# Cryptorado Gitcoin Grant

## Fostering Cryptorado: Strengthening the IRL Web3 Community Through Education, Coworking, and Social Engagement

## Executive Summary:

The Cryptorado community serves as a vital hub for individuals interested in blockchain, cryptography, web3, and peer-to-peer technologies, fostering connections, collaboration, and innovation. As a welcoming and inclusive environment, Cryptorado brings together a diverse group of individuals ranging from newcomers to veterans, professionals to students, and event organizers to attendees. By providing real-life networking opportunities, access to valuable resources, and a supportive environment, Cryptorado plays a crucial role in driving the growth and success of the web3 ecosystem. This grant proposal seeks funding to expand the community's reach, improve its resources, and continue providing exceptional experiences for its members.

## Objectives:

Enhance educational resources and opportunities to support community members in their journey through the web3 space.
Establish a coworking space to facilitate collaboration, foster innovation, and provide a centralized location for the community.
Organize social events and activities that promote networking, camaraderie, and a healthy work-life balance.

## Budget:

The proposed budget for Cryptorado is as follows:

### Education:
1. AV equipment: $TBD
1. Digital Whiteboard: $TBD
1. Venue booking and event expenses: $TBD
Total for Education: $TBD

### Coworking:

1. Monthly rental fees for coworking space: $TBD
1. Furniture and equipment: $TBD
Total for Coworking: $TBD

### Social Engagement:

1. Brewery hangouts (food, drinks, swag): $TBD
1. Adventures and group activities: $TBD
Total for Social Engagement: $TBD

### Total Budget Request: $TBD

## Impact:

By securing funding for these key areas, Cryptorado can continue to foster a vibrant, inclusive, and dynamic environment that empowers its members to grow and thrive in the web3 space. The enhanced educational offerings will provide valuable resources and support to newcomers and veterans alike, while the coworking space will facilitate collaboration and drive innovation. Additionally, the social events and activities will contribute to a well-rounded community experience, fostering strong relationships and connections among members. Ultimately, this grant will help Cryptorado solidify its position as a crucial hub for the advancement of the web3 ecosystem.

## Conclusion:

The Cryptorado community is poised to make a lasting and meaningful impact on the web3 ecosystem by providing its members with the resources, opportunities, and support they need to succeed. With the requested funding, Cryptorado can further its mission of fostering a vibrant, inclusive, and innovative community that contributes to the growth and development of web3 technologies. We respectfully request your consideration for our grant proposal and look forward to the opportunity to enhance our community's contributions to the broader web3 space.

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> ***Below are notes used to develop the above proposal***

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## IRL meeting March 7th at Enterprise<br>_(Nuke's raw notes from those )_

## What does Cryptorado provide for me/us?

### Community Infrastructure

- meetup
- 2700+ people, established legitimacy & large group getting event notifications (we think)
- discord community
- high bar to entry via detailed intro-> very very few bots / spam (and MAYBE scams - be mindful!)
- Intro -> discover new people & catalog of who is here and why
- communication and coordination of local events
- establishes baseline "monthly active users"
- Keybase community
- DAO related E2EE chat and file share
- web-of-trust for sensitive matters in the community
- https://cryptorado.org/
- events cal
- Youtube
- video (archive)
- 1000+ subs -> more features
- Twitter (disabled)
- Linkedin (dead...)
- Twitch, Reddit, ... (unused)
- Gitcoin grant
- Matching funds from _first community round_ were substantial and increased in value since gathered
- Nuke holding treasury funds for community
- Github
- Stale pet projects (open for contributions!)
- Website files

### Host and contribute to (local IRL) events:

- Coworking
- Free Fridays ($5/person from treasury)
- more dedicated space for our group than just floating?
- access formally to conference rooms?
- A more formal space like shared office or even ?
- Access to veterans/mentors
- Informal meetings, socials, presentations (more formal ones below)
- Workshops / hands-on demos (Interactive)
- Technical (programming, running web3 nodes, tokenomics, )
- [Mostly] non-technical (how to use web3 tech, security and privacy demos, alpha/beat product testing [for community projects/teams])
- Socials (Interactive)
- food & drink, open to anyone
- outdoor activities
- Conferences/Expos (Hybrid)
- Share organizer-wide opportunities for higher level positions & paid work at [external] conferences / hackathons
- Negotiate deals & group rates
- Sponsor as a group?
- Volunteer as a group?
- Scholarships?
- Run our own?
- Presentations (Passive)
- Share speaker opportunities & interest [and sponsorships? ]
- Market community collectively to attract sponsors & speakers [by large "monthly active users" as a brand]

### We have:
- High Trust, for lower funding (lower risk)
- Medium trust, medium funds for established people and projects doing things
- low trust, community infrastructure management & legal entity.

Empowering people to follow their passion projects
- don't dictate what people do, cheerlead them to do what they want to do.
- gather people together to network and find like minded people & exposure to new ideas
- level up / help fund those that need to accelerate / elevate efforts of established good projects
- Space
- Equipment
- Time (hourly)
- Coordinate to ensure we don't overlap on time slots for events (calendar & funding)

A pot of funds that is open to spend for good ideas
--INTENTIONALLY want to make money and support very easy to get for `human`s - low process and admin overhead
- We design the protocol to encourage spending funds - only confront issues to slow that down as needed
- polkadot payroll style & treasury that "burns" to another public good funding if we don't use it
- maybe a multisig with 1 if N that can spend with a timelock, and can be stopped with 2 of N or something opposed. (based on proposal system, with max number open at any time possible)
- Prefund and also retro fund

Connect to EXPOs and larger events
- ephemeral / seasonal
- Provides a "farmers market" for discovery of new things and people
-
- collective wants:
-
- individual wants:
-

## What space needs to we have?

- coworking
- events
- presentations (passive)
- workshops (active)
- hackathons?
- socials
- adventures
- hackathons / hack spaces
- Off hours 24/7

Do we need a centralized place? Or should we intentionally go to many places in the area?

## What do we need money for?

1. GROWTH: Support new unknown ideas and people
2. ACCELERATE: Support known great things and people to make their impact bigger
1. Existing regular events
2. Seasonal and high impact events
4. FOUNDATION: Community infrastructure: space and materials to gather

- Equipment
- things to give out as promo materials
- subsidize hardware (wallets, nodes, point of sale...)

- Marketing and outreach
- NOTE: we don't want to grow just to grow!
- Circular now... how do we get more new members?
- Tech people?
- Going to expos? Sponsoring tickets?
- Travel funds
- Subsidizing promo materials
- POAPs
- airdrops
- smallish gifts
- bigger prizes

- Meatspace costs for events
- Crypto Mondays - founders spotlight to do presentations (Improper City)
- Helium community - grants from official stuff $500 per event, need more?
- WTF events (XDenver)
- Solidity deep dives (Thrive)
- Equipment
- Shared?
- white boards (digital for streaming)
- mics / AV in general
- ??? barter equipment for a space for .... something.

- Grants and funding
- Community focused infra projects
- "seed funding" grants to work on ideas
- Promote use of crypto (for commerce) by us and local community

## Discord Jam

### Red

**What does Cryptorado provide for me/us?**

As an event host: Cryptorado provides an umbrella for individuals to put their heterogeneous crypto groups under. It's the substrate for social coordination that makes all of our categorically different events additive rather than rivalrous

As an attendee: Cryptorado provides a hangout group where I get to chat crypto IRL, something I usually only get to do online. This simple thing brings me joy

**What do we need money for?**

The way Cryptorado exists now, we have four categories of recurring events
Lectures/workshops (eg Solidity Deep Dives, WTF is Web3 talks)
Coworking (eg Enterprise Fridays)
Adventures (eg hiking, biking)
Brewery hangouts (eg CryptoMondays, Seedstock)

I see three funding categories relating to the 4 event types:
A. Meeting spaces - certain events cannot function without money for a meeting space - such as Coworking and some Lecture/workshop events.
B. Nice-to-have additions - pizza/beer money for Lectures/workshops is nice to have. Events run fine without it, but it makes things more fun. This also extends to equipment like microphones and whiteboard type tablets for helping with streams at tech workshop events.
C. Subsidizing costs - we can make events more inclusive by subsidizing costs, such as covering gas costs for those who carpool to Adventures. The doors open up if we commit more to this, climbing day / tubing day / anything physical and outdoorsy

We can use money to elevate those funding categories (A,B,C) for our existing events (1,2,3,4), which is what I want to do. The other option (not mutually exclusive) is to facilitate NEW event types, by an existing or new funding type. I don't have much to add here tbh

I did mention we're a composite group of many motives, so my answer here is for my motive. Expecting (and hoping for) other answers to vary!

### Tanny

**What does Cryptorado provide for me/us?**

Cryptorado provides in-real-life networking opportunities that allow developers and community members to work together, share resources, grow the community itself, discuss problems and create solutions. I’m new to Cryptorado, but from what I’ve seen, this is a dedicated group of highly motivated individuals who all have a lot to share.

Meat-space networking opportunities provide unparalleled results when compared to the natural online-oriented environment of Web3 and tech. Having a core community to bounce ideas off of, work and build with, and blow off some steam on weekend hikes, road trips, or beyond, provides a well rounded environment for maximum productivity.

**What do we need money for?**

Cryptorado is centered around developing a sustainable learning atmosphere for newcomers to the Web3 space, whether builders or community members, NFT traders, degens, or established tech-field colleagues. From hosting a weekly co-working space, to larger meet-ups, workshops, lectures, and parties, Cryptorado envelops a variety of engaging activities which staves manotony. Providing an event space, booking vendors, traveling for gatherings, or simply to hike together, are all beneficial elements to the Cryptorado ecosystem, and each provide unique opportunities for community members to grow with one another. These events take resources, and as the community grows, it is our hope the frequency and size of the events we’re hosting will grow as well.

Education is my primary draw to the Cyptorado community, whether absorbing the knowledge available to me, or to share the progress and discoveries I’ve made in my journey. I have a passion for sharing new skills as I develop them, and am eager to help bring newcomers into the blossoming field of tech. From hacks sessions, focusing on a particular goal with particular hardware, to hackathons, where sponsors can offer bounties to solicit specific goals, to expo style conventions where all of these things bleed together in an exciting engaging environment that helps bring new developers into the ecosystem, as well as display to the general public the vast variety of software services, protocols, projects, and people available within the industry.

The established elements of Cryptorado today:

Lectures/workshops
Coworking
Adventures
Brewery hangouts

Yet to be established potential elements:
Expo/Convention - trade show style gatherings
Hacking Retreats - building with a change of scenery
Regular Education - tackling specific curriculum on a recurring day

Among the existing and potential expenses, there are varying degrees of gravity:
1- High gravity: Meat-Spaces! The importance of reliable and recurring community spaces to help discuss, grow, and steer the Cryptorado community can not be overstated. Venue acquisition, keynote speakers, and catering etc, all carry their own expenses and they add up! These have the greatest need of funding.

2- Nice to have: additions- party enhancements, more/better food drinks, extra marketing materials like flyers, gas for commuting to adventures, even a Cryptorado bus?

3- Subsidies: The ability to render concepts into existence. A fund pool from which members of the community can propose a community-good use for, and can be disseminated based on priority. Grants, or reimbursements, for expenses which directly benefit the Cryptorado community and ecosystem. This can be for Adventure style get-togethers, but could apply to group access to conventions, traveling to do so, etc.
eh i was gonna edit this a bit more but accidentally hit send. that'll work for now, may revisit to modify. enjoy the hike, crew!

### Mekail

**What does Cryptorado do for me / us?**

Cryptorado provides environments, and resources, to help people achieve their goals, reach valuable connections, and leverage the building of awesome applications that can help accelerate education within web3.

Cryptorado does not exclude or gatekeep, and is open and friendly to the public, which can allow people of all variations to hangout and bring forth diversity and alternative perspectives and issues to solve within the space; providing events to casually explore ways we can improve various realms and ecosystems within our communities; the community provides a healthy environment to raise innovation, which is beneficial for the health and progress of the ecosystem.

**What do we need money for?**

This seems pretty solid so far, so beyond workshops, coworking, and other events, and subsidies, it seems most have hit the nail on the head. Beyond what supplied other possible reasons are:

Educational Resources: Developing a library of educational resources; video tutorials / articles / podcasts named above, to help people learn and grow in the Web3 space. This would require funding not just for content creation, editing, etc.. but organizing libraries together to organize and showcase the material, as well as expanding publishing onto various platforms, and covering local web3 news / keeping up with how the space is affecting our local communities, which provides as education, motivation and inspiration

Mentorship and Networking: Create a mentorship program where experienced members can guide newcomers in the Web3 space. This would require funding for organizing and hosting mentorship events, as well as possibly providing incentives for more mentors to participate.

Event Sponsorships: Fund members' attendance at important industry conferences, expos, and workshops. This can help boost the community's knowledge, credibility, and network within the broader Web3 space.

Scholarships, Financial Aid & Community support: Provide scholarships or financial aid for members to attend workshops, courses, and certifications related to the Web3 space; we could also allocate a portion of the funding to support members facing personal hardships, enabling them to continue participating in community activities and focus on their growth in the Web3 space. ensuring that all members have equal opportunities to develop their skills and contribute to the community. :peepoLove:

Research and Development: Support members who are interested in conducting research & developing new technologies within the Web3 space, by providing grants or resources to support their projects, and organizing events to showcase their work to the broader community, but this was already touched up on well.

Just some possible concepts and ideas as well; hope they can be of some help!:)

### Graven

**What does Cryptorado provide for me/us?**

Cryptorado is a Schelling point for those interested in blockchain/cryptography/web3/peer-to-peer technology to meet, learn, and share ideas. It provides a IRL complement and balance to all the time we spend online pursuing these interests. It is welcoming and valuable to those that just heard the word blockchain for the first and those that have been around for a decade+.

**What do we need money for?**

I believe self-restraint is a virtue here. There's already a significant treasury from previous rounds, and we haven't yet developed good muscle memory for utilizing those funds (coworking and pizza sponsorship for Solidity Deep Dives are a start!). I would prefer that we walk before we run and make good on the trust that previous donors placed in the group before overcommitting and asking for more. As Biggie said, "Mo money, mo problems." I don't want Cryptorado to fall into the trap of DAO politics, admin hell, and losing the vibe that makes it accessible+brings people back.

I like Red's framing for where to focus current funds. I think an area for growth is to support initiatives by community members explicitly focused on educational workshops/resources.

### Rowdy

**What does Cryptorado provide for me/us?**

Cryptorado provides IRL community in an incredibly digital space. Cryptorado acts as an entry point to the Crypto-curious, a place to network, get feedback on what we're building, and educate on current events or new technology. Inside Cryptorado exists a wide breadth people. A close group of organizers that work to support each other, provide the best events, content, and education possible while allowing for each event to have its own identity. There are veterans that have been in the space since the early days of bitcoin and people just learning what a wallet is. Professionals with 30 year careers and students in their final years of school before entering the workforce. To me Cryptorado is a place where all of these people come together with unique experiences to help support the Web3 community and the future of Blockchain.

**What do we need money for?**

I agree with what others have mentioned previously. I would like to echo a few of the points made.
Education - AV equipment to help increase the quality of these events, Digital Whiteboard to help when recording for YouTube, Help fund booking out spaces.
Coworking - A place to call our own. Would be amazing to buy a building but that might be a bit crazy. I would be great if we had a place to store equipment for events that all event hosts could access.
Brewery hangouts - Buy a few beers, some food, or even get Swag created for the community. IRL Art?
Adventures - Do fun things, most of us work hard and play hard.