[Secondary Proposal] API LatAm

[Rico]

Team: API LatAm

Period: 1 Aug 2023 - 31 Dec 2023 (5 months)

Cycle: #6

Amount Requested: 58,025 USDC

Destination: 0x13B06db56A686271a73C39B8d8C9dba13B4DF567

TL;DR:

• Our primary development efforts have been QuantumFair, a raffle marketplace.

• QuantumFair aims to abstract the QRNG complexities and allow nontechnical people to utilize one of QRNG’s prime utilities: Raffles.

• In turn, QuantumFair becomes a living marketing vehicle for API3 on top of QRNG.

• We are pleased to announce that our MVP demo version is now live at QuantumFair.com, password: “AIRNODE”

• In October, we plan BETA release and will go to audits and go entirely live by EOY.

• If we create a token, up to 10% will be airdropped to API3 addresses that have voted on this and previous API LatAm proposals as a show of “thank you” and hopes for continued long-term alignment with API3; further details will come with time.

• We are aligned with IB20N24 mission and see ourselves as a satellite for Marketing and Business Development in increasing API3’s brand awareness.

Proposal:

The purpose behind QuantumFair (QF) is based on the idea that API3 marketing and business development has at least three external faces: One to dApps and its internal teams, the other to chains and its developers, and the third to dApps and its community. Our focus is on the third.

QF objective is to help the API3 brand become known as a trusted Oracle network in communities by facilitating value transference through raffles. For example, the ideal symbiotic relationship will be QF launches a raffle with a dApp and their community, where the dApp raffles their own prizes. This gives free marketing, but more importantly, it begins a trust-building relationship between the dApp, community, and API3 for future Oracle services.

QF allows anyone to deposit their prize (an NFT and/or ERC-20 pool) in a QuantumFair Vault. The raffle owner sets out their parameters (ticket price, ticket asset, raffle objective, reserve price, and expiry date). QRNG chooses the winners. The prize and funds are trustlessly transferred to the winner and predetermined addresses.

In addition to the QuantumFair development, the API LatAm team will continue to market and educate in the API3 Spanish channel, where its Twitter (X) account has almost reached 1,000 people and has networked with numerous Spanish communities across Web3.

Below are our marketing and technical accomplishments in the last four months and what we hope to accomplish in the next cycle.

Technical Abstract

We’ve developed a scalable and maintainable suite of contracts for creating randomized dynamics onchain, making use of QRNG technology and solidity patterns, providing users with different experiences on a web platform, starting with the generation of raffles, and enabling the continuous addition of more products.

Core Architecture

• QRNG: We use the QRNG airnode as a source of randomness for our services through a requester contract that handles the specifics of each module in the suite of contracts.
• Vaults: We have a set of contracts that enables a secured storage of assets for safekeeping during the duration of said dynamics available in the platform. The vaults can hold ERC20 and ERC721 tokens, and ETH. Having traceability and ownability of each of those to avoid any frontrunning attack and prevent at its utmost any loss in user tokens.
• Raffle: We implement a dynamic through a raffle service with different configurations, enabling players to distribute assets from a creator to the participants in the activity. The set of configurations are managed through parameterization, and the contracts are deployed using a minimal clonable proxy (MCP) pattern.

Workflow

We have different workflows based on the parametrization of the contract, but a general outlook will look as it follows:

1. The creator initializes a new raffle, with a contract being created as a Beacon Proxy using the MCP in the entry point contract.

2. As the contracts get created, the raffle state is set to uninitialized, the user then should open up the contract and lock the assets that will be used for the dynamic in a vault, that’s also generated using the factory pattern.

3. With the contract in an open state, then users can register themselves as participants by paying or not a specified fee in ETH or a predefined ERC20 token.
4. After the time is over, the raffle should be set to close. At this step for picking a winner, the contract makes a call to the Airnode through our requester contract.

5. Lastly, we retrieve the results after the request is fulfilled, and set the winner, and wrap up the raffle contract in a finished state.

Marketing

We created social media content based on research about the various products offered by API3, presenting it in a simple manner to educate the LatAm community. Additionally, parallel efforts were made in crafting strategies to enhance the reach and dissemination of the content.

Objectives:

• Increase Reach: With the changes made to the Twitter platform (X), the strategy has shifted towards creating more humanized tweets to foster interactions within the community. Throughout August and September, various approaches were implemented in how we engage and produce content to impact the web3 community significantly. The results are as follow:

MAY	JUNE	JULY	AUGUST	SEPTEMBER
REACH	REACH	REACH	REACH	REACH
40200	32300	52500	18000	21500
FOLLOWERS	FOLLOWERS	FOLLOWERS	FOLLOWERS	FOLLOWERS
7	12	10	198	107
LIKES	LIKES	LIKES	LIKES	LIKES
223	300	632	400	567
RT	RT	RT	RT	RT
113	145	217	196	213
REPLIES	REPLIES	REPLIES	REPLIES	REPLIES
28	50	131	50	81
ENGAGEMENT	ENGAGEMENT	ENGAGEMENT	ENGAGEMENT	ENGAGEMENT
22%	57%	63%	5%	6%

• Followers: The goal was to increase the number of followers on the account. Our follower base grew by creating more relatable and friendly posts, educational content about API3 products, interacting with other accounts, and following back.

• Digestible Content: In the case of Medium, our aim was to create valuable and engaging blog posts for the community, integrate them with API3 products, and share this content on the social media profiles of each team member. We succeeded in keeping the blog active with consistent views.

	May	June	July	August	September
	Views	Views	Views	Views	Views	Claps
General	12	66	163	97	151
Acceso a datos descentralizados, seguridad y confianza en la Web3 | by API3 DAO Español | Medium	x	15	61	40	37	161
https://medium.com/@API3Spanish/latinoamérica-un-territorio-lleno-de-potencial-para-la-web-3-dacfc6a4f695	x	x	52	35	58	212
Medium	x	x	x	x	46	250

• Connections: Social media growth isn’t solely the work of one individual; that’s why we form alliances with significant communities within the web3 ecosystem. One notable example is Criptocuriosas, which boasts active members in DAOs such as Bankless and Maker. This partnership aims to build trust within our community and bring us closer together.

Work Flow

The content strategy was devised by Diego, who selected the topics to be addressed, determined which points to explain, and decided on the approach to ensure general audience comprehension.

Alejandro was responsible for crafting persuasive copywriting and images and handling the writing tasks. He also monitored comments, interactions, and responses on social media.

Jessika conducted research, wrote original blog content, and also assisted in editing Twitter posts. She played a collaborative role and provided support in text editing, market research, and establishing partnerships with communities, becoming an ambassador for Criptocuriosas.

Furthermore, as part of our connections’ strategy, Spaces were introduced. Diego was behind this special content creation, designed to facilitate connections and enhance our positioning within various web3 communities.

Marketing Next Cycle

Alignment with the new perspective of DAO marketing, we’ve decided to focus our efforts in the coming months as follows:

Content Creation

Objective: Generate content for all levels of knowledge to attract users of varying expertise levels, from curious newcomers to experts. This approach will increase our visibility on social media and attract more developers and individuals interested in API3 products.

Tweets: Create interactive community tweets and dynamic thread explanations of API3 products.

Medium: Produce creative and technical content about different API3 products, intertwining them with topics of interest to the LatAm community. Articles should be concise, not exceed 1000 words, and include original images we created.

Spaces: Host two monthly Spaces sessions with Latin American communities to enhance visibility and strengthen alliances with other communities while providing educational content.

These Spaces will be directly with the Latin communities of the networks compatible with API3 oracles.

• arbitrum_esp

• OptimismESP

• Moonbeam | Español

• MetisLATAM

• 0xPolygonLata

Monthly Grants

Name	Role	Amount (USDC)
Rob	Co-lead	0
Andres	Co-lead	3,500
Giancarlo	Tech Developer	3,000
Topo	Designer	1,500
Marketing	3 x Team	2,550
Total		10,550
Total 5 months:		52,750

Expenses

+10% overhead ($52,750)		5,275
Grand Total:		58,025

[Midhav]

I’d like to posit a bit of an alteration to this proposal - I’m actually keen on the idea of QuantumFair being its own independent project that API3 can invest into with API3 tokens as a one time seed investment (in addition to the reward for voters idea). Is this a route you’d consider going for? In this case it’d ofc need to have the standard process of figuring out what its future growth (with revenue in mind) for the project would look like, etc

[Rico]

Thanks for the idea, Midhav. A while back (and even in the Honeycomb days) @Erich , @heikki , and a few others discussed the idea of creating an API3 Venture Fund (separate from the API3 Foundation, for legal reasons iirc). If QF<>API3 were to go down that route, I believe the API3 DAO would have to re-surface the venture fund idea first. In any event, an API3 venture fund is an idea worth considering in general.

[Midhav]

I think it’s possible to do it without formalizing it that way, via a proposal
But I do agree that the venture fund idea in general can be set up in the near future - Heikki and I last discussed that the data feeds needed to be live first, which is the case now

[kcorstor]

I have a hard time supporting expenditures that aren’t directly related to data feeds right now. This seems tangential to that and is seems to just be a QRNG use case- of which there are already multiple examples of.

I don’t see how API3 would directly get $60k of value back from this, especially while money is being tightened in several core areas.

[Midhav]

yeah, this is also part of why i’d rather that it be a one-time investment, first of its kind
if it can prove that it can have future growth as an independent project ofc

[Rico]

Thank you for your comment, Kevin.

Here’s the link to the proposal. If anyone has any questions or comments please feel free

[cypherbadger]

@kcorstor thanks for share!

This proposal is more than “just” a QRNG use case; it represents
the evolution of API LatAm’s previous proposals. In addition to introducing a new dAPP, QuantumFair, this initiative aims to expand API3’s reach and brand awareness.

We have become an extension to API3 BD and Marketing, not just focusing on LatAm but extending to the broader community. We will contact potential dAPI dApps to join QuantumFair and begin raffles for their users. Once a relationship is built, we will introduce and sell API3 products (dAPIs).

dAPIs are ready to sell, and we become part of this broader API3 adoption mission. The more important question becomes: what’s API LatAm track record, and can we deliver more dApps to API3?

Two of the four currently listed dApps using API3 on defillama have come from the help of API LatAm (and previous BD, and ecosystem teams), specifically Tropykus and Mean Finance.

Tropykus came from the collaborative efforts of El Salvador’s state bank Bankathon, and were great partners to work with given their professionalism.

Mean Finance first connected with API3 through our Spanish channels and has also been a great partner to work with.

We are a team with a track record to continue and deliver, and QuantumFair allows us to speed up API3 adoption process.

[Midhav]

After gaining a bit more context that I seem to have missed out before, I just wanna highlight that the proposal basically comprises of 2 parts that IMO are adjacent to each other

LatAM:
The previously core element of these proposals - the component that’s responsible for half of the users that API3 services. The networking/BD has clearly paid off in how it managed to bring basically half of the users that API3 publicly has atm. It seems like this has been some of our best BD so far, though I would add that I’m unclear as to whether the marketing that was highlighted really played a role in bringing this forward. If it did, which might be unknowable, then gg it’s worth it (I guess my question here is: how were the connects with the dApps that you brought into the fold made?)
I’m curious though as to what happened with the ventures that were undertaken in the prior cycles - namely related to ETHKipu, ETHVolcano, and the legal expert that was tapped into for strategic planning around regulatory opportunities - since the results of these endeavors were eschewed in favour of talking about QF. I saw on my timeline today that EV is currently active, but it’d be cool to see what sort of results have come out of it

QuantumFair:
A promising dApp in the works which seems like a separate project in of itself. What I don’t get about this though is that it was supposed to have been completed in Cycle #4 (per its own description). It was relatively more of a footnote in Cycle #5, where it was simply stated that development on it continues without explaining what exactly has happened. So I don’t understand what has really been done in its development over the past 7 or so months that warrants further investment into it, and again, why this shouldn’t just be a separate project that the DAO provides a seed investment for in exchange for equity. Some more clarity on this process is required either way, and would definitely be needed in further detail for the path that I’d highlighted.
I also think that it is supposed to branch away from the core function of LatAM and would become more of generalized marketing/BD vehicle, which should be reflected in the purpose of the proposal - in that it detracts from being region-specific. Furthermore, it is unknown if this will even serve its intended purpose, given that it seems experimental in nature in how it wants to approach other projects (there isn’t further context provided as to what demand exists for raffles in general, what the existing market there is like, etc)

TLDR: LatAM BD good, marketing idk, QF its own thing, why QF so long, why QF

[Jessiway]

An important note; API LatAm is also involved in a partnership with a Salvadoran university, La Universidad de Matias, for a pilot program for developers to teach solidity, which includes teaching students on the importance of Oracles (API3). If this course is successful, the university will make this an official class. We expect to grow this course to other Salvadoran universities and organically, bringing developers to API3 ecosystem year-round.

ETHVolcano 🇸🇻

[cypherbadger]

Let me shed some light on our progress.

Firstly, you’re right in noting that QuantumFair was initially intended to be completed in Cycle #4. However, like many development projects, we faced unforeseen challenges that led to delays. We’ve been working diligently to address these issues, and I’d like to assure you that your patience and the community’s trust in us haven’t been in vain.

Over the past seven months, not only have we continued the development of QuantumFair, but we’ve also launched multiple contracts versions:

• Version 1.0 was successfully deployed on the Goerli network in June 2023. You can verify this deployment here.

• Following that, Version 2.0, which serves as our current MVP, was deployed on the Optimism network in July 2023. Details of this can be found here.
  

  

• Most recently, we’ve developed Version 3.0, which we are excited to merge soon. This version is currently on the Optimism-Goerli network, and its deployment can be reviewed here.
  

  

Thank you for your feedback on scaling QuantumFair into an independent project. We value all community input. Right now, our focus is on the post-MVP release, where the majority of the work is on front-end mechanics. Additionally, our brand awareness plan is set to roll out soon (-hope to see you participating- ). We remain open to discussions on the project’s direction.