[Proposal] Cartesi Grants Program Intents and Wave 2 renewal

[hellen]

This proposal seeks to introduce CGP Intents and renew the grants program for 6 months with Wave 2 as an iteration of Wave 1, with an allocation budget of $500,000 in CTSI.

Proposers: Pedro Argento, João Garcia, Hellenstans.eth

Summary:

• The Grants Council proposes renewing the Cartesi Grants Program (CGP) for Wave 2, building on the foundation of Wave 1.
• Based on the learnings from Wave 1, the Grants Council proposes shifting to a more proactive and forward-looking approach to grant funding with the introduction of Intents.
• Intents are medium-term goals or objectives that guide the strategic direction which the community should focus on. Think of an Intent as a North Star for CGP.
• Wave 2 will run for 6 months, during which proposals will be accepted on a rolling basis. After the 6-month period, the Intents will be reviewed and possibly updated to ensure they continue to align with the ecosystem’s evolving priorities.
• The Grants Council has drafted five key Intents for Wave 2 to enhance alignment, focus and success across the ecosystem.
• All community efforts and projects supported in Wave 2 must align with our Intents.
• Proposals will follow a structured submission process, including community feedback and evaluation by the Grants Council.

Key learnings and updates from Wave 1

Wave 1 key updates and learnings can be viewed here. All the Wave 1 processes and proposals submitted can be viewed here.

Context

The Cartesi Grants Program (CGP) is an iterative governance experiment aimed at increasing the number of value-aligned builders within our ecosystem. During the Pilot and Wave 1 phases, CGP supported various builders and projects with unique ideas. While these initiatives achieved notable successes, a misalignment often emerged between what the community proposes and what CGP and the Cartesi project broadly value as most impactful for the ecosystem.

To address this, the Grants Council proposes a structured framework for Wave 2, introducing Intents as foundational elements. These Intents will provide clear direction on what CGP values and seeks to achieve, aligning proposals with targeted objectives. This approach draws inspiration from community-centric models like GitcoinDAO and Optimism.

Based on feedback and leveraging the Technical Evolution Plan (TEP) from the Technical Vision Council, the Grants Council has defined clear, actionable, and measurable Intents. These Intents align with the ecosystem’s strategic direction, providing qualitative metrics to track progress and measure impact. This alignment ensures that CGP’s efforts contribute effectively to the ecosystem’s goals, guiding current and future projects towards collective success.

CGP Intents

The following Intents are proposed to guide the strategic direction of Wave 2, ensuring alignment with the broader ecosystem goals.

Intent 1: Maximize modular integrations

Objective: Maximize the availability and utility of integrations between Cartesi and other ecosystems especially those within the modular blockchain narrative.

The ecosystem should continue making progress with its unique proposition in the modular space to fully unlock computational capacity offered by Cartesi Rollups and the Cartesi Virtual Machine.

This includes support for solutions that integrate Cartesi’s execution layer with DA layers, sequencers, blockchain naming systems, and more.

Success Criteria:

• Increase the number of Mainnet Cartesi dApps that integrate with other solutions.
• Increase the Cartesi developer community by having developers and teams from other communities integrate Cartesi into their applications.
• Robustness and effectiveness of new integrations have been demonstrated.
• Developers and users report high satisfaction with integration efforts.
• Ecosystem interoperability has been enhanced through successful integrations.

Examples:

• DA integration solutions with Celestia.
• Restaking primitive integrations (EigenLayer and alternatives)
• Rollup transactions and state access and archival

Intent 2: Strengthen Infrastructure, Services and Support for Mainnet Applications

Objective: Strengthen the ability of developers to deploy and run applications on Mainnet L1s or L2s.

The ecosystem should focus on growing the number of high-demand Mainnet applications through support for infrastructure, services, and software for mainnet applications.

This includes software and tooling that reduce challenges of deploying Cartesi-based Mainnet applications.

Success Criteria:

• Increase in the number of developers deploying applications on mainnet.
• Positive feedback and strong engagement from the developer community have been demonstrated.

Examples:

• Dashboards for easy deployment of node software into AWS
• Patterns for secure key management of rollup nodes
• EIP4844 blob support for cheaper transaction fees

Intent 3: Enhance Cartesi developer experience

Objective: Enhance developer experience by providing advanced tools and frameworks for efficient dApp creation and deployment.

In order to onboard more users and developers to the ecosystem, the community should focus on improving the developer experience on Cartesi, making it easier to build, test and deploy applications on Cartesi.

Success Criteria:

• Developer “happiness” and less drop-outs noticed during onboarding developers.
• Decrease in the amount of time needed for developers to create applications.

Examples:

• Integration of Cartesi tools with mainstream IDE’s like VS
• Leverage of mainstream debugging or tracking tools

Intent 4: Expand the Cartesi design space

Objective: The Cartesi Machine as a technology is not only for Rollups or off-chain compute but can be used in many different settings. Expanding the design space is about enabling both existing applications to do more but also to use the Cartesi Machine in many new places.

Success Criteria:

• Successful entry into new areas of Cartesi technology in areas not previously established in.
• Differently skilled developers than those already in the ecosystem building on Cartesi.

Examples:

• Reproducible software builds
• Secure replicated computation
• CM as offloading computation on low-end or IoT devices
• Tools and frameworks that enable the verification and transparency of AI processes

Intent 5: Grow the Cartesi ecosystem

Objective: Increase the number of developers building mainnet applications and teams with existing applications integrating with the Cartesi ecosystem.

The Cartesi ecosystem has seen exciting growth in the number of developers building across different verticals in the ecosystem.

In addition to strengthening infrastructure, services, and support for mainnet applications, the community should also focus on:

• Growing the number of developers building and deploying novel applications on mainnet across any L1 or L2.
• Supporting teams with existing consumer or end-user applications interested in integrating with Cartesi.

Success Criteria:

• Increased number of mainnet applications using Cartesi technology.
• Increased number of integrations.
• Increased number of active developers in the ecosystem.
• Increased number of users interacting with mainnet applications.
• Increase in the number of participants in governance activities.

Examples:

• Support teams looking to expand and integrate their existing applications with Cartesi.
• Support teams building games that highlight the capabilities of Cartesi, e.g, on-chain games requiring extensive computational power or those that distinctively utilize its RISC-V / Linux VM
• Support projects addressing groundbreaking ideas and solutions that address consensus mechanisms, DeFi protocols, NFTs, etc.
• Support solutions that enhance governance structures and participation in the ecosystem.

Pathways to Achieve CGP Intents:

All work supported by the CGP will align with these Intents. There are two main pathways for developers and teams to apply for grants:

Request For Proposals (RFPs)

Proposed missions from the Cartesi core units and community that invite proposals for high-impact work. These missions address specific needs in the ecosystem, such as developing new features or creating solutions in pursuit of the Intents.

RFPs can be:

Broadly-Scoped: Wide call for diverse, creative solutions, encouraging submissions of multiple approaches that address the problem specified in the RFP.
Tightly-Scoped: Specific, measurable, and time-bound tasks that drive and support the development needed in the Cartesi ecosystem.

Community Proposals

Involves Cartesi community members proposing their own ideas with tangible steps to achieving CGP’s Intents. These proposals are actionable and specific, guiding the journey towards fulfilling our Intents.

What would this mean for CGP and the Community:

• RFP generation: We see this model as a way to enhance the ecosystem’s ability to generate meaningful Requests for Proposals (RFPs) under the objectives and outcomes described in the Intents, maximizing the effectiveness of our grant funding.

• Strategic Alignment and Improved Governance: By defining clear, actionable Intents, CGP will progress towards a more structured and focused approach to grant allocation. This will enhance alignment with the ecosystem’s broader goals as outlined in TEP.

• Increased Community Engagement and Empowerment: The use of Intents will empower the community by providing clear guidelines on what types of projects and initiatives are most impactful and aligning their efforts around this. This clarity will facilitate greater community involvement.

• Improved Measurement and Impact Assessment: Setting specific metrics for each Intent will improve CGP’s ability to track and assess the potential impact of projects funded. This will not only enhance transparency but also allow for better decision-making and help CGP to enhance data points that build on past success and learnings.

Steps to Implement

1. Discussion on the governance forum: We are seeking community comments on this proposal and the purpose of each Intent. The Grants Council is available to provide feedback, and we are excited to hear your thoughts and collaborate on shaping the Cartesi Grants Program.
2. Vote on Snapshot: A vote will be held on Snapshot to signal approval for Wave 2 renewal. Voting options will be For, Against, and Abstain.
3. Launch of Wave 2: If the vote passes on Snapshot, the Grants Council will launch Wave 2 of the CGP for a 6-month period.

[claudio.silva]

Kudos to the grants council for the important initiative of improving the CGP, specially by bringing clarity for the intents and for transparently communicating some measurable outcomes that will help defining how much the intents were achieved.

My 2 cents here would focus on the success criteria for the intents. Some items listed on that section are more like actions (that will certainly be important at the end to define a possible wave 3) than measurable outcomes.

For example, regarding Intent 1, the item “Increase the number of Mainnet Cartesi dApps that integrate with other solutions” is a good measurable outcome, but IMO “Gather feedback from developers and users on integration efforts” is an action, not a measurable outcome. I also consider actions the items “Assess the robustness…” and “Evaluate how integrations…”.

[hellen]

Great point @claudio.silva, and I strongly agree. I have updated the Success Criteria for both Intent 1 and Intent 2 to better reflect outcomes rather than actions. Thank you for highlighting these distinctions—I really appreciate your valuable feedback!

[carsten.munk]

I like this proposal a lot. I feel that grants programmes generally in other ecosystems have had a clear problem of not articulating what they want and what impact they desire. We’ve in Cartesi had same problems. And it has bad impact on the quality of proposals and funds available to genuinely impactful things.

This proposal sets out with the intents what at least I believe is the major priorities to fund with the Cartesi grants programme - because the results will be impactful to what we want to accomplish and place us where we deserve to be in the web3 ecosystem.

One key principle in any system is that of “garbage in garbage out” - if you don’t feed the right input into a system you’ll get the wrong output. So it’s important for us all in the ecosystem to really participate in the RFP process and any public reviews of incoming proposals. Else we won’t get what we want and will have wasted funds.

[pedroperes]

Hey guys. I’m here to give you some feedback on Intents 3 as someone who already had experience with blockchain development, but had to learn how to develop Cartesi dApps.

I completely agree with Intent 3. For a Web2 developer, it’s hard to get familiar with Web3 concepts (wallet, tokens, provider, signer, ERCs, etc.). Likewise, for traditional blockchain developers, there’s a learning curve to get familiar with Cartesi concepts (InputBox, Portals, Vouchers, Notices, Reports…).

I, who already had years of experience as a Solidity developer, had this learning curve while developing for Cartesi Hackathon and Cartesi Seed Grants.

Libraries that can abstract this in a certain way end up being very useful. Using João Garcia’s python-wallet library was very useful for developing our PoC in practice.

Similarly, I believe it would be interesting to see front-end libraries to abstract the interaction with InputBox smart contracts, for example. To be honest, I was able to integrate because I saw the functions of smart contracts in Etherscan, but someone without this knowledge of Solidity would have difficulty.

This would make it easier for a front-end developer to integrate their applications since they don’t have knowledge of how to interact with smart contracts and wallets.

[pedroperes]

About Intent 5, I believe Cartesi should consider exploring strategies that don’t necessarily involve technical development, but rather focus on increasing Cartesi’s visibility within crypto communities, especially among crypto founders (like Orange DAO, a kind of Y Combinator for crypto).

These are communities of individuals looking to start ventures in the crypto space and are often still in the ideation phase. Promoting Cartesi at such events could ignite the spark for a technical founder to build something within the ecosystem. A significant portion of the crypto market is still unfamiliar with Cartesi.

[gugasanchez]

Hey Cartesians! In addition to the points other people brought here, I’d like to add some consideration.

First, I’d like to mention that the renewal of the CGP makes a lot of sense to me and is a deep improvement built on the foundation of Wave 1. But here are some points that could benefit Cartesi and builders even further:

1. Set Clear, Measurable Goals (e.g., achieving at least one mainnet dApp). This will ensure that the key success criteria are less subjective and more quantifiable.

2. Provide Concrete Examples: examples of successful projects would clarify expectations. If feasible, including a video demonstration to further illustrate the desired outcomes might be even better.

3. Standardize RFP Submissions: In Wave 1, projects submitted their RFPs in varied
formats, which may not have aligned with Cartesi’s expectations (I read all of the approved Wave 1 Grants Proposals individually to notice this). A comprehensive, detailed example within the RFP template to guide applicants on which exact information Cartesi as a organization needs.

4. Funding Larger Grants for Greater Impact: Consider whether smaller Grants in the scope of CGP can really deliver according to Cartesi’s expectations. Significant development, user acquisition, and scaling efforts may require substantial funding. The CGP could focus on supporting more ambitious projects, while the Cartesi Dev Ad Seed Grants program could continue covering smaller initiatives. Projects that stay in the middle (in financial terms) may not match expectations of both SeedGrants and CGP.

5. Benchmarking with Y Combinator’s RFS: Y Combinator’s Request for Startups (RFS) can serve as a useful reference for benchmarking, as they’re very successful on those initiatives. Here’s the link: Requests for Startups | Y Combinator.

[gconnect]

I think the proposed CGP intents for Wave 2 are spot on for driving integrations and growing the Cartesi ecosystem. Expanding partnerships with more DA layers, offering targeted incentives, and improving deployment infrastructure (like GCP and Infura) will help boost adoption.

I am personally interested in Intent 3 and Intent 5. There is a need to improve the developer experience by developing tools that make this process easier. The ability to write programs in different programming languages is a plus but insufficient if the learning and development curve of building on Cartesi is not straightforward for beginners.

So the developer experience should be as good as ABC because many other options out there and developers are not ready to spend time on a platform that would stress them much.

When we have a good developer experience it becomes easier to grow and retain developers. And that can also translate to increased mainnet deployment.

In conclusion, focusing on the developer experience through better IDE integrations, support programs, and education will make it easier to bring in new developers, and startups and keep them engaged, setting the stage for long-term growth.

[Wollum]

It’s fantastic to see the thought and effort that has gone into planning wave 2 already. A few points from me:

I really like the idea of intents. Wy suggestion would be to also really double-down on the RFPs for this round and ensure that they are as specific and technical as possible. When you look at some of the most successful projects in Ethereum (e.g. Uniswap, Optimism) they started as highly technical articles from knowledgeable people within the Ethereum community (like Vitalik :P) and a community of developers emerged to build it. I think if each of the intent categories had a few concrete and detailed RFPs this could go a long way to ensuring that the important things get built.

My other suggestion would be that a maximum of 50K USD per grant (as in wave 1) isn’t quite enough to attract serious teams to build projects that don’t also have the potential to generate revenue in the future. This would include most projects related to modular integrations, infra, and dev tooling. I would like to see higher maximum grant amounts to support teams working on complex RFPs.

I also agree with @claudio.silva 's point that the success criteria should be as measurable as possible. I’d maybe add that baselines and data capture strategies be transparent and set up ahead of the grants round to ensure that a fair retrospective can be conducted down the track. Github and on-chain activity would be great starting points.

Looking forward to seeing how this all turns out

[hellen]

Thanks for your feedback, @pedroperes, and for sharing your experience building on Cartesi. I agree with your suggestions. High-impact solutions that enhance the developer experience and increase Cartesi’s visibility can be captured through RFPs.

Anyone would be able to submit an RFP for things they’d like to see built in Wave 2 subject to adoption by the Grants Council.
We’re excited to continue improving the developer experience and growing the ecosystem through funding impactful solutions.

[mavelricks]

I would like to say that I’m happy with the direction that the foundation is taking the grants program. Particularly, the focus on the increase of mainnet apps using Cartesi.

I recall one particular user sending a voice note on one of the Discord channels, complaining about the lack of any product to show. Now that we have Rives - and the grants council also encouraging builders to add more mainnet apps - we can envision a future with exciting app-chains in the ecosystem.

[hellen]

Thanks @gugasanchez for your feedback. I agree with you on setting measurable outcomes. We’ve addressed this in Intent 1 and Intent 5 through quantitative metrics, including the number of mainnet applications as Success Criteria.

I also agree with your point about providing concrete examples of funded projects. For instance, DCA.Monster is a good example of past grantee projects funded in the ecosystem.

Regarding standardized RFP submissions, we’ve recently posted templates here that anyone will be able to use to write RFPs for discussion with the ecosystem in Wave 2. The Grants Council will also be looking to standardize proposal templates for proposals in response to an RFP.

Benchmarking with Y Combinator’s RFS is a great suggestion, and I see RFPs playing a similar role in guiding and supporting more startups to build within the ecosystem.

[hellen]

Appreciate the feedback, @gconnect. We’re excited to keep enhancing the developer experience through initiatives like these in Wave 2.

[hellen]

Thanks for your feedback, @Wollum! I’m glad the Intents resonate with you. I agree that focusing on more specific and technical RFPs will help drive impactful projects in the ecosystem.

Regarding the funding cap, we plan to address it on a per-RFP basis, depending on the scope and complexity of the work required.

I fully agree that on-chain data and Github activity are great metrics to track and measure the impact of projects funded. With success criteria in place for each Intent and standardized proposal templates, we aim to capture as much data as possible. We’re excited to gather this data throughout Wave 2 to continually improve the impact of projects funded in alignment with the ecosystem’s goals.

[0xEvans]

I think this is a super amazing initiative. I had a hard time trying to really understand where Cartesi comes in in terms of interacting with or integrating other popular blockchain protocols. The first thing that came to my mind as I was reading through the proposal was “finally”, because before now many web3 developers do not really understand Cartesi or what it can do, but guiding ecosystem builders to focus on these intents will act as a bridge to introduce Cartesi to the bigger web3 ecosystem.

The Celestia team was able to present Celestia as the DA protocol where any protocol could plug into. I think Cartesi being a Linux VM based protocol has been doing a great job pushing the Cartesi VM’s computational power, but more than that the builders as well as the users need to know that the VM is not just a closed or sandboxed system, but a protocol that can connect and interact with any other popular protocols out there… also the simpler it is to implement the interaction with other protocols the better, the very difficult and complex parts can be abstracted for easier developer experience.

Also, I think that builders who deliver and have a good product idea should have access to more support, encouragement and funding. That’s because if they eventually build out a great product that draws more users to the ecosystem that’ll become a major win.
Just like @gugasanchez mentioned, Dev Ad Seed Grants program could cover smaller initiatives while there’ll be RFP can cater to bigger project initiatives.

[Mitong]

As others have mentioned, this is generally a great proposal and kudos to the Grants Council for their thoughts on how to improve the CGP. I have read through the proposal and all the comments following and much of what I would have said has been mentioned by others particularly @gugasanchez and @pedroperes.

I’d like to throw in my two cents on an idea that might not make it into Wave 2 but should definitely be considered in the future.

Firstly, this doesn’t apply in all cases. Some teams are only building tools and improving the developer experience. However, for those building dApps for public use, I believe this is a consideration that deserves some thought. There’s more to building a successful product than just securing funding and having solid technical support. If we’re thinking about increasing the number of Mainnet Cartesi dApps or growing the Cartesi ecosystem, we may need to think beyond just the tech side of things. Most developer teams are primarily composed of technical founders. These are people who can build a great product from a developer’s perspective, but often they lack the skills to approach it from an end-user or commercial angle.

So, while financial and technical support are crucial, I believe the Grants Council should consider offering a pathway for teams to learn key aspects of product success, like user acquisition or product design.

This may be an outside thought right now but I would love to see more products go beyond the previous DevAd Seed grants and become successful or mainstream. To do so, Cartesi needs to help these teams develop more than just their coding skills and its application in building a dApp using Cartesi. In my experience, the technology is there, and teams have shown they can create interesting applications with it. But when it comes to transitioning into commercial founders, where users and the wider ecosystem can get to use their product and appreciate Cartesi, that’s often left to teams to figure out on their own—and it’s usually outside their skill set (I know from experience, there is usually the push that the Cartesi marketing team and the DevAd team tries to do on projects from Wave 1 but I don’t think that’s sufficient).

Other protocols are beginning to adopt mini-incubation or acceleration programs as part of their grants program. These programs offer developers invaluable opportunities to learn about the business side of product development, not just coding. This approach could lead to higher success rates for projects emerging from the Cartesi ecosystem. It could help transform mere ideas into scalable products, which would likely increase the number of Mainnet Cartesi dApps. This growth, in turn, could open up opportunities for increased integration or experimentation with other solutions, as proposed in Intent 1, for example.

I think there’s an important conversation to be had about the ultimate direction of dApps in the CGP. This discussion should consider the current progress of projects in the Pilot and Wave 1 phases of the CGP, particularly those projects that aligned with Cartesi’s vision. In summary, I believe a more holistic approach to support—one that includes business education alongside the already provided technical support—could be key to unlocking the full potential of projects within the Cartesi ecosystem.

[bmaia18]

Kudos to the grant team! I liked the general shape of this proposal and Im adding here my few cents:

1 - RFP and its clear workflow: The precise workflow for an RFP coming to life is not clear. What is the process that should be followed by the core Cartesi team to create an RFP until it becomes officially accepted and available for the community to apply for grants? Additionally, to ensure alignment, the RFPs should address a need that is aligned with one of the CGP intents, allowing the community to make proposals that are automatically in sync with CGP goals.
Aside of that, do we have clarity on the workflow timeline?

2 - For the community grant requests: I feel we lack clarity on the timelines for community members who apply for grants and when their process will be finalized. Are we planning to provide such clarity on the application process in phase 2?

[hellen]

@0xEvans glad to hear that the Wave 2 proposed framework resonates with you.
I completely agree that guiding builders through the CGP Intents will help drive more impactful projects in the ecosystem. We’re focused on making sure builders have the resources and clarity needed to succeed.

Regarding Seed Grants, there is no lower limit for grants in Wave 2 and initiatives like these could be captured in one or more RFPs addressing this.

[hellen]

@Mitong I completely agree that offering support beyond grants and marketing is crucial for projects to succeed on the business side.

The CGP is always keen to provide additional support to funded projects and connect them with the right resources to grow. I see this as an area that the ecosystem can explore, propose and discuss as RFPs to support and scale the ecosystem.

[hellen]

@bmaia18 thank you for raising these points!

Regarding the RFP workflow, we have recently posted RFP templates that anyone can use to draft their own RFPs. Once submitted, they will go through a discussion phase, after which the Grants Council will adopt the RFPs after sufficient feedback. Proposals in response to these RFPs will be approved directly by the Grants Council through an internal vote.

For community proposals, members will be able to submit their own ideas under one of the Intents, and these proposals will be subject to approval through a Snapshot vote.

I see the proposal review process improving significantly in Wave 2, as the RFPs will provide clearer expectations. This will streamline the review process and help proposers focus on what’s needed when drafting their proposals.

The biggest delays in reviewing proposals have been due to misalignment on what the ecosystem values and how proposals align with those priorities. The RFPs will significantly address this by providing clearer eligibility criteria, making it easier for reviewers to evaluate proposals.

We are also actively working on increasing community involvement in proposal and milestone reviews, for example, through public reviews on the Cartesi Discord to help scale this process.