Community Grant Proposal to Expand ‘TeFi Alpha’ Worldwide
Introduction
The vision behind TeFi Alpha is to unite the Terra Ecosystem and to embolden our builders, innovators, and community leaders, to create the next generation of reality-breaking technologies on the Terra Blockchain.
In a world that is growing ever-more centralized, it is imperative that we continue to provide our ecosystem with in-person opportunities to meet, collaborate, and cross-pollinate.
The prevailing concept of the event is that it is the premier space for projects to “drop alpha”, meaning the biggest announcements and unveilings they have.
One of our goals was to brand TeFi Alpha as a blend of the best of the E3 conference product launch announcements and the TEDx talk style interfacing with the best minds in the Terra/Cosmos ecosystem, with a music festival aesthetic and the highest quality production in the industry.
Another goal was to set the tone and the standard with TeFi Alpha 1: New York City and build a foundation that was equipped to continue this series into the future and around the world.
What We’re Proposing
We envision two to three officially branded TeFi Alpha events annually, as well as multiple yearly events in partnerships with major crypto and Defi conferences/conventions such as DCentral Con. We estimate a total of 6-7 TeFi Alpha productions, per year.
The first events are taking place in North America, Europe, and Asia; expanding into the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Australia/Pacific going forward.
In order to ensure these amazing events are a success, we’ll need to be able to provide sufficient personnel, equipment, talent, and event resources.
Future TeFi Alphas will be multi-day “destination” events; we’ll aim to have our event coincide with large-scale crypto conferences, much like the first event that was cleverly paired with Messari’s Mainnet conference in New York City.
Staffing
TeFi Alpha 1: New York was made possible by a dedicated and skilled staff of community members who worked more than full time hours to make the event a reality. That team consisted primarily of:
Ryan Olah / @OriginalRocka - Event coordinator; venue/location scouting and selection; Project coordinator; Vision planner; Venue Liaison; Logistics; Music and Media production. 20 years experience in festival events, planning, and production.
Evan Schindler / @Panterra0x - Terra Bites Podcast co-host, idea originator, live stream director, sponsor coordinator.
Kevin Russell / @LunaLootUST - Built & maintained TeFi Alpha website and socials; created all event specific merch, swag bags, ticket NFTs, and coordinated all giveaways & charity auctions, ran logistics on site. He runs LunaLoot.com and is the Creative Director for Angel Alliance.
Cody Marx / @superphly - Cody has produced music festivals, tech conferences, on both large and small budgets. His technical knowledge around blockchains and complex systems is also highly regarded. He is also a core contributor and lead architect for Andromeda Protocol and will be providing new NFT use cases for TeFi Alpha and Decentralized Events going forward.
*Chauncey St. John / @chauncey_stjohn - Angel Protocol founder and former Global program manager & authentic leader of software delivery teams across 45+ countries and 85+projects.
*Trevor Ogata / @TwiceInABluMoon – Ticketing and event logistics for TeFi Alpha. TIX Protocol Founder and member of Angel Protocol’s core team. Former software development manager for a medical IT company that brought government certified, affordable health records and prescriptions solutions to providers in underserved communities.
*(Advisors) / Temp staff are paid per event / involvement.
Progress
Since the successful conclusion of TeFi Alpha 1: New York City, the team has worked continually on planning future events, is actively developing two coordinated Terra/Luna based music festivals on multiple continents, is building out the concept of decentralized events (“Decentralized events need decentralized money”), has helped in the development of multi-sig wallet integration for Terra blockchain, and critically, one of the TeFi Alpha logistics team was inspired post-event to build out the next generation of decentralized ticketing and beyond with TIX protocol. The upcoming series of TeFi Alpha events and music festival partnerships will provide IRL proof-of-concept for TIX.
TeFi Alpha is CURRENTLY and actively partnering with DCentral Con and it’s founders to produce the official afterparty for DCentral Con Miami 2021, occurring 11/30-12/1, 2021.
One of the driving concepts of TeFi Alpha is that when we bring the Terra community together in person and face to face it will serve as a major catalyst for growth, ideas, new protocols, friendships, and a stronger and more connected ecosystem. We have seen these effects exponentially from just one event. We are ecstatic to see the network effect from multiple TeFi Alphas, let alone worldwide TeFi Alpha and continuous partnerships with cross chain events and promotions.
Funding
We would like to use the community fund in a creative way, and as a proof of concept for others, to highlight how UST can be used to capture and distribute yield into real world staffing and events.
We are asking for a $2.5MM endowment which would spin off the necessary funding to sustain TeFi Alpha events year to year. The principle would never be touched. The funds we are requesting would essentially serve as an endowment.
At the conclusion of the five year roadmap, a community vote will be held to determine the continuation of TeFi Alpha events. If TeFi Alpha concludes, the original endowment principal will be returned - in full - to either the community fund or voted to be directed to charity funding through Angel Protocol or a combination of both or a future scenario that we cannot foresee.
Yearly estimated costs:
Staffing: $228k per year
Venue: $195k per year
Travel: $22k per year
Total: $445k per year
