GIP-113: Should Gnosis DAO provide grants for Omen 2.0 initiative?

Governance GIPs
1

GIP-113: Should Gnosis DAO fund Omen 2.0 initiative?

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0 voters 
GIP: 113
title: Grants for Presagio (Omen 2.0)
author: <Venky (@0xVenky) <venky@swaprhq.io>, Leonardo (@berteotti) <leo@swaprhq.io>, Diogo (@diogomf) <diogo@swaprhq.io>>
status: Draft
type: Funding
created: 2024-09-26
requires (*optional): <GIP number(s)>
replaces (*optional): <GIP number(s)>
duration: 14 months (March 2024 to May 2025)
funding: 400K USD + 600 GNO + transfer of Omen.eth

2. Funding - Rewards/Reimbursements

Category

Funding - Rewards and Reimbursement

Executive Summary:

This proposal seeks a grant to develop a frontend for the Omen prediction market, that leverages AI agents to both create and predict market outcomes. The platform will offer users insights into real-world event predictions while enhancing the overall user experience. The requested grant of 400K WXDAI and 600 GNO will be used to fund the development and maintenance of the Omen frontend.

Specification

The proposed reward and reimbursement program includes 400K WXDAI and 600 GNO for the development and maintenance of the Omen 2.0 frontend, along with the transfer of the Omen.eth ENS for branding and platform management. These funds will be allocated as follows: 70% for product development, testing, and maintenance; 15% for marketing; 3% for infrastructure; and 12% for project management. This program aims to drive user growth on Gnosis Chain, augment the Gnosis AI team and its prediction market agents, and support new initiatives and experiments across the broader Gnosis network.

Technical Specifications

The Presagio frontend is being developed on React with Next.js, building upon the original OMEN conditional tokens contracts written by Gnosis.

Key integrations include Gnosis AI APIs, The Graph and Dune. Gnosis AI API is used to fetch real-time market insights. We seek to use Gnosis AI API for new functionalities (e.g. market creation, agent insights). Future enhancements will involve building a back-end solution to improve data fetching efficiency, improving users experience and new functionalities (e.g. database to store data for user favorite markets for example).

A comments section is also planned, with an integration of a partner-provided solution (preferably in web3 space), to allow user discussions within the platform.

Rationale

The past couple of months, there has been a great amount of traction in prediction market area with Polymarket raising 70M in investment and there has been considerable user growth in Polymarket, limitless.exchange and manifold.markets. At Dappcon, there has been plenty of talks and discussions around AI, the kind of risks it poses, the challenges it has and how AI and blockchain could become an unstoppable force that needs to be kept a close watch. Gnosis has also been ahead of its time in terms of all the products they launch and this vision aligns well with the Gnosis AI and the investment they have made on AI agents.

During Dappcon 2024, we showcased the new UI we had started building for prediction markets and asked for feedback from Martin. We explored a few possibilities around how we could build a frontend for Omen, where we see the predictions that AI makes and the research that it does when making a prediction. We will also be able to see how each AI agent is performing, comparing them against each other.

Budget

As part of the proposal, we would also be looking forward to receive a grant of 400K in WXDAI and 600 GNO (will be used as a validator for 1 year)

The funding will be used for the following:

  • Development, testing and maintenance of the product - 70%
  • Marketing - 15%
  • Infrastructure costs - 3%
  • Project / Product management - 12%

Transfer omen.eth ENS to a new multisig for branding, frontend deployment and management.
We would also like to work closely with the Gnosis AI team to understand and explore the possibility to make the agents get better at creating markets and predicting them.

Milestones:

Milestones: Timeline, Implementations and Deliverable

Milestone 1 - Support Omen 2.0 (Completed)

Deliverables:

  • Base features:
    • The dapp should be able to show all the binary markets and the spread for each market.
    • In the markets page, any user should be able to buy and sell the outcome tokens with the wallet connected.
    • Searching and filtering of markets.
    • There should be a way to see the activity history and a graph depicting the fluctuations in the outcome of a market.
    • Show markets that are based on different collateral tokens.
    • Redemption of outcome tokens once the market is resolved.
    • “My bets” page with a list of all the markets that the user has predicted.

Time and Price Estimate: We are completed with this milestone and we worked on it for close to 4 months from March to June 2024. We estimate 100K for this.

Milestone 2 - Support for AI agents

Deliverables:

  • A filter for all the markets created by the AI agents. (Completed)
  • Visualize whether a particular transaction is created by one of the AI agents. (Completed)
  • Display the resolution status and oracle, based on reality.eth oracle answering process (Completed)
  • Connect with Gnosis AI APIs to show relevant articles related to the market. (Completed)
  • Profile view (Completed)
  • Wallet Prediction metrics (Completed)
  • Support for Devconflict (In Progress)

Time and Price Estimate: We estimate this will be done by Oct 2024 and we estimate 100K for this.

Milestone 3 - Support for AI agents, more market types, redesign

Deliverables:

  • AI research - If the transaction is from an AI agent, link the research article, the model used and the confidence rating that had been used to arrive at the decision. This is done by integrating with Autonolas mechs and Gnosis AI.
  • AI agents overview - Display AI agents performance across various markets.
  • AI agents’ leaderboard - most success, most active, category based info.
  • Expand to categorical markets.
  • Support for adding liquidity
  • Support for market creation.
  • Redesign of the dapp
  • Featured markets
  • Work on marketing towards building a brand for Omen in the socials.
  • Work on documentation on how markets are created, bet on and resolved.

Time and Price Estimate: We estimate this will be done by Mar 2025 and we estimate 120K for this.

Milestone 4 - More use cases

Deliverables:

  • Add support to have a comment section within each market.
  • Show Related markets
  • Shareable market iframe
  • Watchlist
  • Add support for limit orders and stop loss orders. This will need a lot of activity to wrap the ERC1155 to a ERC20, update the liquidity management by the AI agent market creator to add liquidity on Swapr V3 and then get help from solvers to tap into these pools for adding support.

Time and Price Estimate: We estimate this will be done by June 2025 and we estimate 80K for this.

Also, we would like to be a bit elastic in our milestones based on the inputs from users and community.

Evaluation

Technical performance:

  • Ensure that the frontend performs seamlessly and smoothly without any severe issues.
  • Gnosis AI integration: Evaluate new integration possibilities with Gnosis AI APIs for market insights, prediction research and accuracy.

User engagement and experience:

  • Grow the amount of transactions using Omen by at least 500%. We will have a separate dune dashboard for overall TVL, transactions and the volume.

Milestone based progress:

  • Successful shipping of features described in each of the milestones.

Community involvement:

  • Regular updates to the community, GnosisDAO
  • New branding for Omen and reflect the new direction and vision

Team/ Organization

The Presagio team comprises Leo, Diogo, Rorry, Nicki, Akash, and Venky. As a cohesive unit, we have collaborated for over a year to deliver notable projects such as Swapr’s CLAMM (https://v3.swapr.eth.limo) on Gnosis chain and Stackly (https://stackly.app) deployed on Mainnet, Gnosis chain and Arbitrum, all built atop CoW protocol infrastructure.

Conclusion

Presagio (Omen 2.0) represents a significant step in the evolution of prediction markets, blending the AI infrastructure within the Gnosis ecosystem. The requested funding will enable the development, maintenance and the growth of the platform bringing Omen to a position of leading AI agent driven prediction market space.

6 Likes
2

I agree that prediction markets on Gnosis Chain are a much needed and worthwhile project to fund.

However, this is the last team that I would entrust to do so, especially Venky.

Venky has taken millions of dollars in grants from DXdao and produced nothing for tokenholders and other stakeholders.

He received $5m+ for Swapr and Carrot combined, and Carrot still has not launched while Swapr is at an FDV of $400k.

While token price is not everything, this should set alarm bells ringing.

These grants were as a result of DXdao closing down, and were split into two portions: a product grant at the date of DXdao’s closure, and then a split of whatever was unclaimed by DXD holders a year later.

When challenged about the lack of progress Swapr and Carrot had made throughout the year with the initial grant, and once it was suggested that it wasn’t the best idea to throw good money after bad at Venky but instead use the second round of funds for something else, Venky petitioned for the DXdao Discord server to be deprecated and all channels muted, in order to not have the possibility of his second multi million dollar payday thwarted.

I propose that Gnosis steer far clear of this team, who have a track record of extracting extreme amounts of value for nothing in return, and look for an alternative to execute on such an important part of the Gnosis Chain stack.

3 Likes
3

Thank you for raising these concerns. I appreciate the opportunity to address them and clarify our team’s progress.

  1. Grants from DXdao: The funding was allocated to three teams via a governance proposal, not solely to me. While I am part of two teams, the allocation was based on community decisions.
  2. Carrot/Metrom: Carrot has been rebranded as Metrom (x.com), and we have partners committed to launching with us. The new version reflects key learnings from Carrot’s original design inherited from DXdao, and if the product achieves PMF, we will relaunch Carrot with redesigned architecture.
  3. Swapr: Over 9 months, we launched Swapr V3 (Gnosis Chain’s first CLAMM) and Stackly across Gnosis, Arbitrum, and Ethereum Mainnet. Swapr V3 also achieved $61M in total volume to date, where the liquidity was bootstrapped by GnosisDAO.
  4. DXdao: I actively answered questions in the DXdao Discord. I did not petition to mute channels but highlighted that discussions had become less productive after the community decisions were made long back.

Why GnosisDAO can trust us:

  1. Commitment to Gnosis Chain: We successfully launched Swapr V3 post-DXdao and deepened our Gnosis partnerships. GnosisDAO and Karpatkey helped bootstrap liquidity. (We present you: The first CL AMM in Gnosis Chain - by Swapr)
  2. Collaboration with Shutter: We deployed Swapr on Chiado and tested MEV protection ahead of Dappcon. (x.com)
  3. Gnosis AI & Presagio: We’ve worked closely with Gnosis AI for six months on Presagio, visualizing AI agents with prediction markets.
  4. Devcon & GnosisDAO: We’re collaborating with the Gnosis team for Devconflict to explore featured categories in Presagio.
  5. HOPR partnership: We’re running a privacy experiment with HOPR to expose transaction metadata leaks.

We’ve already invested 6 months into Presagio. This grant will help finalize V1 and align our long-term goals with GnosisDAO and Gnosis AI.

5 Likes
4

Interesting initiative, thanks! But this proposal seems to be heavy on project management (technical deliverables), light on the business case. I don’t think that’s good enough for a solution targeting retail.

So maybe you can expand on this, because the Rationale section is, imo, lacking detail. For example, what is unique about this approach, as Polymarket already owns the market? Is the inclusion of “AI” somehow going to be the key differentiator? And Polymarket has not thought of this? No competitors are building something similar?

How are we going to measure success of this initiative outside of delivering code? You are allocating only 15% for marketing, do you believe your superior technology will just market and sell itself? Seems rather optimistic for a solution that needs retail users to succeed. Great technology is not enough.

Growth numbers for new projects measured in a single percentage are meaningless. If you have 10 daily transactions, it’s not hard to grow by 500%. Let’s make a proper business case and forecast both usage and revenue. How long before the revenue generated will recoup project costs?

It’s not enough to deliver code imo. For 500k USD, you need to deliver a solution with actual users and revenue. In your proposal, you are heavily focused on technical deliverables, but for solutions like this, it’s more about marketing, bringing retail over to Gnosis because… Again, why?

Also, who owns this front end solution? After you deliver it, it’s 100% owned by GNO token holders? Or are you expecting to retain ownership in the IP? If so, how much? Let’s have clarity on that before we allocate any money, so there are no future surprises.

If this is approved, I would like to see a large % of the funds allocated based on reaching revenue milestones in the business case, not technical deliverables. Maybe even with a much larger upside for the project team, measured in a % of revenue generated. But also much less guaranteed for delivering code. Let’s better align real success with grant allocation. Success = revenue. However, that is also contingent on understanding who will actually own the solution. More transparency there, please!

In conclusion, a half million dollars is a huge grant for a solution targeting retail without a proper business case, almost nothing on how this will be marketed. Plus no clarity on who owns the solution once delivered. I would definitely vote against this in its present form. But hope more details will be provided, as it could be quite interesting with the right approach. Thanks again!

4 Likes
5

No changes to Omen-related contracts whatsoever? Surely some stuff can be updated right?

As of right now (applies to both market-types):

  • Invalid markets just give equal payouts to every option. Check this function to see how. Also applies to nuanced binary payouts.
  • No support for ANSWERED_TOO_SOON. That is encoded as bytes32(-2) and you don’t need to handle it if you take resultForOnceSettled instead, allowing the question to be reopened. That’s actually good and decreases chances of markets being invalidated, which annoys users with outcome shares.

All the AI-related stuff, I really like and agree they’re important. But the contracts might need some work, otherwise, something like Seer (a PM in the works, that also uses Gnosis Conditional Tokens) might be better performing on the contracts front. So, I’m imagining a circumstance in which, Omen 2.0/Presagio are built, but Seer/other alternatives do better thanks to more modern contracts. Some PRs are made to Gnosis PM Agent Tooling to support those new PM apps, and then those alternatives are also AI-powered, and most of the work done here is scrapped.

Despite the pessimism, the scrapped code might still be worth the requested grant, nothing works forever. Not a member of the DAO, just interested on PMs and I want the best for them, preferably with a few different simultaneous attempts so that at least one sticks.

(had to remove links, new user)

4 Likes
6

To weigh in here from the Gnosis AI developer point of view as well:

We switched to using Presagio when the original aiomen.eth.limo website went down, and the experience so far has been nice. The Presagio team is quick to respond and open for feedback.

Personally, I like that source codes are clean and easy to orient in. Getting Presagio web up and running locally was super easy. Thanks to it, it’s quick to contribute some small features that can help Gnosis AI work right away. PRs were reviewed and deployed quickly.

No changes to Omen-related contracts whatsoever? Surely some stuff can be updated right?

Indeed, there is always stuff that could be improved. Gnosis AI actually deployed a few new contracts that are or will be used on Presagio:

  • OmenThumbnailMapping - this contract holds the mapping of markets to images you can see on Presagio web.
  • OmenAgentResultMapping - agents will upload their predictions (predicted probability, reasoning, etc.) to this contract, which I believe is the AI research deliverable in Milestone 3. Plus it will be used to provide more detailed statistics in Dune dashboard.

I’m not sure when the right time to touch core contracts will be, as that will require much more attention to detail and coordination across many teams/companies. It feels like there is still so much we can get at the AI agents + frontend side.

2 Likes
7

Thank you for the detailed feedback. I’d like to address the key points and offer more clarity on the proposal.

Our initial phase is heavily technical as we aim to build the MVP. The core goal is to create a system where users can interact with AI-driven predictions and understand how these models perform. This isn’t just about adding “AI” as a differentiator; it’s about building a platform to visualize and analyze how AI improves prediction accuracy, profitability, and the models used in forecasting.

Success for early-stage products isn’t immediately tied to revenue. First, we need to create a secure, user-friendly platform that builds trust and engagement. For now, our focus is to provide the experience that attracts liquidity and users. Once we’ve achieved significant user adoption we will shift the focus on revenue and monetization.

While the initial phase focuses on technical deliverables, we recognize the importance of marketing for user acquisition. However, we intend to concentrate on the technical aspects first and shift to marketing in later phases, when we have a more mature product ready to promote. That said, we are collaborating with devconflict to introduce the project, and our long-term goal includes fostering prediction markets that span across technology, sports, politics, crypto prices and DAOs. As the product matures, we will realign efforts towards a more robust marketing push. In the initial phase, this will be more educational content and blogs.

We also agree with the feedback on growth metrics and we will take snapshot of how the platform is used by the end of 2024. We will assess our progress and establish new growth targets for 2025. Currently, if we can get Presagio in the hands of users and community, collect feedback and use these to build a better product, its a good first step.

Presagio’s codebase is open and public and has intention to release it under open source license when the product is in V1. The frontend IP will be retained by us until V1, after which we rethink the ownership structure based on achieving PMF, liquidity, and volume goals. Currently, the focus is to build with the community and have user growth. There is no revenue right now, and we are not charging fees for usage. We’ll revisit this after 12 months when we have enough user activity to consider monetization.

Future Alignment

Omen is owned by GnosisDAO, and that remains unchanged. The future success of Omen will depend on factors like Gnosis AI, liquidity providers and volume through Presagio.

Omen’s success hinges on the synergy between the above components. It is crucial that each aspect works together seamlessly and should be equally rewarded for their contributions. However, given the current stage, it seems premature to commit to any specific exchange arrangement.

As we’ve learned from Omen 1.0, prediction markets need a large volumes to profit from liquidity provision and we believe Presagio simplifies this experience to attract more traders.

Hope this provides answers to the questions and adds more clarity.

4 Likes
8

Thank you for your thoughtful response, much appreciated!

Fair enough, but it’s a $500k MVP. That’s a significant amount of money for a research project, wouldn’t you agree? It’s why I think there needs to be much less allocated up front, and more revenue share for your team later if this is proven successful.

I would like to see how PMF, liquidity, and volume goals impact ownership now, before money is allocated. Most of the value capture for Omen will likely happen on the front end, we are seeing the same with Safe. So if we finance your front end, I would expect Gnosis DAO to retain significant ownership in the final product. I’m not sure why we can’t define that now.

It’s like: please fully finance our research. Once it’s successful, we’ll talk about what ownership we’ll give you… :man_shrugging:

Although, to be clear, it definitely seems like a very interesting project! Again, very glad you brought this to the DAO.

3 Likes
9

We reiterate our support for the Omen 2.0 initiative, as vocalised in the grant discussion post.

As we stated there, we also do agree with the comments of @Pray.eth above:

The only point that we would still love to see added is some loose intentions on long-term financial commitments with GnosisDAO, if Presagio do successfully monetise the UI in the future. We appreciate that it may be too early for your team to pin down specifics. However, given the very close alignment of your work with Gnosis AI and the details of this grant, we view this pitch as somewhere between a traditional arms-length grant and incubation-style funding. We’d love to see that reflected in the details of Presagio’s own structure and ambitions here.

With that said, we do appreciate the differences between a fully-incubated project like Safe and simple grant funding, as is being proposed here. Though grant funding doesn’t necessarily have to be attached to some sharing of ownership (which may prove to limit the scope of our impact), we would urge Presagio to carefully consider this kind of alternative route at this crucial stage.

The Gnosis ecosystem has proven time and time again that a tight degree of integration for early-stage products often helps them to blossom and leave the developers to build. We think a broader deal with a deeper degree of integration may be better for both sides than the offer that’s currently being made.

2 Likes
10

Hey @Pray.eth and @staworth , Thank you once again for the valuable feedback.

We see this as a great opportunity to collaborate further with Gnosis, and we’re already working closely with Martin and the Gnosis AI team. At this stage, we believe it’s premature to commit to any token exchange or ownership agreements.

However, we are fully aligned in our intention to build this solution alongside Gnosis. Once we’ve developed a product that demonstrates broad usability, we’d be keen to structure a more formal agreement in partnership with Gnosis, ensuring it benefits all parties involved.

2 Likes
11

I expect that everything developed within Gnosis is, by default, 100% owned by GNO holders. If that’s not the case, it should be explicitly stated.

GNO holders invest resources and deserve to receive something in return. What exactly will that be? If this simple matter isn’t clarified, I will vote against it, even though I am a big fan of prediction markets and believe that Gnosis should have its own.

12

Thank you for presenting the proposal. While the initiative to develop Omen 2.0 holds promise given its previous status as an idle asset, we would like to raise several points that we believe require some consideration:

  • Funding Request: The grant amount of 400K WXDAI and 600 GNO is substantial. In fact, this is comparable to check sizes for leading rounds or even full pre-seed rounds in some cases. This raises the question of whether the requested amount is justified for a grant, especially without thorough analysis, validation, and traction. It seems that a rationale alone might not be sufficient, particularly if the proposal moves forward. While the team has demonstrated success in DeFi projects, it is unclear if there is the specific expertise required to deliver a highly functional prediction market platform. Expertise in DeFi doesn’t always translate to prediction markets, which is a nuanced domain. We believe some more clarity on why this team is uniquely suited for this project (Prediction Market) would strengthen the proposal.

  • Funding Sources: Another concern is whether this grant represents the only source of funding or if there are alternative funds being secured. Relying solely on Gnosis DAO for the entire project poses a risk to the DAO, as it implies that the DAO will act as a safety-net/lifeguard. It would be more sustainable if the project had a diversified funding structure to spread the risk and increase overall confidence in the viability of the initiative.

  • Budget Transparency: Given that this is a grant rather than a private round, transparency in budget allocation is critical. The breakdown provided (70% for development, 15% for marketing, 3% for infrastructure, and 12% for project management) lacks sufficient detail. We would expect more specific information on how these percentages translate into actual costs, such as salaries, tools, or marketing campaigns. Additionally, clarity on how salaries will be managed would ensure that funds are being allocated efficiently and responsibly.

  • Disbursement Structure: The proposal appears to request a lump sum of funding, which seems risky considering the project is still at an early stage. Given that the project is more akin to an MVP and there is a need to validate the product with metrics, it would be more prudent to have the funding disbursed in tranches, based on milestone completion. This structure ensures that the project demonstrates progress and achieves key performance indicators (KPIs) before receiving further funding. Short-term funding contingent upon hitting milestones, followed by larger scopes and responsibilities upon success, would be more aligned with a balanced risk approach for Gnosis DAO.

    • KPI Definition: Clear and measurable KPIs should be defined from the start for this to happen. Metrics such as user acquisition, transaction volume, or AI agent performance should be tracked closely and reported transparently to the community.

  • Lack of a Demo on the original GIP:

We guess the link provided is the Presagio frontend MVP for the Omen 2.0 project, but if it is, it should be added to the proposal.
It can provide more clarity and understanding about the value, feasibility of the project and the work already done until date.

Charging for Milestone 1 (Completed) and Milestone 2 (85% completed) as part of retrospective funding is also not usual. Some of our thoughts:

  1. No Prior Notice: Instead of retroactively billing the DAO for work already done, the team could request funding for upcoming milestones, using the success of Milestone 1-2 as a proof of competence and capability. It would be more prudent to position Milestone 1-2 as a demonstration of their commitment rather than a retroactive payment. This would allow the community to assess the team based on future deliverables rather than past ones.
  2. Risk to DAO: Asking for retrospective funding transfers risk to the DAO. The DAO is expected to compensate the project regardless of how the product performed or whether it meets community expectations (It seems the Presagio front end costed 200k according to the milestones which is quite a bit. It would be nice to also have a breakdown of these costs). This sets a precedent that could encourage future applicants to undertake work independently and then seek retroactive payment, which can destabilize DAO grant processes.

In conclusion, while the Omen 2.0 initiative has potential, there appears to be consensus from other delegates around some concerns. Given the weight of these concerns, we recommend that the proposal be revised to address this feedback comprehensively. Engaging with the community to refine the proposal would build trust and ensure that the project aligns with the broader goals of the Gnosis ecosystem.

We agree with the vision of an AI agents economy and the development of prediction markets, as well as the goal of creating an ecosystem for this within Gnosis. Given that this is a key initiative, it should be considered as part of a complete system on Gnosis.
Allocating significant resources to a single initiative could also be a risky strategy because if that initiative fails, the entire strategy could be jeopardized. However, we also recognize that there is a cost in not pursuing this at all.

4 Likes