specified below, these resources may only be used to fund grants and bounties.
These tokens would come from the unallocated treasury pool of $DIMO. After all funds have been allocated, Ignite may file another proposal at a later date to continue operating. If the Ignite Team wishes to issue grants with a mix of $DIMO and stable tokens, they may sell a portion of their $DIMO allocation, so long as they do so at market price on exchange or within 10% of current market price OTC / private placement.
In the event of non-compliance or ineffective performance the DIMO Foundation, acting in good faith, or $DIMO token holders via governance vote, may call this allocation back. The Ignite Team agrees to honor such a request promptly.
Compensating the team: For 12 months, or until amended by a governance vote, the Ignite team will receive $7,500 USD equivalent per month in $DIMO tokens as compensation for their efforts. This amount will come out of the pool of 16,000,000 $DIMO specified above. The chair and directors will set the compensation for each team member.
Authority & Domain
Ignite is not requesting any exclusive domain over grants and bounties. Any other entity is free to post other DIMO grants and bounties, so long as that entity has resources to do so.
Commitments to DIMO
The grants ecosystem team is committed to:
Act honorably and in the best interest of the protocol.
Avoid conflicts of interest, it will not fund close affiliates of team members and will not allow core ecosystem contributors, such as Digital Infrastructure Inc., to earn bug bounties.
Strive to maximize transparency by providing monthly community updates including:
Grantee applications & RFPs: (# listed, # accepted, status, cost, payment status, description, progress).
Bounties: (# listed, #accepted, payouts, vendors used)
Program Expenses: (Treasury management, cost of operations, team compensation)
Sponsored Events: (community events, conferences, etc)
Key Risks
The only material risk is that the allocated funds do not generate their full potential impact on the DIMO ecosystem.
Implementation
If and when this proposal passes, the team will immediately begin meeting and working towards our mandates. This includes putting in place the proper back office infrastructure and process. The initial token allocation of 16M $DIMO in stable tokens will be allocated via the DIMO Foundation.
Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0
Citation
Please cite this document as:
The DIMO Foundation, "DIP-8: The Ignite Team", no. 8, May 2023. [Online serial]. Available: [https://github.com/DIMO-Network/DIP]
Changelog
May 30, 2023: updated members and added detail to the OTC sale terms.
May 31, 2023: altered the budget to exclude a mandated OTC sale for increased flexibility.
June 9, 2023: added provision to request a return of the allocation
Disclaimer
The contract addresses for $DIMO are 0x5fab9761d60419c9eeebe3915a8fa1ed7e8d2e1b on Ethereum and 0xE261D618a959aFfFd53168Cd07D12E37B26761db on Polygon. Please always confirm that you are interacting with these contract addresses and not those of a fraudulent imitator. This proposal may not be enacted if it violates Cayman Islands law. Please triple check that any communications are authentic as it’s common for scammers to try to trick you into sending them crypto or into revealing your private keys.
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