Proposal description
Dash Incubator 2022 Q1
3-month proposal to the Dash Network
1 Summary
This proposal continues Dash Incubator's ongoing quarterly funding request as outlined in our proposal owner specification document. We are requesting 500 DASH/month for this quarter, the same rate as our previous 2021 Q4 proposal. As planned in that proposal, the Incubator admins and I revisited and reviewed our overall strategy and operations and discussed potential improvements. I will expound on this in later sections, but the conclusion is that we will keep everything the same for this quarter; no rule upgrades.
2 Updates
2.1 General
Our developer count in the Incubator continues to climb with minimal recruiting. I'm confident that we'll be able to grow in this respect when we're ready to. I estimate we'll be ready either Q2 or Q3 when we expect Dash Platform to be mature enough to introduce developers to it at scale. We need better documentation and fewer bugs before any considerable expansion should be actively pursued here. In one of our bounties we brought in an expert developer (with limited Dash experience) to see what his experience would be navigating what should have been a relatively simple task of integrating Dash payments into a website. He had a harder time than expected due to unclear websites and documentation as well as code bugs.
There is work to be done with our own Incubator processes (project organization, improving onboarding, etc), so we'll use this quarter to keep moving with that. We're making good progress migrating from Trello to GitHub and expect this to be complete early this quarter. This will give our admins (including me as proposal owner) much better project management tools, which will improve our transparency and ability to report on progress.
As shown in Figure 1 below, we continued our intentional spending curtailment mentioned in our last proposal. Note the decline in spending since mid 2021. We're building up our savings buffer for later, more efficient capital deployment. In addition to monthly rewards paid since the Incubator inception, Figure 1 also shows monthly averages for Q3 (376 DASH/month) and Q4 (260 DASH/month), as well as our current funding request (500 DASH/month).
Figure 1 - Incubator Rewards and Request
2.2 Bounties
In Q4 the incubator spent 780 DASH in rewards (down ~31% from Q3) to 29 different bounties. Figure 2 below shows the top 10 rewarded bounties.
Our priorities from Q4 were:
1. DashPay program (DashPay extension, DashPayJS library, etc)
2. Platform QA and Dash Core Contributions
3. Incubator meta bounties (Incubator on GitHub)
4. THORChain and finishing other already-started projects
5. New bounties with high value proposition
Our #1 Q4 priority, DashPay, is dependent on Platform, which was somewhat unstable during this quarter. Some of the resources we expected to put towards DashPay (the 5th highest Q4 rewarded bounty) ended up on the Platform Issues and Platform QA bounties (6th and 7th highest Q4 rewarded bounties).
Our #2 Q4 priority was to help Dash Core Group with whatever they need to keep making progress so that our dependent projects can get unblocked. This ended up as our 1st highest Q4 rewarded bounty.
Our #3 Q4 priority included the migration of our overall project management from Trello to GitHub. This took a little longer to get started than expected, but we found the right guy for implementation and he's making great progress. This will likely show up on our top 10 reward bounties list next quarter. The "meta bounties" priority also included analysis and review of potential Incubator restructuring (9th highest Q4 rewarded bounty) mentioned above. I will expound on this in our Roadmap below.
Our #4 Q4 priority, THORChain, is essentially complete from our end. This ended up as our 2nd highest Q4 rewarded bounty. We are now waiting on the THORchain devs to merge our PRs and finish the integration. We could use everyone's help making noise about this integration on social media so that they prioritize the integration (perhaps the Dash Marketing Hub could help with this).
Our #4 and #5 Q4 priorities consisted of many bounties, including the Decentralized Dynamic Application Infrastructure (3rd highest Q4 rewarded bounty), Dash Patreon Alternative (8th highest), and Decentralized Dash Incubator Document Repository (10th highest).
Figure 2 - Rewards Paid for Bounties - 2021 Q4
The full set of bounties can be viewed on our public Dash Incubator App Trello board. Our Dash Incubator Accounting Google spreadsheet shows all funds received as well as a detailed list of rewards paid with their corresponding deliverables.
3 Roadmap
3.1 Priorities
Our priorities for this coming quarter (Q1) are:
1. Incubator internal improvements (GitHub migration, potential restructuring, etc)
2. Platform QA and Dash Core Contributions
3. DashPay program (DashPay wallet/extension, DashPayJS library, etc)
4. Finishing already-started projects
5. New bounties with high value proposition
This quarter's priorities are basically the same as last quarter with the exception that 1) the order has changed a bit, and 2) our work on THORChain is basically finished, so we don't expect much activity there.
Priority #1 includes the Incubator on GitHub bounty, and the Dash Incubator Org bounty. The Incubator Feature Assessment for Incubator on GitHub is now complete and approved by admins, and much of the migration specification and implementation is done. Regarding the potential Incubator restructuring, I have submitted an internal proposal and RFC to our admins, which we will continue to discuss and refine over this quarter.
Priorities #2-5 are similar to last quarter. We will continue to support DCG as much as possible to get Platform on mainnet and remove blockers to our Incubator dApp development.
3.2 Schedule
This proposal continues our typical 3-month cadence, aligned with calendar quarters. Once we finish our move to GitHub we will be able to build this section out more for future proposals. I believe we'll have more insights into our work and activities with the better project views that GitHub Projects offers. Our admins and I will be able to better manage schedules, including quarterly releases and project reporting. Table 1 in the next section shows the Incubator’s historical, current, and planned proposal submissions.
4 Request
We are requesting 500 DASH/month for 3 months.
In previous proposals we've stated our intention to target 10-20% of Dash’s budget. The incubator is currently requesting ~10%, as shown in Figure 3 below. This is meeting our needs right now. I've personally noticed that the buffer we've built has made it easier to attract the attention of top-talent developers, which we need now, and we will need much more of when Platform is ready. Therefore, starting next quarter we plan to increase our request to accommodate attracting and retaining top talent at greater scale.
Figure 3 - Incubator Schedule and Budget Requests (source)
5 Terms
All operations of the Incubator funded by this proposal are subject to our current Rules. This proposal forms a part of our Network Contract with Dash.
6 Closing
Links needed to access all Incubator information, including past proposals, can be found in the Resources section of our Rules.
Thank you, masternode voters, for your support! And a personal thanks also to our Incubator admins and developers for their support and understanding as I try to fulfill Andy Freer's vision for the Dash Incubator. As always, I'm very excited about this quarter and what we will accomplish.
Respectfully,
Rion
3-month proposal to the Dash Network
1 Summary
This proposal continues Dash Incubator's ongoing quarterly funding request as outlined in our proposal owner specification document. We are requesting 500 DASH/month for this quarter, the same rate as our previous 2021 Q4 proposal. As planned in that proposal, the Incubator admins and I revisited and reviewed our overall strategy and operations and discussed potential improvements. I will expound on this in later sections, but the conclusion is that we will keep everything the same for this quarter; no rule upgrades.
2 Updates
2.1 General
Our developer count in the Incubator continues to climb with minimal recruiting. I'm confident that we'll be able to grow in this respect when we're ready to. I estimate we'll be ready either Q2 or Q3 when we expect Dash Platform to be mature enough to introduce developers to it at scale. We need better documentation and fewer bugs before any considerable expansion should be actively pursued here. In one of our bounties we brought in an expert developer (with limited Dash experience) to see what his experience would be navigating what should have been a relatively simple task of integrating Dash payments into a website. He had a harder time than expected due to unclear websites and documentation as well as code bugs.
There is work to be done with our own Incubator processes (project organization, improving onboarding, etc), so we'll use this quarter to keep moving with that. We're making good progress migrating from Trello to GitHub and expect this to be complete early this quarter. This will give our admins (including me as proposal owner) much better project management tools, which will improve our transparency and ability to report on progress.
As shown in Figure 1 below, we continued our intentional spending curtailment mentioned in our last proposal. Note the decline in spending since mid 2021. We're building up our savings buffer for later, more efficient capital deployment. In addition to monthly rewards paid since the Incubator inception, Figure 1 also shows monthly averages for Q3 (376 DASH/month) and Q4 (260 DASH/month), as well as our current funding request (500 DASH/month).
Figure 1 - Incubator Rewards and Request
2.2 Bounties
In Q4 the incubator spent 780 DASH in rewards (down ~31% from Q3) to 29 different bounties. Figure 2 below shows the top 10 rewarded bounties.
Our priorities from Q4 were:
1. DashPay program (DashPay extension, DashPayJS library, etc)
2. Platform QA and Dash Core Contributions
3. Incubator meta bounties (Incubator on GitHub)
4. THORChain and finishing other already-started projects
5. New bounties with high value proposition
Our #1 Q4 priority, DashPay, is dependent on Platform, which was somewhat unstable during this quarter. Some of the resources we expected to put towards DashPay (the 5th highest Q4 rewarded bounty) ended up on the Platform Issues and Platform QA bounties (6th and 7th highest Q4 rewarded bounties).
Our #2 Q4 priority was to help Dash Core Group with whatever they need to keep making progress so that our dependent projects can get unblocked. This ended up as our 1st highest Q4 rewarded bounty.
Our #3 Q4 priority included the migration of our overall project management from Trello to GitHub. This took a little longer to get started than expected, but we found the right guy for implementation and he's making great progress. This will likely show up on our top 10 reward bounties list next quarter. The "meta bounties" priority also included analysis and review of potential Incubator restructuring (9th highest Q4 rewarded bounty) mentioned above. I will expound on this in our Roadmap below.
Our #4 Q4 priority, THORChain, is essentially complete from our end. This ended up as our 2nd highest Q4 rewarded bounty. We are now waiting on the THORchain devs to merge our PRs and finish the integration. We could use everyone's help making noise about this integration on social media so that they prioritize the integration (perhaps the Dash Marketing Hub could help with this).
Our #4 and #5 Q4 priorities consisted of many bounties, including the Decentralized Dynamic Application Infrastructure (3rd highest Q4 rewarded bounty), Dash Patreon Alternative (8th highest), and Decentralized Dash Incubator Document Repository (10th highest).
Figure 2 - Rewards Paid for Bounties - 2021 Q4
The full set of bounties can be viewed on our public Dash Incubator App Trello board. Our Dash Incubator Accounting Google spreadsheet shows all funds received as well as a detailed list of rewards paid with their corresponding deliverables.
3 Roadmap
3.1 Priorities
Our priorities for this coming quarter (Q1) are:
1. Incubator internal improvements (GitHub migration, potential restructuring, etc)
2. Platform QA and Dash Core Contributions
3. DashPay program (DashPay wallet/extension, DashPayJS library, etc)
4. Finishing already-started projects
5. New bounties with high value proposition
This quarter's priorities are basically the same as last quarter with the exception that 1) the order has changed a bit, and 2) our work on THORChain is basically finished, so we don't expect much activity there.
Priority #1 includes the Incubator on GitHub bounty, and the Dash Incubator Org bounty. The Incubator Feature Assessment for Incubator on GitHub is now complete and approved by admins, and much of the migration specification and implementation is done. Regarding the potential Incubator restructuring, I have submitted an internal proposal and RFC to our admins, which we will continue to discuss and refine over this quarter.
Priorities #2-5 are similar to last quarter. We will continue to support DCG as much as possible to get Platform on mainnet and remove blockers to our Incubator dApp development.
3.2 Schedule
This proposal continues our typical 3-month cadence, aligned with calendar quarters. Once we finish our move to GitHub we will be able to build this section out more for future proposals. I believe we'll have more insights into our work and activities with the better project views that GitHub Projects offers. Our admins and I will be able to better manage schedules, including quarterly releases and project reporting. Table 1 in the next section shows the Incubator’s historical, current, and planned proposal submissions.
4 Request
We are requesting 500 DASH/month for 3 months.
In previous proposals we've stated our intention to target 10-20% of Dash’s budget. The incubator is currently requesting ~10%, as shown in Figure 3 below. This is meeting our needs right now. I've personally noticed that the buffer we've built has made it easier to attract the attention of top-talent developers, which we need now, and we will need much more of when Platform is ready. Therefore, starting next quarter we plan to increase our request to accommodate attracting and retaining top talent at greater scale.
Figure 3 - Incubator Schedule and Budget Requests (source)
5 Terms
All operations of the Incubator funded by this proposal are subject to our current Rules. This proposal forms a part of our Network Contract with Dash.
6 Closing
Links needed to access all Incubator information, including past proposals, can be found in the Resources section of our Rules.
Thank you, masternode voters, for your support! And a personal thanks also to our Incubator admins and developers for their support and understanding as I try to fulfill Andy Freer's vision for the Dash Incubator. As always, I'm very excited about this quarter and what we will accomplish.
Respectfully,
Rion
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Discussion: Should we fund this proposal?
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amanda_b_johnson
2 points,2 years ago
I'd sure like to see quarterly reports from the Incubator, similar in depth and breadth to DCG's.
Reply
rion
(proposal owner)
1 point,2 years ago
Thanks for the feedback. We're aiming to improve our reporting this quarter (Q2). Please see https://www.dashcentral.org/p/dash-incubator-2022-q2. Each admin who takes on a budget as described in the 2022 Q2 proposal will be in charge of how they report their deliverables. I'll be recommending video demos.
Reply
the_desert_lynx
3 points,2 years ago
Regaring #4 priority (THORChain), I can confirm that the Dash Marketing Hub has prioritized "making noise" on the potential integration to maintain top-of-mind awareness for Dash in the RUNE community.
Reply
rion
(proposal owner)
1 point,2 years ago
Thanks for doing this! It's making a difference.
Reply
agnewpickens
1 point,2 years ago
Yes
Reply
rion
(proposal owner)
1 point,2 years ago
Thanks for your support, as always. Just uploaded the new proposal.
Reply