Headline: Allocation of funds to Digital Infrastructure Inc for DIMO Marketing
Author: Sam Lewis
Submitter(s): The DIMO Foundation [0xCED3c922200559128930180d3f0bfFd4d9f4F123]
Status: Deployed
Voting URL: Snapshot
Discussion Forum: Discord #🗳️governance forum
Vote Type: Level 3
This DIP allocates funds from the DIMO Treasury to Digital Infrastructure Inc. to help further the team's efforts to onboard new users onto the DIMO protocol and grow engagement. It explains the goals, restrictions, and responsibilities that come with this allocation.
It also allocates a maximum pool of tokens that can be used for "learn" or "quest" related programming.
While DIP-8 establishes a team for issuing grants, this proposal is being voted on separately due to its magnitude. The combined size of the grants allocation is up to 44,000,000 $DIMO split into tranches contingent on hitting specific milestones.
The goal of this proposal is to deploy resources to increase the velocity of onboarding new users onto the DIMO network by driving brand awareness, growing and educating the community, helping establish a presence in new markets, and more. As DIMO broadens its reach, more cars will connect and more developers will build, accelerating the flywheel.
Digital Infrastructure Inc.'s Growth Team
- Incentivize user adoption: Create initiatives that educate and encourage new users to join the DIMO protocol and try its services. This can drive sustained user adoption and increase overall engagement with the project.
- Increase brand awareness: Work to raise awareness of the DIMO protocol, ensuring that the brand is consistently and effectively communicated across different platforms in a trusted manner.
- Develop and manage partnerships: Establish and maintain strategic partnerships with influencers, affiliates, and other relevant organizations to help expand DIMO’s reach, amplify its messaging, and build its credibility.
- Expand DIMO’s footprint into new regional markets: Expansion presents several unique challenges ranging from prioritization, marketing, localization, demand for specific services, etc, that we will seek to push forward.
Digital Infrastructure Inc and associated contractors will achieve its purpose through a combination of initiatives, ranging from blog posts, tweets, podcasts, incentive programs, media appearances, event sponsorships, quest programs, community moderation, and more.
This team is uniquely qualified given their proven track record of growing the DIMO protocol to date (over 12,500 cars connected), their extensive growth/marketing experience, and domain knowledge across connected vehicles and web3. This team has also proven to act in good faith of the DIMO community.
This proposal acknowledges the responsibility that comes with funding and the use of the DIMO brand. The team intends to rigorously evaluate initiatives that drive core metrics and build trust with the community.
Some key initiatives include additional user token incentive programs; affiliate and brand partnerships; content and thought leadership; paid advertising and SEO; and funding DIMO quests on platforms such as Coinbase Learning Rewards, Layer3, or others.
While subject to change, the focus is on managing specific metrics that tie directly to the mandate:
| Mandate | Core Metrics & Responsibilities | Example Use of Funds: |
|---|---|---|
Incentivize user adoption (True north metrics). | Increase the number of connected vehicles on the DIMO protocol, and the rate at which vehicles are onboarded. Increase the volume of marketplace transactions taking place on the DIMO protocol. Increase in traffic from referrals, social media, content creators. | Token incentive programs. Referral and ambassador programs. Automotive, crypto influencer and affiliate programs. |
| Increase brand awareness. | Increase in social channel activity and consequently the number of followers and engagement on social media channels. | Conference and event participation. Public relations & image building. Community contests and giveaways. |
| Develop and manage partnerships. | Negotiate terms of programs. Monitor CAC and LTV. Create content, desired outcomes and support implementation. Measure program effectiveness towards core metric goals. | Web3 Quests. Paid advertising & SEO. |
| Expand DIMO’s footprint into new regional markets. | Help identify new regions and cultivate pre-launch demand. Increase the number of connected vehicles in new regions. | New geo-based token-incentive programs. Regional Ambassadors. |
Funding Initiatives: This proposal sets aside a pool of up to 44,000,000 $DIMO. For the avoidance of doubt, this pool of funds is for marketing initiatives and not to be used for payment to Digital Infrastructure Inc with the exception of the compensation specified below.
These tokens would come from the unallocated treasury pool of $DIMO and any additional future funding would require another DIP. If Digital Infrastructure Inc. wishes to fund marketing initiatives with a mix of $DIMO and stable tokens/fiat, they may sell a portion of their $DIMO allocation, so long as they do so at market price on exchange or within 10% of current market price OTC / private placement.
In the event of non-compliance or ineffective performance the DIMO Foundation, acting in good faith, or $DIMO token holders via governance vote, may call this allocation back. Digital Infrastructure Inc. agrees to honor such a request promptly.
Compensating the team: For 12 months, or until amended by a governance vote, Digital Infrastructure Inc. will receive $10,000 USD equivalent in $DIMO as a flat monthly fee for providing this service ($120,000 USD equivalent total). This will come out of the budget specified above and will come in place of the $150/hr compensation that could have been paid to Digital Infrastructure growth team personnel as specified in DIP-6.
Funding for ecosystem marketing initiatives will be unlocked in tranches as described below.
| Tranche 1 | Amount | Unlock Criteria |
|---|---|---|
| Tranche 1 | 7M $DIMO | Unlocked once DIP-9 Passes. |
| Tranche 2 | 7M $DIMO | Unlocked once 50,000 vehicles IDs minted on-chain. |
| Tranche 3 | 10M $DIMO | Only to be used for "quest" or "learn" style programs whereby participants must perform some action (e.g., mint their car, complete an quiz about DIMO, etc.) to earn a small reward. |
| Tranche 4 | 20M $DIMO | Similar to Tranche 3, these tokens are only to be unlocked for "quest" or "learn" programs, but may only be used with Coinbase's Learning Rewards platform. Coinbase Learning Rewards allows the roughly 100,000,000 Coinbase users to earn $DIMO by completing informative quizzes and quests (e.g., mint your car, share your car, use an app). |
The operating team may utilize the DIMO IP, such as trademarks and web domains, owned by the DIMO Foundation. It may also engage with partners/affiliates on DIMO’s behalf.
Specifically, this team will have exclusive control over:
- The official DIMO Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube
- The official DIMO Blog Platform
- The ability to create new official content channels
This team is not asking for the authority to limit the ability of community members to form unofficial groups and channels, write about DIMO, speak on podcasts, form communities, organize meetups, etc.
Digital Infrastructure Inc is committed to:
- Act honorably and in the best interest of the protocol
- Avoid conflicts of interest
- Assist other teams in promoting their various activities through official channels
- Strive to maximize transparency by providing community updates including:
- Specific incentive program performance (if applicable);
- $DIMO and stable tokens spent and amount left in the pool; and
- Reporting on relevant growth marketing metrics that Digital Infrastructure Inc is already tracking.
There is an element of uncertainty regarding the impact of various initiatives on customer acquisition and brand perception. However, this risk is a necessary one, as it enables the brand to establish its presence, reach its target audience, and achieve long-term success. Funding growth initiatives is common amongst other reputable and successful blockchain communities.
If passed, the team will immediately begin working towards its mandates. The initial token allocation of 7,000,000 $DIMO will be allocated via the DIMO Foundation after the four-day timelock concludes.
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0
Please cite this document as:
The DIMO Foundation, "DIP - 9: Marketing", no. 9, May 2023. [Online serial]. Available: [https://github.com/DIMO-Network/DIP]
May 30, 2023: added detail to the OTC sale terms.
May 31, 2023: altered the budget to exclude a mandated OTC sale for increased flexibility.
June 9, 2023: added provision to request a return of the allocation and additional flexibility in the tokens allocated for "learn" programs.
July 6, 2024: disclaimer adjusted and title changed per DIP 1-15: Amendment 1.
The contract addresses for $DIMO are 0x5fab9761d60419c9eeebe3915a8fa1ed7e8d2e1b on Ethereum and 0xE261D618a959aFfFd53168Cd07D12E37B26761db on Polygon. Please always confirm that you are interacting with these contract addresses and not those of a fraudulent imitator. This proposal may not be enacted if it violates Cayman Islands law. Please triple check that any communications are authentic as it’s common for scammers to try to trick you into sending them crypto or into revealing your private keys.
Certain statements in this document constitute forward-looking statements. The words “may,” “will,” “should,” “project,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “intend,” “expect,” “continue,” and similar expressions or the negatives thereof are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements, including the intended actions and performance objectives, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that could cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and nothing in this document represents a promise of specific work to be completed in the future.