This is great, when can they get started.
Iām hoping for a 1-2 week timeframe for launch. Friday (tomorrow) we will be having another discussion in discord during our swim meet time. From that we will have a revised version of the PTIP to get closer to voting it into reality. Then we have our call to artists post and then we should be rolling!
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*** REVISED PROPOSAL ***
Simple Summary
Introduction of a NFT Pool as a governance pool and a marketing campaign targeting contributions from the NFT creator community. The intended outcome is to attract new players and generate yield for the treasury from the player deposits, with the vision to maintain a self-sustaining pool targeting the NFT creator community.
Abstract
This proposal will allocate [1,300] POOL from treasury to a multisig wallet to
- Sponsor a series of PoolTogether-themed NFTs with creators that would be awarded within the NFT Pool week by week, with a targeted sponsorship of 100 POOL per NFT (in total 11 NFTs)
- Reward 100 POOL each to the contributors of this governance proposal
- Further, the user interface should be updated to improve the visibility of the NFT content
- Set a drip rate equivalent to [50] POOL per day to the NFT Pool [TBD how this works with polygon pool] to incentivise deposits
- The NFT Pool is planned to be launched with DAI on AAVE via Polygon as a yield source to lower gas fees and help facilitate smaller deposits.
Motivation
As the worldās largest crypto no-loss lottery, PoolTogether provides a valuable entertainment and service to encourage people to save money. In addition, PT participants get acquainted with crypto currencies and gain the additional exposure to the new area of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) space.
With the loot box, PoolTogether implemented a feature that enables donation of tokens and all kind of NFTs that are also sent to the winner of that rounds lottery. So far, it has mostly been used by other crypto projects to reach the PoolTogether community for marketing purposes. NFT creators have not been attracted by it yet, however, PoolTogether with its c. 19k followers on Twitter as well as more than 4,800 active players represents a suitable audience.
Taking the loot box as a starting point, the community brought up the idea of a pool dedicated to NFTs to create additional value to players, the PoolTogether protocol as well as to contribute to the broader NFT and DeFi ecosystem.
Specification
Overview
Establishment of a new āNFT Poolā with additional UX features to encourage artists to contribute NFTs:
- Displayed on governance pool overview page
- Gallery view integration of contributed NFTs in a separate section (to avoid the risk of too much fuzz on the Pool page)
- Links to artist profiles on relevant platforms including rarible, opensea, makersplace, SuperRare, Instagram, Twitter etc.
- Use DAI in AAVE on Polygon as a yield source, mint NFTs on Ethereum
- Benefits for artists to participate in this campaign:
- o Selected artists are paid 100 POOL for their PoolTogether themed pieces
- o This provides artists with more exposure in the crypto world
- o If minted e.g. on Rarible, the artists will still make a defined percentage on all sales as commission/royalty. Artists can choose to mint themselves or PT can handle it with an āofficialā account
Rationale
We chose this set of integrations as they both reward the artists for their commissions by actual payment for their work as well as further exposure in the crypto world. Having the loot box display NFTs through a gallery style view encourages others to participate in the prize through their donations and potentially attract more PT players beyond just the NFT prize pool. In the week commencing 26th April, we saw the first ever NFT submission to the DAI pool and are convinced that more creators will follow after the launch of an even more tailored solution.
PoolTogether would also do a public call for artists to create PT themed NFTs in a competition through a medium article. This creates community engagement. Here is an example from $MEME / 0xb1 that was highly successful: 0x_b1 Commemorative NFT Art Competition | by Don't Buy $MEME | Medium
The campaign should be accompanies by medium posts with detail on the artists and artworks as well as regular tweets.
The web designer to implement the UX changes is assumed to be part of the PoolTogether Inc. team and this project will require some graphic design for illustrating the NFT prizes and setting the stage in the medium article. Both should be compensated for their time as well. The first iteration of this PTIP comes from this forum post. In this PTIP we focused primarily on the first point (PT x NFT Artists) as it provides the greatest benefit for work & funding required. We could explore the other two options in the future.
The community already secured three artists and is trying to fill 1-2 more slots. Committed contributors are:
- Simon Wan (@IAMSIMONWAN / https://simonwan.com): known for his neon scribbles, Simon had a notable sale together with Robin Schmidt from The Defiant as well as MEME. They created the highly successful Rug Pull experiment in the second half of 2020 that was sold for ca. $65k, being the first artwork ever to combine physical art, NFT art and implemented value in form of a wrapped BTC. Simon completed his work already and the NFT āRobot Madonnaā will be accompanied by a beautiful physical artwork to be sent to the address of the winner. He already leaked the alpha on his Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/p/CONlEcvBV28/
- Yusaymon (@yusaymon)
- Hans Haugaard (@haugaardhans / https://www.hanshaugaard.com)
The creators of this proposal would also like to encourage both @Oops and @qwercus as gifted creators within the PoolTogether community to also grab brush and pencils!
To incentivise artists to continue to donate, our short term solution is to have a 11 week campaign with 1 sponsored NFT per week. We would encourage artists to use the Rarible platform to mint their NFT artwork. This way they will earn a set commission on all subsequent sales of their work, in case the loot box winner decides to sell the prize. The sponsored NFTs will be rewarded to the Polygon DAI NFT Pool winner (via Ethereum Multisig). Winner is automatically selected using standard Pool randomization (No prize on Polygon as itās 100% reserve), then we send the weekās NFT to the same address on Ethereum as itās an EVM compatible chain.
If the initial campaign turns out to become a success, the community can vote to increase budget to sponsor more and/or higher profile creators. We hope the call to artists will add a sizeable list of interested artists to select from and maintain this as an ongoing event.
Technical Specification
The proposal does not require changes to contracts as the NFTs will be awarded based on the current DAI prize pool strategy, but with a 100% reserve rate.
Other Requirements/ To-Do Objectives:
- Medium Article to make artists aware of the event to participate & build hype together with a Twitter campaign
- Artist interest submission form
- Create Multi-sig wallet (2 signers, @Gabor & @AndyKaufman. Or 4 signers, previous 2 mentioned + 2 community representatives?)
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This has gone to an onchain vote!
PTIP-8: PoolTogether NFT implementation and marketing campaign
On-Chain:PoolTogether Vote
POOL Pool Snapshot: Snapshot
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Has there been a ācall for artistsā yet?
Not yet @AndyKaufman has a nice rough draft and the details are being ironed out
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Posted it not too long ago, we were waiting to see if PT Inc. would post on their medium or not. As they prefer to focus on the protocol they will instead promote the article on their social channels for us~
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In case you missed it the NFT Prize Pool is live on Polygon! Take a look at the final award schedule & unique 1 of 1 artworks created for it! First Prize Swimming Pool By Hans Haugaard will be awarded Friday June 18th during our community call, 1 prize per week until August 6th! Article with Reward Schedule: š¼ļøThe NFT Prize Pool is Live!š¼ļø | by Andy Kaufman | Jun, 2021 | Medium Direct Link to prize pool (Polygon USDT): https://community.pooltogether.com/pools/matic/0xEf1BA9F254b02D4886C909537F11a3104eFAaB1f Custom Landing Page: Soon!
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Dear Community,
After the award of the last NFT prize, Robodonna by Simon Wan, on Friday 13th August, I would like to reflect on the NFT pool campaign and share some thoughts.
On 19th April, @AndyKaufman and I submitted a post to the governance forum laying out the basic idea of the NFT pool. This was on the basis of an inspirational post from February 23 (āPoolTogether & NFTsā). The community support, expressed both in the governance forum as well as the weekly community call, was overwhelming and after a successful governance vote, we got to work. Mid May, Andy posted a āCall for Artistsā through a medium blogpost, announcing a reward of 100 POOL (back then roughly $2,000) for PoolTogether-themed submissions. On the first day, we already received two submissions.
Timing played a critical role during the whole campaign. When we started brainstorming, NFT art was just really taking off. The kickoff was even before Beepleās epic Christieās sale. It feels like itās already years back! In addition to the public announcement, we reached out to various well-known artists in the hope to collaborate and spark their excitement for the PoolTogether NFT pool idea. This attempt left us pretty disappointed. Even DeFi-savvy creators didnāt respond to requests. To our mind, a $2,000 paycheck was pretty mouth watering and I also discussed with a few artists about what could be an appropriate amount. But in light of the heat of the NFT art market back then, it just wasnāt attractive to most, as a drop on one of the leading marketplaces resulted in a multiple of what we were able to offer. What disappointed me most was that very few creators really understood (or didnāt even care to understand) the potential of the NFT pool and that many didnāt appreciate participating in an OG DeFi protocol initiative due to all the fuzz.
Andy and I felt that we needed help and we were happy that @regisisland joined us and supported us in reaching out to artists. Together we managed to acquire a couple of talented and already successful artists that built the base of the prize pool. This was complemented with some of the (only) 26 total applications from community members as well as outside of the community. Again, we were really surprised by the low number of applicants, which pointed at marketing deficiencies.
The creativity of the artists is something that gave me hope. The small fish in the pool of Hans, the NoLoss hat robot Madonna from Simon - it made me happy to see that artists pick up community elements and come up with really cool artworks I certainly wanted to win and own 
ā¦ and then came @Oops. We had to push him a bit to participate, humble as he is, but when he released his artwork portraying key community contributors the hype was real. The artwork came late and the campaign was already running but it helped to catch and keep up attention.
Before launch, getting the polygon pool running caused some headache. We learned that setting a 100% reserve rate on a pool results in no prize draw at all and had to wait one more week after setting the reserve rate slightly lower. Another area of concern was how to present the pool at all. From the outset, the initiators expected that the pool gets added to the PoolTogether app and the UI can get extended through a NFT display, as presented in governance. This was then to our frustration turned down and we were forced to come up with an alternative very quickly. Thankfully, @pedrovilela. We had to push him a bit to participate, humble as he is, but when he released his artwork portraying key community contributors the hype was real. The artwork came late and the campaign was already running but it helped to catch and keep up attention.
The first prize was awarded on June 25th. The timing of the prize draws was good as it fell into the weekly community call, therefore the winner was always announced at a time when there was some attention from the community. Nevertheless, participation in the pool was disappointingly low. At peak, the pool had ca. USDT 60,000 deposits from less than 70 wallets/players. It doesnāt even make sense to start calculating the interest generated for the protocol treasury in light of this number, hence from an economic perspective the project was a complete failure. What could have been the drivers?
- Were the prizes unattractive? We tried to get the best possible NFT artworks into the pool and even enhanced the experience through the ability to win three canvas paintings on top. We didnāt manage to get pak or Beeple to participate, but still some artworks should have been appealing, and participating with a couple of hundred dollars in a polygon pool that comes with limited transaction costs should be fun regardless
- Was the timing bad? Maybe. Between idea generation and launch, the focus in the NFT space completely shifted away from art to generative avatars. During our launch, Hashmarks, Bored Apes, Bored Penguins, Pudgy Dog Beach Club and so on were launched, consuming most of the attention in the space. Cryptopunks went parabolic. In a smaller group, we brainstormed what NFT could be added during the campaign to create some hype. A fractionalised punk? A full Bored Ape? A sorare game card? Axies? The space is so broad, its very hard to pick the right NFT to get significant deposits
- Was the marketing insufficient? My sentiment tends to a definite YES. Spreading the word was performed by community members, mainly Andy, regis and me. The pool was not āofficiallyā PT and thus may have lacked legitimacy. I am confident that adding the Pool with UI adjustments to the application as well as announcements from the official PT twitter acc would clearly have helped a lot. There were times when we felt left alone / unsupported but we had to accept it and make the best out of it. In addition to internal resources, I think in retrospect that it would be beneficial to team up with a high profile NFT project which allows us to tap into an NFT community for more attention and participant access. For example, teaming up with $MEME and integrate a NFT pool into their offering could be promising
- Polygon prize pools were quite new when we started and many people may have been uncomfortable with bridging assets and aping in. I donāt think that USDT added to this but overall the barriers to entry to non-degens were rather high I suppose
We still think it was fun. Even though it was annoying that yearn seems to have won Robodonna and not me. I received pictures from happy winners enjoying the artworks not only in their wallet but on their wall, like this:
Feedback and reflections are very welcome. What did we miss? What could be done better if there is a potential second season of the NFT pool? It would be a shame to bury the well designed landing page and the overall idea as I think thereās much that can be developed out of this.
Lastly, we have remained within budget and got 125 POOL left in the multisig. What should we do with it?
- Send back to treasury
- Hold for the time being until there may be a second NFT pool season
- Other (please specify)
0 voters
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I thought the NFT Pool was amazing!
I canāt really speak more highly of this. So highly that I even left my Discord cave to come say so. There is soooo much value in this outside of the āeconomicsā. This concept is so powerful, and it opens up peopleās minds to a world of opportunities. As an example Iām already working on a plan to mimic this exact structure through a different project, hiring artists in that coin to create NFTs I can distribute through a pool. In this particular case we are trying to distribute, so economics and sustainability donāt matter. Itās the idea, and itās powerful.
We should keep doing this. Even at a loss. Itās about showing people a true and logical usecase for tokens, defi, and nfts all in one! This is going to be huge and we cannot stop now.
Pivot, sure. Change up the plan, marketing. Maybe a branding switch? Iām going to be giving this a second test of my own to see for myself. There is too much value here long term and itās ours for the taking.
Hats off to everyone involved <3 You are amazing people, and Iām grateful that you continued to push me to contribute. I even won one!! Itās the wallpaper on all my devices!
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Thank for this detailed write up @gabor ! Here are my thoughts:
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First off, I applaud your effort! I think you were prescient in planning this NFT campaign. You were clearly ahead of the curve and Iām so glad you got us all started on thinking about the best way to integrate NFTs with PoolTogether. IMO, this project was a huge success ā perhaps not in terms of AUM but in terms of getting us started in NFTs and experimenting.
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Second, I apologize for miscommunications around support from PoolTogether Inc. or a lack of support. In general, I tried to be as supportive as possible (sharing it on twitter many times, including it in the weekly announcements every week, etc). I understand the big missing piece was user interface support on app.pooltogether.com. The issue with this was that the NFT prize pool was very different from all other prize pools we have, the interface updates would not have been small or quick. I was very happy @pedrovilela came through with what I think was an awesome interface.
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Iād LOVE to see the team that worked on this continue to work on NFTs + PoolTogether. I just donāt think a dedicated NFT prize pool is the best integration point. Right now Iām thinking of three main things: 1). Use NFTs for education / participation awards (this is what @mkkoll has been spearheading) 2). Launch a PoolTogether NFT line where the NFTs are sold (I have ideas on this we can discuss). 3). Add NFTs as bonus prizes to the existing prize pools. I think pursuing any or all three of these directions will yield better results.
Again, thanks for this great write and the work! I see it as big success in moving us closer to unlocking NFTs + PoolTogether
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I will absolutely be using learnings from this project to inform any distribution idea we come up with for an in-app gamified rewards system.
As @Leighton also said, I think our first attempt at doing this was waaaaay ahead of the curve in terms of the NFT game. It almost feels like we were too early 
Iād love as many team members as possible to have input into our next forays into leveraging NFTs to improve the experience.
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