Grant Proposal: The Graph Japan

Community Grant Applications
#1

Grant ID: 2xqdah4

Summary:

This proposal is not related to the operation of The Graph japan itself, but to the advertisement.

Coffeetimes Kaito, Japan’s most famous crypto researcher, is currently seeking sponsors for his e-newsletter.
https://twitter.com/CoffeeTimesTW

The Bspeak! e-newsletter has over 10,000 subscribers and is the most widely read, high-quality, free content in Japan.
Weekly publication with about 8,000 readers/week.
It may be easy to imagine it as a Japanese version of Bankless.

Contract fee is month-to-month at $2000/month
The benefits of being a sponsor include the ability to place a banner ad in every time (for everything from event invitations to job openings and integration opportunities), as well as the ability to create and publish his own research articles about The Graph on any topic of our choice.
I expect a one-month contract to start with.

He will also be launching a podcast in the future.
It will also be possible to have announcements and events related to The Graph mentioned in it. He is fluent in English, so it may be possible in the future to invite members of The Graph Foundation as guests for discussions in English. (In fact, I have invited him to an online meeting event for Solana Japan, which I was in charge of in the past, and he himself has handled interviews with founders of many projects in the past.)

In addition, The Graph Japan is currently working with Japanese incubators and the world’s top 10 advertising agencies to organize a Graph Hackathon in Japan, and this initiative will help to support this trend.

If you agree, we will proceed toward a contract, so please consider it.

Incidentally, all activities, including this application, are being conducted in consultation with Reem.

I have read and agree to the privacy policy:
true

If available, please enter a link to your project below:
https://twitter.com/graphprotocolJP

Are you applying as a team or individual?:
Individual

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

Please select the category your project best fits into:
Regional Community

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

How much funding are you looking for? (USD):
2000

Have you received funding from somewhere else?:
No

What’s your vision for how your project will impact The Graph and/or web3?:
In Japan, I have a national policy to promote web3. The Graph Japan will bring more participants to web3/The Graph by raising awareness and providing education and information about The Graph.

What can you share about any past work that is relevant to this grant?:
The Graph Japan was founded in January 2021 and continues to grow steadily.

Can you share any information about current/past web3 experience?:
In addition to my work with The Graph, I’m involved in educating the web3 community from a variety of categories, including Ocean Protocol Japan and zksync Japan.

Why are you interested in contributing to The Graph and/or web3?:
Because I believe that web3 will redesign the way people live in a better way and The Graph will make the world and society more convenient and friendly.




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1 Like
#2

Thank you for your proposal! I took a read and looked at the Twitter, I sadly cannot read Japanese so I can’t really check the newsletter. Would be helpful if a Japanese member would take a look too!
In addition to that I got some questions!

  • First just to clarify, because there might be a slight language barrier: Your proposal says “he will be launching a podcast in the future, etc, etc.” Is this person affiliated with you directly? Are you planning on making that podcast together? It’s not clear to me why you ask for a grant of 2000 dollars and then share someone else’s work.

  • The Graph Japan Twitter and community growth looks promising but still quite small. Can you show examples of active discussion and engagement? For example: The Telegram has 78 members according to your google sheet, but how many of those are saying anything regularly? From my experience with local communities these often have a lot of member but barely any activity. It would thus be helpful if you shared with us how people engage and talk in that community.

  • In general it is really not clear to me what you plan to do with the money that you’re asking for. Can you post an explanation/breakdown of what the 2000 dollars per month is for?

4 Likes
#3

Thanks for your application!
I check their weekly newsletter, which brings the latest and quality content to the subscriber.
Let every one save their time from Twitter and other resources.
So I surmise they have a good reputation in Japan’s crypto/blockchain field.
I have 2 questions:

  1. Could you provide the data like the number of subscribers and readers from their dashboard to prove it?
  2. Will the podcast be held every month? Or will it need to sign a longer contract for it? (e.g., 3 months sponsor for 3 or more articles and 1 podcast.)

I am looking forward to your reply!

5 Likes
#4

Hello.
Sorry for the late reply.

・It’s a “bankless sponsor” to put it simply. Sponsoring the Bankless newsletter is not sharing their newsletter or podcast, is it?

・Coffeetimes is starting to expand its reach with podcasts as well as newsletters. An added benefit as a sponsor is that The Graph will also be mentioned in the audio by the man who provides the highest quality content in Japan and has a high quality following as well.

・Twitter has by far the largest share of social media usage in Japan, double the global average. On the other hand, there are almost no Japanese who know about the service and tool called Telegram.

・While I cannot give specifics, I have received numerous proposals and requests from Japanese companies and projects for integration or to hold hackathons in Japan, some of which are being discussed with the Foundation and key members. Several indexers are also active and many engineers participated in Graph Day. I think that we’re not currently in the phase of increasing the number of GRT holders already, but rather in the phase of deepening collaboration and implementation with companies and projects.

・For your information, I have held 7 online The Graph Japan webinars since the launch request in 2021.
e.g.
https://twitter.com/graphprotocolJP/status/1427757918720430088
https://twitter.com/graphprotocolJP/status/1413102655203807234

・There is a sponsorship fee for media coverage and TV airing. The amount of media placement, original article writing about The Graph, and podcast mentions/commercials is $2000/month. This is a single month contract only.

#5

Thanks for the replies!

  1. I’ll inquire if he can submit it.

  2. it is a single month contract, I’ll try it for one month only, analyze what useful statistics I can get, and if the results are as good as the cost, I may consider the request again.

#6

Hi Takeshi!

Thank you for your reply! I still have some questions:

  • You say that you want to sponsor coffeetimes Kaito, I surmise from that that you want to sponsor them as “The Graph Japan” so that you can grow your audience, right? And that they will also mention the Graph in their podcast and other media. That sounds like a potentially good idea to me, just clarifying if I understand correctly!

  • I looked at the webinars and it seems like you are doing good work. Is there a way for us to view your past webinars?

  • Are you planning on measuring the effectiveness of sponsoring Coffeetimes Kaito? If you are sponsoring for 2000$ per month it would be important to measure whether that sponsorship is effective by clickthrough, engagement numbers, etc.

  • Your Twitter account has about 2000 followers but only gets 5 or 10 likes on tweets, are there any examples of more active community engagement? How many people join your webinars? Is there some kind of chatroom or server where people from Japan are talking about the Graph?

Thank you so much for answering our questions!

1 Like
#7

Thanks for keeping up!

  1. unfortunately I don’t record them. I’ll try to do so in the future. Basically, it’s about educating people on the roles of indexers, curators, and delegators and how to actually participate. I also invited Japanese projects such as Astar Network and JPYC to discuss use cases and integration.
    https://twitter.com/AstarNetwork
    https://twitter.com/jcam_official

  2. I’m currently asking administrators.

  3. there are usually about 30 participants. i don’t want to blame it on national character, but Japanese people tend not to like public discussions very I don’t want to blame it on national character, but Japanese people tend not to like public discussions very much.
    Although I publish occasionally, many original articles about The Graph have been created, and as mentioned above, I receive many inquiries from companies and projects.
    Talking about tokens might attract more people, but since its inception, the focus has been on recruitment and contribution. Many of skilled contributors participate directly in the English version.

#8

The primary purpose of community grants is to focus on supporting genuine building efforts in The Graph and web3 ecosystem. This submission boils down to a pay-for-play proposal. Supporting “Japan’s most famous crypto researcher” suggests that this person may already have superior access to financial funding and compensation, where a community grant does not seem of substantial need.

At this point I feel community grants from the Graph AdvocatesDAO should focus on builders in the web3 space who directly contribute with their efforts with a close alignment to the mission of the Graph AdvocatesDAO.

1 Like
#9

I see.
My philosophy for contribution activities is based on the principle of trying and working on more and more things that are necessary for the comprehensive development of The Graph (including projects I am in charge of such as zkSync and Aptos).

This proposal is part of that trial and error process.
As you can see, there is no advantage brought to me personally.
I approach my projects with the philosophy of “providing what is needed at the level needed,” and in fact zkSync and Aptos have attracted some of the best web3 developers in Japan because of this challenge.

This is what I need to do in order to realize the technical integration with giant companies that we are currently planning in cooperation with various organizations and to hold a hackathon in Japan. I feel that this is what the “focus on contributions by developers in the web3 field” is all about.
If I think broadly about what is needed in Japan as a region for the development of The Graph and web3, I will do this at my own expense as a personal initiative, since short-term expenses are not painful.

1 Like
#10

I give up on this proposal because it is a waste of time. (I will pay for it at my own expense after consulting with the Foundation.)
Jiimxjim, Tim. Thank you for your valuable input.

1 Like