Step 1: Project Post

Any project that meets the standard of being non-excludable, non-rivalrous, and having a positive impact can be considered as a public goods project in the protocol. Projects are submitted to the protocol permissionlessly. The project itself needs to be stored in decentralized storage. A content identifier (hash) will be stored on chain, along with a timestamp of when the project was posted. The project should also include the address(es) of contributors, with a breakdown of the percent contribution of each contributor to the project. Similarly, the project should include the content identifier of influencing projects or sources, with a breakdown of the percent influence of each project or source.

While estimating project impact is a public good, the distribution of funding is not (since it mostly affects the parties involved), so it should not be a part of the impact validation. Yet, coin issuance funds will be locked in the project contract unless there is a consensus on fund distribution.

Project contributors and influences (respectively) can come to an internal consensus on the appropriate breakdown of percent contribution of each individual or project to avoid the need for a costly decentralized review of appropriate distribution.

Since anyone can challenge the specified distribution (permissionlessly) — which would trigger a review — every contributor (and influencer) has an incentive to reach a fair and appropriate internal consensus. Such consensus could allocate a certain percentage of the funds to “others,” which could help avoid a challenge to the consensus and allow distribution of funds to existing contributors and influencing sources. The “others’’ allocation should still be appropriate to avoid a broader challenge.

Though challenges are permissionless, challengers need to deposit funds (proportionate to the amount claimed), along with any evidence in support of their claim, to initiate a decentralized review. If the claim is found to be fraudulent the challenger will lose their deposit. This mechanism is meant to ensure that challenges are credible and disincentivizes bad actors from creating fraudulent claims.