Grant Proposal: DeFi Teller

Community Grant Applications
#1

Grant ID: 2w9eumd

Summary:

DeFi Teller is an educational resource that does the due diligence for the user by providing information about blockchain technology and decentralized applications (reviews, video explainers, on-chain data) in the most accessible way.

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If available, please enter a link to your project below:

Are you applying as a team or individual?:
Team

What type of grant are you pursuing?:
Project (one-off)

Please select the category your project best fits into:
Education

Please select who you think will benefit from your project?:
Other

How much funding are you looking for? (USD):
5000

Have you received funding from somewhere else?:
No

What’s your vision for how your project will impact The Graph and/or web3?:
Not many videos about The Graph have been published on the Internet. And those that are available, unfortunately, do not convey the essence of the protocol, or are made using low-quality graphics, and are difficult to perceive. We would like to make a short, beautiful video, and talk about how exactly The Graph is made (instead of talking about what data indexing is or how blockchain works).

What can you share about any past work that is relevant to this grant?:
We write scripts targeted at an audience with an average level of knowledge in blockchain. We target people who have a basic understanding of how blockchain works, as well as a cursory understanding of the crypto market and its key players. Our viewer has probably already used dApps on the simple purchasing/trading/borrowing/staking level. Our task is to immerse this user deeper and explain in simple words what technology lies behind a particular project. In doing so, we take the presentation format very seriously and try to dig deep, figuring out what is under the hood of technologies and projects and what exactly makes them special. For example, this is how we explained what rollups are: What are Еthereum Rollups and How Do They Work? Rollups Explained in Simple Terms - YouTube

We create distinctive visuals. The DeFi Teller team uses only original illustrations and takes a thoughtful approach to the process of video storyboarding. Our team of illustrators and animators works tightly with the editorial team, and the team of the project we’re reviewing. For example, our Polkadot video is now featured on the network’s introductory documentation page: Getting Started · Polkadot Wiki

Can you share any information about current/past web3 experience?:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4siZvLkAyiexFyPst1fC7w

Why are you interested in contributing to The Graph and/or web3?:
The goal of the DeFi Teller project is to make DeFi education accessible and comprehensible to everyone and make learning easy and popular. Shift the paradigm from “what coin to buy to make money” and try to motivate new users to learn the technology behind DeFi projects. The Graph as an infrastructure-shaping protocol is no exception. And we’d like to talk more about the protocol and thus attract users’ attention to it. The video produced as a result could also be used for the documentation of the project.




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#2

Hello!

I have a few questions regarding this grant application:

  1. What subject would this video be about? What is meant with “how exactly The Graph is made”?

  2. Could you give a detailed breakdown of the $5000 funding?

#3

Besides videos created by The Graph team, there is also a Finematics video on YouTube about the project. The Finematics video outlines why The Graph is there, mentions indexing, and talks about the roles that members of The Graph network perform. But imagine making an introductory video to the protocol, but for a slightly different audience - not for people for whom the very essence of the indexing process is new, but for those who are ready and willing to understand exactly what the process looks like from a technical standpoint. The first thing that comes to mind is to talk about the problem of decentralized indexing and to describe the process from when a dapp adds data to the blockchain to the point where the dapp can already use the data from the Graph Node on its app. We describe and show this flow by stopping at each element and explaining what’s remarkable about it - how the Graph Node scans the blockchain, why the WASM module is needed, and so forth. By doing so, we want to immerse the viewer a little deeper into the details of the protocol and talk about its technical component. By the way, at the time the Finematics video was released, The Graph only supported Ethereum, but now we can also talk about how it can work with many other networks.

Regarding the budget, the number of $5,000 is a rough estimate, we can give you the exact estimation of costs after the script is approved because most of the expenses are spent to pay the design and animation team, whose amount depends heavily on the script. At this point, I can give you an approximate breakdown of the budget in percentage terms.

Script

Writer - 8%

Editor - 7%

Voiceover recording - 4%

Storyboard

Illustrator - 21%

Designer - 15%

Supervisor - 10%

Animation

Designer - 25%

Supervisor - 10%

2 Likes
#4

Hi!

I think this is a very interesting proposal. I also have a few questions about this grant proposal:

  1. What is the skillset of the team that is performing this research (writing the script)? As you’ve said the purpose is a more technical understanding, I’m curious if you’re able to fill the appropriate expertise to deliver the content in a manner which doesn’t leave gaps in the explanation.

  2. In the application, it’s stated as a “Project (one-off)”. In this context, would this essentially be a deliverable of a single animated video?

  3. As a follow up, how does DeFi Teller operate when it comes to updating existing content? For example, if a video no longer delivers the most up-to-date explanation (new features are implemented/modified), would DeFi Teller periodically reproduce the video?

Thank you for the time in answering these questions!

2 Likes
#5

Hi! Thanks for your interest in the proposal and further questions, always happy to answer!

  1. The DeFi Teller team consists of writers and editors, a team of designers and illustrators, as well as a technical team that is actively involved in the life of the project. Our tech team lead Danil Vahidov has over 20+ years of experience in software architecture and design of high-load web systems as a team lead. Danil works together with the development team not only to build and maintain the website and on-chain data accumulation for defiteller.guru, but also advises the editors and writers whenever they need it. Also, when submitting a video about The Graph for funding, we will, of course, show interim results to The Graph team, for double checking.

  2. At this point, we suggest beginning with a single video explainer about The Graph. Of course, if you like the result and want to cover more, we are always happy to collaborate further.

  3. In this video we plan to cover the basics of The Graph, and as we write the scripts we try to minimize information that can quickly become outdated. If the protocol goes through a major update, it makes more sense to release a new video to draw attention to the changes.

I’d like to add a link to our latest Avalanche video to the discussion to show you another result of our work. The Ava Labs team appreciated this video, and we can boast of praise from Emin Gün Sirer among others. What is Avalanche Network and How Does it Work? Explained in 5 Minutes - YouTube

1 Like
#6

Thank you for those answers, that’s very helpful. I’ve posted a link to this proposal in our community to help gather some community feedback. Feel free to share this with your community as well.
Moving forward, I would be interested in setting up a time to discuss more about this proposal in a public setting if that works for you. We will reach out via email with more information on scheduling this meeting :slightly_smiling_face:

#7

Great, thank you! Looking forward to this meeting!

#8

I’m a creative, worked with Adobe suite for years and done design, animation, video…

Their Avalanche video is nice and it’s tough creating animation and scripting it for Web3/DeFi which not a lot of illustrators are doing (a good DAO idea for someone to start tho).

HOWEVER, no matter the time put in the video, it’s important to

  1. know who the audience is:

A) Is it Web3 native people? And are they much aware of protocols and how technical they are?

B) Are they Web2 people (web3 novices) and have no technical knowledge?

  1. overall goal of the advocates DAO

A) To onboard more Web3 technical people
B) To onboard more (non-technical/technical) people to Graph

Pertaining to whichever the audience is and the overall goal, going ahead with the grant might make sense.

HOWEVER, personally with the uprise of short-form videos I’d say a series of say 30s-60s videos about Graph could bring more eyes and people (technical or non-technical).

And this doesn’t mean the full-length 5 minute video wouldn’t help but the short video series can be done in conjunction. Or depending on available treasury, either or :grinning:

One thing that would be nice is for @DinaSche to break them down into shorter videos (that’s something we could help with too)

2 Likes
#9

Interesting point and would agree that this approach could prove to be very effective, seeing the rise of platforms like TikTok. By way of reference, are these the kind of videos that you would envision?

Curious if you feel if these types of videos could be improved upon, adjusted for a different audience or whether they in fact fit the bill.

3 Likes
#10

@Oliver checked out the videos and they’re awesome, professional done.

HOWEVER, given the rise of TikTok (overtaking YouTube and Google shortly and btw Graph is in competition with TikTok right now as well, just an FYI), short video is much more important.

Personally, I believe the videos above are overedited and a little bit ambiguous in terms of who it is targeting. It’s like trying to target people in Web3 that are a little bit technical and people outside of Web3 with the explainer videos and AI-like voiceover.

What would be a nice addition to that is breaking up that video (1 minute 20 seconds highly animated video, unrelatable professional video) into byte-sized digestible video series (one for Web2 people and one for Web3 people (can split that into technical and non-technical) and that my friend is how you take a step forward in competing with Google and TikTok.

3 series, each video has it’s own hook, it’s personal, relatable and targets the future generation that want to use Graph Protocol because it’s face it, my grandma, my mom, my dad, and most millennials don’t care and use Google but it’s Gen Z that is looking up info on TikTok and social media as opposed to Google.

That’s I feel like who you should target.

Heck that might be a good idea for a grant proposal, not sure if I can write up one. Just waiting for 2nd interview to join Advocates :grinning:

1 Like
#11

Coming back to the original proposal, the problem statement lays out that:

If the use case is identified to be mainly for the DeFi Teller platform, then I’m curious if the above type of examples are suitable introduction videos to use. @DinaSche

#12

Thanks for your comments and suggestions, @pooria and @Oliver! What a great idea about the short videos!

As for our channel, the situation is as follows:

  • The videos we have now, plus the ones that are in production at the moment, all fall under the same format of project review videos. The difference from our competitors, as I have already mentioned above, is that we try to show the projects’ architecture with a little more depth and define words like dapp, DEX, AMM, etc. less. Thus, we make reviews that are easy to understand for a beginner and don’t contain too much extra information. And a glossary of basic terms is planned as a dedicated section of the site.

  • It is evident that a series of 30-minute videos about The Graph will be quite different from the already established format of our videos, although they are not many so far.

  • It is also apparent that in asking for funding, we, in this case, are offering to produce what we believe to be fairly high-quality content on our end. Yes, the price might seem rather high, but we are perfectly aware of the fact that by funding the video, The Graph receives just a video about the project and does not receive additional marketing services, since we are just starting out and, alas, cannot boast of a multimillion audience yet (although we are moving towards that goal). And that’s why we’re not asking for more than the cost of the video. Thus, we are not only asking for funding for a video but for support for a project with an educational mission altogether.

  • Taking into account that so far you are just funding the creation of the video in DeFi Teller’s original style and do not get any substantial advertising bonuses from it, we are, of course, ready to meet you on the issue of writing a script and developing a storyboard and to discuss together the possible script structure and the information that would be important for the project to include in it. Also, the resulting video can be used by the project for its own purposes to illustrate the scheme of its work. So to answer your question, @Oliver, we can of course take into account the example topics you cited.

  • However, as for the length of the videos, while that’s a great idea, I won’t be able to give a quick answer here, unfortunately, because it’s a matter of changing the format of our channel and it may take some time to be settled.

Thanks again for the lively discussion of my proposal and the interesting comments!

#13

I like that approach and there is also another video out there which seems to be right up that alley and which has been incredibly popular: The GRAPH - Google Of Blockchains? GRT Token Explained - YouTube

My goal is trying to present alternative paths for accomplishing the same goal and minimize unnecessary redundancy. Using existing published material and videos could also enable your team making faster headway building out content for your site and not get bogged down with producing heavy material for a single protocol, which feels like it could take a month to produce.

You could also consider making your platform open-source to invite others to start building out content. A decentralized approach would also be more mission-aligned with the web3 ethos and may result in stronger support across different web3 communities.

I feel your project pursues admirable goals. However, the Graph AdvocatesDAO will need to prioritize which community grants to support as it has limited funding resources available. Based on that, along with the aforementioned reasons, I would say to no to this proposal at this time.


PS: on your website The Graph is assessed with a minus for the “Hacks” profile. Could you elaborate on what exactly that means? Thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
#14

Thank you, @Oliver! The idea of making our platform open-source is something we’re working on actullay.

It’s a pity we won’t be able to cooperate this time, but maybe we’ll find more ways to cooperate in the future! I would very much like to stay in touch anyway! You can reach out anytime on TG (@dina_schev)!

The minus sign means ‘no’, so there were no hacking attacks on The Graph. But a few people had already asked us that, and I think we’ll need to work on the design of the dapp pages, as people tend to perceive it negatively because of the red color, I guess. If you click on “show more” and start scrolling the page, the whole block will transform and it’ll just say “Hacks: no”.

Thanks!

#15

I know I’m slow to respond to this but I’m curious, if we decide to support this in the future. Is there a lower level of funding that could be used to accomplish the video? Would 30/60-sec shorts still require $5k funding to generate? I think one of the hard things for me to grasp (although I’m not a content creator) is the large amount of funding that would need to be allocated for this project. I think it would be easier to gain support for a smaller funded perhaps 30s video, gather community feedback, measure effectiveness then perhaps jump into larger projects if it’s found to be beneficial to the community. I imagine that we could also support some explainer videos on the DAOs operating around the Graph (AdvocatesDAO, SubgraphDAO, IndexerDAO - 3 separate videos). Just some ideas that I think could help get this proposal approved by the DAO

1 Like
#16

Proposal will be closed soon with comment “inactive”. Good standing, can be proposed again in the future.

#17

Unfortunately, this grant proposal did not generate the level of support in the community to move it to the next phase of the grant application process.

Thank you for submitting this proposal and you are encouraged to stay engaged in the Graph community. You are also welcome to submit new grant applications in the future with proposals that may generate stronger community support.

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