Impact Farming on Keyko’s Validator
Earn vMOJO voting tokens to fund cUSD donations
As the Keyko Dōjō pushes forward with experimenting ways to turn speculation into a force for social impact, our team of Web 3.0 Sensei is proud and happy to announce that you can now farm vMojo by staking $CELO on our Celo Network validator d’app.
As you may know, part of our ambition of creating our virtual Dōjō environment as a sandbox to run experiments that lay at the junction of governance, decentralized finance, arts, and more. Today we’re kicking off this initiative by releasing a new product in our Dojo, an impact-oriented voting token, we’re calling vMOJO. We are of-course always open to suggestions and will aim to evolve this virtual space over time as we add new features and gather community-driven requirements.
Social impact farming with vMojo is here, and we’re only getting started!
Introducing vMOJO
Keyko is dedicated to building scalable, impact-driven, and future-proof infrastructure. The early collaboration with Celo resulted in successful tools and projects implementation benefiting the network and its community.
In case you didn’t know, Keyko operates a validator hosted in our Dojo, where users can come and delegate to us their $CELO to earn up to 6% yearly return. But here at Keyko, we have been thinking of a more novel and impactful way to run and operate a validator, in line with the values Celo stands for and the ethos of our community.
For this reason, our first new feature release is the launch of a voting token disbursed to users delegating to our validator, the vMOJO (voting MOJO) token. As a reward for operating a validator, Keyko has the privilege to be awarded by the Celo protocol close to 65K cUSD every year. Rather than using the funds for our own purpose, we’ve decided to let the community influence how Keyko will spend these rewards. In a nutshell, vMOJO allows its holders to vote on projects or causes that the funds will go to on a monthly basis.
To kick-off the initiative, we’ve partnered up with ImpactMarket, a universal basic income project on a mission to fight poverty. Based on the Celo network, the platform allows for the unconditional funding of communities that most need it around the world. Anyone can directly send cUSD, Bitcoin or ETH to community contracts managed by local organizations who then onboard local beneficiaries to automated disbursement programs. As UBI beneficiaries receive cUSD, the system helps promote the adoption of the Celo network throughout the globe. More information on this virtuous cycle can be found here.
To start earning vMOJO, go the farming page on our Celo validator web app (or click on our validator scroll in the Dojo) connect your Ledger and follow the guided process. Once your funds are staked on the Keyko validator, vMOJO will automatically be disbursed to your CELO address as a type of governance token.
vMOJO balance calculation
We’ve designed the minting of the token such that only two factors are taken into account to determine how much vMOJO one can earn. The token is minted and accrued per epoch (roughly a day in Celo-time), and the maximum amount of vMOJO a user can earn is equal to the amount of CELO he delegates to the validator.
- vMOJO balance is updated every epoch, and epochs are counted from #1 to #30.
- vMOJO reward / epoch = 1/27 * CELO delegated
- vMOJO is accrued from one epoch to the other
- From epoch #28 to epoch #30, vMOJO minting stops and users can vote.
- At epoch #1, all vMOJO balances of users are set back to 0
- To maximize the amount of claimable vMOJO, users need to have CELO delegated to Keyko’s validator from epoch #1 to epoch #27
The voting sessions take place in the form of “battles”. From the voting app, users can decide which project they wish to vote for and start using vMOJO for the cause of their choice. Because we want to avoid donations to be exclusive between projects, each project unconditionally receives at least 10% of the total donation amount, and votes influence how much one project collects over the other.
Voting rules — “Tipping the scales”
Keyko Co-Founder & Ideas Guy, Dimitri De Jonghe offers the following explanations regarding voting mechanics.
- The total donation amount is calculated as the amount of cUSD received by Keyko GmbH over 20 epochs prior to the voting window start date
- At the beginning of the voting period, the donation amount is equally divided between project X and project Y
- Voters influence the amount of funds flowing to project X and project Y by voting
- The split of funds is equal [50%, 50%] initially
- The notation between brackets “<number>” indicates a parameter that should be updateable under governance
- Upon voting, the split is proportional to the relative votes that each project receives
- To ensure each project gets a minimal amount each project unconditionally receives at least <10%> of the total donation amount
- At max, a project collects up to <90%> of the total donation amount
- More formally: the range is {50%+-<max_split>}, so in the case above this becomes {50%+-<40%>} = [10%, 90%]
- To avoid small voting amounts to generate large swings in the split, the maximum split range is a function of the amount of vMOJO that is locked in the votes
- After reaching a threshold of <vMOJO_%_threshold> (eg. 10%) of voting vMOJO the split can reach full range of [10%, 90%] if all votes swing one direction
- Before reaching <vMOJO_%_threshold>, a window function is applied to the split range. The window linearly increases the split range with the amount of voting vMOJO. Example: with 5% voting vMOJO in total and a threshold of 10%, the window is (5% — <10%>)/<10%> = 50% of the full split range which equals [30%, 70%] for a <max_split> of 40%.
- “split window” reaches 100% when the threshold is reached. A linear window takes the form
= (vMOJO_% — <vMOJO_%_threshold>) / <vMOJO_%_threshold> - “split range” then becomes
= {50% +- <max_split>*split_window(vMOJO_%, <vMOJO_%_threshold>)} - Users can use their vMOJO for only one project per voting window
Our voting ceremony
For this first voting ceremony, we’re working hand in hand with ImpactMarket. They have kindly committed to match our donations based on the outcome of the votes.
Users will have to vote for either the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IRR) in the Philippines or the Krisan Refugee camp in Ghana. Both communities will unconditionally receive part of the total donation amount, and the vote will only influence the amount being received by each. This means that users can positively influence the cause that they deem the most important to them, while guaranteeing that their least favorite choice will still receive a chunk of the total donation being made. You can read more information about each program by directly visiting the voting interface in our Dojo.
Philippines — cUSD is used to support family farming communities in the upland municipality of Maragondon, in the Province of Cavite. Nearly half of the total land area is used directly for agriculture and farming remains a major source of livelihood for most households. So far, the UBI contracts have been used to fund the capital of small local businesses, to purchase farming equipment and necessities to households. More information can be found here.
Ghana — cUSD is used to provide UBI to refugees of the Krisan Camp. The Krisan Camp was established in 1996 following an influx of Liberian refugees fleeing conflict. Today the camp has an estimated population of 1,500 people, with the majority being from the Nzema tribe. The UBI contracts have eased the living conditions of the community by funding medical emergencies and baby supplies. More information available here.
Keyko’s vision for the future of impact farming
This first ceremony will kick off sustainable and punctual revenue streams for those communities that form part of Impact Market’s program and provide the opportunity to engage those $CELO holders who are interested in supporting our impact farming initiative, by inviting them to start delegating to the Keyko validator. Keyko will guarantee that this donation system remains in place and will remain open to suggestions for any other integration to protocols that aim at creating social impact for the greater good.
The first voting window will open on Wednesday, April 14 @ 19h00 — Meanwhile, we welcome everyone to stake on Keyko’s Celo Network validator and start Impact Farming with vMOJO!
Over the long run, we believe many virtuous cycles can be created between farmers looking to optimize their returns in net new financial applications being built on top of decentralized networks, and communities around the world demanding financial services to create prosperity for all, as envisioned by our partner Celo.
Keyko is a Web 3.0 solutions provider building integrated decentralized solutions for enterprises and startups. We thrive on onboarding organizations and individuals into the emerging digital world where capitalism and ownership are being profoundly rethought.
If you would like to know more about our services or are interested in having a chat, please reach out to us at c or visit our website here.
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