Grants 2024 Transparency Report

[xenias]

Grants 2024 Transparency Report

The RARI Foundation, in collaboration with RARI DAO members, launched the Grants Program to support dApp developers experimenting on innovative NFT use cases. The program aims to drive the adoption of the Rarible Protocol and RARI Chain.

To ensure transparency regarding the allocation of funds from the Rarible Protocol Treasury in 2024, here is an overview of grant allocations and the projects that met the selection criteria. These initiatives are either fully completed or currently under development.

Ref: Grants discussion in Rari Forum

Summary:

• Timeframe: Late August to end of December 2024
• Total Grant Applications: 86
• Number of Grants approved: 3
• Total Grants Issued: 10,605.05 $RARI

Grants Breakdown

Project Name	OSPN
Grant Status	Completed
Funding issued	6,000 $RARI
Transparency report	OSPN - Transparency Report (Beyond PFPs)
Grant description	The “Beyond PFPs” podcast enhanced community engagement by exploring innovative NFT use cases on the Rarible open-source protocol. OSPN initiated roundtable discussions and Twitter Spaces to showcase how NFTs can disrupt traditional industries, focusing on the new NFT initiatives and opening opportunities for new partnerships with Rarible Protocol and RARI Chain.

Project Name	Mintpad
Grant Status	Completed
Live on RARI Chain!
Funding issued	3,012.75 $RARI
Additional $2.5K USD worth of $RARI if they move to Rarible Protocol
Transparency report	Transparency Report for Mintpad - Milestone 1
Grant description	Mintpad, a no-code NFT creator platform supporting 30+ chains and over 90k collections, empowers creators to launch NFTs effortlessly. With funding, Mintpad integrated with RARI Chain, providing users with advanced tools and ongoing support. Mintpad was featured at the DeFi Studio campaign organized by RARI Foundation in Q4 2024 as an onboarding tool for creators to drop their NFT art on RARI Chain.

Project Name	DAOSpace
Grant Status	In progress
Live on RARI Chain!
Funding issued	1,592.3 RARI distributed
$2.5K USD worth of $RARI to be distributed after going live.
Transparency report	Daospace - Transparency Report (Contributor Cards)
Grant description	DAOSpace builds an on-chain reputation and identity protocol for DAO contributors and gamifies DAO participation with Contributor Cards—dynamic NFTs on RARI Chain that serve as proof of work and allows to earn royalties from Cards sales. The grant from RARI Foundation is supporting a pilot program for RARI DAO contributors to explore innovative NFT use cases, including a reputation system for SocialFi.

Key Takeaways from Q3-Q4 2025

• Change in funding mechanism?

  • Since the most successful leads during Grants #1 were coming from the EGF’s network, EGF decided to experiment with the grants program in Q3-Q4 without launching a full-scale campaign this time.
  • EGF initiated a BD outreach via the network of DAO delegates and members of EGF and created a Telegram group with 10 members to request introductions to projects.
  • Throughout Q3-Q4, the Committee has reached out to 40+ projects both through personal introductions and cold outreach.
  • The Committee’s BD efforts led to having 10 potential projects in the negotiation stage. However, to date, these projects either chose another ecosystem or did not qualify for funding.
  • Clear guidelines are needed to automate the grant process, whether for implementing Rari Protocol or incentivizing deployments on Rari Chain. Establishing clear rules and steps for meeting requirements, progressing through milestones, and maintaining grants will simplify and bring transparency to decision-making.

• Clear and consistent communication with the community

  • Grantees and the Grants Working Group must submit monthly progress reports to the DAO through the forum. This helps the DAO track grant progress against the original proposal and ensures transparency about the Grants Working Group’s outcomes and decisions.

Way Forward

In 2025, the Grants Committee will undergo changes, with the DAO taking on a leading role, while the Foundation will shift to a more advisory and supportive position, focusing on tasks such as contract execution and KYC processes. The exact planning for the Grants operations has yet to be determined.

[dzonson.eth]

The 2024 Grants Program was, to put it bluntly, highly disappointing. This was supposed to be the flagship year for RARI Chain, the year when builders would be incentivized to bring decentralized applications and impactful projects to our ecosystem. Instead, the results speak for themselves—a total of 50k $RARI was granted and allocated to the program, and yet, after an entire year, only three projects were approved and 20% of budget utilized.

Let’s analyze these projects:

1. OSPN (“Beyond PFPs”) received 60% of the total budget. This project aimed to engage the community, but the results are underwhelming. The last video was published over five months ago, and the series comprises only 12 videos with an average of 15 views per video. This is far from the kind of traction and impact we hoped for. The same grantee has been approved for another grant, raising serious concerns about the effectiveness of our selection process and the ROI of these initiatives.
2. Mintpad, a no-code NFT creation platform, has potential on paper. Yet, we lack tangible data on user adoption or growth since its integration with RARI Chain. No creators are using this tool. Is it simply another underutilized project in the ecosystem?
3. DAOSpace, though promising in its vision of gamified DAO participation, is still in progress. However, given the track record of the program thus far, skepticism about its potential impact is warranted. Simply because we need apps for users of the chain and we need to shift priority from highly prioritizing delegates and awarding them with rewards. We need projects for chain USERS.

On top of this, we’re simultaneously considering a proposal that allocates over $1M annually for team salaries and expert hires. It’s difficult to justify such expenditures when the existing grants team has failed to deliver meaningful results. The current grants committee must take responsibility for this outcome. If the aim was to attract projects to build on RARI Chain, the results indicate that the strategy was fundamentally flawed.

Suggestions for Moving Forward

1. Leadership Change: The team responsible for the grants program must be replaced with individuals who can deliver tangible results and prioritize ecosystem growth.
2. Revised Strategy: Future grants should focus on clear KPIs—such as user adoption, active integrations, and real-world impact—to ensure funds are allocated effectively.
3. Transparency and Accountability: A more rigorous reporting structure must be enforced for both grantees and the committee, with public updates that allow the DAO to track progress and hold stakeholders accountable.
4. Community-Centric Decision Making: The DAO should have a stronger voice in selecting projects, ensuring alignment with community goals and expectations.

We cannot afford another year of wasted resources. If we aim to position RARI Chain as a thriving ecosystem, the current grants approach must undergo a complete overhaul.

[bitblondy]

Thanks @xenias for the report!

I’m also wondering, why there were >80 applications, but only 3 approved and only 20% of the allocated budget used. Was the quality of applications so low?

[Sidney]

I also applied with a concept, but it was rejected because they claimed there wasn’t enough activity for my idea. I find that reasoning ridiculous, and it makes me wonder if similar arbitrary criteria led to other rejections.

Honestly, I haven’t seen much developer activity on the chain either, aside from @jarisjames , and I, I’m actively engaging on the chain’s socials. This lack of presence and support might also be a factor contributing to the low number of approvals.

[dzonson.eth]

For a new product like Rari Chain, the primary priority must be building the ecosystem and attracting “builders” who will create innovative, engaging, and useful platforms, which later on obviously brings the end-users. Naturally, the key entity for executing this mission, which is priority number one, is the Grant Committee.

What changes will be made, if any, considering the following data that confirms the Grant Committee significantly underperformed in 2024?

The total maintenance cost of the committee was estimated between $100,000 and $200,000. (Two representatives from the Foundation were allocated $37k worth of $RARI each. Regarding team members, based on their average earnings from operational budgets, although we lack exact confirmation, they likely earned at least $5,000 to $10,000 per month, leading to the total amount mentioned above.)

On the other hand, only three applications were approved throughout the entire 2024 (out of 86), all of which had zero impact on the Rari ecosystem. Just one-fifth of the budget allocated for grants in 2024—a critical year for scaling Rari Chain—was utilized. (total of $20k given out in grants, at the same time that being JUST 10-15% of operational budget of the committee). A more detailed breakdown can be found in my comment above.

What is the rationale of extending the mandate of @Jaf and @WinVerse as community representatives to whom DAO paid 30k RARI in 2024 with avg price of $RARI being around 2.5$ (totaling 75k usd). This post has been up for a month now and topic is insanely crucial. Hope we finally get a response from members other than Xenia, who isn’t even part of the team anymore.

[bitblondy]

Thanks @dzonson.eth for sharing more details and thoughts. I have to agree that >$100k paid to the grants committee compared to $20k in grants distributed is not a ration that makes sense in any way.

As asked in my previous comment, I’m wondering why there were not more applications approved? What were the efforts to attract more qualified applications?

[Jaf]

Hi everyone,
Apologies for the delay in responding to this thread.

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@bitblondy

I’m also wondering, why there were >80 applications, but only 3 approved and only 20% of the allocated budget used. Was the quality of applications so low?

The low approval rate and partial use of the allocated budget reflects a challenge we identified: the Grants program didn’t gain enough visibility to attract the type of builders we were looking for within the short timeframe we operated.

Only 3 out of 86 applications approved is concerning yes, however it also says a lot about how thorough the GWG was in analyzing the potential ROI of each proposal.
As you can imagine many of the 80+ applications were lacking a clear forecast of how they could bring value to Rari.

Again, this was an area of improvement that Xenia posted in the report. We should have had a more “work in public” approach so we involved the community into the decision making.

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@Sidney

I also applied with a concept, but it was rejected because they claimed there wasn’t enough activity for my idea. I find that reasoning ridiculous, and it makes me wonder if similar arbitrary criteria led to other rejections.

Honestly, I haven’t seen much developer activity on the chain either

To clarify, the decision to reject this proposal was primarily because it was challenging for us to measure the ROI at this stage. As a brand-new project still in the ideation/development phase, it was difficult to foresee how it would bring activity to the chain in the near term.

With the budget allocated for grants, it was important for us to make tough decisions and prioritize projects that had the potential to bring traction and tangible results more quickly.

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@dzonson.eth

The total maintenance cost of the committee was estimated between $100,000 and $200,000. (Two representatives from the Foundation were allocated $37k worth of $RARI each. Regarding team members, based on their average earnings from operational budgets, although we lack exact confirmation, they likely earned at least $5,000 to $10,000 per month, leading to the total amount mentioned above.)

I cannot really comment in regards to your assumption about the 2 representatives from the foundation compensation.

@dzonson.eth

What is the rationale of extending the mandate of @Jaf and @WinVerse as community representatives to whom DAO paid 30k RARI in 2024 with avg price of $RARI being around 2.5$ (totaling 75k usd). This post has been up for a month now and topic is insanely crucial. Hope we finally get a response from members other than Xenia, who isn’t even part of the team anymore.

This is highly inaccurate. Out of the total amount stated in the proposal, only half was used (see proposal here).

Additionally, your claim that @WinVerse and I were paid 30K $RARI is entirely false—a baseless assumption.

As for extending our mandate, I’m not aware of any such discussions. As stated in community calls, it’s up to the DAO to decide the next steps.

---

Finally this one:

@dzonson.eth

Suggestions for Moving Forward

1. Leadership Change: The team responsible for the grants program must be replaced with individuals who can deliver tangible results and prioritize ecosystem growth.
2. Revised Strategy: Future grants should focus on clear KPIs—such as user adoption, active integrations, and real-world impact—to ensure funds are allocated effectively.
3. Transparency and Accountability: A more rigorous reporting structure must be enforced for both grantees and the committee, with public updates that allow the DAO to track progress and hold stakeholders accountable.
4. Community-Centric Decision Making: The DAO should have a stronger voice in selecting projects, ensuring alignment with community goals and expectations.

I agree with these points. These were identified as areas for improvement, and I see them as opportunities for the DAO to take meaningful action. The opportunity is there for everyone to contribute.

[Sidney]

@Jaf

To clarify, the decision to reject this proposal was primarily because it was challenging for us to measure the ROI at this stage. As a brand-new project still in the ideation/development phase, it was difficult to foresee how it would bring activity to the chain in the near term.

With the budget allocated for grants, it was important for us to make tough decisions and prioritize projects that had the potential to bring traction and tangible results more quickly.

Thank you for clarifying your reasoning. However, I want to address a few points and provide feedback on this approach to grant allocation.

While I understand the need to make strategic decisions, I don’t believe ROI should be the primary focus when allocating grants. The purpose of grants should be to foster growth, encourage builders, and support innovative projects that can add long-term value to the ecosystem.

Measuring success solely in terms of immediate returns undermines the broader goal of establishing a thriving and sustainable chain.

Given the current lack of developer activity, rejecting proposals based on short-term impact feels shortsighted. The chain needs experimentation and creative ideas to grow, even if the results aren’t immediately quantifiable. Supporting early-stage builders is an investment in the ecosystem’s future, not just a balance sheet decision.

Moreover, it’s disheartening to see some approved projects with minimal visibility or tangible impact. This raises questions about how decisions are made and whether there’s a comprehensive follow-up on the progress of funded projects. Transparency and clear communication around this process would go a long way in building trust and motivating developers.

I plan to discuss this further in the upcoming workshop or community call, as I believe constructive dialogue can help refine the grant process for the benefit of all stakeholders, because this is not the way, and things has to change, fast.