[RFC]: Q1 & Q2 2024 | DAO Teams Budget Request Proposal

Governance Discussions DAO team funding
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[RFC]: Q1 & Q2 2024 | DAO Teams Budget Request Proposal

Six-month funding request: $153,500
Funding period: 1 February to 30 July 2024
RFC review period: 8–21 January
NMDP review period: 22–29 January
NMDP Snapshot voting period: 30 January to 5 February

Overview

In the last two quarters, the existing DAO teams–Communication, Research and Development (R&D), Investment Committee, Marketing, and Operations–have worked on behalf of members and focused on the priorities outlined in the NMDP: Q3 & Q4 2023 | DAO Teams Budget Request Proposal forum post.

Now that the six-month funding period is coming to an end, we, the DAO team leads, have outlined the proposed teams, their current priorities, and each team’s six-month budget breakdown in this proposal.

Mission

Our mission is to build an ecosystem in which anyone can protect anyone else by sharing risk. We often refer to this as the global risk marketplace.

Learn more by reviewing the Nexus Mutual DAO website.

Values

Nexus Mutual members value:

  • Trust–our commitment to transparency and our track record for paying claims should speak for itself, as we know we earn trust through our actions.
  • Egalitarianism–we are building towards an open protocol and DAO, so that protection is accessible by anyone.
  • Integrity–we engage honestly with one another, keep our word, and always choose the right decision even when it’s difficult.

Roadmap

In Q4 2023, the Community team shared the updated Nexus Mutual Roadmap for Q1 & Q2 2024, which outlines the high level priorities for the Nexus Mutual DAO teams and the Foundation teams.

Funding renewal for existing DAO teams for Q1 & Q2 2023

Below you can find toggle menus, where you can review each team’s purpose, priorities, ongoing responsibilities, team budget request breakdown, and Q3 & Q4 2023 performance review. We use toggle menus to make it easier to review the proposal at a high level and review each team’s request and overview independently.

Community team

Purpose

Provide support to and educational content for members, staking pool managers, DAOs and our wider community in order to expand coverage. Design communication channels to drive community engagement, member retention.

How team aligns with DAO values, mission

The Community team promotes egalitarianism through improved member experience and provides key support to members in a variety of ways, whether it’s day-to-day questions or direct assistance during claim events. Through consistent support, communication, and engagement, this team strives to improve the member experience and improve access to resources, while working to keep more members engaged within the DAO.

Priorities

  1. Update Zerion, Debank, Zapper and other portfolio management sites with the Nexus Mutual V2 contracts. Work to get Nexus Mutual V2 contracts supported on portfolio management sites, so members can see their cover and NXM deposits in the protocol when reviewing their portfolio. This will enhance discoverability and can lead to further initiatives with portfolio aggregator platforms. Our goal is to get integrated in these three aggregators by the end of Q2.
  2. Develop Discord Stages, Twitter Spaces series with ecosystem leaders. The Community team will begin hosting regular events in Discord and Twitter Spaces, where the team will have conversations with teams from listed protocols, notable builders and security experts, active contributors within the Nexus Mutual ecosystem, etc. The team’s goal is to drive greater engagement within the Discord server and on Twitter, so we can help educate more people about the Mutual’s mission. We’re hoping to see an increase in active members within the Nexus Mutual server and more engagement on Twitter, so we can continue to build the Nexus Mutual community.
  3. Collaborate with Engineering on governance research project. The Engineering and Community teams, supported by other full-time contributors, will begin a research project on potential governance models in use that could serve as the framework for a potential upgrade to the Mutual’s governance contract to allow more members to participate and contribute in core activities within the Mutual. Our goal is to identify a governance framework that will allow more members to participate and stay engaged with protocol governance.
  4. Collaborate with Engineering on technical documentation project. Work with the Foundation Engineering team to create technical documentation for the Nexus Mutual V2 smart contracts, which can be used by teams looking to integrate with the protocol.
  5. Create Nexus Mutual Governance Hub. The Community team has taken inspiration from one of SafeDAO’s initiatives to create a governance hub, so anyone can learn how to contribute to the governance process and stay up-to-date with the latest governance proposals. In the next six (6) months, the Community team will create a Governance Hub on the Nexus Mutual DAO website, which gives any member an overview of how to contribute to Nexus Mutual’s governance process, the latest governance proposals and their status, and more. After the team launches this Governance Hub, we can measure the impact by looking at the number of people participating on the forum and voting on on-chain and Snapshot proposals.
  6. Create Nexus Mutual Staking Pool Managers Hub. In an effort to expand resources for Staking Pool Managers or prospective Staking Pool Managers, the Community team will also make a Staking Pool Managers Hub on the Nexus Mutual DAO website, where an overview of the different kinds of staking pools, staking pool managers powers and responsibilities, the process for developing new cover products, links to relevant technical documentation, and more.
  7. Create Community-branded Visuals, Animations. The DAO Community Team will work with talented professional(s) to create appealing and accessibility-enhancing visual assets for community outlets (primarily for The Hedge, Community Calls, and the soon-to-be-introduced interview series). The work should help our community attract more people who are interested in getting involved within the Nexus Mutual DAO.

Ongoing responsibilities

  • Writing, distributing the weekly newsletter
  • Holding the bi-weekly community call
  • Providing community support on Discord, Twitter
  • Regular updates on governance discussions, development progress, DAO initiatives, etc.
  • Improving the overall member experience in the Mutual’s communications channels

Team

  • Head of Community (FT). BraveNewDeFi

    • Description. Directs community operations, writes and distributes content for the Mutual, writes and maintains the Nexus Mutual docs, works with Community Manager to provide timely support to members across various channels and improve engagement on the governance forum and Discord. BraveNewDeFi also serves on the Product & Risk team, where he contributes to feasibility assessments for new cover products and cover wording development. He coordinates new product-type and individual listings with the Engineering team and maintains an internal product-type and individual listings database. When claim events arise, BraveNewDeFi works with the Community Manager to help members prepare for claims filing, shares updates with Claim Assessors, and catalogs claim outcomes on the Claims History database.
    • Salary. Payment will be $10,500 monthly for a 6-month total of $63,000.

  • Community Manager (FT). Sem

    • Description. Responsible for community management, content production and coordination across the social channels, including content delivery in targeted channels. Conducts regular research on ways to improve member experience within Discord, governance forum, etc. Supports knowledge and project management.
    • Salary. Payment will be $7,000 monthly for a 6-month total of $42,000.

Budget request

Resources Requested funding for six-month period
Team lead salary, BraveNewDeFi $63,000
Community manager, Sem $42,000
Travel $7,000
Discord infrastructure $1,000
Graphic design project for community visuals $2,500
Discord notifications bot maintenance $500
Total $116,000

Q3 & Q4 2023 Performance

  1. Regular updates on the new tokenomics project. The Community team worked with the R&D and Engineering teams to ensure regular updates were posted on the governance forum under the Nexus Mutual Updates section to keep members informed on the tokenomics revamp project’s progress. The Community team also wrote and published an educational guide ahead of the RAMM parameter discussions and facilitated the parameter discussions on the forum. Those posts are listed below:

  1. Increase visibility, transparency and engagement between staking pool managers and community. This is an ongoing priority and a continued work in progress. Over the last two quarters, the Community team received capacity requests through the Nexus Mutual Notifications Bot and DMs, which were then forwarded on to staking pool managers. This resulted in new covers being sold, albeit a small but growing amount. The Engineering team is working on a longer-term user interface update, and the Community team has suggested adding a contact option on the cover buy page, which would forward capacity requests to the relevant staking pool managers to improve the efficiency of the risk marketplace. The Community team will continue to work on this priority in the coming quarters, as well.

  2. Own and drive engagement on the Nexus Mutual governance forum. Overall growth in engagement on the governance forum grew by 6.31% from Q2 to Q3 2023, and we’re on track to keep the same level of engagement in Q4 2023 as we saw in the previous quarter. Since the Community team overhauled the governance forum in Q2 2023, we’ve focused on publishing more regular updates on the forum. Our Community Manager Sem shares a weekly analysis report and a governance roundup when there are updates to consolidate. Sem also published the Quarterly Insights report for Q3. Going forward, Sem will be sharing quarterly reports, so members can see a high level overview of the Mutual’s progress each quarter. The majority of the posts the Community team shares on social media link back to the governance forum, and we’ve seen an increase in traffic originating from Twitter and The Hedge newsletter in the last two quarters. Below, you can find examples of Sem’s regular updates:

  1. Update and improve the Discord experience. After a research and design process, Sem put together a test server to create an alpha version of the new Discord server. After internal testing, the new design was implemented in late September. The updated design introduced new channels, renamed old ones, and added new roles within the server. The Community team also updated the bots in the server and configured the Captcha bot so it no longer DMs server members. Now, people can verify themselves using Captcha bot directly in the Discord server. The new design and configuration has helped reduce spam and scams by a significant margin. Server membership has remained flat, but we’re seeing growth in engagement, which is likely due in part to the tokenomics discussions and the RAMM’s launch.

  2. Improve V2 documentation; create guides. Ahead of the RAMM’s launch, BraveNewDeFi updated the token model, investments, and minimum capital requirement pages, as well as others where the token model and/or MCR was mentioned. He also added the history of capitalisation controls page, so members can read about the old token model in the documentation, if they want to learn about the previous token model. Throughout December, BraveNewDeFi updated various sections of the documentation to ensure sections had the latest information. The Community team will create guides once the first portion of the Engineering team’s UI overhaul is complete.

R&D team

Purpose

Overcome hard problems faced by the protocol and ecosystem. Decentralise the problem-solving function, increase transparency, and attract skilled members who want to solve difficult problems.

How team aligns with DAO values, mission

The R&D team strives to overcome hard issues the right way, with integrity, retaining focus on our mission and values, instead of taking shortcuts that may undermine them.

With a dedicated R&D team leading the effort, members can effectively work together to face difficult problems and we will aim to attract skilled, long-term aligned, active members to discuss, challenge and work together toward solutions.

Priorities

  1. Tokenomics Part 2. The R&D team will lead the Stage 2 of the tokenomics revamp project and work with the Foundation Engineering team. Stage 2 will be concerned with how liquidity is managed through the RAMM when the Capital Pool balance is close to the cover-driven MCR. The research conducted in Stage 2 will provide a solution to the potential issues that could arise in low liquidity conditions.
  2. MCR Revamp Project. Create an improved process for refreshing the cover-based MCR calculation parameter on a regular basis. Combine the current identified set of risks into a coherent, quantifiable framework. Deliver a v0 model for the MCR calculation which can inform the existing on-chain parameters. Define a regular process for updating the on-chain parameters, working with the Foundation Engineering team.
  3. Support Investment Committee. The R&D team will continue to act as a liaison between the Investment Committee and the Nexus Mutual DAO and Foundation, especially with regard to the prioritisation and technical integration of upcoming investments.

Ongoing responsibilities

  • Lead project on new tokenomics implementation. Communicate, refine, and generate consensus amongst the wider community, DAO teams and the Foundation. Collaborate with the Engineering team on implementation details. Drive the project towards completion as quickly as possible by identifying outstanding gaps and working to eliminate them.
  • Update the calculation of the Cover Amount/MCR parameter. Create an improved process for refreshing the cover-based MCR calculation parameter on a regular basis.
  • Maintain Dune dashboards on an ongoing basis and adapt them quickly to any protocol changes. If necessary, create new dashboards to capture new elements of protocol.
  • Act as liaison between Investment Committee and the Nexus Mutual DAO and Foundation, especially around the prioritizing and technical integration of upcoming investments.

Team

  • Head of R&D (PT): Rei

    • Description. Responsible for leading projects, managing contributors, working with DAO and Foundation members to increase participation in research and design.
    • Bio. Has served as Head of R&D since Q1 2023. Began working on Nexus Mutual in May 2018 as the first full-time employee, covering economic design, legal set-up, actuarial modeling, documentation, and early business development. Advisory Board member since February 2020. Previously qualified as a UK actuary, held a variety of back-office and front-office corporate roles in reinsurance and brokerage.
    • Salary. Payment will be $5,250 monthly for a six-month total of $31,500.

  • Dune Wizard (Contractor): Guy

    • Description. Responsible for writing SQL queries in Dune, capturing accurate current and historic information across the Nexus Mutual smart contracts.
    • Bio. Professional software engineer with 8+ years of working in C++, Python and SQL, overall a keen technologist with personal interests in ML/AI and Blockchain development.
    • Payment. Paid $60/hr with a max budget of $6,000 during the funding period.

Budget request

Resources Requested funding for six-month period
Team lead salary, Rei $31,500
SQL Contractor/Dune Wizard $6,000
Total $37,500

Q3 & Q4 2023 Performance

  1. Tokenomics design.
    Successfully launched the Ratcheting AMM mechanism for swapping NXM tokens directly with the protocol in November.
    Worked with the Community and Foundation Engineering teams to coordinate the governance process and finalise details of technical implementation.
    Created the structure for the community parameterisation process and made suggestions supported by economic simulations. Also used the economic simulation environment to test that the final solidity code conforms to expected behaviour.
    Completed the economic audit with Chaos Labs. Worked to build their understanding of the mechanism, guided them towards our main areas of concern, and interrogated their results.
    Created a new Dune dashboard for the Ratcheting AMM, which has been trending on Dune since its launch. Updated the previous Dune dashboards to work with the upgraded contracts.
  2. MCR update.
    Scoped out and prioritised the project with the Foundation teams. Aiming for a v0 model of the updated MCR calculation by the end of March 2024.
    Worked with the Foundation & DAO teams to identify and document the key risks faced by the Mutual. Currently combining the individual identified systemic and specific risks into a coherent, quantifiable framework.
Investment Committee

Purpose

Invest Nexus Mutual’s assets in a way that maximises the return without negatively impacting the Mutual’s ability to pay claims on a timely basis.

How committee aligns with DAO values, mission

The Investment committee reviews investment opportunities, supports community proposals, as well as writes its own detailed investment strategy proposals for the governance forum, where they provide members with the potential benefits, risks, and considerations necessary to make an informed decision ahead of on-chain governance votes.

This committee aims to take its decisions and make recommendations in a way that is beneficial for the long-term survival and reputation of the Mutual.

Priorities

With redemptions again enabled via the Tokenomics launch, there will be a need for more day-to-day decisions made around rebalancing and redemptions in addition to identifying new investments. A key goal is to update the Investment Philosophy with a framework for balancing and nimbly managing:

  • liquid assets set aside for claims;
  • liquidity for the Ratcheting AMM; and
  • investment assets.

Due to the state of the market and the preference for members to be long-ETH in the short-medium term, for any new investments the focus remains on ETH-denominated assets, especially ETH staking.

In the short term, the Investment Committee will collaborate with the other DAO and Foundation teams to ensure an optimal outcome for the Cover Re stablecoin borrowing and investment.

Ongoing responsibilities

  • Conducting new research on investment opportunities and proposing these ideas to members
  • Researching changes in existing investments
  • Maintaining the Investment Philosophy
  • Investment proposals for the DAO treasury

Committee

  • Investment Advisor & Coordinator (PT): Rei

    • Bio See above in R&D Team section.

  • Investment Advisor (PT): Gauthier

    • Bio. Former M&A analyst, I have moved on to invest in Real Estate. However, during the first lockdown in 2020, I dived deep into the crypto rabbit-hole and have been investing with a strong focus on DeFi protocols ever since. I’m serving as a discord moderator in the Nexus Mutual community, and as a multisig signer for the DAO treasury. I have been a very vocal advocate for Nexus Mutual on Twitter, and also wrote a guide about Nexus Mutual’s tokenomics. I have a strong vested interest in Nexus Mutual and going forward, I aim to identify what are the best investment opportunities for the Mutual.
    • Payment. Determined by hours worked on a monthly basis.

  • Investment Advisor (PT): Guillaume

    • Bio. Business professional with more than 15 years’ experience, with a good analytical and structured approach to all types of problems. My skills in project management and risk management can be complementary to the profiles of the initial team. Also a retail investor in both DeFi and TradFi (a long-time investor in insurance stocks). I’d like to keep contributing to the Investment team around both set-up/structure as well as the process to surface and implement direct DeFi investments in line with the strategy.
    • Payment. Determined by hours worked on a monthly basis.

Budget request

Resources Requested funding for six-month period
Hours funding (Funded from existing surplus)
Total $0

$100/hr for each contributor (not already funded elsewhere) is suggested, to be paid out in wNXM based on book value at the time of distribution.

Q3 & Q4 2023 Performance

Invest more of the Capital Pool in ETH staking solutions. The Investment Committee worked with the Avantgarde team and Uisce.eth to help both put up their investment proposals on the Nexus Mutual governance forum. The Investment Committee reviewed both draft proposals and gave both the Avantgarde team and Uisce.eth guidance on the requirements for a Capital Pool investment, as well as help formulating a proposal. Through their work, the Investment Committee helped facilitate investments of 21,024 ETH in Q3 & Q4 2023.

Marketing team

Purpose

Expand Nexus Mutual’s brand awareness, engagement with target audiences and drive growth in new membership. Create and execute marketing campaigns; develop and distribute content; and manage Nexus Mutual’s marketing channels.

How team aligns with DAO values, mission

The Marketing team creates awareness about the risk marketplace and reaches prospective members around the world. With a defined content strategy and data-driven metrics to demonstrate their impact, the Marketing team can grow brand awareness and membership within the Mutual, while providing DAO members with a measure of their success.

Update on Marketing team

In August 2023, the DAO’s Head of Marketing, Claudio, informed us he would be stepping down at the end of September 2023. The previous funds earmarked for the Marketing team ($97,000.00) will be held and used to fund a new Marketing team in the future.

At this time, the Community team will be taking on the Marketing team’s ongoing responsibilities.

Budget request

The remaining $97,000 from Q3 & Q4 2023 budget request will remain earmarked for the Marketing team. No new funding will be requested in Q1 & Q2 2024 for the Marketing team.

Operations team

Purpose

Provide support to the DAO teams, manage projects between DAO teams to improve communication and efficiency, coordinate online and in-person events, and improve internal operations within the DAO.

How team aligns with DAO values, mission

The Operations team strives to bring DAO community ownership to coordination of funds, projects, and events.

Through increased transparency, communication/coordination among DAO members and teams, and accountability around funding/performance, this team helps further decentralise the Mutual and scale the DAO.

Update on Operations team

Kayleigh is currently on maternity leave and will not be returning to work during the Q1 & Q2 2024 funding period. As outlined in the NMDP: Q3 & Q4 2023 | DAO Teams Budget Request Proposal forum post, Kayleigh’s ongoing responsibilities have been handed over to other team members during this period. These include:

  • Monthly payroll
  • Coordinating funding requests, ad hoc project budgets
  • Project management
  • DAO operating model considerations
  • Team on-sites and events to coordinate goals and create roadmap
  • Liaison with ad hoc contributors and committees
  • Big gaps and missing skills horizon scanning

Ongoing responsibilities

  • Bring DAO community ownership to coordination of funds, projects, and events.
  • Coordinate DAO teams projects, goals and strategy.
  • Coordinate, and execute team external events and conferences.
  • Provide oversight and support for cross-team projects.

Team

  • Head of Operations (FT). Kayleigh
    • Description. Serves as project manager for cross-team projects and ensures teams consistently meet their goals and stay within budget. Monitors funds, governance, grants and multi-sig/financial structure and provides insight to members on what DAO teams and grant recipients are delivering to facilitate accountability. Work to deepen knowledge on DAO management best practices, so Nexus Mutual can set the standard.
    • Bio. Kayleigh has served as Head of Operations during Q1 and Q2 2023 and had been leading operations within the Foundation for Nexus Mutual before the protocol launched on mainnet. Since 2018, Kayleigh has provided community, communications, and marketing support for the Mutual. In addition, she has coordinated numerous in-person and online events and ensured Foundation teams regularly communicated when working across projects.

Budget request

As Kayleigh is still on maternity leave, no new funding will be requested in Q1 & Q2 2024 for the Operations team.

Total DAO team funding requests

Team Requested funding for six-month period
Community $116,000
Investment (Funded from surplus)
Marketing (No new funding request)
Operations (No new funding request)
R&D $37,500
Discretionary budget (shared by teams) (Funded from surplus)
Total $153,500

RFC review period

This RFC proposal will be open for review and comment from 8–21 January.

NMDP review period

If no substantial comments are received, this funding proposal will transition to a Nexus Mutual DAO Proposal (NMDP), which will open for comment from 22–29 January.

Snapshot vote

After 29 January, the NMDP proposal will transition to a Snapshot vote, which will open on 30 January and will close on 5 February.

We look forward to the community’s review and comments!

Update: This NMDP has been scheduled for a DAO Snapshot vote, which will open for voting on 30 January 2024 at 3pm UTC and will be closed for voting as of 5 February at 3pm UTC.

Proposal status

  • Open for comment
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