Marketing Bounty Deep Dive
It is the treasury report season, and we will publish the general treasury report for Q3 in the coming days. In parallel, we ran a deep dive on the Marketing Bounty and selected spends that deserve community attention.
The aim is to create a transparent look at where the bounty has spent funds in the past year. A top-up is approaching, so now is the time to discuss what the community sees as good and bad. This way, we can have an informed debate that can shape strategy and future direction for planning what comes next for the department.
This research was funded as part of a Web3 Foundation grant to OpenGov.Watch.
Blast Campaign
The largest spend since the bounty was re-established last November is the Blast campaign. After finalizing the first proposal, a second campaign has already started. Combined costs stand at around $1.54m so far, with outstanding payments remaining. Since the proposal is not public, we cannot give a precise figure.
Important to note that the amount excludes the Novashots App, which is being developed mainly for this campaign but could serve other campaigns later. But some in the community may see app development under the marketing bounty as outside the mandate of the department.
The Kusamarian
Another major spend was the Kusamarian. At around $50k per month, the Kusamarian and related items have received about $485k since January. This is separate from the $254k Kusamarian received from the treasury last December for public service broadcasting, funding AAG, OpenDev, and Space Monkeys.
Within the Marketing Bounty, the half a million payment funds Friday News and ad buys, as it is stated in the treasury proposal last year, as well as on-site media coverage for some events. With outstanding costs expected in the coming months, the current year total for Kusamarian sits around $740k for the network, including the direct treasury spend.
KOL Agencies
Total cost sits around $498k. These agencies were active only in the first months of the bounty. They were then replaced by the Kaito campaign and have been discontinued since.
Kaito Campaign
The Kaito campaign was also among the biggest. It aimed to shift the content creation focus from KOLs to community members. Total spend sits around $670k, and the campaign appears to have discontinued since August.
Community Managers
Another significant line item is community management. The bounty has paid a little over $200k across ten months for the wages of community managers. Most of the spend supports the DotBulls Telegram channel, the Discord server, and the Vibe Hub Twitter account. The work includes AMAs and quizzes to drive engagement.
This is separate from the Moderation Team bounty, which recently failed a top-up and also covers parts of community engagement. It also does not include management of the official Twitter accounts, which is funded under the Editorial Board spends for the Spanish and English channels.
Curator Wages
Finally, a major spend is curator compensation. It totals about $472k for nearly one year of activity. This figure covers curator wages only. It excludes operational costs and curator assistants.
Wage levels vary widely across individual curators.
Crane
The highest wage in the bounty goes to the bounty manager Crane. Total received is $195k for 13 months of work. The payment includes a fixed monthly wage of €14k and some covered expenses.
CultureDot
Runner-up is CultureDot. Curator Wages total $98k for 13 months, which also employed two assistants during this term for $56k. This brings the total cost to the department around $154k.
Natti
The newest curator seat in the bounty. Received $55k for eight months of activity since March 2025.
ET and Eric
The remaining two curators received $57k each for 12 months of activity.
Notes
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All the data presented is manually compiled from the Marketing Bounty Spend Tracker based on public descriptions. Some items may have pending invoices, undisclosed side costs, or incomplete descriptions.
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With a 200k DOT monthly allocation, the Marketing Bounty funds many activities beyond this list. This report selects spends by size and network relevance.
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Amounts are rounded. EUR to USD figures use a rate as of 7 November.
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The report excludes Distractive and Serotonin agencies. Their scopes span PR, go-to-market strategy, content creation and oversight, event design and campaign support, and regional speaker placements, as well as support on other campaigns.
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Further reports can be found on the Bounty’s Notion Page.
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If you think there is an error, please contact us so we can correct it in the next update.
