Waves Association: year in review
In this post, we are taking you through the key highlights and achievements of the Waves Association in 2020.
The Waves Association was launched in January 2020 in Frankfurt. In less than a year the association was able to:
- form 3 working groups that deal with grant distribution, tech expertise required for the evaluation of grant applications, vision of tech development and the process of onboarding and further engaging new members
- disburse a total of 150,000 WAVES as grants to projects in the Waves ecosystem
- elect working group heads and organize 8 meetings as part of the groups’ operation
- accept 28 members from 9 countries: Belgium, Holland, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Philippines, Russia and Portugal.
Overall, in 2020, the association focused on preparatory activities and the launch and adjustment of governance processes for the Waves protocol and for a grant system aimed at supporting blockchain projects.
January to March
On January 31, 2020, the association was launched in Frankfurt in presence of 16 members of Waves’ core community members.
At the meeting, the association’s articles were adopted, which defined membership categories:
- Full member
- Associate member
- Honorary member.
The association’s main goals were set as supporting the development of the Waves protocol and Waves blockchain, making them available to the general public as an open-source software and promoting the ecosystem around Waves.
In addition, it was decided that the association would be charged with:
- Governance. Implement decision-making on the blockchain, such as voting on all major issues and updates, as well as development of DAO-style governance in the future.
- Technology development. Support and development of the Waves protocol and infrastructure, which includes a decentralized network, technologies and various development tools and products.
- Toolkit and product development. Create everything the community needs, enabling anyone to build on Waves and create their own applications and use cases with the ecosystem’s technologies and tools.
- Research and education. Active collaboration with universities, research centers, industry, and governments in Europe and around the world.
April to June
The next major event for the association was its second general meeting in a videoconference format, featuring 25 members.
Based on the meeting’s outcome, significant decisions were made: working groups were formed and their heads were elected.
Currently, the association has three working groups:
- Funding & Grants Working Group, which is in charge of grant distribution, is headed by Inal Kardanov
- Research & Development Working Group, which deals with tech expertise required for the evaluation of grant applications and vision of tech development, is headed by Marc Jansen,
- Membership Working Group, focused on onboarding and further engaging new members, is headed by Vladimir Zhuravlev.
Communication processes for the groups were described in detail.
July to September
Since the launch of the Waves Association, it had been stated that blockchain-based, DAO-style mechanisms would be used for submitting proposals, making decisions, incentivizing the community and achieving maximum transparency and decentralization.
Following comprehensive research, the Waves Association’s DAO model was unveiled in full compliance with regulatory requirements, which is crucial for the association as a legal entity. Via DAO, the association’s members will be able to vote on major topics and implement the tasks described above. Currently, the DAO is in an active development stage, and you can follow the process of creation and open-source adjustment of smart contracts in the DAO repository. This product is expected to be innovative in terms of user experience and governance mechanics that don’t use tokens.
October to December
In October 2020, а 1 mln WAVES grant program was announced. The funding is dedicated to supporting innovative projects in the blockchain space, with Wave Association members distributing grants by voting.
The submission and public consideration of applications began on December 1. In the first 25 days, 18 applications were submitted and thoroughly considered by the Funding & Grants and Research & Development working groups. Based on the assessment of the ideas and their prospects, as well as the teams’ experience, 6 projects were selected as grant recipients. The size of grants was between 5,000 WAVES and 100,000 WAVES, depending on the project.
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2020 was a year of building a strong foundation for long-term, sustainable development of the association, the Waves protocol and Web3 tech. In 2021, the Waves Association will continue to actively participate in Web3 tech development by supporting projects in the Waves ecosystem, tech researching and fostering innovative decentralized governance tools.
