Cardano Token Engineering Lab - A place to understand, model and help token engineering design mechanisms that make projects sustainable and enrich protocol and governance decision-making.

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Miguel Saldana

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

miguel@blockheads.digital

Additional applicants

No other applicants.

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

6

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

No dependencies

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

The project will be fully open source

[METADATA] Category of proposal

Data tools

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The proposed solution would be to use Project Catalyst funding and reach to help build, host, and generate a working group around token engineering, modeling, and simulations. As projects in DeFi and DAOs create tokens for their projects through the lifetime of a token, understanding how to make optimal decisions and deliver the correct incentives for any token and tie it to the correct behaviors to build, sustain, and mature projects.

There already exists open source Python libraries to start this endeavor, but there is little research in public on the specific nuances of the eUTXO data model and design considerations that go along with Cardano. This makes models specifically derived for EVM-based chains not fully analogous and would require diving into the modeling and decisions that protocols have in the design mechanisms of a token. Building a community, developing the skills of aspiring token engineers, and providing open-source models is the key goal of this proposal and effort.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

The key impact this proposal has is around understanding design mechanisms that are available for any project that leverages a token. This help builds strong, sustainable, and desired behaviors for projects to launch, grow, and sustain themselves over time. An additional aim is to find design patterns that can be leveraged in the eUTXO account model for token design for projects. This will help to avoid projects reinventing the wheel and build an understanding of things that work and don't work for similar projects.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

How This Proposal Would Work:

This proposal can be broken into three main sections:

1. Development and Curation of Material
2. Formation of Working Group Logistics
3. Research and Case Studies of Active Cardano Projects

These three sections will be built and continually iterate over time as community members help to steer this project and as projects see the value that it can deliver to help improve decision-making, develop incentivization mechanisms, and contribute to the larger Cardano ecosystem. The idea behind this proposal is at least to raise awareness, find like minds and understand how we can help build Cardano.

The requested funds would be the minimal amount that can be requested for Fund 10 currently, which is 15,000 Ada.

Development and Curation of Startup Material

Currently, there are a lot of dispersed research material, technical content, and case studies on a multitude of blockchain projects, incentivization mechanisms, and protocol design. The duration of the material would be done

Measures of Success on Material:

• Having a curated, targeted list of case studies with increasing complexity
• Produce targeted research study points for the eUTXO account model for token engineering
• Host Python data analysis training sessions for newcomers who may not have a Python programming background
• Introduce and build skills for the community on open-source Python libraries used in token engineering such as cadCAD and Machinations. This could lead to building Cardano-specific libraries for modeling such as Token Spice that pulls in Smart Contract metadata for modeling.

Formation of Working Group Logistics:

Although this section may seem trivial, there are many projects that are spread out across too many socials and cause confusion about where things need to be. Having a good “project architecture” for being slim and efficient will make a token engineering project easy to participate in.

Measures of Success:

• Creation of GitHub Repo to host material for educational material, open-source model development, and general storage of data modeling material
• Formation of Discord Server to allow community members to collectively collaborate, meet, and share information and knowledge in a common area
• Build out a website that will steer community members to the correct locations and host information and updates on the Cardano Token Engineering Network.

Research Case Studies of Active Cardano Projects

An area that is the meat of this proposal is to dive into running projects and help build an understanding of optimal economic models, identify opportunities based on historical decisions from protocols, and understand design patterns that could be leveraged for new projects and avoid reinventing the wheel every time. A part of this section would be working to get sponsorship from active projects to help do detailed dives into governance and design mechanisms for their token and promote good decision-making backed from a modeling perspective.

Measures of Success:

• Produce research and simplified models on common design patterns for DeFi projects
• Attain a partnership with at least one active DeFi or DAO project
• Deliver a whitepaper on governance best practices in the Cardano Space by the end of the year

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

The project's content and material will be maintained in public repositories hosted in GitHub and Discord as well as notifications through a website. They will be fully accessible and remain public and open-sourced at all times.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

I have professional experience as an engineer with formal education and work experience in data analytics. I personally have a passion for the field of token engineering as it seems to be a second thought for most projects, but many successful web3 projects across all chains have very robust models derived and I feel that this could help Cardano greatly.

A link to my LinkedIn profile can be found below:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/msaldana1000/

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

This proposal has three main areas of focus as mentioned earlier and they are:

1. Development and Curation of Material
2. Formation of Working Group Logistics
3. Research and Case Studies of Active Cardano Projects

In addition, generating interest and understanding of this field within the Cardano Community is getting reach out to others who feel that they can help contribute would be another objective outside the core deliverables.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Milestones:

1. Development and Curation of Material
2. Having a curated, targeted list of case studies with increasing complexity
3. Produce targeted research study points for the eUTXO account model for token engineering
4. Host Python data analysis training sessions for newcomers who may not have a Python programming background
5. Introduce and build skills for the community on open-source Python libraries used in token engineering such as cadCAD and Machinations. This could lead to building Cardano-specific libraries for modeling such as Token Spice that pulls in Smart Contract metadata for modeling.
6. The goal would be to have an initial set of core material built within 3 months of launch as well as research topics for case studies
7. Formation of Working Group Logistics
8. Creation of GitHub Repo to host material for educational material, open-source model development, and general storage of data modeling material
9. Formation of Discord Server to allow community members to collectively collaborate, meet, and share information and knowledge in a common area
10. Build out a website that will steer community members to the correct locations and host information and updates on the Cardano Token Engineering Network.
11. These items will all be finalized and publicly posted and made available within a month of launch
12. Research and Case Studies of Active Cardano Projects
13. Produce research and simplified models on common design patterns for DeFi projects
14. Attain a partnership with at least one active DeFi or DAO project
15. Deliver a whitepaper on governance best practices in the Cardano Space by the end of the year
16. This will be an evergreen process with the goal to produce at least 5 published models and papers before the end of the year

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Milestones:

1. Development and Curation of Material
2. Deliverables are mentioned above, but the output and intended outcome is to create curated material that anyone can pick up and join the Cardano Token Engineering Lab development or self-study on their own leisure to gain skills needed for modeling and analytics of token engineering
3. Formation of Working Group Logistics
4. Outputs and intended outcome would be to generate a common working group and discussion/meeting area for the project across GitHub and Discord
5. Research and Case Studies of Active Cardano Projects
6. The desired outcome is to produce open source models and papers on protocol token design and design mechanisms for the community at large.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

The total funds requested will initially be the minimum amount required in Fund 10 of 15,000 ADA. Likely the cost in time for myself will be more, but the idea of submitting this proposal is to help build outreach via Project Catalyst and hopefully leverage the fees to compensate for the initial groundwork required to spin up curated content and training material.

$500 (~1700 ADA) - Web Hosting and Administrative Costs

$3200 (~10900 ADA) - Personal salary for working on the project at a rate of 10 hours a week for 4 months at a rate of $20 USD/hour. This will be a total of 160 hours of personal time over the four-month period to build out the course work, community engagement, and modeling/research on Cardano projects.

$700 (~2,400 ADA) - will be reserved for incentives to participating community members and for purchasing any subscriptions and/or content that will help the growth of the project.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The value for the Cardano community will be to have a real starting point for open-source data on token engineering and focus strictly on Cardano and Cardano-related projects. Currently, there is little information about projects modeling and simulations on token design and decision making and this will be the opening point to help build transparency for protocols and DAOs.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept