The latest CPS round ended a couple of days ago, with the ICON community electing to fund six projects:
- Tracker Backend Upgrade / Improvements Phase 3
- ICON Tracker / Endpoints Infrastructure Development, Migration, and Operations – Phase 2
- Gamified E-Learning Platform For Blockchain Education Final Phase
- Eclectica :- Metaverse
- GangstaVerse: The Emerald City
- Comprehensive study to produce an article on the differences and compliments between Polkadot and BTP interoperability
Two projects were approved, but funding were not received, meaning those projects will automatically be resubmitted to the next application period for free. Those projects were:
- Fling – DEX Aggregator and Trading Tool
- Inanis Invictus – Void Unconquered
Two projects were rejected outright:
- Ledger Live Desktop Integration
- CPS Venture Capital Fund
Overall, ICON project manager TJ Hunt thinks the round went well.
“Personally, I’m happy with the outcome of CPS Round 11,” he says. “The new Prioritization and Dynamic Distribution upgrades worked as intended, at least from a smart contract perspective. This was great news since the ICONOsphere team had to work hard (even over the weekend) to implement them before the end of the previous Application Period.”
He adds, “These new methods also allowed for us to have the greatest number of submitted proposals (10) and requested funds (379,650 bnUSD) in a CPS round.”
TJ is also pleased with the diversity of projects approved this round.
“I think we had a good mix of approved projects this period ranging from Educational Content, Metaverses and Infrastructure,” he says. “I’m looking forward to seeing what all these teams can produce with their allotted grants.”
Approved, but not funded? What gives?
As noted above, two projects got approved, but did not get funding. This caused some head scratching in the community.
“Two projects were approved this period but were not eligible to receive funding: ‘Fling – DEX Aggregator and Trading Tool’ and ‘Inanis Invictus – Void Unconquered,’” explains TJ.
“Since they were approved but didn’t receive funding, they were automatically resubmitted for free to this current Application Period, where they will then be voted on again to receive funding this cycle. This is a mechanism we’re looking to explore improvements to, whether it is best to automatically resubmit the proposals or give them an application refund/voucher of sorts.”
But why didn’t they receive funding, even though their projects were approved.
“The reason why these two specific projects didn’t receive funding was due to their lower priority ranking relative to other approved projects,” says TJ. “So when it was their turn to receive funding there wasn’t enough bnUSD left in the CPS Treasury to allocate towards these projects.”
Ironically, TJ was quite keen on the two projects in question.
“Fling and Inanis Invictus were both projects I personally was very excited to see,” he says. “So I would really love to see them voted as a higher priority this cycle.”
When new blood?
One member of the ICON community said the CPS could do a better job bringing in new teams and groups.
Sean Lim noted:
“Hv u seen any new team/developer coming on board using the cps apart frm the OG?….I seen a lot of project mostly is frm the same team or same ppl. We need more team that r not OG…”
TJ agrees this is something the CPS — indeed, the entire network — could improve upon, pointing to community outreach as a solution.
“I would say this is an area we can seek improvement on as a network, not only the CPS. There are various ways that we could go about gaining more outside development teams and it is something the ICON team is actively exploring,” he says.
“I think the best thing our community could do is continue to reach out to other communities and promote ICON outside of our existing ecosystem. Encourage them to apply to the CPS and for our Validators to vote for these new projects/teams.”
