Developers, whether the construction of accessible physical infrastructure or digital frameworks of the open web, are the architects and builders of public goods. Their efforts set the stage for future innovations, driven by a vision that values collective benefits above personal gain.
The early builders who envisioned roads built lifelines that would support communities, economies, and generations to come. Similarly, blockchain developers are today’s pathfinders. They create infrastructures in an uncharted open-source landscape. They build platforms that allow for secure, transparent, and direct operations. This is like building a new road that alleviates traffic congestion, creating a quicker and free path for everyone. Just like physical bridges, these digital systems are valuable resources for every community, opening up new possibilities for innovation and efficiency.
In terms of our particular case, the work ethic of NEAR builders is characterized by a focus on the foundational work required to support a future where digital public goods are reliable and serve as the infrastructure of the Open Web.
This month, we are proud to highlight visionary NEAR builders by announcing the first quadratic funding round dedicated to them. They laid the groundwork for developers and projects in our ecosystem. This initiative, through PotLock, is generously sponsored by the NEAR Foundation and expertly facilitated via Build DAO, with support from NEAR Builders Cooperative. This involves a fund of more than $30,000 specifically dedicated to builders. We hope to honor those who created a positive impact on NEAR. Many pioneers deserve additional recognition or compensation for their work.
Applications are open now until Sunday, March 17th and matching donation rounds are live from Monday, March 18th — Sunday April 7th.
TLDR
- NEAR Foundation has committed $30,000 out of $100,000 to put in matched quadratic funding rounds.
- Applications are open. Matching round starts in less than 2 weeks on Monday March 18th, facilitated by Build DAO.
- This round is focused on compensating impactful NEAR builders for open-source development of various projects.
- For donors to give matched donations, they must be human verified using nada.bot.
New Philanthropy: Retroactive Meets Quadratic Funding
The core principle behind the concept of retroactive public goods funding is simple: it’s easier to agree on what was useful than what will be useful. Allowing funding by recognizing the already-provided value of existing projects reduces risks and can only enhance the chances to improve the whole ecosystem.
Quadratic funding is an inclusive funding mechanism that values the collective preference of a community for public goods by amplifying the contributions of many small donors rather than a few large ones. This approach democratically distributes funds to projects deemed valuable by the wider community at the end of the round, thereby encouraging a diverse range of initiatives and innovations. By applying quadratic funding, the ecosystem can foster an environment where numerous, varied contributions are incentivized, ensuring that projects which genuinely benefit the community receive the support they need to grow and thrive.
Combining retroactive funding with quadratic funding means that participants accepted into the rounds must have already completed significant work that has impacted the ecosystem. This approach incentivizes and rewards contributions with a proven positive effect, and encourages innovators and builders to focus on projects with tangible, beneficial outcomes for the community.
Goals of this Round
The ultimate goal of starting this funding experiment and rounds just like this is to build a culture where you know if you build something impactful in the NEAR ecosystem, you will earn rewards. While we begin to fund more and more verticals and build regenerative plural funding sources, it is also important that people in the past that haven’t been properly compensated or clearly deserve more funding get recognized and paid. Hopefully, this will create a flywheel effect within the NEAR ecosystem its easier to onboard open source developers as they know they can make a living. Additionally, quadratic funding introduces a more democratic and immediate way to disperse funds, that eliminates dependency on a top down approach of venture capital and grant-based systems. Meanwhile, this platform will begin to provide a Schelling point for tracking the progress of projects, the funds they raised, and attestations to reported progress, empowering other funders to make more informed decisions.
Project Requirements for Round
- The project must be developed on the NEAR protocol.
- It should have made a substantial impact within the ecosystem, with verifiable evidence that the project has been integrated into other applications, touched a lot of users, or made progress to overall innovation in the ecosystem.
- Must have significant open source elements. Completely closed source companies will be denied
Call for Projects
Here is an initial list of projects that we have recognized and who we want to be included in this round due to their open source nature, and building on NEAR; everything.dev, wasm-git, Keypom, NEAR Catalog, Opact Tickets, Web4, ZMQ Indexer, NEAR Social Bridge, etc. This is only a starting list and there are many eligible projects that are not included. For more information on qualification guidelines, please see potlock.org/retro-guidelines
Are there any projects that we missed? Apply anyway. Contact us and explain why and how they have improved your experience using NEAR!
How To Get Started
If you have a project
To participate in the round, you must first sign up for the PotLock public goods registry with a named account that represents your project. As part of the registration process, you’ll need to include relevant GitHub repositories, all past funding sources, and relevant team members. Do you need NEAR to get started? Join the PotLock community, and we have you covered!
If you have been approved on the public goods registry, you can easily apply to the round by following this guide: https://youtu.be/J4vDNStNLws?si=Sfat932W3wv2oYrC
To Co-Sponsor with the NEAR Foundation
You can directly have your logo as a sponsor to grow the pie. All you need to do is fund the matching round directly.
To Donate
Once the matching round is live on March 18th, you can donate after you verify as a human via nada.bot. This means you have collected enough points through 3rd party stamps (like Twitter / X verification, age, and activity of the account) to be considered a human. Then when you donate through the Builder pot, your donation will be matched based on the quadratic formula after the round is over. For more information please see this tutorial.
Who’s Involved
Build DAO is a member-owned collective, support system, and resource hub for people building open web projects and communities.
NEAR Foundation (NF) is a Switzerland-based nonprofit foundation (Stiftung) whose mission is to enable community driven innovation to benefit people around the world. One of its core areas of focus is the NEAR ecosystem, which includes a fully operational decentralized blockchain-based platform for building decentralized applications.
PotLock is an open source protocol, and the first public goods funding platform on NEAR Protocol. PotLock enables composability between different funding strategies like direct donations,on-chain referrals,quadratic funding, and more to come. Built on decentralization, PotLock is built using web3 social to enable anybody to create their own customized funding stack.
Join the PotLock community to stay connected and informed! You can find us on Telegram, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, or NEAR Social. For more in-depth updates, consider subscribing to our newsletter. Additionally, if you’re interested in more hands-on involvement, join Build DAO at nearbuilders.org.
