[Rejected] NFT WG: NDC V1 Grass Root DAO Application : NDC Budget Subcategory code HOM-004P-1-4 NFT

NEAR Digital Collective
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NFT WG: V1 Funding Request (3 Months)

Section 1. Introduction
The NFT Work Group is a community-driven initiative that aims to provide solutions and standards for the challenges and limitations associated with NFTs on NEAR. Our primary objective is to revitalize and expand the Near NFT ecosystem. Elected by the community, the Work Group strives for long-term sustainability, aligning with Near Protocol’s core goals through NFTs as a catalyst for mass adoption. We have been actively working since March 2023.

We had our first meeting with NDC House Of Merit on 25th October 2023. There were valuable insights and recommendations during and after the meeting. We have taken into consideration all the feedback shared by HoM members while drafting this application. Despite some members’ suggestions for a reduced budget in Community Grants and other areas, we firmly believe that maintaining our current budget is essential to give ourselves the best chance to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves, and the priorities set by the HoM.

Section 2. Previous Funding
We have received a one-time start-up funding from CDAO for August and September.

This is the link to the transparency report on how these funds were utilized:

Section 3. DAO URLs
Twitter: x.com - 797 members
Telegram: Telegram: Join Group Chat -366 members
DC: Discord -510 members
Near Social: NFT WG (nearnftwg.near) | Near Social - 20 Follwers
BOS Page/Website: Nft WG DApp Central (Under Construction) by nftwg_home.near on BOS
Trello Board: Trello
· Is Your DAO/Project Targeting a Specific Country? No
· Which region will your DAO/ Project support? Usually, regions can be defined by their language. North American Central, South America & Caribbean (Spanish), South America (Portuguese), Europe, Asia, Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East, or international by fact.
NFT WG is international by nature.

Section 4. Applicant Information
· Name of Point of Contact (The pseudonymous name the community knows you are acceptable. However, note that you will have to complete KYC to be able to receive funding from NDC) -Tej (aka Punter)
· Link to Governance Forum/near. social Profile - nearversedao.near· | Near Social
NEAR Wallet ID – nearversedao.near
· Wallet ID that will be receiving funds - nearnftwg.sputnik-dao.near
· Country of Residence - India
· Twitter, Telegram - @Punter_07
· LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tej-mirthinti-b2bb575a/ - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aescobar-mike-85208b285/
· Additional Relevant Links (add any other links to resources that highlight your work or involvement with the NEAR ecosystem. This may include your portfolio, GitHub, etc.) - NA

Section 5. Team Members

  • Please provide information about Team Members. Information should include (name, roles, near. social profile handles)

· Tej (AKA Punter): Operations Management - Nearverse Labs (nearversedao.near) | Near Social

· Krik: PoC & Communications - Krikkraktrak (krikkraktrak.near) | Near Social

· Aescobar: Marketing & Community Lead - Aescobar (aescobar.near) | Near Social

· Web3Plug (AKA Shot)- Technical Council - Web3Plug (web3plug.near) | Near Social

Section 6. Experience
What related qualifications, experience, or track record does your team bring to this initiative?
· Short Summary of Your and Team’s Professional Experience
· List Web3 Projects You Have Completed
· Live Links to Examples of Relevant Work
· Relevant Data Points Showing Your Competencies

· Krik: With over 15 years of diverse experience in global companies and NGOs, including Project Management, Governance, HR, and PA. I am passionate about crypto, communities, and NFTs. I serve as a Community Manager to Mr. Brown, creating engaging content and inviting guests for Near at Night Spaces.

· Aescobar: I bring 7 years of experience in the Hospitality industry, starting as a Barista and progressing to Head of Product R&D, leading a team of Business Development. My journey in Web3 began as a moderator and has since expanded to encompass roles such as Community Manager, Project Lead, Advisor, and Co-Founder.
LinkedIn Profile: Aescobar Mike

· Tej (aka Punter): With 8 years of experience in the Automation of Banking, Insurance, and Healthcare backend operations, I lead Nearvese Labs (RocketBois NFTs). Our team has developed multiple innovations for Near NFTs since March 2022.
LinkedIn Profile: Punter AKA Tej

Shot (Web3 Plug): Has 7+ years experience in Crypt. A founder, developer, and ecosystem practitioner. Graduate in CS and CIS from the school of business. Ran the NEAR NFT Builder Group for 1+ years, rallying top NFT builders to innovate and push standards. Founder of GenaDrop, open source multichain NFT toolkit.
GitHub: codingshot

Section 7. DAO/Project Charter/White or Litepaper and Goals
· Project Overview: Presentation with a short High-Level 6 bullet points summary:
(Mission, Vision, Core programs and how they align with NDC’s NDC CoA Vision, team, and requested budget for the next three months Dec, Jan, Feb)b
· What Problem Are You Aiming to Solve?
· DAO/Project Charter;
· How can your DAO / Project achieve NDC priorities, goals, and KPIs?
· Roadmap of your DAO/project, Milestones, and achievements
Proposal: Our pitch introduces the Working Group, and outlines roles, mission, vision, and core programs. Aligned seamlessly with NDC’s Priorities and Near Protocol’s core goals. The budget slide encapsulates our fiscal roadmap, ensuring efficiency and impact.

Charter: NFT_Work_Group_Charter.docx - Google Docs

Section 8. Budget
· Projected Budget for the next three months (In USD for each Task/Milestone) - The projected budget for the next three months, is outlined in our prepared slide (below).
· Links to Similar Proposals from Near Foundation, existing GDAOs, Near ECO (if applicable)- NA
· What is the length of Commitment to Delivering Your Project? - NA
Will your team be working on this project full-time? - Core Contributor members are dedicated to Operations, business development, community building, and grantee management. The Technical Council’s responsibility would be reviewing proposals, assessing technical milestones, offering expert advice, bridging communication between technical teams and the Work Group, and maintaining a backlog of vital infrastructure enhancements.

Will your team be fully remunerated from this budget? - The team will be fully remunerated from the v1 budget, with a strategic plan for long-term sustainability.

Section 9. Project/DAO longevity

· Does your project/DAO require one-time or continuous funding? - As a Grassroots DAO, we are committed to aiding the builders in building systems to help the ecosystem thrive through NFT innovations. Although we have a vision of making the WG self-sustainable, we need NDC’s support for starting up and working towards sustainability.

· Will your DAO/Project device way of sustaining itself after this round of funding? - Some ways that the NFT WG plans to achieve self-sustainability through building revenue-generating applications, Official WG NFT collection sales in the future, and acquisition of NFT projects that will yield some revenue through secondary market sales (royalties).

· What are the possible roadblocks to the success of your project/DAO?- The changing community dynamics pose a unique challenge. Maintaining engagement, consensus, and harmony within a diverse community, requires adaptive strategies and strong community management. We may also need to be ready to face the volatility and keep re-prioritizing the innovations that we build and encourage. The ideas backlog will serve this purpose as we constantly keep improving it based on all the factors mentioned above.
Link to NFT WG Ideas Backlog.

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All three of the above team members have been heavily involved with Near protocol and have my full support for this initiative. NFTs are a valuable part of any blockchain ecosystem and when used effectively can be used to establish community and promote onboarding.

Near used to have a bustling NFT community which has fallen off due to many reasons, but a coordinated effort to fund and promote sustainable NFT projects can be a huge benefit to Near.

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Thanks for your application! I will go ahead and say now that I will default support anything @krikkraktrak or @Aescobar do.

That being said, I do have some questions and points.

Do we really need to spend more money on building out the NFT ecosystem when there is already a host of great projects (El Cafe Cartel, GFF, MMC, etc.), and cutting edge platforms (Tradeport, Paras, etc.)?

Wouldn’t it be better to allocate more funding to directly pulling more Web2 and general Web3 users into NEAR? I suspect that we already have great scaffolding and infrastructure to support a massive inflow of users, what I personally think we need more of are reasons for people to move to NEAR. More NFT support doesn’t make sense to me I guess…

Similarly, I think the rates are a little steep for the Core Team. YES! Each one of these individuals are amazing people, but don’t you think they are stretched a little then with all of their current commitments? (i.e. goodluck naming any single project that Aescobar isn’t a SMM or CM for—this is a testimony to his hard work!) But back to my point, if each of these core contributors are stretched as far as they are working in the ecosystem already, will they be able to put in $7500 worth of work each month?

Further more, I think each funding point should be extrapolated out further (almost to a fault), as a lot of these seem like they could be done in a more cost-efficient manner, and the bundling of the parts into whole can skyrocket the price.

All-in-all, I am confident work ethic of these individuals, but questions I would have for the review-board would be this:
-Can these amazing individuals be everywhere at once?
-Is this future product worth $150,000 a foundation funds? What does the quantitative ROI look like?
-What future/other project does approve this bleed dry? Is it worth it?

V/r,

Noah (Nono) Major
A Citizen of NEAR

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Hi Nono, understood the concern that you raised on this.

Direct answer I have to the question is

  • The individuals here committed to spend their time at least 40h/ week

  • Future product isn’t just what we will bring to the ecosystem but also supporting the existing project, the contributors here will in-charge not only just giving out fund but also help a project managing the growth after they receive the support from us.

  • For the upcoming project is base on what we can work on and bring to the ecosystem either it was a product or a whole new project. The main goal isn’t talking about the trading nft hype pump and dump but we will support the growth of more infrastructure for NFT verticals.

The number on community funding isn’t a must spend amount but we prepare the budget for that and will always align with the NDC vision.

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We need some type of NFT mint on Near. Hopefully not just a PFP collection. Whenever I push Near to friends or projects building, the first thing they ask is “whats minting on Near”. When I explain they immediately lose interest.

Near needs to give ammo to their foot soldiers. NFTs even if free can be a start. NFTs brought me to Near and can very well be a catalyst for building projects, gaming integration, and my favorite - building communities.

I support this team and their initiative. I’ve worked with all of them to some extent these past couple years and curious to what the outcome will be.

EDIT: The council pay is 7.5K/month? You can all cut back and hire me full time for less than half that TBH. Not trolling minimum wage in the US is about 2.3K without benefits.

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Thanks Billy Would love to have you on the team :partying_face:
That’s 7.5k split between 4 team members btw.

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A simple explanation would have been a decent thing to do. Heard.

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The program encourages teams/projects to build sustainable DApps that bring users (Web2/Web3) to Near.
74% of the total budget has been allocated to building and grant funding. There are stellar projects and NFT infrastructure on Near, like you said. Most of these projects we know have limited financial means to build further. These very projects can take advantage of the fund to continue scaling up their products or work on new ideas. Here’s a backlog of ideas that we are maintaining and would like to see built on Near. Please review and contribute:

There are other grass-root DAOs & Regional Hubs that have plans to do onboarding campaigns on a large scale. It is upto us to present these new influx of users with refreshing NFT innovations, and retain them.

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There are so many promising NFT collection projects on NEAR. However, I believe that NFTs on NEAR fall short in comparison to other chains. The community you gain from NFTs can be massive and can onboard many new users to the ecosystem, i would love to see more support for NFT projects on NEAR.

For the budgeting, payments should be based on their contribution, work, and the value they provide to the eco-system, while the numbers might seem high, if the core contributors can deliver and put in the work, this would be justified.

I fully support it, as I believe the core contributors will deliver based on their reputation and past and present contributions to the ecosystem.

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Not really, 7.5k$ for 3 persons
As technical Council is 1 person and payout is 2.5K$/Month

So 10K $ / month for 4 => 2.5k $ each

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My bad, i meant to say 7.5k between 3 core contributors. You are correct.

I was clarifying as I felt Billy took it as 7.5k per contributor.

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I mentioned that i did not want to be compensated for this role. I did not realize that this proposal would outline this and wanted this part of budget to be reallocated to tech building budget NFT Workgroup - Technical Council

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Web3Plug from @minorityprogrammers has offered to serve in Technical Council role on a voluntary basis, as indicated in his nomination . We’ve reallocated the originally planned compensation to the Community Grants fund.
Furthermore, we’ve adjusted the Core Contributor salary to $6,000 USD (2k per head), with the $1,500 difference also being redirected to Community Grants. Please refer to the attached revised budget sheet.

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Cant wait to have the Near NFT scene back up…:fire::fire::fire::fire::fire:

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Thankyou for the support sir!

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