About the zkDAO category

Zero Knowledge DAO

by Hakwan Lau @hakwan

Applicants will receive funding based on milestones similar to the standard Launch Grants:

  1. launching a feature-complete product on our testnet
  2. forming a DAO with 5-out-of-9 multisig with our DAOs
  3. launching on our mainnet with audit
  4. attracting 1k daily active users (with launch video, full PR promotion)
  5. attracting 10k daily active users (with a detailed roadmap, governance process)

For each milestone, instead of attracting $10k in funds (as in the standard Launch program), here zkDAO will provide the grant recipient with $3k/year stable basic income, payable as long as our DAO treasury allows. Through careful management of our DAO treasury, we aim for this payment to be sustainable for the long term, in the foreseeable future. Importantly, the recipient will gain voting rights and membership to zkDAO, so as to be able to oversee the its finances and operations. With all 5 milestones completed, the total award amount will be up to $15k/year, i.e. worth about $100k, instead of $50k as in standard launch grants.

Alternatively, in lieu of the stable basic income, the recipient can also opt to receive $10k in cash per milestone (same as standard non-zk launches). In that case, by applying through here rather than the standard Launches, the applicant will have the benefit of gaining partial membership to zkDAO.

To be eligible, the product launched on mainnet must make use of zero-knowledge proof related technology. The relevant code must also be open-sourced, and posted to public via e.g. github. We expect many applicants will be recent graduates from zku.one, where their final projects for graduation will likely qualify. But we also welcome other applicants with zk-projects to apply here instead of to the standard Launches category, in order to enjoy the higher funding value and/or access to zkDAO.

Most posts here should be grant applications. Please follow the examples and templates from the standard Launches category (https://talk.harmony.one/c/funding-proposals/launches), as the same general formatting requirements apply. We also welcome specific inquiries to be posted here, if your product / project does not fit with the standard milestones template (e.g. building a circom library which would not involve a mainnet launch per se).

zkDAO also provides some financial support for auditing your zk-project, but these are granted on a competitive basis. Proposals should also be posted here.

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We have set up our multisig for holding and sending out funds for this grant program - 0xA4a58E96B0206Bf7B96510187508B6163C38A745

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we will upload our DAO constitution to public hopefully in the coming week (or two), once we got it finalized. but for zkDAO grant funding, we will make the decision here in public on the forum. funding will be approved if a proposal receives 5 positive vote from the 9 governors.

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Harmony knows whats up! Tutorial is great!

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Hello @lij

I have a question regarding the Porting of Dark Forest from the link (zkDAO – Succinct, Private, Fair).
Since the article does not mention any application template for porting. Do we have to use the standard Web3 application?

If not, could you please help me out with a link or guide for that?

Regards,
Mrudul

Hi, is it any grant for Defi? Or Just DAO? it must be all Autonomus? The execution is impossible to don´t be controled.

hi @martindoc - sorry for the delay. i will get back to you shortly about this.

yes the grants are for ANY kind of zk products with meaningful use cases. we say zkDAO coz that’s the entity handling the funds. the products don’t have to be DAO-related. DeFi certainly would be nice.

for the Dark Forest port, because the grant amount is 100k, you can do this in this category. but for the larger ports (e.g. zkSync 2.0 for 500k) you should write a full proposal in the Ports channel.

Hi Harmony Community,
Really impressed by zkDAO and have been inviting our young devs at STEAMHouse to join in.

I have a question however regarding the quoted milestones for Harmony. Is there a support group, forum or guide for hitting all of these milestones. I speak as someone who’s received a launch grant and also has a general vested interest in the success of each project Harmony funds. For young projects owner, much of the mechanics behind hitting some of these milestones can be arduous so having clear guidelines or best practices helps to streamline the process and increase chance of success. If no such guideline exists, I’d love to work with people in the community to create ONE.

only speaking about zkDAO launches here - we do try to help each other within the DAO. coz the DAO is by design selective: most members for zk-devs, so the mutual support is relatively easy to achieve there.

thnks for your support!

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