AdaQuad - Crowdfunding Platform

Brief Description

We aim to design a rapid funding platform (AdaQuad) for Cardano Catalyst and other DOAs in the Cardano ecosystem.

Since Rapid Funding will necessarily involve smaller segments of the Cardano Community than the current quarterly voting system, accountability and transparency is a crucial problem to solve. A solution to this problem is to require public donations in the proposed projects.

AdaQuad works as a crowdfunding site that seeks to support innovative projects on Cardano Environment.

Objective

To study and design a swift Quadratic Funding Platform (AdaQuad) for the Catalyst Community that could provide an alternative treasury management system that can be rapid, open-ended, asynchronous, and focused.

Project Plan and Outcomes

AdaQuad will be a 6-month project with 3 2-month phases to prototype the crowdfunding capability. Proposals will be submitted for F7 and F8 to support testing and launch of AdaQuad.

Phase 1: Month 1 & 2

- Investigate and develop a balanced and diversified funding protocol/platform. In this platform, each sponsor (AdaQuater) can donate (fund) his preferred proposals.

Phase 2: Month 3 & 4

- The platform will be designed to promote funding and coordination of future Cardano Community creative works: products, solutions and open technologies. Proposals would be funded employing the Quadratic Funding method that provides a balanced and diversified voting influence. Donations will be matched by the Cardano Rapid-Funding Treasury using the Quadratic Funding mechanism.

Phase 3: Month 5 & 6

- Implement a Quadratic Funding mechanics to ensure that dominant cliques and/or individuals do not gain oligarchic decision-making control in AdaQuad Rapid Funding Platform. In this Quadratic Funding method, the Cost of Voting (CV) is quadratic on the number of votes (NV): CV = NV*NV.

Staffing & Budget

Principal Scientist - Design of Funding Mechanism, $6000

Systems Engineering & Management - Design & Manage Project Goals, $6000

Web Developer - Development of Website, $4000

Plutus Developer - Design of Smart Contract Implementation, $5000

Atala Prism Designer - Mechanism for Proof of Identity, $3000

Computing Supplies - $900

Total: $ 24900

References

Square-Root Voting

Werner Kirsch, On Penrose's Square-Root Law and Beyond, in Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After, Heidelberg: Springer, 2013.

K. Życzkowski and W. Słomczyński, "Square Root Voting System, Optimal Threshold and π," in Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 573–592.

W. Kirsch and J. Langner, "The Fate of the Square Root Law for Correlated Voting," Springer, Cham, 2014, pp. 147–158.

Considers the effect of both Strong Opinions or equivalently a common societal belief system and the influence of neighbors as modeled by spin dynamics.

L. S. Penrose, "The Elementary Statistics of Majority Voting," J. R. Stat. Soc., vol. 109, no. 1, p. 53, 1946.

W. Slomczynski and K. Zyczkowski, "Penrose voting system and optimal quota," Oct. 2006.

Quadratic Voting

Eric A. Posner and E. Glen Weyl. "Quadratic Voting as Efficient Corporate Governance", Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School Chicago Unbound, 2013.

Steven P. Lalley and Glen Weyl. "Quadratic Voting: How Mechanism Design Can Radicalize Democracy", Aea Papers and Proceedings, Vol. 108, 2018.

Eric Posner and E. Glen Weyl. "Quadratic Voting and the Public Good: Introduction", 172 Public Choice 1, 2017.

Vitalik Buterin, Zoë Hitzig and E. Glen Weyl. "Liberal Radicalism: A Flexible Design For Philanthropic Matching Funds", Arxiv preprint, 2020.

M. J. Holler and H. Nurmi, Eds., "Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After." Heidelberg: Springer, 2013.

Governance Theory

André L. M. Vilela and H. Eugene Stanley. "Effect of Strong Opinions on the Dynamics of the Majority-Vote Model", Scientific Reports, Nature, 2018.

In this work, we investigate how the presence of individuals with strong voting opinions affects a network of social interactions based on the majority-vote model. We find that such a weighted voting mechanism weakens the consensus of the network, imposing a fragile social-ordered regime, where opposing voting states dominate.

André L. M. Vilela; Chao Wang; Kenric P. Nelson; H. Eugene Stanley. "Majority-vote model for financial markets", Physica A - Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, 2018. 

Bernardo J. Zubillaga, André L. M. Vilela, Chao Wang, Kenric P. Nelson, H. Eugene Stanley. "A Three-state Opinion Formation Model for Financial Markets", Physica A - Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, 2021.

M. J. Holler and H. Nurmi, Eds., Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After. Heidelberg: Springer, 2013.

A. Laruelle and F. Valenciano, "Voting and Power," in Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 137–149.