Towards a Collaborative Approach: Integrating Development and Marketing for Milestone-Based Payouts

Hello Zenon Community,

I trust that we all share a common vision for the robust growth and success of our network, and therefore, I’m bringing forward a proposition that seeks to align the interests of all parties involved. It’s a proposition that seeks to not only encourage our developers in their pursuit of innovation but also motivate our marketing teams to push the boundaries in user adoption. The intent behind this post is to foster a community discussion and get your invaluable feedback.

We’re at a pivotal moment in our journey, potentially on the verge of making history with one of the largest payouts in Accelerator-Z’s history. Such an occasion calls for careful thought, due diligence, and a commitment to securing the maximum benefit for our ecosystem.

Over the past weeks, there’s been substantial conversation around @sumamu Accelerator-Z request for the development of the Multiverse project. Many of us have seen the detailed proposal and understand the vast potential this cross-chain solution holds for our ecosystem. They’ve asked for 95k ZNN and 950k QSR, and while this might seem hefty, the critical role this infrastructure plays in the realization of our vision cannot be underestimated.

However, I’m aware that some valued members of our community have expressed reservations about the sizable request. They are supportive of the project but I would argue would feel more confident if the ask was tied to the achievement of specific adoption milestones.

So, I’d like to put forward an idea: Let’s explore the possibility of merging this development request with a marketing initiative that could submit its own separate proposal. The principle is simple: Accelerator-Z funds should be disbursed when certain milestones (e.g., a specified trading volume on Uniswap or a certain level of adoption for the proposed multi-chain bridge technology) have been achieved.

This approach incentivizes both our product engineers and marketing teams to work in unison towards maximizing their payouts. It drives our engineers to focus on creating marketable products that align with user needs and optimal UX, while marketers are inspired to promote the product and achieve the desired adoption targets.

To enhance this approach, I propose the introduction of incentive multipliers. These would act as bonuses, rewarding the teams for surpassing expected adoption rates or hitting milestones faster than anticipated. The net result? A payout directly tied to successful product adoption, creating greater assurance for the community and closer alignment with our return on investment.

I firmly believe that this model can encourage an effective symbiosis between our developers and marketers, leading to more user-oriented and marketable products. More importantly, it ensures every ZNN spent delivers tangible value to our ecosystem, driving Zenon’s growth and success.

What do you think of this approach? I invite you to debate and discuss what types of metrics and milestones we should consider for this specific application. Your insights and perspectives are crucial in refining this proposal and moving forward in a way that ensures the maximum benefit for all aliens.

Remember: the future is encrypted, only you can decrypt it!

I like the initiative, but I’m not a fan of the idea. Curious to see how others feel.


Who feels this way? IMO, Sumamu’s solution is an enabler for Zenon adoption and it’s currently the only game in town. If there was any adoption of the underlying platform/currency, naturally all Zenon users would have to funnel their tokens through this bridge.
The Zenon population won’t explode overnight just because we have a bridge… the efforts of other projects will capture audiences. Will Sumamu receive royalties for his solution?

Arbitrary milestones that can be sybil’d? How do we attribute valid/organic success in this case?
Again, there’s a monopoly for this specific solution. Of course it will be used.

Can these be below 1.0? As in, if criteria aren’t met, the actual payout is less than the requested amount? Is there a ceiling?

How do we correctly attribute adoption to a single project?

It seems to me that this only applies to user-facing projects.
Teams working on Dynamic Plasma, Governance Module, Sentinels, Narwhal/Tusk, etc, are no longer incentivized to improve the protocol since those aren’t marketable.

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Who feels this way?

I’m not trying to call anyone out, they have been very vocal from the beginning.

Will Sumamu receive royalties for his solution?

Shhh, don’t give him ideas, he still has admin keys. Jokes aside that wouldn’t have been a terrible thing. It would incentivize other solutions to compete with the monopoly, like how new NFT marketplaces compete with opensea.

Probably? We would need to dig deeper for answers.

It would have to be considered on a case-by-case basis, all we can do is set a foundational framework that would allow us to do that while maintaining certain standards.

Correct. Only AZ proposals where the value derived from it is more speculative in nature would fit in this developers + marketing grouping umbrella. As you pointed out, there is no question about the value added to the ecosystem for something like Dynamic plasma or a governance module.

We could separate the orchestrator and treat it as an infrastructural piece with no user-facing experience.

That would be easy to do by simply hardcoding an affiliate address in the bridge interface.

BUT we’re not going to do that anytime soon because those funds can bring more value for the entire ecosystem via the affiliate program.

I think these are interesting ideas that should be debated. I think a substantial change like this should be disclosed to devs before they take on work, especially large amounts of work.

Let’s see where the conversation goes, but i would not support a material change like this to any dev who has work in progress. Lots of devs are making material progress, not just sumamu. We probably have 5+ devs who will deliver combined work that will exceed this request.

I also think the criteria we use today will change over time once we get more adoption and price levels change.

George has argued for AZs to be based on value creation. My concern is we will only create value after adding together lots of work that does not individually create much value.