Month: March 2021
Guild Name: Cypherpunk Guild
Monthly Highlights
Infrastructure
- In its first month, the Cypherpunk Guild has become operational. We have deployed basic infrastructure (grant-proposal form, discussion forum, social media, collaboration space), but still have some work to do (branding, legal entity).
- Researched options for a legal entity, and settled upon a Swiss association. While we are doing the paperwork we can use NEAR’s apparatus to issue small grant amounts (<$10K).
Publicity and solicitation
- Announced CPG readiness in NEAR forum and social media. Discussed potential projects with potential applicants.
- Joined the Open Web Sandbox, a venue for delegating tasks to engage the NEAR community.
- Planned first CPG Community Call for 9 April.
- Planned sponsorship (jointly with NEAR) of the Porcupine Freedom Festival in late June in New Hampshire, probably the world’s largest venue for cryptocurrency usage.
Assessment and selection
- Received first CPG grant application: AssuredArt Gallery.
- Interviewed team for the Sekura privacy project (submitted earlier via the main NEAR grants program), which advanced to the decision stage.
Monitoring and support
- CPG held first meeting with existing grant recipient ZeroPool. Got a feel for their current pain points (legal, marketing, and community), and are working on providing support. ZeroPool plans to deliver some results at the end of April, but auditing will be lengthy. NEAR Core team committed ZeroPool’s pull request to add precompiled contract for alt_bn128 curve (which the EVM already has).
Acceptance
- No projects have reached the acceptance stage.
Video Content:
- NEAR Without the Noise interview with Arto Bendiken and Frank Braun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHv08wEAYoA
Blog Posts:
- Zero-Knowledge Validator hosted the NEAR Privacy Roundtable:
https://medium.com/zero-knowledge-validator/near-privacy-roundtable-roundup-a7561663ef9d - 4NTS Guild interviewed several CPG members in ongoing Humans of NEAR series:
https://medium.com/nearprotocol/humans-of-near-joshua-bouw-the-godfather-of-proof-of-stake-87e4c1657c98
https://medium.com/nearprotocol/humans-of-near-frank-braun-97e96d1aa71f
https://medium.com/nearprotocol/humans-of-near-arto-bendiken-179159f3a115
Social Media Management and Analytics:
- The Twitter account (@CypherpunkGuild) has 155 followers.
- The Matrix room (#cypherpunkguild:matrix.org) has 40 members.
