[GF: Phase 1 Proposal] Builders Proposal - White Hat DAO

[0xAnimal]

Basic Details

Project name:

White Hat DAO
Web: https://whitehatdao.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/White_Hat_DAO
Discord: https://discord.gg/xqbwepBa3s

Author name and forum name (please provide a reliable point of contact for the project):

0xAnimal hello@whitehatdao.com
Sheraj peaceantz@gmail.com

L2 recipient address:

0x4b760621C945266993AEec7a4ca630bbaDC63B43

Which Voting Cycle are you applying for?:

Season 3 Cycle 11

I confirm that I have read the landing pages for the Builders 18 and Growth Experiments 18 Sub-Committees and that I have determined my proposal is best suited to be reviewed by the Builders Sub-Committee: [Yes/No]: Yes

Project Details

What are you going to build?:

Safety & security should be at the heart of all platforms, especially for public goods services. Which is why we are passionate about providing technical support and high level security integration for projects from all blockchains and backgrounds.

DeFi and web3 in general can be overwhelming, especially considering the amount of due diligence and analysis that stems from engaging with each new project. White Hat DAO aims to lower the risk of entry to web3 space by providing a safety rating platform to aggregate safety and security data on web3 projects, and act as a hub for web3 infosec activity. We are now ready to receive Safety Rating applications to fast track Optimism projects.

Why is what you are going to build going to succeed?:

Defi lost 3.1 billion USD in funds last year to hacks, and what we are building can easily be used to not only inform people of the types of information that need to be known when they DYOR but also allow the good projects who care about the safety of their members to shine. We have seasoned developers and industry experts who are diligently working to provide training and educational resources for the good of web3.

Is your project likely to bring new builders to the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:

Our due diligence will provide much needed clarity & security/safety details on projects deployed in the OP ecosystem to reduce fraudulent activities by bad actors. When people are comfortable putting their hard-earned coins into a project, it makes the ecosystem much stronger. When the ecosystem is more durable it most definitely will bring more new builders to the ecosystem.

Is your project likely to improve the quality of developers in the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:

Our project’s aim is to increase awareness of the data points that need to be researched when coming to a new ecosystem, favoring those projects who have taken the time to develop innovative ways to attract new users rather than scammy, spammy projects that the ecosystem is currently littered with.

Is your project likely to improve the commitment of developers in the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:

We believe a better educated community and project transparency will increasingly become the norm, and organizations like ours will be at the forefront of such education. Developers who make their product in a healthy ecosystem and have increased success of their project will stick around, and we feel Optimism is poised to become the leading L2 chain.

Provide us with links to any of the following for the project:

• Demo: White Hat DAO
• Github: White Hat DAO · GitHub

Safety Rating Application form:

Do you have any metrics on the project currently ? (TVL, transactions, volume, unique addresses, etc. Optimism metrics preferred; please link to public sources such as Dune Analytics, etc.):

We aim to onboard 80% of the projects in Optimism to our safety rating platform. With proper funding we can keep developing our security infrastructure. Due to the decentralized nature of the project, we have no limit to how many projects we can onboard. Our safety rating is a public good service, paid for & by grants received by organizations interested in growing a healthy, safe, and secure ecosystem.

As the new users come into the space, it’s our responsibility as a community to provide web3 education on project due diligence & how to be safe. Our platform will help users get most of the relevant data in the easiest way possible.

That includes
Safety rating & Smart Contract Security Assessment Details

Project Token Distribution & Critical data -including project multisig address

Key metrics on Security Audit:

Market Performance

Exchanges listed:

Connecting people behind the project

Disclaimer:
Crypto assets are speculative, complex and involve significant risks, which can be highly volatile and sensitive to secondary activities. It’s performance is unpredictable and past performances are no guarantee of future performances. DYOR !!

Optimism protocol metrics

Currently on average 3.2k contracts are being deployed in Optimism, Many of these contracts are not audited by the project team, We are here to provide a better service in quest of web3 safety & security. We are in the early stage of our development, Our goal is to provide critical details of individual projects to web3 users for proper due diligence. Through our safety rating application, founders can submit info for public view, such as smart contract security assessment, source code, market analytics, key metrics data on token allocation, liquidity pool data, due diligence on the team behind their project and much more. Our aim is to keep the web3 space safe from any exploits, rug pulls, bad actors, and provide details regarding compromised smart contracts, wallets, and publish findings in an easily digestible manner. This will help people make their own rational & educated decisions when transacting on-chain and interacting on any protocol. It will help build trust & a safer environment.

Who are your competitors?:

We are not here for competition; rather, we would like to work with all projects from different content niches and industries as long as we can raise awareness within the web3 space on safety and responsibilities.

That being said, projects like RugDoc.io and DeFiSafety have similar goals but they do not include a DAO governance structure.

Will your project be composable with other projects on Optimism? If so, please explain:

Safety Rating is very much composable with the OP eco-system. Security details & safety rating of our platform will be available to other projects via API for free. We aim to promote a safer environment for the entire web3 space.

Team

Who are your founders?

White Hat - https://twitter.com/Lelouch_WHD
NFThinker - https://twitter.com/theNFThinker
Amy Marcella - https://twitter.com/amilou2008
0xAnimal - https://twitter.com/poapmaster2022
Itsuki - Security Analyst ( IOHK )
Goldfury - Angel Investor & Web3 Community Advocate

Tell us about the rest of your team (if there are more teammates):

Full Stack Dev: CompositeFellow#7988
Dev: LordRanchoatos#1813
Dev: Ramos#9071
Dev: Andy.ts
Community Advocate: Sheraj
Community Advocate: Edian
Biz Dev: Nupur | Parcel#4467
Full Stack Dev: イツキ#8752
Full Stack Dev: JosepBove#9999
UI/UX & Web Design: IsraelRex#3613
UI/UX & Web Design: ab_colours#348
DAOplomat: Gold Fury#5995
Education Guild: xuanling11.crypto#0521

Is this your first Web3 project?:
Yes

If not, what else have you built? (Share links, Github repository, or any other useful information.):

I understand that Builders grants are subject to a 1 year lock-up, as explained further in this post 2: [Yes/No]:
Yes

Is your project funded? If so, provide an estimate of how many months of funding runway your project has:

We have raised some funds via Gitcoin Grants & Layer2 DAO.We can maintain our infrastructure for another 6 to 8 months with current level of funding that we have received in our multisig treasury.

Grant Request

What is the size of the grant request? (50k OP max):

50k OP

How do you justify the size of the grant?

This grant can help impact the OP ecosystem by WHD providing and maintaining a Web3 Safety Rating including a safety rating leaderboard. All OP projects will be free to apply for a Safety Rating.

Describe in discrete steps your plan for accomplishing your project:

Creation of Safety Rating API
Create NFT Quest for Onboarding
Formalized Safety Training & development

Please provide any additional information that will facilitate accountability:(smart contracts addresses relevant to the proposal, relevant organizational wallet addresses, etc.)

We have not launched our governance token yet. Apart from that all our work products are open sourced and can be found via our Github link.

Does your plan depend on the receipt of OP tokens?:

At this point of time we can carry out most of our activities without this OP token grants as we have raised some funds from Gitcoin & L2DAO grants. However it will be nice to have further support to carry out developments to build a robust community.

What is your plan for the use of the OP token after the 1 year lock-up?

20,000 OP - for safety rating analysis, verification, doing Due-Diligence & maintaining a robust infrastructure, including hosting data and any fees incurred over time.

15,000 OP - for of training and onboarding new analysts and safety rating curators

3,000 OP - for improving our safety rating procedure, Code of conduct.

2,000 OP - for marketing our safety rating initiative

10,000 OP - for due diligence tools & platform development

Please provide benchmark milestones for this project. These milestones should guide the Optimism community on the progress of your project during the 1-year lock-up period.

Q1 - 2023

We have gone live, with DAO Framework and DAO Constitution already completed. WHD Platform and Safety Rating apps are live and undergoing further optimization.

We are ahead of schedule on our Q1 goals.

Q2 - 2023

Onboard 500 projects on Safety Rating App,
Development of our Ambassador Program(Partnerships)
Quest-based DAO Membership application(Sybil Resistance)
Release of 10k Membership NFTs, of which at least half should be owned by the end of the year.

Q3 - 2023

Governance App
Decentralized Community Forum
On-chain Governance Mechanism
Live Safety Rating API creation
Governance Token Launch
Distribution of Governance tokens

Please define critical milestones for this project. Critical milestones are meant to show good-faith efforts to accomplish the project. Non-completion of these milestones could lead to revocation of remaining grant rewards.

Critical Milestone by end of Q1 - 2023

DAO frameworks, DAO Constitution, and WHD platform live

Critical Milestone by end of Q2 - 2023

Safety Rating application for web3 projects ( Rating on fungible and non-fungible tokens )

Example: https://whitehatdao.com/safety-ratings

Quest-based DAO Membership application(Sybil Resistance)

Critical Milestone by end of Q3 - 2023

API integration for Optimism NFT platforms ( such as NFTEarth and other platforms ) to provide critical safety data for public users to do due diligence for projects onboarded on our platform

Critical Milestone by end of Q4 - 2023

Governance Token Launch and distribution of Governance tokens

Critical Milestone by end of Q1 - 2024

Membership NFT-gated decentralized governance application with community discussion forum live

Release of 10k Membership NFTs with embedded utility such as access to governance discussion, submitting DAO proposals, and ability to vote on proposals

Optimism Relationship

Does your project solve a problem for the Optimism ecosystem?:

Yes. Currently Defi has a real problem onboarding new users and even supporting seasoned investors. Copy-pasting of projects not owned by the native organizations can and will be a huge problem until a standard is developed.

How does your proposal offer a value proposition solving the above problem?:

Our Safety Ratings are already being implemented as a verification system for previously funded Optimism grant recipients and we have extended our due diligence services to the rest of the Optimism ecosystem. Our proposition is to be the standard in due diligence on Optimism.

Why will this solution be a source of growth for the Optimism ecosystem?:

Many people believe so, including our team of seasoned professionals which is why we are so dedicated to this project.

How committed are you (and your team) to building on Optimism?:

We are 100% committed to building on Optimism

Is your project Optimism Native?:

Yes we are an OP native project. However our services will include 8 other chains as well, mainly providing security audits of smart contracts & safety ratings.

Confirmations

I understand that I will be required to provide additional KYC information to the Optimism Foundation to receive this grant: [Yes/No]: Yes

I understand that I will be expected to following the public grant reporting requirements outlined here: [Yes/No]: Yes

Note: Please feel free to reach out for additional details. More information can be provided upon request.

Kind regards,
White Hat DAO

[jackanorak]

Hey @0xAnimal -

Giving you a heads up that all our communication will be on this forum, and we’ll be monitoring to answer any Q’s. Grants council comprises @Gonna.eth @kaereste @danelund.eth and myself.

One note: your milestones provided lack a breakdown between benchmark milestones and critical milestones. Critical milestones must be met to receive a grant; they signal good faith efforts to deliver the project. Benchmark milestones more track the success of the project.

More information can be found here: Milestone Assessment

[WhiteHat]

Thanks @jackanorak for your feedback. We will update the application to set more clear milestones with intended completion date.

[0xairboom]

Is this a security educational platform or more of web3 based Security rating system?

[0xAnimal]

Thanks @jackanorak

This Grant application has been modified to include clearly broken down benchmark and critical milestones.

0xAnimal

[WhiteHat]

It’s a web3 based security rating platform. However you may consider it as educational as well.
Feel free to join our community and get involved.

[jackanorak]

Changes look helpful. Can you describe the safety rating application? Do you just mean the google form?

[FractalVisions]

I’m curious about the relationship between this project and the L2DAO or NFTEarth.

I see tweets discussing a partnership of some sort.
After the recent allegations by other members of governance and the on chain analysis that I have made it may be important to disclose if there is some form of association with their platform or any team members that are working at White Hat Dao if it plans on becoming a security rating platform.

If this is one of your partners it is concerning if this is the type of due diligence that has been done so far.

How will the ratings be determined exactly ?

What’s to stop bad actors from fabricating data or fake IP with a new account?

[0xAnimal]

Hey @jackanorak

In this Grant Application, the Safety Rating App refers to the entire Safety Rating application and includes the onsite application form, “Safety Rating and Smart Contract Assessment” and leaderboard for easy access to all the projects who have applied.

The process begins with the project founders or other authorized project team who clicks the “Apply for Safety Rating” button ( https://whitehatdao.com/safety-rating ) which brings you to an onsite application form.

Once the form is filled out and saved, one of our expert Safety Rating Curators will then vet information presented in their application and compile it in a long one-page view for display as the Safety Rating and Smart Contract Assessment Details for their project. This includes a Safety Rating Score which is calculated by an internal algorithm developed by our community and based on what was found during the vetting process.

Thanks for giving me the chance to clarify. If it hasn’t completely answered your question or if it brought up any more questions please let me know here.

0xAnimal

[WhiteHat]

This post has been Redacted.

[SirloinFurr]

is the goal that each project on optimism will be audited by whitehat doa as a public service?
how are you coming up with the safety score?
And why would users trust your safety scores? seems like its everything you’d find on defi lama, but without the numerical score, no?

[0xAnimal]

I’ll reply to each point below:

@SirloinFurr

is the goal that each project on optimism will be audited by whitehat doa as a public service?

The goal is to provide a safety rating on any projects who apply, and for the information we have gathered to be known and easily accessible by each person who may or may not know that this information is the minimum you should know about a project before investing.

@SirloinFurr

how are you coming up with the safety score?

How WHD comes up with the score is proprietary for safety reasons however here is everything in application:

@SirloinFurr

And why would users trust your safety scores?

The goal is not for anyone to trust our safety scores. The goal is to help people DYOR and to give them something to compare with each other project within the platform.

@SirloinFurr

seems like its everything you’d find on defi lama, but without the numerical score, no?

This is the first time I’ve seen protocol information on defillama. Thanks for sharing.
At first glance it appears that the information they provide is suited for a certain audience and while they have more info in regards to user data and volume/participation we are focused on the many different ways protocols have been used to abuse the token holders in the past, in a long one-page view.

Note: This is information we have used ourselves over the years to mostly stay free from losses due to rugpulls and hacks and we continue to update our process as the community sees fit. If you can suggest additional information we should provide in this view please join our community and lets talk about it! We are a community run organization!

[WhiteHat]

First of all. welcome to the community. I see this is your first interaction in the OP forum.

• White Hat DAO will not provide audit as public service. Audit will be a paid service. However Safety rating can be considered as public service at this point. As long as we can keep our services for free.

• We are consolidating publicly available data of a project, submitted by project team in one place. Which we are making them available for users to see & do their own DD. No trust needed, rather trust your own due diligence.

[0xAnimal]

Hey @FractalVisions

This is definitely a valid question and I’m honored to outline our relationship with Layer 2 DAO and any other organizations. We are always 100% transparent about our relationships with any organizations.

We applied for and were awarded a grant in the Layer 2 DAO OPIncubator Round 6 with 51% of their community vote(14294.5 OP Award) as documented in their Discord and various tweets through the official Twitter page. Besides the Grantor/Grantee relationship there is no other connection between WHD and L2DAO community or team members. If requested we will be more than happy to provide future OPIncubator Grant Applicants our services as we discussed with Layer 2 DAO team.

As a Grant Providing organization their process of community vote by holders of the Governance NFT was sufficient proof of legitimate activity, we were not aware of any need to further vet the Layer 2 DAO organization and feel the Optimism team is best suited to do so for their Grantees. As this is a new scenario for our team we will be discussing with the internal and external community any need to do additional vetting of our Grants Providers in the future.

My answer to Jakanorak above was meant to give a bit more insight into our process and should satisfy your question about how the ratings are determined.

To highlight the answer to your last question, the complexity of application form also helps us to vet information presented vs publicly available information and must match or it will be flagged for further review.

The IP address of the applicant can be changed through the use of a VPN, so we use the connected wallet addresses of both the applicant and the specific Safety Rating Curator assigned to the job for accountability.

Thank you for allowing me to clear up questions about the connection between our project and L2DAO and if I have not completely answered your question or you have any other questions please let me know here.

0xAnimal

[FractalVisions]

Thanks for your reply.