The Dogechain blockchain has one major goal — to increase Dogecoin’s utility. As such, it allows DOGE holders to access advanced blockchain functionalities like DeFi, NFTs, and blockchain games.
To achieve this, the team has provided builders with a scalable, EVM-compatible smart contract platform, where DOGE can be used as gas.
Thanks to the Polygon Edge framework upon which the chain is built, developers are able to launch their dApps using a standalone, permissionless chain, with high transaction speeds and near-zero transaction costs.
So, we can safely declare that Dogechain is a community project, created by DOGE lovers, for everyone that wants to get more use out of their Dogecoin. And hence, the large majority of dApps running on the chain have been created by community members that want to provide added utility for their peers.
To emphasize this, the Dogechain token economics have been created with a community-first mindset. A major portion of the supply of $DC tokens is reserved for project-funding initiatives.
The Dogechain Grants Program, is one of the critical ways for the team to help support and grow the Dogechain ecosystem. This article will outline its core principles and funding methods.
Promoted Principles
The Dogechain Grants Program promotes several core principles that encompass a wide set of projects. Just to name a few — innovation, inclusivity, growth, community, decentralization, and transparency.
These are the pillars that will set the foundation for a long-term, viable ecosystem where Dogecoin users can access smart contracts with their DOGE.
In a nutshell, this program was created to support builders that aren’t afraid to provide new, groundbreaking blockchain products for the Dogechain community. The Dogechain team looks to support any project that builds on the platform and abides by these principles.
Scope
The Dogechain Team will use the grants program to support projects both financially and logistically. Thanks to the combined experience of its core members, the program can provide developers with marketing and technical expertise, as well as financial support to bring the project to fruition.
The Dogechain Grant Program exists to help individuals building on Dogechain launch their products or service timely and efficiently.
So if you think you have a project that will provide additional utility to DOGE or contribute to the growth of its community or the value of the chain, you might be eligible for a grant.
Note that the Grants Program is not a means of venture capital funding. The participants in the program are expected to be able to provide a viable product that can be used by the community. The Grants Program is simply meant to help them push it to a higher level. If you are fundraising for your project, you might instead want to look into VC rounds, hackathons, incubators, or launchpads.
Area of Focus
There are several main areas of focus for the Dogechain Grant program.
- DeFi — projects that incorporate advanced financial products in the Dogechain ecosystem or provide additional inclusivity. This includes (non-exclusively) decentralized trading, lending/borrowing, wallet integrations or apps, yield optimizers, DEX aggregators, crypto & fiat on/off ramps, etc.
- NFTs — projects that encourage and facilitate the adoption of NFTs on Dogechain. This includes NFT marketplaces, NFT yield mechanisms, unique projects and collections, added utility for NFTs, original use cases for NFTs, etc.
- Games — projects that build fun and engaging games and attempt to take on the challenge of revolutionizing the gaming industry with their products on Dogechain. This may or may not include play-to-earn and GameFi mechanics.
- Metaverse — platforms that combine all of the previously mentioned areas of focus and create virtual worlds on Dogechain.
Moreover, additional consideration will be given to projects that are migrating their projects from other platforms.
Community-Driven Methods
Every grant application will undergo an initial screening from the Dogechain committee. This committee will proceed by reviewing each applicant’s submitted documentation and determine the project’s grant eligibility and financial aid amount.
Note that the Ecosystem DAO Fund reserves 29% of the total supply of $DC tokens for these grants and ecosystem-building initiatives.
Once a project has been deemed eligible for a grant, it will be able to participate in different community-driven grants, with some of them depicted below.
Social Media Grant Battles
During these campaigns, projects will be able to call upon their community and measure their engagement and marketing efforts. Organized as tournaments with multiple rounds, the Dogechain team will measure social KPIs that show the growth of community and engagement within the ecosystem.
Projects will go forward through eliminatory rounds until there’s one winner left, which will receive the grand prize. Every project that advances through a round will qualify for a prize and can accumulate prizes as they advance through the qualification rounds.
Case-by-case grants
The Dogechain Foundation will handpick the most prominent projects on the chain that have passed the evaluation phase. These projects will receive grants on a case-by-case basis, discussed closely with their teams.
This initial grant phase will allow up-and-coming projects to advance their roadmaps and continue delivering utility to their users. At the same time, it will allow the Dogechain ecosystem to grow while the Dogechain developer team is implementing the Ecosystem DAO and governance models.
veDC Governance Model & Ecosystem DAO
Eligible projects will be directly proposed to the community on our dogegress.dog governance website. Each project will be presented with its goals and objectives, and users will be able to decide which one of them will be granted financial aid, by voting with their veDC tokens.
This makes the veDC governance model one of the major use cases of $DC which is the native token of the Dogechain blockchain. Not only do holders become a part of the community, but also part of the Ecosystem DAO, which is a decisive body regarding the growth and development of Dogechain. Consequently, the community will be directly involved in the decision-making process of the Grants Program.
Moreover, this DAO will further boost the growth of the chain and the value of $DC.
On one hand, project builders will gain access to the Ecosystem DAO fund to fulfill their vision and provide added utility to DOGE. Furthermore, project supporters will be incentivized to lock their tokens for extended periods of time, constricting the $DC supply.
In addition to choosing their preferred project, veDC voters will get rewarded through different mechanisms. Among others, these will include — additional veDC tokens, merchandise, high-stakes raffles, project-bound tokens or rewards, and many more.
Social Mining
The Ecosystem Foundation DAO will launch periodic financial campaigns set to incentivize the building of dApps on Dogechain. These campaigns will also go through the veDC voting process previously explained, as DC holders will be able to vote for the whitelisted projects that may participate in these campaigns.
In these cases, the community will be able to select a number of projects that the initiative will support financially through grant allocations or liquidity mining. The program will support specific protocol development efforts and will reward projects based on on-chain metrics.
The key measure for this will be the explicit growth of the dApp, meaning the total value locked (TVL) as calculated based on a time-weighted average price (TWAP) and/or weekly active users (WAU).
The protocol will take intermittent snapshots of key metrics on a weekly/monthly timeframe. The rewards will then increase, decrease or stagnate, following the KPIs from the previous snapshot.
Again, the goal is to incentivize the growth of the Dogechain platform by providing projects with rewards following on-chain and transparent metrics. At the same time, it will allow the users to be rewarded for participating in the ecosystem and increase the adoption of the chain.
Application & Evaluation
Project leaders can apply for the grant program by filling out the form on this link:
Projects that have applied for grants will be screened by the business development department of the Dogechain team. This process involves:
Screening — where the Dogechain team evaluates whether all basic criteria for receiving a grant are met.
Interview and Pre-Evaluation — during this phase, the team will evaluate the project and give it a score following five major criteria:
- Mission of the project
- Market Opportunity
- Technical innovation
- Ecosystem growth potential
- Ability to execute
Evaluation — the final phase where project leaders will be able to pitch their request for a grant and explain their vision in person to the Dogechain Grants committee.
Milestones
In their applications or during the evaluation phase, grant applicants are expected to set up milestones for their projects. These milestones will serve as unambiguous indicators of progress and will be critical in unlocking further portions of the grant.
For this reason, progress toward milestone completion must be clear and definite and submitted frequently. This will ensure that the Dogechain team, as well as the community, will have sufficient data to measure the success of the project at all times.
Failure to meet milestones can result in the renegotiation of the milestones to more realistically predict progress. This may include goals for an acceleration of effort to catch up.
When particularly critical milestones are missed and/or the work will not be completed as originally proposed, this could result in a community vote toward the termination of the grant.
To wrap up:
The Dogechain Grants Program is specifically designed to bolster the growth of the ecosystem. It provides builders with much-needed financial aid, while simultaneously allowing the community to participate in the decision-making process.
What’s more, the multiple community-driven grant methods incentivize participation through multiple reward mechanisms. This stimulates users to build a tight community that genuinely wishes for projects on the chain to succeed.
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