Signalling - Donor Drop Round Two: Web3Privacy Now šŸŽÆ

Thanks all for the engagement here! I’m a big fan of web3privacy now personally, and I would happily contribute to this Donor Drop if it does happen, but I also think that all the concerns raised in this topic are valid, looking forward to @Gavin and @almostFitz’s synthesis.

A few thoughts that come to mind from my end (which probably don’t impact the decision of whether to do this specific Donor Drop or not and with what parameters, but might help us craft a sustainable long-term plan):

  1. If we want to continue to do Donor Drops in the future – personally, I do, although I’m not quite sure what form that should take yet – I think it may be helpful to try to come to agreement separately on (a) the economic parameters (which are where I see questions here) and (b) the specific recipient (which so far seems uncontroversial in this case). Economic parameters are – understandably – a more contentious point of debate, since they impact everyone, whereas you can just choose not to donate to a particular recipient if you’re not super enthused about them. Economic parameters are also something that it might be helpful to come to a more general agreement about (governing more than one Donor Drop).
  2. To me, the goal of Donor Drops is to give people a way to both (a) support deserving public goods-oriented projects and (b) invest in Namada. I don’t want Donor Drops to attract people who only want to donate in order to receive and then sell the NAM (as a way to make this argument really clear, if we wanted that kind of system, we wouldn’t need to bother going through all the trouble of running a program, Namada could just sell NAM and send the proceeds to the org directly). Part of why this mechanism works now is that NAM is not tradeable, but this will change soon with phase 5. In the future, I think we might want to consider a non-tradeable reward for Donor Drops, such as Namada shielded bonds.
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It is highly likely that Namada shielded bonds are only applicable to a new round of donation activities after the transfer is opened in Phase 5. If the donation activities are carried out before Phase 5, it is reasonable to directly distribute NAM. This can fully mobilize the enthusiasm of those who are not aware of the Namada project to participate in it.

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Idea: cPGF as a distribution schedule

What if we streamed the airdrop to recipients over the course of two months using cPGF?
There isn’t a cPGF feature for streaming a total amount or have an end epoch, but I’ve thought of a work-around we can test.

Work-around

Launch two PGF proposals: one that enables cPGF (Prop1), another that disables that cPGF after two months (Prop2). How? We set each cPGF amount to be airdrop_amount / 240 epochs in Prop1, and set a grace period of 240 epochs for Prop2.

@brentstone, do you expect that this will work the way I have assumed it will? I don’t see a maximum grace period parameter.

cc @Super0086-code @cwgoes

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Regarding the concerns expressed in feedback

  1. Donation window - extend the donation window to accommodate participants across time zones for equitable access

15:00 utc is 7a in California and 11p in Hong Kong & midnight in Tokyo. It actually may be easier for people to get up early or stay up late than to try to participate during their work day. We will give our target communities advanced notice (last time we didn’t) and a clear participation guide in advance. @tokidoki @OVDuck

  1. Token valuation - the NAM reward per ETH will affect the token’s perceived value and/or attract participants who are speculating over true supporters

We should minimize market signaling. A fast Donor Drop ensures all that’s known is demand exceeded supply, without revealing by how much. And it’s a very small supply: 900K NAM is just 0.09% of total supply—not enough to devalue the token. We can’t prevent speculators from trying to exploit it, but we can mitigate it by a) using cPGF to make it less appealing and b) focusing comms to be within mission-aligned communities like Web3Privacy Now, with clear guides for participants.

A smaller airdrop takes a lot of the excitement out of the Donor Drop, which is a big part of what makes the Donor Drop valuable to Namada. @tokidoki @OVDuck @Sahib @cryptosj @miles-six @Rigorous @ChainflowPOS

  1. Preventing Sybils - Sybils could displace mission-aligned participants

Until a market solution exists, social Sybil resistance is our best safeguard. The Namada community can review donations post-drop, meaning Sybil attackers risk donating without receiving an airdrop if their contributions aren’t recognized. Airdrop distribution using cPGF should also help to dissuade the kinds of speculators that would engage in Sybilling. @Rigorous @ChainflowPOS

  1. Exclusivity for Round 1 participants - previous participants may worry the second Donor Drop dilutes exclusivity or devalues their contribution

The Donor Drop has always been framed as a strategy for openness. If I recall correctly, there was no hint that the purpose of the first Donor Drop was to be exclusive or implied that ā€œthis is the only chance, get in now!ā€

However, one distinction between Round 1 and Round 2, is that Round 2 could have the airdrop streamed over two months instead of having the entire airdrop immediately. @Rigorous @dismad

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In a way you could say that the first participants of the Donor Drop made it the success it is being perceived as now. But I also understand that the DD becomes less appealing if the rewards are drastically changed.

So, the cPGF seems like an interesting middle road to me. Quite witty, just hope it’s actually possible. This should likely be tested thoroughly on Housefire though (on a shorter time span?).

Or wait for this implementation: End epochs for continuous PGF distributions by brentstone Ā· Pull Request #4408 Ā· anoma/namada Ā· GitHub.

I was quite skeptical about DD2, especially if we’re keeping this too separate from the mainnet phases. This due to us being perceived as a single entity to the outside world; the sentiment may work negatively against us if there’s too big of a gap between this drop and phase 5. We’re already seeing how some are reacting to this. Scenarios that could really be prevented if we’d synergize and time this a bit with the main ā€œroadā€. For instance: a bit like how Housefire was a pre-round to the Shielded Expedition. It could boost our overall impact/hype for the real launch and shush those who keep saying or fear that we’re stalling/milking this out.

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There was some review that was done to find and remove Sybils from R1, correct? Do you have a sense for how effective it was?

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great question! we didn’t do any Sybil check in the Donor Drop, but could be good to do a little review, if anyone is up for it

This is a creative partial solution that I could support :clap:

Curious how you decided on 2 months for your interval of time? In general, I would prefer rewarding more slowly vs less quickly.

1 Like

it worked! on Housefire testnet

https://explorer75.org/namada-housefire/proposals/13

https://explorer75.org/namada-housefire/proposals/14

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More on cPGF:
Nice to see that the test of streaming cpgf over Housefire was a success! It’s an indicator that this could be a smooth way for Namada to deploy pgf in the future :raised_hands:

But after further examination, we learned that using cpgf now could create a complication in the first post-Phase-5 protocol upgrade. A complication that won’t exist if there is no (*edit) history of cpgf at the time of the upgrade.

However, we could get a similar outcome to streaming cpgf for this round of DD2 by using the governance proposal grace period to have the airdrop allocation go out after a delay. If we select ~2 months for the grace period, we could have allocations for DD2 donors go out after Phase-5 will likely be live, which to me seems like good timing.

What do others think?

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Big shoutout to the Namada fam, @Gavin for the proposal and for pushing Round 2 of the Donor Drop to support Web3Privacy Now! Privacy is not normal or luxury, it’s a necessesity; and moves like this help keep the momentum strong for privacy builders and advocates!

As a part of web3privacy movement contributing to showing that privacy is a public good worth backing, I love seeing a communtiy that understands that shielded txs, anonymity sets & zk tech aren’t buzzwords; they are fundamental to the future of decentralized sovereignty.

That said, as a NAM holder I gotta make sure we keep the balance right - value alignment over pure token incentives. The community convo around making sure this is sustainable and not quick airdrop play is solid and I love to see that. More long-term thinking = stronger privacy ecosystem.

I do see recent @almostFitz comment and its an interesting tradeoff here - great to see cPGF streaming worked smoothly, but makes sense to avoid unnecessary complications with the Phase-5 upgrade. Aprox. 2 month grace period sounds like a good workaround without adding protocol friction during the upgrade. Keeps things clean while still rewarding DD2 donors in a timely way.

Much love & gratitude to Namada for walking the talk on privacy-first public goods! :heart:

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The Donor Drop PGF proposal would go up ASAP after Donor Drop ends. The proposal would include a ~2 month delay (ie. 240 epoch grace period), so the tokens would be airdropped 60 days after the governance proposal passes.

As @almostFitz mentioned, cPGF will be very useful in the near future. But meanwhile if the chain has a history of having used cPGF, it will complicate an upcoming protocol upgrade, and we don’t want to have to wait to launch the Donor Drop OR the proposal that will deliver the airdrop.

ps. Thanks for your support, @jensei!

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PG from Web3Privacy Now here :sun_with_face:
Very happy to see so many people joining the conversation!

As I told @Gavin some time ago, We love the idea of using allocations to support public goods. The success of the first Drop shows how effective this model can be.

As an independent, non-profit movement with many projects to deliver in 2025, community support is invaluable to us. It will strengthen our advocacy and help push forward critical work, including:

  • Privacy in Web3 Reaearch: Understanding Users’ Perceptions and Privacy Practices

  • Privacy in the Digital Age Book: the 1st of a book series published by MIT Press, featuring thought leaders like Audrey Tang, Peter Van Valkenburgh, Shoshana Zuboff (TBC), and Geert Lovink… and many more in web3 and beyond.

  • Digital Commons Formum: A 3-day symposium bringing together experts across fields and stacks to spark collaboration. We are inviting founders, researchers, policymakers, writers, artists, ngos, lawyers, hackers, grassroots movements…

  • Adacademy: Launching 10 new courses to educate developers, lawyers, and the public on privacy and actionable solutions.

  • And much more! Our first hackathon, 10 events worldwide, a podcast, a memethon, a zine…

The fight for privacy is the fight for autonomy, dignity, and the preservation of what it means to be human in the digital age. Happy to see more and more people joining the conversation. The future depends on it

Looking forward to seeing—and supporting—this evolve! :rocket:

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Prop13 has launched :rocket: and voting will commence at Epoch 364, which is in ~3 hours: https://explorer75.org/namada/proposals/13

Voting will last for four (4) days.

Please note that this is technically a PGF proposal, though it is set to allocate 0 NAM :warning:

Code is here:

{
  "proposal": {
    "content": {
      "title": "PGF Signalling - Donor Drop 2: Web3Privacy Now",
      "authors": "Gavin Birch (Luminara šŸ”…)",
      "discussions-to": "https://forum.namada.net/t/signalling-donor-drop-round-two-web3privacy-now/1555",
      "created": "2025-03-04",
      "abstract": "Signalling PGF proposal for Donor Drop 2, targeting Web3Privacy Now",
      "motivation": "Donor Drop 2 signalling proposal",
      "details": "**PGF Donor Drop - Web3Privacy Now**\n\n\n## Signalling Proposal\n\nHello šŸ‘‹ I’m writing this on behalf of Luminara šŸ”…\nWe launched Namada Prop2 and Prop5: https://explorer75.org/namada/proposals/5\nVoters signalled strong support for the first Donor Drop, which targeted the amazing Coin Center team 🦸\n\nNow that the first Donor Drop is done, we’re proposing a second: **Web3Privacy Now šŸŽÆ**\n\nThis is a **signalling proposal.** With your support, Donor Drop Round Two (R2) will look similar to Round One, but will include improvements and feedback suggested by you 🫵\n\n## Namada, will you support this?\n\n* Estimated 900k - 1.2M NAM total from Namada PGF\n  * Aiming for 900k airdrop\n  * 25k NAM for the creator of the Donor Drop front-end\n  * 1.8% - 2.4% of the yearly PGF budget\n* Allocated to Web3Privacy Now donors (aiming to recognize ~47 ETH in donations)\n* Campaign estimated to last two weeks (Donor Drop window estimate ~3 days)\n* A follow-up rPGF proposal to distribute the NAM airdrop to donor addresses\n  * airdrop should land approx. two months after the governance proposal passes\n\nWeb3Privacy Now has an active group of builders, creators and policy advocates–they’ll be great partners, in addition to our own community efforts.\n\nNamada comms are prepped and ready to help with promotion, TuDudes is prepared to run our community-built Donor Drop app, and @almostFitz has an operations plan that he’s itching to launch šŸ”„šŸš€\n\nWhat's neat is that the Donor Drop can be done before Phase 5, with the airdrop happening after Phase 5.\n\n## Why Web3Privacy Now?\nWeb3Privacy Now has become a cultural epicenter for teams, communities, and individuals answering the call to return to cypherpunk roots–namely, digital privacy.\n\nW3PN hosts events (https://docs.web3privacy.info/events/), creates educational content(https://docs.web3privacy.info/research/privacy-guides/) and research reports (https://docs.web3privacy.info/research/), enagages in advocacy, and creates social initiatives that bind us together as a community–beyond Namada, within crypto. They were our co-organizers for the Shielding Summit (https://shieldingsummit.org/) in Brussels ā™„ļø\n\nCheck them out! and get involved (https://docs.web3privacy.info/get-involved/index)\n\n## Donor Drop History\nThe world’s first Donor Drop (https://forum.namada.net/t/namada-donor-drop-jan-18-15-00-utc/1465) was an experiment: **do public goods funding (PGF) more effectively using Namada’s novel PGF mechanism.**\n\nCoin Center was our donation target. Problem: orgs like Coin Center need runway, not a new token with no market. But there are people who *do* want a new pre-market token.\n\nSolution: the Namada community used Namada’s PGF technology to airdrop NAM to those who donated ETH to Coin Center šŸ’”\n\nPeople were surprised at how successful Donor Drop R1 was:\n- https://x.com/mineZcash/status/1880637283159908732\n- https://forum.namada.net/t/donor-drop-success-36-78-eth-donated-to-coin-center/1492/3\n- https://x.com/NeerajKA/status/1881344835246051364\n- https://x.com/cwgoes/status/1880651442278858926\n\nThat’s because with hardly any promotion, ~200 donations were made to Coin Center in about 30 minutes, totalling 36.78 ETH (~$125k at that time). More recap here: https://forum.namada.net/t/donor-drop-success-36-78-eth-donated-to-coin-center/1492\n\nAnd **we** were amazed at the grassroots community effort to build an app that supported the Donor Drop. In three weeks the app was done, and it was šŸ”„šŸ¤©\n\nThis is why we’d also like to include Zen’s Namada address in each subsequent proposal that we use this open-sourced Donor Drop front-end ā¤ļø\n\nhttps://github.com/zenodeapp/donor-drop-frontend\n\n## Get involved\n\nWe want to improve on operational processes, our partner relationship, community involvement, promotional reach within aligned communities, and we want to create a repeatable flow for MOOARR Donor Drops. Want to be involved? Any of these could help:\n\n1. join the forum topic (https://forum.namada.net/t/signalling-donor-drop-round-two-web3privacy-now/1555) or Discord discussion (https://discord.com/channels/833618405537218590/1339662286436040854) with feedback (or advice) about the campaign and/or mechanism \n2. tweet or tell a friend\n3. something else that we haven't thought about\n\nPGF shouldn't be boring--let's usher in the new wave 🌊",
      "requires": "0"
    },
    "author": "tnam1qztdx4y7a3wn0qmgcgtrty237vcnp9f9hs3rt3k7",
    "voting_start_epoch": 364,
    "voting_end_epoch": 380,
    "activation_epoch": 381
  },
  "data": {
    "continuous": [],
    "retro": [
      {
        "Internal": {
          "amount": "0",
          "target": "tnam1qztdx4y7a3wn0qmgcgtrty237vcnp9f9hs3rt3k7"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}
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We are also against this proposal 900k Nam = 36 ETH !!!

You devalue the labor of all the participants of the test network and SE .

Someone for 3 months of work in SE got 23000 NAM tokens, and someone for 1 minute and 2000 dollars ~ 25000 NAM.

This offer should not have a target of 36 ETH (or this number should be the minimum for PGF distribution and the donor drop should be considered as having taken place when this number is reached).

Make the minimum participation time 3-7 days , without a fixed target of 36 ETH , so the more donations the fairer the distribution of NAM according to the share of ETH sent.

The more ETH is received, the less NAM each participant will get and the more chance for everyone to participate according to the time - and it will be considered fair.

2 Likes

And secondly I would like to point out how you determined that 1mn ~= 36 ETH ?
Is there any research ? What is the basis for this figure

If it is your own idea as a minimum price - then I think it is fundamentally wrong and not based on the majority! And then it is necessary to take into account people who have only 100 NAM on their wallet and would also like to participate in Donor Drop, but not because of the incentive to help CoinCenter or W3PN, but purely in speculative form to get a token much cheaper than the market, because the expectations of those who have 100 Nam think that it will cost 100$. And those who have 10 million, will think about its price of 0.01-0.1
(future market price)

So please provide arguments how you valued 1mn Nam before the market?

And take into account that for the first round of Donor Drop - received 188 new addresses, which were distributed an average of 10k Nam (new or already participating in the project).

While in genesis file there are 63 000 addresses with balance equal and less than 1300 NAM = 63 000 !!!

Who do you think will be the first to shed the market ? And will 63,000 (supposed people) continue to participate in the life of the project when such huge allocations are distributed through PGF ?

2 Likes

Proposal #13 has passed :raising_hands:

Thank you to everyone who weighed in and added their comments and concerns. I think it helped to nudge the process towards what will be another unique PGF experiment for the Namada community!

There will be an upcoming post with info about the rollout of Donor Drop #2, how to participate and other considerations, so stay tuned :eyes:

7 Likes

@888Tnso thanks for weighing in.

Personally, the incentivized testnet seems like a bad way to anchor how we value anything and should not inform the future of Namada. The SE is dead :skull: let’s let it rest in peace :headstone:

Our community should strive to support games/activities within Namada that have a clear path to success, are well-supported, with incentives that make sense–games that people want to continue to keep playing together.

The bet on the Donor Drop is the opportunity:

  • broaden the distribution of NAM using PGF (while minimizing leaking market signal)
  • drive donations to key, mission-aligned orgs
  • showcase Namada’s PGF technology
  • generate excitement and awareness around Namada

This needs to be an exciting opportunity to work. We should spread the word about it in aligned communities. Our bet is that this opportunity will be substantially greater than the risk and costs of people exploiting this as a short-term market opportunity.

900K NAM is just 0.09% of total supply—not enough to devalue the token. We can’t prevent speculators from trying to exploit it, but we can mitigate it by a) using cPGF to make it less appealing and b) focusing comms to be within mission-aligned communities like Web3Privacy Now, with clear guides for participants.

edit: sorry it took me so long to respond!

2 Likes

so basically you are selling to token for 0.11 dollar each?

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