Author: α-cen, kubesqrt, mastermojo
Status: Complete
Created: February 28, 2024
Simple Summary
The storm provides a LEAP proposing to upgrade the Lyra Research Collective (LRC) into a dedicated working group governed by a Lyra Research Council responsible for managing grants and community development. This transformation taps latent human capital in the Lyra Community to ease the core team’s workload, promote community growth, and streamline the funding process for an expanded roster of initiatives.
Abstract
The LRC has been instrumental in fostering community engagement and development within the Lyra ecosystem from the beginning. Today, the size of the Lyra Community has grown to rival protocols approaching $1 billion TVL. Divergently, our Lyra Research Collective has remained small and in a corner. This proposal aims to close that gap by scaling the LRC into a broad working group with an open source org chart responsible for managing grants, conducting research, and brokering a diverse range of projects to shipment. This group will also be responsible for crafting regular newsletters, articles, and posts; coordinating events and spaces; amplifying Lyra’s voice on the Superchain; and creating meaningful work for a capable Lyra Community.
Motivation
As the community and scope of Lyra grow, there is an increasing demand for more funding and a structured approach to community projects. Transforming the LRC into a working group will directly address these needs, scaling the growth of the Lyra ecosystem and opening up new doors for exemplary community members to expand their legacies.
This move will scale the Lyra Community across four dimensions:
Reach: By merging with the LRC, Lyra Grants can tap into the diverse personal networks, expertise, and influence of council members to accelerate Lyra’s reach — carrying a range far beyond that of just another hot altcoin that trends for a few days on crypto twitter. These new powers will enable the existing machine of the LRC to engage with a wide range of organizations and individuals on the Lyra Community’s behalf, activating new allied resources the core team can’t touch or make time for who can provide passive growth horizontally through continuous word of mouth and new public spaces for the Lyra brand.
Engagement: By assuming the ambassadorship of a dedicated working group, the LRC can coordinate and actively participate in community events, spaces, and conferences, fostering much deeper connections with contributors who immerse themselves in our expanded orbit. Lyra’s marketing itself should provide value, living rent free in minds and encouraging reciprocation. This engagement multiplies the impact of the LRC’s time, so the quality of our reach scales with its quantity.
Message: By upgrading the previously ministerial scope of councilors to the responsibility of ambassadors representing the Lyra Community, LRC members can take complete ownership of how they communicate the mission, vision, values, and beliefs that the Lyra Community holds sacred. By sharing analysis on initiatives they take personal interest in and guide, the gush factor within Lyra’s marketing remains organic, and the resolution of our Message sharpens. An indirect form of Reach, this authentic clarity forged in the fires of pride and comradery among professionals will maintain the Editor’s Choice status of Lyra and attract new opportunities for expansion because everybody will have confidence in why we take action and what we stand for.
Activity: By marrying the LRC to the DAO, skilled Lyra Community members will have a direct pipeline to leverage their talents on Lyra’s behalf under an established brand with an unlimited ceiling. This will maximize the DAO’s decentralization over the long-term, and, critically, the number of users who actively participate in the DAO’s institutions. An indirect form of Engagement, empowering users to view themselves as citizens with the potential for leadership roles by abstracting away the complexity of getting involved will durably ingrain those lead to Lyra on the wind of the values authentically communicated by the Message.
As Lyra continues to evolve, this move is the natural progression of the LRC in consort with the DAO to complete the launch of our second evolutionary stage. The LRC has always been a strong advocate for Lyra in the ecosystem, contributing through content like monthly newsletters and weekly threads. Establishing a dedicated working group under the DAO not only locks in this commitment from the LRC, but serves as a strategic move to bolster Lyra’s presence on the Superchain to match the acceleration of the core team’s output.
With a purposeful approach to the SocialFi toolbox, the Lyra Research Collective will merge the best elements of GMX Blueberries Club and Synthetix Ambassadors, the former a role model on Activity and Engagement, the latter on Message and Reach.
Specification
Overview
The new and improved Lyra Research Collective will focus on:
Grant Management: Coordinating an expanded grants package to ensure effective distribution and utilization of resources.
Community Development: Continuing efforts in community growth, including organizing events and incentivizing contributions.
Research: Conducting regular research that keeps seasoned traders and students equally informed on facts, imbalances, liquidity, historical trends, and more, on Lyra’s markets and all other liquid options markets.
Content Creation: Producing newsletters, informative threads, and interactive community spaces.
Governance: Organizing support from the Lyra Community around external governance proposals and seeking delegation of voting rights for those aligned protocols.
Team Composition
The initial team will consist of three members: one full-time lead and two part-time members, each bringing specialized expertise to the group.
The following structure is proposed for the LRC team:
Grand Maester: α-cen (Full-Time) - Motivates and oversees the LRC’s vision, operations, strategic planning, and resource management on a daily basis and supports specific initiatives within the Lyra Community.
Archmaester of Coin: Mastermojo (Part-Time) - Maintains accounting records, provides insights on funding, builds relationships in the Superchain ecosystem, and supports specific initiatives within the Lyra Community.
Archmaester of Ships: Kubesqrt (Part-Time) - Manages logistical activities, assists in the LRC’s day-to-day operations, builds relationships in the Arbitrum ecosystem, and supports specific initiatives within the Lyra Community.
Lyra Research Collective KPIs
1. Number of Grants: Track the total number of grants approved and distributed.
2. Diversity of Grants: Measure the variety of projects that receive grants, ensuring a broad range of initiatives are supported.
3. Community Growth Metrics: Monitor the increase in active community members, contributors, or engagement on platforms like Farcaster, Discord, Telegram, and 𝕏.
4. Project Success Rate: Evaluate the percentage of grant-funded projects that achieve their stated goals within the set timeframe.
5. Budget Utilization: Assess how effectively the budget is utilized, ensuring funds are allocated and spent as planned.
6. Feedback and Satisfaction: Conduct surveys or gather feedback from grant recipients and the community to gauge satisfaction with the grant process and outcomes.
Stipend
Proposed compensation includes $1,500 and 17,500 vested LYRA monthly for each part-time member, and $3,000 plus 17,500 vested LYRA for the full-time lead.
This budget covers the current responsibilities of the LRC (Shortput newsletter + twitter management) as well as the new responsibilities such as reviewing grant applications and organizing community events.
Duration
The grant and working group are proposed to operate for a term of six months.
Budget
The LRC is requesting a budget of $75,000, composed of OP and LYRA, to support various grant initiatives within the Lyra ecosystem over a six-month period. This budget will be strategically allocated to different projects, ensuring a balanced and effective distribution of resources.
A flexible and secure financial structure is suggested, involving the use of nested safes for easy access and control by the DAO.
Rationale
This LEAP aims to create a more structured and efficient framework for managing community growth and funding. By consolidating these functions into a dedicated working group, the Lyra Community can ensure a focused approach to community development and resource allocation, while sustainably amplifying its reach across the industry.
To put this in perspective, while Lyra’s Discord membership as of a few minutes ago is 23k to GMX’s 15k, the GMX Blueberries Club (their grants arml) has 2.8k members in its own Discord to just 0.2k in the current group for Lyra Grants. Similarly ahead, the main Synthetix Ambassadors OP delegate wallet has 82.8k individual delegators on the Superchain.
The fact that perp dex communities took the lead at the outset is natural — perp tech shipped first and controlled the narrative last cycle. But it’s a new day and a new cycle on Ethereum. If the Lyra Research Collective has anything to say about it, onchain options will take the world by storm over the next few years.
Lyra v2 is the most cutting-edge chain, network, and software for trading immutable derivatives anywhere in the world. Our markets now sit at the adults’ table. It’s time for the Lyra Community to join them!
Technical Specification
N/A for this proposal.
Test Cases
The effectiveness of this transformation will be evaluated based on community growth metrics, successful project implementations, and feedback from the community.
Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.