ADAO - Plutus Token Vesting DApp

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

A Plutus smart contract dapp built to enable customizable token vesting, where issuers can deposit tokens and specify the parameters around a specific spending schedule.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Core members of ADAO have been working closely with and collaborating with various Cardano community organizations such as, Staking DAO, SCAT DAO, Liqwid Labs and others to develop best practices, streamline design, and to ensure longevity and feasibility of our approach.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

This Proposal will incentivize the development of a smart contract based token vesting application that will be accessible and auditable by anyone. Projects will be able to use the web application to securely automate their token allocations and vesting schedules. This open source application will also offer greater assurances to the specific communities of token holders due to the audibility of the contracts.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

A smart contract based token vesting dapp that is open source and free to use is something that can be leveraged by the majority of projects and development teams building on Cardano. Community members as well as investors of projects will be able to benefit thanks to the transparency of the application and the fact that claims of token vesting can be easily audited on chain.

Many projects reward themselves and their development teams with project tokens as compensation for their work. Some projects will raise capital by selling large quantities of tokens in what are called private sales. In each of these instances tokens are usually said to be “vested”, meaning that instead of being issued all at once, a small percentage of the total tokens issued are released at different intervals over a longer period of time. In these cases where tokens are said to be vested there is no easy way to verify the vesting schedule or its release mechanisms. This Proposal will incentivize the development of a smart contract based token vesting application that will be accessible and auditable by anyone. Projects will be able to use the web application to securely automate their token allocations and vesting schedules. This open source application will also offer greater assurances to the specific communities of token holders due to the audibility of the contracts.

Vesting tokens is a powerful instrument to build trust between a project team and their investors or users. The project teams want their users to feel comfortable that they will not immediately dump tokens on them, essentially using them as exit liquidity. To mitigate that risk the dev teams state that certain tokens will be released over time, but if we are relying on the dev teams to do as they promise, it will always leave open the possibility of them not following through and accessing their tokens whenever they wish. By building a tool that will lock up these tokens and distribute them based on the predetermined schedule, we remove trust from the equation and instead have real assurance that the tokens will be earned according to schedule. By having a tool like this, it will increase interest and adoption of Cardano dApps. When investors know for a fact that dev tokens are out of reach until the dates they promised, they are more likely to invest, support those dApps, tell their friends about them, which will increase the utility and adoption of Cardano overall. 

And as mentioned in the campaign brief, Cardano needs a thriving ecosystem of different Dapps, products and integrations for the community to use that increasingly become the better alternatives over current centralized providers. How do we differentiate ourselves from the centralized providers? It is by removing this need for trust and shifting to a system where bad actors do not have the possibility of doing something they are not supposed to. It furthers decentralization, increases trust, and helps substantiate Cardano as a premier location to build applications on. 

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

As you can see in the team description section, the people who are working on this proposal have experience in Project Catalyst and have already delivered working products. So we feel confident in being able to deliver what is outlined herein. However, we have outlined a few of the main risks and how we plan to mitigate them.

1. Developers getting sick/injured: This proposal is for a tool after all, which requires developers to build it. If something were to happen to the ones who are set to be working on this project, then that would be a primary risk in its completion. However, ADAO has several qualified developers who could build this. If something unforeseen were to happen to one of them such as sickness, then the initial plan would be to wait until they get better and then continue the work. If it was something more permanent, then there are others who would be able to take their place.
2. Lack of Interest: We could build an excellent tool but if nobody is interested or cares to implement it, then it is equivalent to never completing it in the first place. In order to mitigate this risk, we intend to work on educating the community about this tool and why it is beneficial. This serves a dual purpose of making dev teams aware that this is an option for them to use for vesting tokens and makes the community understand what the tool is and why it matters that teams are using it. In both cases, it makes it more likely for the tool to be utilized.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Research into existing applications or contracts is on going and has not revealed any usable products.

General specifications: current - July 15

Tech. documentation - July 1 - July 15

Smart contract development - July 1 - July 30

Smart contract auditing and general testing - Aug.1 - Aug.15

Integration development - Aug.1 - Aug.30

Auditing of off-chain code - Aug.30 - Sept.15

Frontend design and development - July.15 - Aug.30

Community outreach/educating - Aug.1 - Aug.30 (extended workshops and education through ADAO and SCAT DAOs community lead tools and spaces)

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

This Proposal will encompass multiple separate yet interoperable development efforts by multipole development groups and communities all geared towards DAO operation on Cardano. These numbers are extremely hard to predict and for this reason funding from the ADAO treasury is issued via a hybrid Proactive / Retroactive bounty system. Below is an estimate based on past projects broken down in development hours.

Breakdown in Development Hours

Research, general specification, project development outline --- -10-20 hours per project

Technical documentation and developer content ------------------50-60 hours per project

General Testing ---------------------------------------------------50-70 hours per project

Internal open source security Audit -------------------------------60-70 hours per projrect

Internal open source security Audit (Smart Contracts) ------------50-60 hours pre project

Technical Specification -------------------------------------------40-60 hours per project

Integration for off-chain libraries ----------------------------------70-80 hours per project

Front development ux/ui ------------------------------------------30-100 hours per project

(this varies greatly between applications)

Community outreach and educating (workshops) ----------------15-30 hours per project

Total = 550 hours

Total ask in USD = 33000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Tom aka: TCT has over six years of experience in Decentralized Finance and DAO governance as a researcher, builder and practitioner. His latest achievements include Co-founding and team building within the ADAO Community, prominently known as being the first smart contract DAO on the Cardano blockchain. 

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

The funding requested for this proposal should be sufficient to build and release the product that is outlined herein without the need to request additional funds in a later round. However, things are always changing and improving as time goes on. If the tool were to be a hit with the community and we were getting requests for additional features or functionality that would improve the utility of the tool or the user experience, it would make sense to request further funding in a later round to add those things. But again, this would only be if the tool was a success and people were interested in additional functionality. 

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Key Metrics to measure

Number of teams that utilize the tool: We believe that this tool will increase quality of existing projects on Cardano that have allocated tokens to their dev teams or community members that utilize vesting. Success here can be measured by the number of dev teams that decide to incorporate the tool and utilize it for their vesting purposes. An initial goal of 4 teams incorporating the tool within 3 months of its release will be set, which can serve as a proof of concept to other teams.  

Education around the need for this type of tool: Without the community understanding the benefits for this type of tool, its will not be well understood and its impact may not be appreciated. We will host a minimum of 4 twitter spaces, and will publish an article where the tool is discussed and explained in detail. This will ensure the community has an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about it. 

Github Activity: The work will be open source that others can build off of if they choose. The projects Github is listed above in the proposal and can be used to track its progress by anyone who wishes to look. Work can be sporadic, so we would rather not give specifics on number of commits per week or month. But we will stick to the timeline described above and progress can be tracked publicly through Github.

Expense monitoring: Catalyst can be a black box for the community members after the money has been distributed. Nobody is entirely sure how the money was spend or if it went to building what was promised. We will periodically share our expense data using CatalystAudit.com so that we are transparent in how the funds have been spent and so our voters know that their investment in us was spent responsibly. 

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Success would be creating a vesting tool that allows teams to lock tokens according to their pre-determined schedule and increasing trust and transparency across Cardano as a result. By having this tool available, we would like

1. Its use to become a standard practice where dev tokens are locked into a vesting contract, and the risk to investors is drastically reduced as a result. 
2. Trust between the Cardano Community and development teams will increase. Having the Vesting schedules is a great start, but having provable and auditable tools to show that tokens will be distributed according to those schedules goes a long way in building trust. Providing this option and teams taking advantage of it will help further cement Cardano as one of the best and most trusted places to build.
3. Investors to begin expecting more transparency from dev teams. When the community sees certain teams working to increase transparency and trust, it begins to normalize that practice. Eventually, it becomes difficult to be a team not following these best practices and ends up making Cardano safer and more transparent as a result.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This proposal is entirely new. It is not a continuation of a previously funded project.