ISPOs have had a huge impact on the Cardano network for both good, and in some cases bad. The ISPO trend will not stop, but can it be improved?

We are proposing a platform for ISPOs to work with the network and other stake pools by providing a mechanism for ISPO pools too have their own category on the DAO and/or distribute tokens through community pools in any or all current DAO categories.

This will enable people to participate with the DAO as well as participating in one or all of the current ISPOs going on in Cardano.

It is very hard to track and manage ISPOs for users right now, but a platform that enables users to stake to 'ISPO Pools' as a group will ensure that ALL ISPOs benefit from funding, and ALL users benefit from all ISPOs.

StakingDAO will also encourage ISPOs to distribute through community pools based on one or all of the current stake pool groups on the platform.

This will have a knock on effect of creating a more decentralised ecosystem and supporting the small pools and mission driven or eco-friendly pools that are already working hard to support the network.

<u>How Will It Work?</u>

StakingDAO is a platform that aims to support small stake pools by enabling users to come to the platform and stake to groups of SPOs. The DAO acts as an automated stake balancer which aims to distribute stake evenly to all stake pools within a given group.

So far we have 5 Groups that all benefit decentralisation and/or Cardano's more altruistic side.

Considering the impact that ISPOs have had on the network so far, we want to figure out a way to work with ISPOs to help them run a stable and reliable funding round whilst trying to minimise any potential effects to network decentralisation.

<u>Implementation</u>

The DAO will have a new Pool Group, ISPOs, which users can stake to through the platform.

This will be a portfolio of ALL ISPO pools running at any given time.

The DAO will implement the regular balancer algorithm to distribute stake to these pools and create regularly rotate stake within the groups.

This will enable users to participate in ALL ISPOs at the same time, without having to manage multiple wallets, or need to keep track of timing for new or expiring ISPOs.

<u>Benefits To Users</u>

No need to track IPSOs directly

No risk of missing rewards from expired ISPOs

No risk of missing out on new ISPOs

Earning multiple new tokens from all current ISPOs

To learn more about the StakingDAO platform, check out our Whitepaper:

<https://stakingdao.ai/whitepaper/>

You can also watch these YouTube videos which explain various mechanisms of the DAO:

StakingDAO Playlist

The solution will address the challenge by supporting the development of projects building on Cardano whilst enabling more users to take part without the cost too decentralisation which we have seen over the last 6 months.

Instead the proposed solution will work to improve participation in ISPOs whilst also improving the decentralisation of the network

The main challenge we will have with this project is balancing and distributing stake through the different ISPO pools to ensure the best support possible for both the ISPO pools and users

With the DAO platform rolling out over 6 months, the ISPO platform will be ready for testnet in 3 months with a full mainnet launch in 6 months.

We will then continue to expand the DAO tools and progress to a full community handover and true DAO after 1 Year to ensure a stable platform and solid governance mechanism has been put in place.

<u>Q2 '22</u>

• Building Web app & UI for Testnet
• Deploy scalable solution to Testnet
• Begin contract audits

<u>Q3 '22</u>

• Open testnet platform for Alpha testers
• End of term final product audit to ensure security

<u>Q4 '22</u>

• Public Launch on Mainnet
• Onboarding Users

<u>Q1 '23</u>

• Initial IP Governance rollout
• Open Community IP Submittal
• Dev Team application

<u>Q2 '23</u>

• Community IP Voting
• Rapid Response Voting Mechanism
• Initial Committee application

<u>Q3 '23</u>

• Committee Onboarding
• Deployment of Standard Operating Procedures

<u>Q4 '23</u>

• Community Handover of DAO

10k front end development

• UI for ISPO pools - Onboarding / Pool dashboard & metrics
• UI for Users - Additional categories for ISPOs and basket creation process

10k plutus and backend development

• Plutus scripts for managing users
• Scripts for token distribution
• Tracking mechanism for ISPOs
• Automatic distribution of Tokens for projects

10K for onboarding processes and simple integration for ISPO Pools

• We need to build simple systems for onboarding projects so that we can make it as easy as possible for new projects
• We also need to create plutus scripts for token distribution, and/or a tracking mechanism for who is staking to what pool at any given time
• This will enable honest and fair token distribution

5k for marketing and promotion of ISPO mechanism for community onboarding

• promotional materials for project outreach and education
• technical breakdown of distribution methods to aid communication
• Promotional material of the platform to market to users

Rhys - SPO, Plutus Pioneer, Ux Ui

https://twitter.com/StoicPool

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhys-morgan-pt/

Edi - SPO, Software Developer, Plutus Pioneer

https://twitter.com/smoll_catto

Anthony - Web Developer, App Developer, Ux Ui

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-riera-96aba3133/

Success will be measured by the number of ISPOs included in the platform, and the total number of users delegating through the platform to these ISPO pools

We will also be measuring the number of ISPOs we can direct through community pools instead of (or as well as) spinning up their own pools

Success for this project will be a managed portfolio of all current ISPOs being managed partially through the DAO and distributed to DAO users

This proposal is connected to the StakingDAO proposal but is not reliant on that proposal and will be built regardless of any other proposal(s) getting funded