Forgive me for my head has mostly been in development and I do not know the nuances of how the Polkadot treasury has been working.
Lately, I have come across many developers (including myself), teams, and companies that are eager to build for-profit products on Polkadot; ranging from UI’s to full-blown parachains.
What is the means for which we can fund teams who want to build for-profit products on Polkadot?
Is the treasury only for funding community, non-profit projects or can it also be used to fund for-profit products?
My personal take: If one takes community money to fund a for-profit, then the treasury should in essence become a stake holder, getting a cut on profits.
We should fund all projects whether its for profit or not for profit. If you’re building on polkadot and you are bringing users into the ecosystem, its already a net benefit to polkadot. That being said, I don’t think we should take a cut on profits because it will just disincentives builders to go build on other ecosystems.
I don’t agree with this. You would never apply this type of logic to building a company with VC investment. You want your investors to have a stake in your success, not just to donate you some money, because they will work for you.
If the Polkadot Treasury has a stake in the success of projects it funds, then I think DOT holders will put a lot more effort into helping those projects succeed.
Them building on the Polkadot ecosystem would be a form of “equity” in a sense. It is Polkadot having a stake of ownership in the product given that the product is operating under the Polkadot ecosystem using the Polkadot label. I’m not sure if the VC point really makes sense here because Polkadot is more similar to a country (and thus, voters would be the gov) rather than a VC. Governments give out subsidies all the time because they want to empower local businesses.
That being said, I think this can all be negotiable depending upon what the actual business is. If voters are convinced that the business will be a huge benefit to Polkadot just by existing on the network, then it makes sense to ask for 0% cut. However, if the business might be “nice to have but not a must-have and still risky” then it would potentially make sense to ask for something back in exchange for the funding, like a percentage of the project’s initial tokens.
You could even make a Polkadot “sovereign wealth fund” of sorts.