Proof of Contribution in Gno.land

An innovative path to revolutionize the concept of fair rewards to open source contributors -- BUIDL Asia

6 June 2023

What is Gno?

• Gnolang/GnoVM: comprehensive smart contract suite, based on Golang
• Gno.land: first L1 using Gnolang
• built on Tendermint2 in the Cosmos/IBC ecosystem
• aims for fairness, simplicity, security, scalability
• -> long-term viability

What is proof of contribution (PoC)?

• consensus mechanism (PoW, PoS, PoA, etc.)
• removes financial incentives
• focus on expertise and values
• disclaimer: still WIP!

What makes a (good) contribution?

• quality, collaboration ≥ final merge status -> rewarding useful failures
• template or free-form; onchain, on GitHub, or other platforms; tech-related, or not
• predefined tasks or unsollicited, complete or part of a solution

# examples of contributions

- coding and code reviewing
- conducting research and analyzing competition
- writing tutorials, guides, and examples
- organizing workshops, meetups, and moderating online communities
- assisting with work streamlining, note-taking, and task management
- authoring a book with a decade-long impact

• -> judged by the Evaluation DAO

What is the Evaluation DAO?

• a smart contract framework
• for reviewing, measuring, and accepting contributions
• not the consensus mechanism but rather a platform
• scales itself -> managed by its members; serving as entrypoint to become a new member
• V1 is currently being developed as a GoR (Game of Realms) task
• score: ^worx -> WorxDAO

        +---------------1. propose a contribution-------------+
        |                                                     v
+--------------+                                     +----------------+
|              |--------3. improve, negotiate------->|                |
| contributor  |                                     | Evaluation DAO |
|              |<-------4. distribute ^worx----------|                |
+--------------+                                     +----------------+
        ^                                                     |
        +---------------2. review, challenge------------------+

^worx: gamified contributions

• symbol for quantifying contributions
• broadens contribution definition beyond traditional work
• signifies appreciation for all forms of contribution, fostering engagement, creativity and collaboration
• plural form for diversity and unquantifiable nature of contributions
• not tradable (not $WORX), but holds value within the community
• potential for annotations with tags with tags for automatic quantified expertises
• empowers contributors, promotes a sense of ownership
• one of the main metrics used in the Contributors DAO

What is the Contributors DAO?

• ecosystem for recognizing, coordinating, and incentivizing contributors
• the community owning the chain, responsible for its evolution
• tiered memberships with different rules and powers
• manages funding, elects validators, and participate in governance
• scalable from various community sizes, with Gnode for specialized coordination
• top tier has sufficient (1) contributions, (2) expertise, and (3) values

// not real data, concept only

L1: Contribution-based, automatic?
L2: Can L2 invite N L1 participants?
L3: DAO with voting power to promote L2, can slash L1/L2 for misconduct?
L4: KYC requirement?
L5: Active L4 for 1 year?
L6: Elected lead in at least one domain/area?
L7: TBD (To be determined)

What are Gnodes?

• Gnodes: interconnected DAOs for scaling and specialized communities
• enable secure collaboration and seamless integration, facilitating transparent ecosystem management at scale
• layers and overlays for different perspectives:
  • first layer: entities, people, and connections to projects and teams
  • second layer: relationships between entities, burn rate, payments (the "basic income" layer)
  • third layer: conflicts of interest, ownership stakes (privacy-preserving)
• varying structures, some treelike
• designed for interchain (IBCx)
• Gnode: is independent and flexible (type Gnode interface{BaseGnode, ...})

What is proof of contribution?

• consensus mechanism securing and decentralizing gno.land, replacing PoS
• PoDA, "proof of decentralized authority"
• incentivizes good contributions via the WorxDAO (Evaluation DAO)
• scalable through specialized Gnode communities
• potential for high decentralization efficiency (Satoshi score)
• enables collaborative ecosystem and new governance possibilities

+------------------+
| Contributors DAO |-----configures and ---+
+------------------+    triggers rewards   |
                                           v                  +------------------+
+-----------+                        +-----------+     +-X%-->|   contributors   |
|           |                        |chain fees |     |      +------------------+
|   users   |---------$GNOT--------->|  bucket   |-----+-Y%-->|    validators    |
|           |                        |           |     |      +------------------+
+-----------+                        +-----------+     +-Z%-->| contract authors |
                                                              +------------------+

New governance possibilities

• incentivized participation: rewards drive active engagement
• knowledgeable contributors: invested in project success, enforced DYOR
• scalable governance: accommodates specialized communities
• transparent decision-making: visible rationale through onchain forums
• adaptive and flexible: varied voting options for targeted outcomes

# voting options and filters examples

- individual voting: each member has one vote
- contributor level restriction: limited to contributors with level >= 2
- ^worx voting power: voting power determined by ^worx balance
- targeted metrics: additional metrics for specialized votes
  - $GNOT, $ibc/ATOM, grc20
  - firstContributionAge, lastContributionAge, isValidator, isRealmWriter, ...
- weighted voting: validators (67%) and contract-writers (33%)
- multi-criteria approach: combination of criteria for voting
- ...

Why proof of contributions?

• mitigates corrupting influence of tokens on projects
• minimizes risks of sybil attacks, takeovers, and alliances
• enables decentralized voting with individual votes and dynamic voting power based on tiered levels
• emphasizes project principales and values over monetary gains
• promotes independence and decentralization through multiple voting methods
• empower other chains

Can I use PoC on my blockchain?

• possible but challenging
• consider integrating with gno.land via ICSx for enhanced security
• implement Gnode for your project
• strive for a safer ecosystem of blockchains
• goal: have at least one blockchain independent of tokenomics for governance

What is Game of realms?

• ongoing competition for contributors
• experimental phase for proof of contributions
• building Evaluation DAO, and the new governance module
• earn $ATOM and become member on mainnet genesis

 
     ______                              ____   ____             __
    / ____/___ _____ ___  ___     ____  / __/  / __ \___  ____ _/ /___ ___  _____
   / / __/ __ `/ __ `__ \/ _ \   / __ \/ /_   / /_/ / _ \/ __ `/ / __ `__ \/ ___/
  / /_/ / /_/ / / / / / /  __/  / /_/ / __/  / _, _/  __/ /_/ / / / / / / (__  )
  \____/\__,_/_/ /_/ /_/\___/   \____/_/    /_/ |_|\___/\__,_/_/_/ /_/ /_/____/
 
 

Action Items

• follow github.com/gnolang/gno
• visit gno.land
• help us create "Game of Realms"
• contribute!

Thank you