This is the second of two planned treasury proposals for the current lease of the Encointer common-good parachain. The first share for Q1 and Q2 2023 had been approved by Kusama OpenGov in Dec 2022.
Since the previous proposal, significant changes have occurred around Kusama's Treasury. The implementation of OpenGov resulted in unsustainable spending levels, leading to a restrictive voter backlash aimed at safeguarding the remaining funds in the KSM Treasury. Considering the remaining funds available, Encointer recognizes the need to adapt its funding strategy. Instead of solely proposing to the KSM Treasury, we will now extend our proposals to the DOT Treasury as well, supported by the assertion that Encointer benefits not only Kusama but the entire Dotsama ecosystem. As DOT treasury proposals experience congestion and OpenGov is soon to be implemented on Polkadot, it is imperative to secure uninterrupted funding for our team and prevent any disruptive downramp-upramp scenarios. Therefore, we propose the following measures:
The amount of the proposed spend (1.) is CHF 213’000 ≃ USD 234’000
A growing part of KSM voters is in favor of retroactive funding by the treasury. Encointer claims that enforcing retroactive funding for common goods has significant downsides: Asking teams to front the costs themselves in cases where there is no return on investment will keep those teams small and impacts low. Besides Encointer’s established track record, we’d like to emphasize that the founder of Encointer, Alain Brenzikofer, has worked for Encointer without pay from the beginning, which amounts to well above a person-year by now. So, if you insist on retroactive funding, please consider approving this proposal on the grounds of Alain’s pre-investment.