Gnosis Builders 2023 Report
The Gnosis Builders team was established under the Gnosis Ecosystem Initiative (GIP-38) which introduced a multi-year ecosystem development effort with the following objectives:
- enhance the developer and user experience
- grow developer and user adoption
- increase developer recognition and engagement
- broaden awareness of the platform narrative and values
Initial focus on Chain Experience
Gnosis Builders began building a set of services to help improve the overall experience of using the chain, as well as the overall decentralization and resilience of the chain.
- xDai Faucet
- Buy xDAI
- Buy GNO
- Gnosis Wallets
- Gnosis Metrics
- Validate Gnosis
- d14n
- mGNO Validator Deposit
- DAO Directory
- DeFi Directory
- NFT and Gaming Directory
Additionally, Gnosis Builders were involved in a number of ecosystem events, marketing, grants, and business development initiatives.
Starting with a Strong Mission
While some developers and users are attracted to Gnosis Chain for its low gas fees, we also wanted to focus on a purpose-driven mission related to deeper values and ethos: making Gnosis Chain the most decentralized blockchain.
Blockchains suffer from centralization risks along several fronts. Trustlessness, transparency, elimination of intermediaries, credible neutrality, censorship resistance, security, innovation and community are some of the values that mattered to us and we hoped to promote in the ecosystem.
Resilient Decentralization for Gnosis Chain
Credible neutrality, achieved through decentralization, is the exclusive property that differentiates blockchains from centralized systems, and we set out to make Gnosis Chain one of the most decentralized blockchains.
As an early step, we focused initial scope on a resilient, geographically distributed, truly decentralized validator set. One approach to measuring the decentralization is the Nakamoto coefficient: survey all the subsystems of a decentralized system (eg. validator nodes, client software, github repository, exchanges etc.) and derive the minimum number of entities needed to compromise a subsystem. A simple validator node count isn’t the most accurate representation of the Nakamoto coefficient due to dependencies at different levels of the stack (cloud providers, colocation facilities, network structure, liquid staking, etc.) required to provide validation services to the network. A network with thousands of validators across thousands of computers and locations is clearly more decentralized than a million validators running on one computer.
We introduced the concept of the Correlated Validator Set, defined as a set of validators that could be compromised together in a single action. A count of the number of correlated validator sets would be a more accurate metric for Gnosis Chain’s Nakamoto coefficient. In order to monitor and track the state of decentralization on Gnosis Chain and Ethereum we launched d14n.info (d14n is short for decentralization).
Gnosis Validator Incentive Program
GnosisVIP was launched as an umbrella program to incentivize uncorrelated validation across important dimensions of the Gnosis Chain validator network.
The first focus was a Geographic Diversity Program.
The program targeted countries with fewer than 10 active validator nodes. incentives were based on the number of validators running from those countries for a period of time. The plan was to encourage 10 validators in every country.
Grants, Hackathons & Developers
Sponsoring hackathons, providing grants to open-source developers, and catering to developers are crucial steps in fortifying a blockchain ecosystem.
We partnered with several reputable hackathon organizers to attract developers to build on Gnosis Chain. A long-term partnership with EthGlobal was established, as well as the Ethereum-themed events in individual cities such as EthTaipei where Gnosis was a title sponsor and minted thousands of NFTs on Gnosis Chain over a weekend. We also partnered with several online Hackathons to reach developers wherever they are.
Separately, grants to open-source developers provide the financial support necessary for talented individuals and teams to dedicate their time and skills to develop open-source projects.
Here is a list of projects that received grants from the Gnosis Builders grants program:
- GnosisPools.info
- Stereum
- Dendreth
- StakingRewards
- Zipline
- MovingCastles
- Security Alliance
- Umbra
- WhatsABI
- Rotki
- dfDAO
- Fair Protocol
- DM3 Protocol
- Censorship Resistance and Credible Neutrality Initiative: HOPR
There will be additional posts about grants with ongoing or open commitments or deliverables.
PR, Ecosystem Marketing & Developer Relations
The team supported PR campaigns for validator relations and diversity, as well as ecosystem projects such as Hashi, Kinetex and Uniswap. Many ecosystem projects have been featured on the Gnosis focused podcast “Get to Gnosis”
The Gnosis Builders team has also supported the integration and co-marketing of established and/or rapidly growing infrastructure and application projects, with the overall goal of driving increased transaction volume to the network.
Key projects the team has closed and/or supported include Pyth Network, Genome, Mithraeum, Sablier, PowerPool, Moralis, Goldsky, Fileverse, Tellor, Ylide, Superfluid, Zertifier, Kinetex and Tenderly.
With developer relations, the team has been heavily involved with hackathons and supporting documentation as well as AMAs for teams interested in building on Gnosis Chain. There is a dev community called “Gnosis Go-Gitters” on Telegram that serves as an additional channel for dev support. Builders also supported or enouraged documentation and education pieces such as the GnosisChain CheatSheet
Snapshot comparison
For benchmarking purposes, some snapshot comparisons:
| Chain | #Tx 2023-Jul-1 | #Tx 2023-Oct-2 | %+/- |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | 1,178,620 | 1,016,845 | -13.73% |
| BNB Chain | 4,116,923 | 2,911,973 | -29.27% |
| Polygon | 2,783,561 | 2,400,807 | -13.75% |
| Gnosis Chain | 53,057 | 125,246 | +136% |
Monthly Transactions during Gnosis Builders tenure
| Tx volume | Year | Month |
|---|---|---|
| 1,8M | 2022 | July |
| 2,1M | 2022 | August |
| 2,4M | 2022 | September |
| 2,9M | 2022 | October |
| 2,4M | 2022 | November |
| 1,3M | 2022 | December |
| 1,5M | 2023 | January |
| 1,4M | 2023 | February |
| 1,7M | 2023 | March |
| 1,5M | 2023 | April |
| 1,9M | 2023 | May |
| 6,3M | 2023 | June |
| 5,2M | 2023 | July |
| 4,2M | 2023 | August |
| 3,2M | 2023 | September |
| 4,0M | 2023 | October |
2023 Q1
February
- ETHDenver and side event
March
- Scaling Ethereum (online)
- ETHPorto
2023 Q2
April
- ETHGlobal Tokyo
- ETH Taipei
- Istanbul ETH Privacy
May
- Encode Online
- Montenegro EDCON
June
-
ETH Seoul
-
BUIDL South Korea
-
BUIDL Vietnam, translations of Gnosis Chain Weekly
-
Vietnam Developer Cafe Office Hours
-
Why Build on Gnosis Chain AMA with APAC DAO and ABS Station
-
ETHGlobal Waterloo
2023 Q3
July
-
Paris, France ETHCC
-
Paris, France ETH Global Paris
August
-
- Gnosis Chain Technical Deep Dive Workshop
- Gnosis Chain NFT Ecosystem Workshop
- Gnosis Chain DeFi Workshop
- Gnosis Chain DAO Tooling Workshop
September
-
Korea Blockchain Week, Get to GNO Gnosis Chain
-
EthGlobal NYC
2023 Q4
October
-
Gnosis Builders Guadalajara Meetup
-
ETH Rome
November
- DevConnect Istanbul
- Decentralized Staking Summit
Financial Summary
How it Started
GIP-38 funds the ecosystem initiative for three years, the intent was that these funds would be fully spent during this initiative.
| 2022-Jun-30 | Endowment |
|---|---|
| 108,013 | GNO |
| 18,603 | stETH |
How it Ended
Gnosis Builders spending was at a much lower rate than originally anticipated. Moreover, the core Gnosis team has grown to a size that could absorb many of the business development, marketing, and PR functions previously led by Builders.
This is the end of Gnosis Builders as a separate team and brand. Much of the Gnosis Builders team join a re-invigorated and unified Gnosis core team, others remain as part of the DAO or greater community. The bulk of the funds not yet spent have been returned to the DAO.
| 2023-Oct-30 | Returned to DAO Treasury |
|---|---|
| 100 000 | GNO |
| 14,000 | stETH |
Gnosis Builders returned significant funds that the DAO allocated to be fully spent. Another way to frame it is that Gnosis Builders didn’t spend enough fast enough. Either way, the funds are now back with the DAO and can be used for a number of interesting projects in the works.
Regards,
Gnosis Builders
