On the December 30th POAPathon Community Call there was a request for feedback on where POAPathon should go in 2023. I thought about it and here are my thoughts.

First some background. POAPathon is a community driven organization that facilitates design contests for people that need an image for a POAP event. I love creating POAP events, but I lack the design skills to create great images. I’ve used POAPathon a few times to get amazing images for my events. The process, collaboration, and results are great.

Some POAPathon designed events I’ve done include:


Magic Pines Summer of 2022
by kavishsethi


Jamie Thingelstad’s 51st Birthday
by designatum.eth


TeamSPS 2022 Kubb Tournament
by InsertGenericArtName

POAPathon DAO

Creating a DAO for POAPathon would enable two important functions:

Treasury for the DAO to fund programs, strategy, and execution.

To fund the treasury some percentage of all bounties should be directed to the DAO. POAPathon is providing direct value by creating this marketplace, and directing some of those funds into the treasury to be used by the DAO is best for the overall health of the community.

Governance tokens to enable decisions making.

Governance tokens have no monetary value and should never be bought or sold. These tokens would be distributed for actions done in the DAO. Examples would include:

  1. Sponsoring a contest.
  2. Submitting a design to a contest.
  3. Volunteers managing a contest.
  4. Volunteers sending a newsletter (see below).
  5. Volunteers hosting a community call.

There is likely a broad list of additional activities that could be rewarded with governance tokens, but there are two activities that should not be:

  1. Winning a contest is already rewarded with the bounty. Governance tokens should be given equally to any artist that participates in a contest. Winning should not be a factor for governance tokens.
  2. Community call attendance is already rewarded with POAPs, and that should continue. That rewards engagement, and governance tokens reward contribution. However, a volunteer hosting a community call should be rewarded.

Serious thought would need to be given to governance token amounts for each activity. Fortunately POAPathan has been doing nearly all of these things for a year or more, and that historical set of activities could be used to model what the amounts should be. Future changes to reward amounts could be handled via a DAO vote.

Lastly, the DAO should be run on Gnosis Chain in recognition that POAPs are distributed on Gnosis Chain. (Disclosure: I am a Gnosis Chain validator.)

Contests On-chain

Today contests are created via a survey, USDC is sent to POAPathon, and the Contest Managers (POAPathon volunteers) are trusted to setup the contests and distribute the funds. To further embrace a trustless approach, contests could be moved to a smart contract and executed on-chain.

When a contest is created the USDC would be sent to a contract. That contract would then manage the distribution. Some percentage would be sent to the DAO immediately after the contest is approved. The remainder would be sent to the addresses of the winners.

There are a lot of options here. It would be ideal if the smart contract knew what artists had submitted art for the contest, and could even handle distributing governance tokens rewarding them for participating. The contest requester could then select the winners from a list of participating artists.

This would require development efforts that may go beyond the scope of volunteer engagement. If so, the DAO treasury could be used to fund the development of this.

Other Stuff

Focus on just POAPs. The POAPathon website suggests a variety of design services via contest (PFP, Logos), but POAP is right there in the name and focusing on just that use case may create more opportunity.

Email newsletter. Discord is great, but is only useful for very engaged community members. A newsletter that highlights the contests, selected artists, and more could be very compelling. This is a way to stay connected and broaden the reach of POAPathon. POAP has This week in POAP for example.

Give out more POAPs. POAPathon distributes a POAP for each Community Call. It would be cool to give a POAP for submitting a contest, and winning contests. I’ve created five contests now but there is no record of that outside of Discord history. I’d love to have a POAP from POAPathon showing that.

Closer connection with POAP itself. POAPathon could be part of the POAP process. There seems to be no mention of POAPathon on the POAP website that I could easily find. Getting in this flow of requests would help make sure there are enough contests to have a thriving community.