This proposal summarizes discussions held during the Strategic Workshop and subsequent conversations with Delegates and key ecosystem stakeholders. It seeks to outline a focused strategy for the RARI Foundation in light of the current market climate, DAO treasury size, and imminent opportunities.
Rationale
Given the evolving crypto market conditions, the RARI Foundation aims to optimize its impact by concentrating efforts on core functions and strategic partnerships. This approach leverages brand associations, marketing, and token infrastructure to onboard both existing and new communities to RARI technology effectively.
Motivation
To maximize the growth and sustainability of the RARI ecosystem, the Foundation will:
Realign with Rarible as the biggest user of DAO’s decentralized infrastructure
Slim down and streamline operations by reducing the headcount
Accelerate ecosystem growth by deploying the Rarible protocol in emerging ecosystems and promoting user onboarding via the Rarible marketplace.
Increase awareness of RARI ecosystem success stories through enhanced marketing efforts, including an ambassador/KOL program.
Promote token awareness and utility to drive engagement and adoption.
Specifications
Revised Strategic Approach
User Acquisition Strategy: Instead of distributing RARI rewards in community marketplaces as intended in RRC 7, the Foundation proposes utilizing these rewards to acquire users through Rarible.com, aligning with upcoming product updates.
Treasury Diversification: The Foundation proposes reassigning 85% of the Grants Fund amount to the Foundation’s treasury for strategic investment diversification. The remaining 15% will be allocated to the Creator Fund on RARI chain, governed by the RARI chain-based DAO.
Sequencer Revenue Allocation: Given the modest earnings from the RARI chain sequencer, the Foundation suggests directing all sequencer revenue to the Creator Fund. As a result, the RARI chain-based treasury will become the Creator Fund.
Operational Budget Management: Due to market volatility, the Foundation has paused all RARI sales, meaning no RARI allocated in RRC 37 (2025 operational budget) has been sold. Instead, the Foundation is utilizing previously established cash reserves. To mitigate the need to sell RARI under unfavorable conditions, the Foundation proposes retaining the 2024 operational surplus in the operational wallet as an additional cash reserve.
Steps to Implement
DAO Approval: The DAO votes to approve the refined strategic direction and fund reallocation.
Implementation of Growth Initiatives: The Foundation executes the outlined initiatives, including protocol deployments, marketing programs, and token awareness campaigns.
Treasury Adjustments: The Foundation reallocates the Grants Fund as proposed, redirects sequencer revenue to the Creator Fund, and retains the 2024 operational surplus for financial stability.
Timeline
Week 1-2: DAO discussion and approval process.
Week 3-6: Initiate marketing campaigns, onboarding strategies, and fund reallocation.
Ongoing: Monitor and adapt strategies based on market conditions and performance metrics.
Costs
No direct costs.
This proposal aims to align the RARI Foundation with market realities while maximizing growth and long-term sustainability.
I do support this new strategy, that I see should increase growth and provide sustainability with this narrow focus, and if executed successful. I do have a couple questions to understand this revised strategy:
Can you provide some more details of what the acquisition strategy will be to acquire users for Rarible product updates, and will this be a coordinated effort between Rarible and the Foundation?
I don’t see any KPI’s to measure the success of this revised strategy. Will this be provided to the DAO after the completion of step # 2 for implementation of growth initiatives?
Regarding the 15% allocation and sequencer revenue to the Creator Fund. Is the Creator Fund similar to a slimmed down grants program, or some other reward fund? Can you provide some details that if this fund treasury and program will be managed by the Foundation, what specifically are the types of rewards that will be allocated, and what is the current total value of this fund (based upon the 15% of existing grants program treasury and current sequencer revenue)?
Thanks for posting this strategy and summarizing the workshop. I support the five action points—especially the focus on realigning with the Rarible marketplace and streamlining operations, as well as distributing rewards through Rarible.
Regarding treasury diversification:
Does the reassignment of the grants fund mean there won’t be a grants program in the future? It would also be helpful to hear some concrete figures—what kind of amounts are we talking about?
In line with @coffee-crusher’s / @Jaf’s question, what does strategic investment diversification mean in this context? And is the “foundation treasury” considered part of the operational budget? I also agree with @coffee-crusher’s point on adding some expectations or KPIs around these investments.
The last two points—on sequencer revenue allocation and operational budget management—sound reasonable.
More generally, I noticed the strategy doesn’t mention any goals for the RARI chain. Is the chain still being developed or promoted? I get the rationale given the current state of the chain and the competition, but it still seems like a significant strategic change, also for the purpose of the DAO.
Thanks for this follow up to the strategic discussions we had with the community.
We are really supportive and have been advocating for a DAO alignment with Rarible for a long time and we are happy to see it come to fruition.
Regarding the Revised Strategic Approach, we have some questions:
We are really supportive of issuing rewards to support activity in Rarible. However, as DAO oversight for Rarible is limited, we wonder how will Rarible keep up with Transparency and accountability commitments toward the DAO for the funds used.
What exactly means “reassigning” the Fund? Will the DAO still own it and be able to reclaim it? Could you share some more details on the Rationale behind turning 85% of the Grants Fund into a Fund for Strategic Investment? Similarly, the Grants Fund was subjected to Transparency commitments toward the DAO to report on spending and results of the grants program. How is the Foundation going to keep the DAO informed about the state of the Fund.
Thank you for posting this, I support the items laid out in the motivation section, however I am unable to work out how these link to the majority of the items in the specification section. Therefore, I would oppose this proposal in its current form.
I am unable to comment on this item as there is no detail provided. I would welcome a proposal outlining the plan so that delegates are able to vote on it after being provided with sufficient knowledge of the details.
I believe that all funds should be returned to treasury and then further disbursals from the treasury requested as needed. In my opinion, the “reallocation” of funds from grants to Foundation should not be performed until the Foundation has fulfilled its previous treasury diversification tasks and there is no benefit to the Foundation stacking up funds to sell until the DAO has seen evidence that the Foundation is able to perform this satisfactorily.
Again, I believe this is DAO funds, which should be returned to DAO treasury and then requested as needed for specific initiatives which are explained in detail along with relevant KPIs that they are targeting.
I believe this is a reasonable approach but the Foundation should request this from the DAO in a separate proposal and not bundle multiple potentially contentious items into one proposal. We were previously promised a proposal to return this cash to enable delegates and tokenholders to vote on this matter. Retaining a large cash reserve removes the significant incentive alignment between Foundation, tokenholders, and DAO which results from holding significant amounts of $RARI tokens.
For these reasons I would vote AGAINST on this proposal in its current form and would encourage other delegates to do so.