Community Funding: a New Take on an Existing Concept | ETHDam 2023

foreign [Music] thank you so much for sharing this sort of hot take I would like to invite our last speaker for etham to talk about quadratic funding and how all of you will be able to vote and basically have your vote count because we don't only want just these top amazing judges to to be able to have a say at these hackathons please welcome to the stage V from the ethereum foundation thank you so much [Applause] thank you hey how's everyone doing good that was a bit lukewarm um first things ah there we go I hear some juice all right first things first I just want to take some time to thank cryptoconnell Ellie Fede Alina everyone thank you so much for putting together this event it has been absolutely wonderful so big shout out to them thank you so much appreciate you guys for being here being present a quick one about me my name is V I am from the ethereum foundation's privacy and scaling team we focus on building on projects that focus on scaling up zero knowledge proof Technologies my focus with regards to privacy and scaling is with quadratic funding it sounds a bit complex but really it's think of it as Community funding and potentially a new take on what community funding could look like let's jump right into it and after the presentation if there are any questions feel free to come look for me I will be at the corner of the stage so quick walk through the agenda first we'll look at what public goods are and then we'll try to answer the question around what is quadratic funding most importantly what's in it for you why would you as someone as a part of the community why would you want to participate and last but not least how do you participate so first one what are public goods does anyone has anyone heard of the term public goods give me a show of hands nice wow everyone's had their coffee excellent anyone wants to take a guess at defining what public goods are shout out your answers you get one eth girly eat but same difference really I'm sure there you go exactly girly East for you so quick characteristics of public goods firstly they are non-excludable meaning if I don't like someone here I still can't exclude you from using it they are non-rivalers meaning that just because I am using something doesn't mean it's going to reduce the quantity for someone else and lastly availability it can be used by multiple people at the same time and it's not going to reduce the quantity or quality for anyone some examples of public goods street lights roads libraries quick note here if you don't identify with any of these pictures here please take a walk outside Amsterdam after this conference these are all within Amsterdam I may or may not have gone out for research purposes just to take these pictures and of course other examples of public goods being the ethereum blockchain as well as in the web 2 space you're looking at YouTube and now trying to answer what is quadratic voting which ties into Community funding so what exactly is this concept of quadratic voting think of it as first and foremost you have an organization this could be a government a non-profit what they do is they give a matching pool which is basically a sum of money and the people the community then can decide what should be done with this full this pool of money so if you look at traditional governments how the structure and rules work is that every year you have a budget allocation and you know people that we voted into Power governments then decide okay your budget maybe 90 is used for defense 10 is used for public goods it's a lot of it is not directly within your control whereas if you look at quadratic voting you get the power to decide which projects that you'd like to fund and all of that money goes towards funding projects that are working on public goods specifically the entire idea of this is to push power away from wheels and to democratize the voting process and so just some benefits again how firstly how this works is as an individual you get a predetermined number of votes and you don't have to vote for just one project you can vote for a few different projects um again these projects all have to be working on public goods specifically so for example let's say you have 10 different projects and I like four of them I can choose to allocate my votes accordingly to four different projects again what are the benefits firstly you're going to even the distribution of voting voting taken away from Wales taken away from taking most of the power away from people with the most Financial influence and giving it back to the community it is an extremely decentralized process as well as this is all of us here in this room voting to select which projects we would like to finance it's all about giving power back to the community you get to decide which projects should get funded you know for the Lord of the Rings fans here if you know King Theoden well guess what in Amsterdam King Theoden does not exist we have the power here to decide which projects we want to finance looking at the key what's in it for us so with all benefited from public goods in one way or another at some point in our life for example since we're all here in Amsterdam everyone would have benefited from the Clean Air from street lights from public roads a lot of us here have built on the ethereum blockchain so we've all benefited in one way or another by taking part in this process what you will do is ensure the continuity of projects working on public goods because we get to decide which projects we would like to fund as ultimately when these projects build on public goods it is going to benefit all of us here in this room in the long run SL favorite uncle always is with great power comes great responsibility and now going to the key question on how you can participate remember to get your private keys I believe every one of us would have gotten these cards when we were registering if you don't have it or if you didn't get it I will be by the side of the stage this card has your private Keys which you would then need to take part in the voting scan this QR code where this QR code is going to take you is it will take you to the quadratic voting site on this side you'll be able to see a short list of the projects from the hackathon vote once you have your private keys and you get access to this site you'll be able to choose which projects you would like to fund for this hackathon of course all of us here we're all at really important part of this community the pool for this round is fifteen thousand dollars that would be allocated across multiple projects and so when you vote you get to decide and you play a very important part in deciding which projects and how much of money ends up going to which projects this is a really brief presentation but this it brings me to the end of my presentation again before I leave just you know for anyone who does not have their keys I will be here if there are also any Community leaders that are interested in running a quadratic voting round within their own communities feel free to come over have a chat come say hi I would love to chat about how we can work together and that's the end of our presentation thanks everyone thank you any question from you guys about quadratic funding all right making me one here um I guess my question would be for any funders or research groups out there which I believe there's quite a few right now researching around ethereum how possible is it to reach out to ethereum foundation and get a vote happen for their research program or for their product rights how visible is that for somebody who doesn't know anybody in the ethereum foundation for example that's exactly right um so the ethereum foundation has a few different arms one arm of it does go towards providing grants to ecosystem and projects that are working to build on the blockchain so yes please do come talk to me if that you do have something like that and I would be able to direct you to the correct team of course all right so uh this is being done by handing out QR codes on a business card you mentioned that it's decentralized but you know how many business cards are there and where are they so the cards were given out when everyone was registering though I do understand that some it might have been missed for some folks but I do have quite a few on hand feel free to come pick a few from me is a part of yes this this was the the model that we decided for this one we wanted to give you all like a token to remember as well we thought the keys were super cute on card we could have done the more cold way which I just threw an email to send you all through your you know that could have been a way of Distributing the major keys and we wanted something a bit cuter I don't know what the design ideas yeah but yes there's a risk about Distributing Easter everyone exactly um we the the team pinky swears to burn any remaining cards we'll do this in a public fashion we'll record ourselves but you know we've done our best to distribute them to to all attendees all hackers all Partners so hopefully yeah and maybe you want to tell them how long they have to do this yes exactly so it regards to timelines the Voting is open until the 31st of May so I would personally recommend getting it done by today or tomorrow while the projects and their mission is still fresh in your mind but at the same time if any questions arise just feel free to Ping Us in the Discord chat as well and we are available to support with any questions you have you would also need gas fees when taking part in voting but again I understand that we've launched a Discord bot which will help you know release guest fees for anyone who would be taking part in the vote so we've got you covered yes um and also someone just flagged that there's two projects right now that are listed we're going to keep listing all the projects that have been submitted during this hackathon again amazing to see all the submissions today about yeah again thank you so much for your Round of Applause thank you so much everyone [Applause]