Why is it important?
“Marketing. The vastness of the area demands this category should take the biggest percent of the funding budget.” Quote from IOG Report.*
What does success look like?
Challenge consolidation to efficiently grow Cardano and ADA value ie. Conventions, Marketing ,Influencer Growth, Hubs & Community Outreach
Key Metrics to measure
•Wallet Growth
•ADA TVL
•Social Buzz
•Increase in Challenge proposals
•Onboarding metrics
•Staking of ADA
•Growth of Stake Pools
•ADA market price
•Press mentions
*Cardano diversity growth
*Dev attraction and onboarding
Challenge brief
This challenge was unknowingly created several years back by issuance of an IOG scientific study. The study was formulated and published in the form of an Abstract.
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This Abstract was an early roadmap of sorts that was apparently responsible for Catalyst itself. It laid out concepts of Decentralization and the Treasury, which funds Catalyst and a lot of current infrastructure.
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The study called for a Marketing category as an essential in the Catslyst system. One of only six essential categories. As Catalst and the Cardano ecosystem has evolved and grown, this most important category has been overlooked, while the other five have had more focus.
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This category - Marketing - was so important to the framers of the Treasury foundation, they stated it should be the largest budgeted category!
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The abstract being discussed and referenced is:
- A Treasury System for Cryptocurriences: Enabling Better Collaborative Intelligence*
https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/435.pdf
authored by:
Bingsheng Zhang, Roman Oliynykov &
Named Balogun
<https://discord.com/channels/832894680290951179/944928803870871562/945364673207873596>
This abstract (referred to as The Treasury Paper) laid-out the path/roadmap for several critical steps towards Decentralization including:
1. Catalyst
2. Voting processes and science
3. Delegated Voting Representatives
4. Voting Committee
5. The Treasury formula
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Within the paper - referring to what we now know as Catalyst Challenges, the Abstract on - p16 section 3.12 - proposes to include (at least) the following categories:
A) Marketing,
B) Technology adoption,
C) Development and Security,
D) Support,
E) Organization and Management,
F) General.
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Regarding the Marketing category the Abstract states:
“ This covers activities to cryptocurrency market share growth, market analysis, advertisement, conferences, etc. <u>The vastness of the area demands this category should take the biggest percent of the funding budget.“</u>
(Bold and underline added by proposer for emphasis.)
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Fund 8 has a budget of $16 million, yet arguably, other than Film & Media there is no marketing category In the Catalyst Challenge. There are few dollars or ADA budgeted towards marketing.
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Charles Hoskinson, in a fairly recent Whiteboard went to great lengths to explain and justify the security, scalability and expression of Cardano and ( paraphrasing) why The Cardano Network has been slow, deliberate and based on the science and papers of past years. This may in part explain the lack of a Marketing budget as stated in the referenced Abstract.
Charles, in other chats has explained the importance of this years third quarter and the work on projects coming due this fall ( harvest season for farmers).
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<u>This Challenge setting proposal</u>, suggests it is time to meet the importance and need stated in The Treasury Abstract for a Marketing category. It is time to fund the “activities to cryptocurrency market share growth,”.
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The community has demonstrated leadership qualities and readiness for the evolving decentralization of Cardano. It is time for the community to take the lead in meeting the need, stated in The Treasury Report, by budgeting money for Marketing. And, help the growth throughout the Cardano ecosystem. This new category will bring a focus and emphasis on Marketing the successes and new developments of Cardano and work towards increasing the value of ADA.
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The amount requested for the first Marketing Challenge of the Cardano Ecosystem may not fulfill the demand in The Treasury Abstract of “this category should take the biggest percent of the funding budget.” But, it is a beginning.
Fund 8 has a $16,000,000.00 budget with the greatest category at $2,500,000. Fund 9 will likely be $20 - 25 million or slightly greater. We do not expect a doubling of the budget this round.
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Per the Treasury paper the Marketing budget should be funded at the largest percentage. The six essential categories if evenly funded would be set at $3.3 mil each with a $20 mil Challenge budget. $4,000,000 would equate to the greatest percentage. Several minor categories will crop up to absorb differences.
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A charting of Challenge & funding by the proposer
<https://discord.com/channels/756943420660121600/938750947604193310/949487552946122784>
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The request for a central Marketing and Community Development Challenge Category for Fund 9 should seriously be considered by the community. It was deemed by the authors of the Treasury Report to be one of six essential categories and the one that should have the largest budget percentage.
The Community Outreach and Hub Growth Challenges should be absorbed into this Marketing and Community Development Challenge. This would simplify focus and remove overlapping efforts.
Thank you for reading this proposal and for taking the time to be involved and part of this experiment! @headelf
