After a community discussion and a seven-day open voting period, a community proposal that outlines a new process for treasury spending approval has passed Moonbeam’s on-chain governance. Published by Mad, Moonbeam community member, the proposal introduces new opportunities for community involvement and input in the allocation of Moonbeam Treasury funds on a go-forward basis.
The passage of this initiative provides additional transparency and opportunities for more community input around Moonbeam Treasury Spending. The major addition to the existing process is the establishment of a five-person Treasury Council that includes both Moonbeam Foundation and non-Foundation community members. The new structure introduced by the community proposal will run for 6 months with the intention of being revised upon the full rollout of Polkadot Governance v2.
The Treasury Program
The Moonbeam Treasury was pre-funded at the network launch with 0.5% of the token supply and has since been accumulating GLMR from an approximate 20% portion of transaction fees. The Moonbeam Treasury funds are held in an on-chain genesis address meant for use in funding projects that maintain and further the growth of the Moonbeam Network.
As an open-source, public blockchain that aims to provide an innovative, secure, and reliable network to its community, the Moonbeam Treasury Council will support projects that share these goals and add value to the Moonbeam ecosystem.
Interim Treasury Program Structure
The Treasury Council’s responsibility is to control Treasury spending. Taking into account the Moonbeam Treasury balance at the time of the proposal, the budget for the six-month term of the Treasury Program is equal to one-eighth of the Treasury balance. This conservative budget aims to maintain the program for approximately four years.
Now community approved, the proposal will take 7 days to be fully executed, after onboarding and enabling on-chain voting for Treasury Council Members.
Process
The application process for Treasury funds has five phases:
Phase 1: Submit a Moonbeam Treasury Proposal Idea for discussion on Moonbeam Community Forum
Community discussions are hosted on the Moonbeam Community Forum before and during the on-chain submission process. The idea should be posted into the Treasury Proposals Category and tagged as an Idea and Mooniver/Moonbeam. The template is automatically populated upon topic creation and the title for draft proposals should be: [Proposal: XX][Idea] Proposal Title. The topic creation is subject to the Moderator’s approval to ensure the proposal follows the posting template and is associated with the right category and labels.
The submitted proposal idea will receive feedback from the community for at least five days and should include the items listed in the guidelines in the on-chain Interim Treasury Program proposal.
Phase 2: Revise and Finalize the Moonbeam Treasury Proposal
The author of the proposal will respond to feedback from the community in the Moonbeam Community Forum discussion. The Council will comment and indicate any changes that should be made. Initial ideas that receive positive support from the community and the Treasury Council move forward.
After five days, the author may proceed with the application as is, or update it using the feedback. Authors are encouraged to secure support (via the comments) from at least 3 of 5 Council members (the number of Treasury Council members needed to pass a Treasury Proposal) before proceeding from the idea phase and submitting the proposal and sending the non-refundable deposit.
Phase 3: Submit the Moonbeam Treasury Proposal
This phase requires a deposit and the finalized proposal must be submitted on-chain for a vote via polkadot.js, and the description posted on Polkassembly. The on-chain submission must include the finalized proposal and a link to the finalized MBTP idea specifying the beneficiary, and requested amount. In addition, the proposer must update the existing proposal in the Moonbeam Community Forum by updating the proposal ID and status to “Submitted” and adding a link to the on-chain transaction as a comment flagged as “Solution”.
The community discussion will continue during this stage on the appropriate linked Moonbeam Community Forum.
Phase 4: Treasury Council Review and Vote
Any member of the Treasury Council can motion for a vote to accept the Moonbeam Treasury Proposal (MBTP) after the proposal author has completed an administrative review to ensure funds can be disbursed if the proposal is accepted. The Treasury Council Community members vote on the reviewed submission over three days, when the Moonbeam Treasury Proposal is final and has either been accepted or rejected. The threshold for accepting an MBTP is at least three-fifths of the Treasury Council. The threshold for rejecting an MBTP is at least one-half of the Treasury Council.
Phase 5: Implementation
Accepted final Moonbeam Treasury Proposals will be paid out at the end of the current spending period, and the deposit will be returned to the applicant. The deposit of rejected applications will be burned.
Treasury Council
The Treasury Council is composed of five community-nominated and approved community members, two currently serving a role at the Moonbeam Foundation and three community members outside of the Moonbeam Foundation who understand the priorities of the ecosystem.
Treasury Council members have been nominated and approved by the Moonbeam community as part of the Interim Treasury Program Proposal in October 2022. Non-Foundation Community Treasury Committee members receive monthly compensation for their work.
The Foundation Treasury Council members are Sicco Naets, and Aaron Evans, who also holds the “Default Vote” position.
The Non-Foundation Treasury Council members include Simon Kraus, Jose Angarita, and Marcelo Alvarenga. More information can be found about them in the on-chain proposal.
Criteria for Treasury Funding Applications
Proposals for treasury spending may include those made for public good infrastructure, network security, integrations, marketing activities, community events, open-source software, wallets, and other end-user software, educational content, and user adoption initiatives.
The Treasury Council will access applications. Applications for treasury funds that align with the Moonbeam Guiding Principles and The Moonbeam Code of Conduct will have a greater chance of success if they demonstrate the following:
- Well-researched and tested ideas with examples
- Open source software
- Technical team able to deliver
- High-quality Moonbeam Treasury Proposal (MBTP) with clear milestones
Projects hoping to receive Moonbeam Foundation Treasury Funding should begin by submitting a draft proposal to Moonbeam Community Forum to begin the process.
