February '23

Highlights

• Grants program renewed for six months
• One grant approved for $32,500 in funding
• dYdX academy, trading journal application, and contributor dashboard launched
• Retroactive guidelines and Feedback forms

Grants v1.5 Renewal

The Grants program v1.5 approved in August 2022, was set to expire on February 15th, 2023. To avoid a prolonged pause in the program, the team spent the first half of February working through a renewal proposal. We’re excited to share that the program has been renewed for another six months!

The renewal did not include an increase in treasury funding given the remaining budget (~$3M). The proposal did however include a few structural changes to the program, including reducing our Trustee count from seven to five so as to improve transaction processing and accountability, and reducing operational costs to prolong our runway.

As part of the renewal, we defined a new set of funding categories for the next six months:

• International Growth

Grants include event sponsorships, marketing opportunities, and local workshops to drive brand awareness and user onboarding.

• Risk Management

Grants include risk-related tooling to help monitor the protocol and research on frameworks to standardize protocol maintenance and allow for efficient parameter setting.

• Testnet Development

Grants include bug bounty programs, third party integrations, infrastructure building and other tooling to help improve the testnet experience.

• Community Initiatives

Grants include content creation for community projects like the academy, engagement campaigns, and onboarding projects to drive community engagement in dYdX.

The team is thrilled to be running the program for another six months. We’re excited to onboard new contributors to build the future of dYdX ahead of v4. If you, or anyone you know, have ideas for projects that contribute towards the growth of dYdX, give us a shout.

Funding Rounds

In February, the DGP issued one grant for $32,500 in funding. We have now approved a total of 95 grants with over $2.9M in funding throughout the grants program.

The program temporarily paused until the last week of February given the ongoing renewal proposal and structural changes to the Trust. The program is now back up and ready to approve new grants.

Funded Grants

February was an exciting month for existing grants with several projects completing their final milestones and other grantees making progress. Below, we highlight both completed projects and productive updates from the past month.

Completed Grants

dYdX Academy

The dYdX Academy launched in February, bringing to completion seven different grants all working on this project. The academy was our largest effort to fund a group of community members to work collectively towards a single deliverable. The academy will now host educational content to help new users find their footing and build on the user-friendly mission of dYdX as an onboarding tool.

Trading Journal

The trading journal application built by Kagan and the Fox Labs team gives dYdX users access to their trade history with customizable metrics and historical performances. The application also lets users generate share-able trade performance cards to add a fun social element to their trade history.

Contributor Dashboard

Karma released a dYdX dashboard that scores contributors on their participation across the dYdX DAO. The dashboard will be used to measure engagement for competitions, rewards, and delegations.

Ongoing Grants

Funding Rate Bounding Research

Immediately after being approved, 0xCLR has already shared a draft and is readying their paper for publication. This research will help the community decide if the existing funding rate caps, now set at 0.75%, should be raised to improve dYdX markets in times of high volatility.

Protocol Parameters Research

Xenophon Labs shared a draft of their research on DYDX token and protocol parameter transitions to dYdX v4. This first half of their paper explores the transition and improvement of different protocol parameters, including rewards and debt insurance, in a v4 environment.

The team is waiting for additional information on the infrastructure of dYdX v4 before publishing recommendations on the token design. The grant timeline has been prolonged in line with the changing v4 release.

Applications Data

February saw an uptick in applications and program inbound. The program received 36 applications and a flurry of discussions across different channels. Tons of prospective grantees are reaching out about opportunities to join dYdX ahead of v4.

Program Updates

Feedback Forms

We have started sharing Feedback Forms so that users can share thoughts and questions on projects built through grants. We hope to improve final products and community engagement with this new method of sharing feedback.

Retroactive Guidelines

We released a guideline on retroactive funding eligibility to help explain our criteria when considering future retroactive grants.

DYDX Sale

Last month, we sold 200,000 DYDX for 530,000 USDC (at an average price of $2.65). This USDC covers costs associated with operating the DGP. It also allows the DGP to fund U.S. based grantees who are prohibited from receiving DYDX-based grants.

Expenses

The program paid out the following expenses in February:

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