Proposal Overview
Perpetual Protocol is a fully non-custodial, permissionless, decentralized derivatives exchange.
One of our main values and goals is decentralization and in keeping with our continued commitment to progressive decentralization, and following the establishment of the Grants DAO and Token Listing DAO, we aim to establish a Community DAO.
This proposal will allow us to decentralize our current community initiatives and tap into multiple communities of potential users and builders that will help spread the word about Perpetual’s unique ecosystem and opportunities, build the Perpetual brand and increase the number of active users.
At a high level we propose:
- Structure the current community-building programs and initiatives into a Community DAO and allocate the necessary budget to continue its ongoing mandates and community-building goals.
- The Community DAO will be overseen by 7 committee members (3 community members, 3 core team, and 1 independent) who will steer the direction and manage the budget.
- We are seeking approval for the Community DAO and an operating budget for a period of 9 months (after which the budget will be applied for via a future proposal).
Community Vision
The lifeblood of a DeFi project is its users and community. It extends the reach of the core team and forms an unforkable moat around the project.
Our vision for the Perpetual Protocol community is to create a place where users and Defi lovers are drawn to and feel engaged.
In order to achieve the vision, we are using the SPACES framework to frame our mission:
| Mission | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Support: Customer service and support. | Our community improves customer support and satisfaction, and reduces support costs by empowering members to answer questions and solve problems for each other. |
| 2. Product: Innovation, feedback, and R&D. | Our community accelerates innovation and improves the protocol offering by creating spaces for members to share their feedback and discuss ideas that they’d like to see incorporated into Perpetual. |
| 3. Acquisition: Growth, marketing, and sales. | Our community increases brand awareness, grows market share, and drives potential users, by hosting online and offline community spaces and/or empowering ambassadors to create content, organize events, and advocate on our behalf. |
| 4. Contribution: Content, collaboration, and crowdsourcing. | Our community contributes to and accelerates the creation of community content including articles, videos, memes, social media, as well as translation. |
| 5. Engagement: User experience, retention, and loyalty. | Our community increases users’ engagement and satisfaction by giving members a sense of belonging and organizing engaging and valuable community experiences. |
| 6. Success: User success and advancement. | Our community engages our members through sharing education and best practices resulting in increased higher retention, and satisfaction, by empowering them to teach each other, help each other skill up, and grow in their careers. |
Turning Vision into Action
To date, community building and engagement efforts have been straightforward and low-key, including community calls, community-based user support, occasional engagement with fellow project communities, AMAs, and more recently, a growing Perpvangelist program.
This has resulted in a solid, small community, and we believe this will form the base of something much bigger. In order to achieve the transformation of our nascent community into the greater vision described above, we want to propose the following:
#1 Structure the current initiatives into a Community DAO
We propose to structure the current community-building programs and initiatives into a Community DAO and allocate the necessary budget to continue its ongoing mandates and community-building goals.
Community DAO Committee
The Community DAO will comprise 7 committee members (3 Pervangelist owners, 3 core team, and 1 independent) who will steer the direction and control the budget.
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3 Pervangelist owners: Each quarter, “Owners” are nominated and elected by Perpvengelists to lead their respective circles and are in charge of guiding and empowering contributors as well as resolving any issues. Each of the 3 circle owners will serve on the Community DAO committee. Once the Community DAO has been established, we will hold off-chain elections to elect the respective circle owners for Q3.
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3 core team: The 3 core team members will be comprised of 3 community managers in the core team. Currently, we have Lee (@youkaybe), Hana (@hanamizuki) and Houston (@HoustonxMTL). If one of them leaves the team, we will replace with another team member who’s in charge of community building.
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1 independent: We will elect the 1 independent member from the community who is neither a core team member nor a Perpvangelist. 400 PERP per month will be allocated from the DAO budget as a stipend.
The committee will review proposals for new initiatives, determine and manage the budget, and ensure the Community DAO is working towards the vision.
Current Community Initiatives & Programs
Perpvangelist Ambassador Program
SPACES: #support #contribution #engagement
The Perpvangelist Ambassador program was launched in November 2021 as a pilot (see the program website). The “Perpvangelists” are our evangelists and ambassadors, and their mission is to bring new users to our platform and strengthen our community.
Initially, over 800 applicants applied to the program, and the Community team and early Perpvangelist members filtered and vetted each applicant. At present, the Perpvangelist program has 24 active contributors organized into 3 Coordinape circles to coordinate their efforts around the following mandates:
- Content: for creating articles, videos, memes, etc., about Perpetual Protocol, including promotion of this content via social media, Youtube, etc.
- Local: for translating content, providing non-English support, promoting Perpetual Protocol on social media in different languages and fostering communities around the world.
- Community moderation: for moderating and managing our English Discord and Telegram channels.
Each month, Perpvangelists’ contributions are tracked through the web3 native project management system DeWork, and at the end of each month, rewards are distributed fairly based on their level of contribution via Coordinape.
As presented, the Perpvangelist Program has, thus far, proven successful in strengthening the community, extending our reach, and raising awareness of Perpetual’s unique role in DeFi. And following several key program milestones and improvements in Q2 2022, we now have a core group of active Perpvangelists and are ready to scale the scope and reach of the program.
Perpvangelist Tiered Program
Currently, we are testing a tiered program to engage more community members to participate, along with the large pool of applicants who did not qualify for the previous program. No formal Perpvangelist screening is required, so new applicants can start contributing right away and gain points for their contributions with DeWorks’ point system.
Our goal is to lower the barrier for community members to get involved, decrease the time to the first contribution, and increase the number of individual contributors.
Perp Covert - Traders Community
SPACES: #product #acquisition
We gathered a group of experienced traders called “The Covert” who are tasked with actively trading on Perp and helping us understand their pain points better, so we can continue iterating in the right direction for our traders and deliver the best trading experience. Learn more here.
Onboarding Call
SPACES: #acquisition #success
Since v2 launch we held two rounds of onboarding calls to give users a walkthrough of the platform. 1000+ users joined and facilitated 24M in trading volume (Learn more here). We are planning to re-launch as a regular call in a simplified format.
Outreach initiatives
SPACES: #acquisition #engagement
In Q2 we conducted AMAs in a private crypto communities and it was fun and engaging. We aim to perform more such events, especially demos of the platform, to show users how to use it and promote low risk ways of earning on Perpetual Protocol (e.g. basis trading or Easy UI market making).
Internal Community-Building Programs
SPACES: #contribution #engagement #success
Other programs or events proposed by the DAO committee or the community to drive growth and engagement in the Perpetual Protocol community (e.g. Traders Poker Night, Developer Community, etc).
#2 Budget for the Community DAO
Total funding requested for the Community DAO: 240,800 PERP (est. 9-month runway).
The fund will be used in the following ways.
Perpvangelist Program
90,000~135,000 PERP (10,000~15,000 PERP / month)
The Perpvangelist Ambassador pilot program was funded initially by the Perp Foundation, and ultimately will be funded via the Community DAO, which will need funds to continue community building mandates and initiatives.
Funds are allocated using Coordinape, with members grouped into 3 circles (mods, content, and international).
The program currently has roughly 12 core contributing members, with 20-plus members making occasional contributions.
Perp Covert (simplified program)
45,000 PERP (5,000 PERP / month)
We propose to run a simplified program to attract enthusiastic traders to this group, and convert this covert group into lifelong Perpetual fans. With a group of professional traders, we can improve the product with their feedback and make inroads into trading communities.
Onboarding Call
3,200 PERP (355 PERP / month)
We propose to take the core value of the program (onboarding demo and Q&A) and re-launch it as a regular call (e.g. weekly) in a simplified format with reduced budget. The proposed budget is to cover gas fees for 10 trades/user (est. $0.50/trade, PERP = $0.50) for a weekly call with 5 users, over a 9 month period.
Outreach initiatives
9,000 PERP (1,000 PERP / month)
We will prepare some giveaways including PERP rewards for trading, OATs, and other perks for users from other communities who participate in the events.
Internal Community-Building Programs
45,000 PERP (5,000 PERP / month)
Funding for internal event and program proposals submitted to the committee.
Committee stipend
3,600 PERP (400 PERP / month)
Stipend for the 1 independent committee member (other members are remunerated via other channels).
Governance Oversight
The Community DAO committee members will be responsible for reviewing, evaluating, and planning the execution details.
The committee members will track and evaluate the program’s activities and effectiveness, and report on a quarterly basis via a public webpage.
Feedback
We’re open to feedback from the community and any concerns will be taken into consideration in creating the final version and proceeding to a vote.
This proposal is open for a 7-day discussion period and a final Snapshot vote will be initiated to introduce a Community DAO.
Proposed Voting Options
Option #1 - Yes do it and grow the community!
Option #2 - Nay
Option #3 - Abstain
) that will capture KPI’s (quantitative and qualitative) around each of the pillars, which we will regularly update and make available to Community stakeholders.