NFT Guild: Developer Roundtables & Open Community Calls

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Rares Kövesdi (NewMindflow)

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Not Incorporated)

[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] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

The NFT Guild will organise community calls and roundtables to identify common problems, coordinate efforts and create spaces for project presentations.

[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] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

The media content, transcripts and all outputs of the project will be fully open-source and available for free to the community.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

The NFT Guild is dedicated to developing standards and building tools for the Cardano NFT community.

Founded by the Cardano Foundation in November 2021, the NFT Guild is now spearheaded by dedicated Cardano community members.

The primary goal of the NFT Guild is to create an environment where developers, project creators, artists, stakeholders and thought leaders in the Cardano NFT ecosystem can come together and explore ways in which Cardano NFT tools, standards and best practices can be evolved and implemented. The main way we do this is by organising the bi-weekly NFT Guild Roundtable and the Weekly Community Open Calls, in which we discuss technical issues and other relevant topics facing the Cardano NFT space.

Between May 2022 and September 2023 the NFT Guild has organised 26 Roundtable events. An archive of all the recorded Roundtables as well as the transcript of each can be found on our website - https://www.nft-guild.io/the-nft-roundtable . We also make them available to the wider Cardano NFT community on our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@nftguild

 In addition to the recordings we have also made available a summary of each NFT Guild Roundtable to date. It can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10XWCsyAqQaPB3ZRcP5rUX3eceI_-z29qxRtv5C2spl8/edit?usp=sharing

For the NFT Guild Roundtables we had guests and presenters representing the most consequential players in the Cardano NFT space: 

• Patrick Tobler - CEO of NMKR, the largest NFT minting engine, by number of NFTs minted on Cardano - https://www.nmkr.io
• Marek Mahut - CEO of FiveBinaries, the developers behind Blockfrost - https://blockfrost.io & Continuity Token - https://continuity.to
• Blake Brown - CEO of jpg.store, by far the most important NFT marketplace on Cardano with over 96% of market-share as of writing - https://www.jpg.store
• Tyler Wales - business development at Emurgo and key advisor for Fibo, the Emurgo NFT marketplace - https://fibo.art
• Adam Dean - one of the most talented developers working in the Cardano ecosystem, a prominent token minter and founder of Buffy Bot Publishing - https://buffybot.io
• The DripDropz team - creators of Cardano’s larger token dispensing service - https://dripdropz.io 
• Nicolas Ayotte (aka Fencemaker) - the CTO of Equine NFT - https://www.equine.gg , a very competent Cardano NFT developer and physicist.
• Zachary Soesbee (aka Cash) and David Desjardins (aka Tqueri) - the CEO and lead developer of ADA Anvil, the most inovative minting and NFT related services in the Cardano NFT space - https://ada-anvil.io
• Giovanni Gargiulo & Anthony Capitan - co-founders of Argus NFT, the machine learning based counterfeit detection system - https://argusnft.com
• Session Cruz - the founder of DEMU, the pioneering music rights protocol that aims to revolutionise music licensing and distribution through automatic royalty payments - https://www.demu.pro
• Mateja Sela - CEO & co-founder of Artano, an art focused NFT marketplace on Cardano - https://artano.io
• Jeremy Firster - Global Head of Enterprise Partnerships at the Cardano Foundation
• Pierre Kaklamanos - Partnerships Manager at the Cardano Foundation
• Sebastian Bode - Cardano Foundation Director of Engineering (in charge of the Cardano official token registry)
• And many more. For a full list join our discord server or browse trough the Roundtable recordings. We have a guest list of over 60 participants and anyone active in the Cardano NFT creator or developer space is welcome to join.

In addition to the Roundtable, we have already hosted over 85 NFT Guild Open Community Weekly Calls. The NFT Guild Weekly Community Open Calls are a regular event, held Tuesday at 15:00 UTC, which we’ve been hosting since January 2022. They are an open-format discussion where members of the community are invited to debate current topics in the Cardano NFT ecosystem or present their projects to a wider audience and receive guidance and feedback.

Prior to the calls, we invite the community to add agenda items, for what is to be an open discussion. The agendas of past Weekly Community Open Calls can be found here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1d1hYfYe5d36sJqWqSXBiMYo--lde6Cxg 

Most of the community calls are not recorded events, at the request of our guests who sometimes wish to share details about unreleased and/or unannounced projects, and to encourage free-flow discussions, without any external considerations.

Apart from our public meetings and and the biweekly NFT Guild Roundtable event we are also hosting weekly internal working calls, Tuesday at 14:00 UTC. These are needed to coordinate guild activities, decide topics for future roundtables and occasionally weekly calls, produce guild presentation documents, etc.

It is worth mentioning that by definition we are catering to the technical community, developers, project creators, marketplace builders, minting service providers, within the Cardano NFT community. Given the small size of this niche, we are satisfied with the reach we have managed to build so far. 

As of November 2023, our Discord community (https://discord.gg/7HCxDryPHk) stands at 327 members and our Twitter community, which has also grown steadily, is currently sitting at 239 followers - https://twitter.com/the_nft_guild

The NFT Guild already brings tangible benefits to a variety of stakeholders in the Cardano NFT community, and with your support we hope to be able to keep doing this work.

• Developers and Project Creators: Through our roundtables and community calls, we provide a platform for technical collaboration, knowledge exchange, and problem-solving. This can speed up project development and improve technical standards.
• Thought Leaders and Stakeholders: Our roundtables and community calls offer opportunities for networking, idea sharing, and influencing the direction of the Cardano NFT space.
• Artists: By fostering an environment where technical innovation thrives, artists benefit from enhanced NFT tools, leading to richer and more diverse artistic expressions.
• Cardano Users and NFT Collectors: The Guild's initiatives result in improved NFT standards and practices, leading to a more reliable, efficient, and user-friendly NFT marketplace. This also helps increase trust in the Cardano NFT ecosystem.

Furthermore, the NFT Guild’s initiatives can potentially make a transformative impact on the larger Cardano ecosystem. These are just a few areas that our efforts can impact.

Establishing Standards:

• Our discussions and collaborations help to formulate technical standards for NFTs on Cardano. This brings about consistency, interoperability, and a better user experience, accelerating the adoption of NFTs within the ecosystem.

Encouraging Innovation:

• By bringing together developers, artists, and stakeholders, the NFT Guild fosters an environment that encourages innovation. This can lead to the development of unique NFT projects and applications, bolstering Cardano's position in the blockchain space.

Facilitating Collaboration: 

• The Guild plays a critical role in breaking down silos and promoting cross-project collaboration. This helps to avoid duplication of efforts, making the ecosystem more efficient.

Enhancing the Perception of Cardano as the blockchain for NFTs: 

• The high standards and best practices established through the Guild's efforts can enhance the reputation of the Cardano NFT ecosystem, attracting more creators and users.

In addition all the NFT Guild members are also Catalyst veterans, and part of our mission is to onboard members of the NFT community to Catalyst and guide them through their Catalyst journey whatever role they might choose to undertake, be it voter or proposer. Our team stands out because of its diversity, boasting a range of backgrounds and areas of expertise that include developers, stake pool operators (SPOs), artists, NFT project creators, community managers, and organizers. (More details below)

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community.

Our proposed solution will bring numerous benefits to the Cardano ecosystem:

Facilitating Collaboration: The NFT Guild's roundtables and community calls are designed to break down silos and foster collaboration among developers in the Cardano NFT community.

Fostering Open Source Mindset: By encouraging the discussion and exploration of common problems, standards, and best practices, the Guild promotes an environment conducive to open source development.

Building Developer Community: The Guild's initiatives help in attracting developers both within and outside of the current community to participate and engage.

Nurturing Knowledge Base: The Guild's work in documenting Roundtable discussions and weekly community calls contributes to the creation of a valuable knowledge base for developers.

Amplifying Developer Tools and Standards: Our activities lead to the formulation of improved tools, standards, and best practices for NFTs on Cardano, thereby facilitating dApp development and lowering the entry barrier for new developers.

The benefits this project brings to the Cardano ecosystem are numerous:

• It strengthens the community by providing a platform for collaboration, idea exchange, and problem-solving.
• It improves the quality of NFT tools and standards, leading to better user experience, increased trust, and accelerating adoption of NFTs within the ecosystem.
• It enhances Cardano's reputation as a vibrant and innovative blockchain platform, attracting more developers and users.
• It encourages open source development, contributing to the overall growth and resilience of the Cardano ecosystem.

Measuring Impact

Given the nature of our project, which has tangible, frequently released deliverables, we can effectively measure various indicators of community involvement.

Roundtable Views:

The most recent 10 Roundtable recordings have averaged around 50 views per video, indicating substantial interest within the Cardano NFT developer community. This metric only represents YouTube viewership and does not account for those community members who choose to engage via our detailed transcripts.

Participation in our weekly community calls:

This varies weekly with regular attendance between 3 and 10 members. The reach of the discussions, the role they play in shaping the future of NFTs on Cardano and depth of shared knowledge in these calls is a key qualitative measure of our project's impact.

Social Metrics:

We maintain an engaged Discord community with over 300 members and a growing Twitter following, currently at 239.

Geographical Diversity and Reach:

Beyond raw numbers, our community's geographical diversity – with unique website visitors from 70 countries – underscores the global reach and appeal of our work.

These numbers are expected to grow as our initiatives gain more traction and we will continue to record and report them to our community and to Catalyst as our project progresses. 

But most importantly, the knowledge and standards generated from our initiatives have the potential to indirectly impact most developers and stakeholders interacting with NFTs on Cardano. We have a direct and indirect impact on Cardano's productivity and growth, the knowledge and standards generated from our initiatives can significantly enhance the efficiency of NFT-related development activities and strengthen the broader NFT ecosystem on Cardano. This benefit, while harder to quantify, is crucial and compounds over time as more developers and stakeholders in the NFT space adopt the standards and best practices that emerge from our Guild's discussions and collaborations. In the long run, we believe this will significantly contribute to Cardano's appeal as a leading blockchain platform for NFT development.

Sharing the Project Outputs

We are regularly sharing the outputs of our work with our community.

We make regular announcements and reminders for our weekly open community calls and Roundtable events.

To ensure wider accessibility, all Roundtable discussions are recorded and transcribed. This allows members who couldn't attend the live events to catch up on the discussions and insights. These recordings and transcriptions are shared via our YouTube channel, our website, and across our social media accounts.

We expect the results of our project to inform further discussions, inspire new initiatives, and guide the evolution of standards and best practices in the Cardano NFT ecosystem. The insights and learnings generated through our activities will feed into our ongoing research and development activities, helping us continue to facilitate effective collaboration and innovation within our community.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

We have a proven track record of successfully organising events for the Cardano NFT community for almost two years. We started hosting the NFT Guild Open Community Weekly Calls in January 2022 and the NFT Roundtables in May 2022.

We were successfully funded for two standard setting proposals in Catalyst Fund 8, which we have successfully delivered on and closed out.

Standard for verification of NFTs:

https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/8/f8-open-standards-and-interoperability/standard-for-verification-of-nfts

NFT Royalty Standards:

https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/8/f8-open-standards-and-interoperability/nft-guild-nft-royalty-standards

In addition, we also successfully completed and closed-out an NFT infrastructure development project.

NFT Swap Infrastructure Templates 1:

https://projectcatalyst.io/funds/8/f8-open-source-development-ecosystem/nft-swap-infrastructure-templates-1

We have robust processes in place to ensure proper management and accountability of funds. We have created a dedicated system for tracking the contributions of each guild member. All fund movements are transparently tracked in dedicated channels in our Discord server: https://discord.gg/7HCxDryPHk

Our operations are transparent, and we maintain an open line of communication with the community and stakeholders at all times. This approach has earned us the trust of the Cardano community, and we remain committed to maintaining these high standards on this new project.

The contributions of the NFT Guild have been recognized by IOG in their recently released 'Institutions in the Age of Voltaire' infographic. Yet we face a pivotal moment, our operations have not received any funding since Fund8. Your vote could preserve this key institution and continue our shared journey in Cardano’s evolution.

[Project Milestones] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

The first month of NFT Guild Community Initiatives

Deliverables and Outputs:

2 NFT Guild Roundtable events, each accompanied by video recordings, and transcripts made available to the public. Each roundtable will focus on a specific topic related to the Cardano NFT ecosystem, based on the needs and interests of the community.

4 Weekly Community Open Calls, also accompanied by records of discussion topics and key insights.

During the first milestone, we will also begin the process of designing and deploying new sections to our website.

Acceptance Criteria:

The first month of NFT Guild Community Initiatives plus at least one new section to the https://www.nft-guild.io/ website.

Evidence of Milestone Completion:

Evidence that 2 NFT Guild Roundtables and 4 Weekly Community Open Calls have been organised in this timeframe. At least one new section live on the guild website.

The second month of NFT Guild Community Initiatives

Deliverables and Outputs:

2 NFT Guild Roundtable events, each accompanied by video recordings, and transcripts made available to the public. Each roundtable will focus on a specific topic related to the Cardano NFT ecosystem, based on the needs and interests of the community.

4 Weekly Community Open Calls, also accompanied by records of discussion topics and key insights.

Acceptance Criteria:

The second month of NFT Guild Community Initiatives.

Evidence of Milestone Completion:

Evidence that 2 NFT Guild Roundtables and 4 Weekly Community Open Calls have been organised in this timeframe.

Months 3 & 4 of NFT Guild Community Initiatives

Deliverables and Outputs:

4 NFT Guild Roundtable events, each accompanied by video recordings, and transcripts made available to the public. Each roundtable will focus on a specific topic related to the Cardano NFT ecosystem, based on the needs and interests of the community.

8 Weekly Community Open Calls, also accompanied by records of discussion topics and key insights.

Acceptance Criteria:

2 Months of NFT Guild Community Initiatives

Evidence of Milestone Completion:

Evidence that 4 NFT Guild Roundtables and 8 Weekly Community Open Calls have been organised in this timeframe.

Months 5 & 6 of NFT Guild Community Initiatives

Deliverables and Outputs:

4 NFT Guild Roundtable events, each accompanied by video recordings, and transcripts made available to the public. Each roundtable will focus on a specific topic related to the Cardano NFT ecosystem, based on the needs and interests of the community.

8 Weekly Community Open Calls, also accompanied by records of discussion topics and key insights.

Acceptance Criteria:

2 Months of NFT Guild Community Initiatives

Evidence of Milestone Completion:

Evidence that 4 NFT Guild Roundtables and 8 Weekly Community Open Calls have been organised in this timeframe.

The close-out report and video that will serve as both the main deliverables and the evidence of the final milestone. In addition the update of the guild website will be complete.

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

The NFT Guild core team is a global team comprised of individuals with a diverse set of skills and backgrounds. Our members are spread across various time zones and can offer a broad range of expertise in Cardano and NFTs, covering areas like development, stake pool operations, art, NFT project creation, community management, organization and project Catalyst.

The NFT Guild Core members are:

CENT

https://github.com/cent-development

Stake Pool operator of the pool CENT since December 2019. 20 years of experience in software development. Creator of the community tool Cardano Blockchain Intelligence. Graduate of the Plutus Pioneers Program cohort 1, 2021. Project Catalyst funded proposer since F6. 

Anamaria Kövesdi (New Mindflow)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anamaria-k%C3%B6vesdi-354649106/

Rares Kövesdi (New Mindflow)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rares-k%C3%B6vesdi-551260106/

New Mindflow [https://www.newmindflow.com] are:

Artists and entrepreneurs, in the Cardano NFT space since Day 1. Creators of the Trybbles & Icons Cardano NFT projects. Cardano Project Catalyst funded proposers. Members in various Cardano & Catalyst projects, initiatives & communities over the past 2 and a half years.

Award-winning filmmakers, film and animation directors, app and game developers.

In January 2021 they moved into the web3 economy granting new life to one of their projects in the form of an NFT collection on Cardano.

Since then they have released multiple art NFT collections on Cardano, and have been involved in multiple NFT and Cardano related groups and organisations, most notably being core members of the NFT Guild.

Peter Wolcott

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

Peter Wolcott is an experienced facilitator, a human coordinator and a Project Catalyst decentralized worker. Peter’s small business and startup management insights blend revolutionary stakeholder management ethics with current and evolving virtual office administrativia toolkits. His day job currently is an IT services apprenticeship at a biotech startup. 

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

All received funds will be fed into a project's Treasury. From there the funds will be distributed to project contributors.

The NFT Guild will coordinate all project-related activities and operations and will ensure a fair reward to participating contributors.

In the course of organising the NFT Guild community events, we have two types of costs: personnel costs, and production costs related to the SaaS products and other services we use for production or content dissemination.

In our calculations we used the average price of ADA over the last 90 days: $0.2874

Fixed expenses for the following 6 months:

• Web Hosting
• Domain Renewal
• Zoom Subscription
• Transcription Service (Otter.ai)
• Design and Video Editing tool subscriptions (Adobe Creative Cloud)

Total: ₳4000

Producing and hosting the events require in excess of 100 hours/month, spread out across all the core members of the NFT Guild team.

Breakdown of the tasks that need to be accomplished on a monthly basis for the production and post-production of the events:

• Research subject for future Roundtables
• Contact potential future Roundtable guest presenters
• Organise guest presenter for specific Roundtables
• Craft & send Roundtable invites
• Announce the date and topic of the next Roundtable on the Guild social channels
• Prepare questions for each Roundtable
• Host Roundtable
• Upload video recording of the Roundtables and edit video details
• Create & upload Youtube thumbnail artwork for Roundtable videos
• Edit Roundtable transcripts
• Post announcements for Roundtable recordings and transcripts on Discord & Twitter
• Update Website and Roundtable summaries doc with the latest Roundtable data
• Create agenda for weekly calls and make announcements on Discord
• Host Weekly Community Open Calls
• NFT Guild general communications
• Guild general upkeep (Web Maintenance, Meetings & Email Management, Invite list upkeep etc.)
• Contributions Tracker Management and Payments

In addition to these, if successfully funded there will be the additional requirement of funded proposal management and reporting.

Considering all the task enumerated above we estimate that we will require a monthly personnel budget of ₳20000, calculated at a fair rate that takes into account the community nature of our work, but also the personal needs of the NFT Guild core members.

We plan to establish a Cardano NFT expert body that will have a permanent presence at the NFT Guild Roundtables. We plan on having an initial number of 3 experts and to compensate them with 1000 ADA per month. 3x6x1000 = ₳18000

In addition, we are planning to expand our website to better reflect all the guild’s activities. This work will be coupled with the website maintenance for a one time fee of ₳10000.

We will add a contingency budget of ₳10000. This is meant to cover any unforeseen situations or costs. For instance, last year one of the core guild members, Peter Wolcott, was present at CNFT Con in Las Vegas and we paid from the guild budget for the installation of advertisement displays. Having a contingency budget allows us flexibility in managing unexpected costs or new opportunities for community engagement and outreach.

Personnel Costs - ₳20000 x 6 = ₳120000

Fixed Costs - ₳4000

Experts - ₳18000

Web Design & Maintenance - ₳10000

Contingency Budget - ₳10000

Total: ₳162000

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

The NFT Guild's work directly contributes to the vibrancy, diversity, and interconnectedness of the Cardano ecosystem. The funding requested in this proposal represents an investment in the growth and strength of the Cardano NFT community, which in turn enriches the overall Cardano ecosystem.

We have based our personnel costs on a combination of factors. Firstly, we take into account the community-oriented nature of our work, and have consequently costed at a reduced hourly rate given our expertise, understanding that our primary objective is to foster a dynamic and engaged NFT community within Cardano. Therefore, the rates we propose are meant to be reasonable and sustainable, without detracting from the funds available for other key initiatives within the Cardano ecosystem.

The costs related to hosting, domain renewal, Zoom subscriptions, and transcription services are market-standard prices. They are essential for our operations and are unavoidable costs associated with running an online community initiative of this nature.

The contingency budget is designed to cover any unforeseen situations or to take advantage of opportunities to further expand the Guild's impact on the community.

In terms of value for money, the NFT Guild's work results in visible and tangible outputs - the weekly community calls, roundtables, and online discussions generate a significant amount of engagement within the Cardano NFT community. They help to promote NFT projects within Cardano, enable collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas, and build bridges within the community.

We believe the budget we have requested is not only fair and reasonable but also represents great value for money for the Cardano ecosystem considering the direct impact we have on strengthening the Cardano NFT community.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agrees to Fund 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