🏹Bounties

Funding public goods where the community can help with financing, experts can help adjudicate quality of deliverables and service providers have an incentive to find popular initiatives.

Introduction

The only other way to fund the production of goods that create benefits to a broad set of platform participants is through a financing proposal or discretionary spending by a working group lead out of the group budget. These processes incur the transaction costs of beneficiaries having to convince a number of external decision-makers, such as a council financing quorum, that this is a good idea. For smaller initiatives that ideally should start and finish sooner, or where they depend on knowledge or insight that is not as broadly shared, these processes become too costly.

Assurance Contracts and Dominant Assurance Contracts

An assurance contract is a funding scheme intended to override the inherent free-riding problem in financing public goods by allowing contributors to enter into binding conditional commitments to provide resources to fund the good if a sufficient level of funding is committed. By setting the level sufficiently high, every public good beneficiary becomes close to pivotal to getting the good produced, which generates a rationale incentive to unilaterally commit. Dominant assurance contracts are such schemes where the funding has to be deployed towards a specific service provider or entrepreneur who will produce the good using the funding, and in exchange for this privileged to possibly generate a profit from this activity, the entrepreneur has to put up an initial bounty, called a cherry, which is split among all contributors pro-rata. This cherry generates an incentive for contributors, as even when the funding fails, they get a benefit.

Roles

  • Creator: The agent responsible for creating the bounty is either a specific member, or the council.

  • Oracle: The agent responsible for deciding the outcome of a bounty where entrants have submitted work. Is either a specific member, or the council as a whole.

  • Contributor: An agent responsible for contributing funds that finance the bounty. It is either a specific member or the council as a whole.

  • Worker: A member who has announced their participation in producing deliverable in a given bounty.

Notice that when the council is an actor, it means that if the lifetime of a bounty spans the boundary of two councils, then a different set of council members are likely in place to exercise control over the same bounty.

Concepts

Bounty Actor

The act of creating or contributing funds to a bounty can be done by either a member or the council as a whole, the concept of a bounty actor refers, therefore, to either a specific member or the council, and represents this actor in a unified way.

Funding Period Type

The funding period type refers to how funds are collected for the benefit of a bounty, and there are fundamentally two types:

  • Perpetual: The funding has not preset termination date, and new contributors can join on an ongoing basis. There is however a target which sets the upper bound for how much can be contributed.

  • Limited: The funding lasts for no longer than a given number of blocks, called the funding period. There is a lower bound and upper bound for how much must be contributed

Bounty Type

There are two types of bounties in terms of who can participate as a worker. There are open bounties, where any member can participate, and closed bounties, where the creator can pre-select a set of members who can participate. The primary purpose of closed bounties is to enable dominant assurance contracts, where the creator combines setting themselves as the only feasible worker with also providing a cherry.

Work Entry

For someone to be able to participate as a worker, with the opportunity to capture some portion of the funds accumulated for the bounty, they have to announce their participation in the bounty in the form of a work entry. It describes the status of the involvement of a worker in a bounty, and it is defined by the following information:

  • EntryId: Unique non-negative integer identifier across all entries.

  • Worker: Member Id of a worker.

  • Staking Account: Account holding funds used to stake for participation in bounty.

  • Work: List of work submissions made during the Working Period, encoded as structure data in a standardized format.

  • Status: The status of an entry has the following disjoint variants.

    • Working: Initial status during creation in Working Period.

    • Withdrawn: When withdrawn during the Working Period.

    • Winner: Selected as winner during Judgement Period , and therefore is due an outstanding share of the bounty funds, called reward .

    • Passed: Not referenced by oracle in Judgement Period judgement, and therefore is not owed any share of the bounty funds, but has outstanding stake that can be recovered.

    • Rejected: Rejected by oracle in Judgement Period as a malicious entry, and thus has had stake slashed.

    • CashedOut: Worker cashed out stake and/or share of bounty reward.

Bounty

A bounty is defined by the following information

  • BountyId: Unique non-negative integer identifier across all bounties.

  • Oracle: Bounty oracle, is either a member or the council.

  • Type: Bounty type, is open or closed.

  • Creator: Bounty creator, is a bounty actor.

  • Cherry: Amount of funds contributed by creator as cherry.

  • Oracle Cherry: Amount of funds contributed by creator as oracle cherry.

  • Work Period Length: The number of blocks which must pass, from the end of the funding stage, before the oracle for the bounty can adjudicate the outcome of the bounty.

  • Judging Period Length: The maximum number of blocks which can pass, from the end of the working period, while the oracle does not adjudicate a the outcome and funds cannot be withdrawn.

  • Contributions: The set of all contributions made, each identified with a unique bounty actor, and having an associated positive balance contribution.

  • Entries: The set of all active entries in the bounty.

  • Metadata: Structured data encoding the purpose and terms of the bounty.

  • Stage: The stage of the bounty see next subsection

Stage

Below is a list of the stages a bounty can be in, and what each of them mean:

  • Funding Period: This is the initial stage of a bounty once it is created, during this stage the bounty can accept funding contributions. It is also during this stage the bounty can be vetoed by the council. The creator can also cancel the bounty in this stage if there are no contributions. If a contribution is made that brings the cumulative funding equal to or above the upper bound, then the difference is returned, and the bounty proceeds to the Working Period stage. Lastly, if the funding period is limited and the time passes this time, then the bounty proceeds to the Bounty Failed stage if there was at least one contribution made, otherwise it proceeds to the Expried Funding Period stage.

  • Expired Funding Period: During this stage, the bounty is only waiting to get cancelled by the creator, terminating the bounty.

  • Working Period: This is the stage where workers announce their entries and submit their work, and optionally also withdraw. After the working period length has expired since the initiation of the working period, the stage transitions to the Judgement Period.

  • Judgement Period: This is the stage during which the oracle can evaluate the submitted work entries during the working periods. The judgement identifies a set of winning contributors, possibly empty, each with a non-zero number of tokens as a reward. The total reward must perfectly consume the contributed funding to the bounty, but reward distribution need not be uniform. Such a successful outcome also automatically returns the cherry to the creator if it exists. If the oracle selects an empty set of winners, or does not provide a judgement within the end of the judgement period, a transition is made to the Bounty Failed stage, otherwise a transition to Bounty Successful stage is made if the set is non-empty. Cherry is not returned to creator in this case.

  • Withdrawal Period: This represents the stage where funds can be withdrawn from the bounty, eventually leading to the bounty getting terminated.

    • Bounty Successful: This represents the case where the some subset of workers have been selected as winners, and each must cash out to claim their reward. Workers who did not win also have to cash out their possible prior stake. When the last cashout is made, the bounty is terminated.

    • Bounty Failed: This represents the case where no winners were selected, and all contributed funds need to be returned to fund contributors, including a portion of a possible cherry. Workers who did not win also have to cash out their possible prior stake.

The stages and transitions are summarized in the image below.

Constants

Hard-coded values are defined for each working group, and they can only be altered with a runtime upgrade.

Name
Description

ClosedContractSizeLimit

Max work entry number for a closed assurance type contract bounty.

MinCherryLimit

Min cherry for a bounty.

MinOracleCherryLimit

Min oracle cherry for a bounty.

MinFundingLimit

Min funding amount for a bounty.

MinWorkEntrantStake

Min work entrant stake for a bounty.

ModuleAccountId

The Account id of a built-in account, used to hold funds and cherries contributed across all bounties.

LOCK_ID

The Id for the lock used to stake in the bounty system.

Extrinsics

Create Bounty

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

oracle

Bounty actor that is oracle.

bounty_type

Bounty type.

creator

Bounty actor that is creator.

cherry

Amount of funds dedicated as cherry.

oracle_cherry

Amount of funds dedicated as oracle cherry.

entrant_stake

Amount of stake required for prospective workers to create entry.

funding_period_type

The number of blocks in the funding period.

working_period_length

The number of blocks in the working period.

judging_period_length

The number of blocks in the judging period.

metadata

Structured metadata describing the bounty in a human readable form.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to bounty_actor.

  • If creator is

    • a member, then the controller account of the member must have sufficient balance for the cherry and the oracle cherry.

    • the council, then the council budget must accommodate the cherry and the oracle cherry.

  • cherry is no less than MinCherryLimit.

  • oracle cherry is no less than MinOracleCherryLimit.

  • entrant_stake is no less than MinWorkEntrantStake.

  • If bounty_type is closed, the number of members is no greater than ClosedContractSizeLimit, and not zero.

  • If funding_period_type is

    • perpetual, then the target is greater than zero.

    • limited, then the minimum funding amount, max amount and funding period length all must be non-zero, and the max funding amount must be greater than the minimum funding amount.

Effect

  • A new bounty is created in the Funding Period.

  • Deduct cherry and oracle cherry from either the council budget or controller account of the creator, and credited to account ModuleAccountId.

Cancel Bounty

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

creator

Bounty actor for creator.

bounty_id

Bounty identifier.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to creator.

  • bounty_id corresponds to an existing bounty.

  • creator created bounty identified by bounty_id.

  • bounty is either in stage Funding Period without any contributions, or is in stage Expried Funding Period.

Effect

  • cherry is credited to creator and deducted from ModuleAccountId.

  • oracle cherry is credited to creator and deducted from ModuleAccountId.

  • bounty is terminated.

Fund Bounty

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

funder

Bounty actor for the funder.

bounty_id

Identifier for the bounty to be funded.

amount

Balance to be contributed towards the bounty from the funder.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to the funder.

  • bounty_id corresponds to an existing bounty.

  • bounty is in stage Funding Period.

  • funder can cover amount.

  • amount is no less than MinFundingLimit.

Effect

  • amount would bring the total amount funded so far, denoted by current_funding, equal to or over the target or max value, denoted by limit, and transition to the Working Period . Let _amount denote the quantity of funds that can be contributed to the bounty without overflowing the limit, that is min(limit - current_funding, amount) .

  • _amount is debited from funder and credited towards account **** ModuleAccountId.

  • If funder has already contributed to the bounty, then add _amount to their net contribution, otherwise note their total contribution to be _amount.

Withdraw Funding

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

funder

Bounty actor for the funder.

bounty_id

Identifier for the bounty to be funded.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to the funder.

  • bounty_id corresponds to an existing bounty.

  • bounty is in stage Bounty Failed.

  • funder has made a contribution to the bounty that has not been withdrawn.

Effect

  • Remove contribution of balance amount made by funder to bounty.

  • Credit funder with amount and debit ModuleAccountId the corresponding amount.

  • If there is no outstanding contributions or entries to the bounty, then terminate the bounty.

Announce Work Entry

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

member_id

Member identifier of prospective worker.

bounty_id

Identifier for the bounty in which member wants to join.

staking_account_id

Account balance.

metadata

Structured metadata describing the work entry in a human readable form.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to identifier member_id for a member.

  • bounty_id corresponds to an existing bounty.

  • bounty is in stage Working Period.

  • member_id does not have an active work entry on bounty.

  • If bounty is a closed bounty, then memeber_id is among the permitted participants.

  • staking_account_id is a staking account associated with the member, and has a free balance no less than MinWorkEntrantStake and no conflicting staking locks present.

Effect

  • A work entry is added for the member to the bounty, in the Working state.

  • Account with id staking_account_id has lock with Id LOCK_ID and of size MinWorkEntrantStake set.

Withdraw Work Entry

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

member_id

Member identifier for worker.

bounty_id

Identifier for bounty to which work entry corresponds.

entry_id

Identifier for work entry.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to identifier member_id for a member.

  • bounty_id corresponds to an existing bounty.

  • bounty is in stage Working Period.

  • entry_id corresponds to an entry entry with status Working and where the worker has identifier

Effect

  • The entry status is set to Withdrawn.

  • The staking account of the entry has lock with Id LOCK_ID removed, and the account is slashed a share of the staked balance equal to the share of the working period length for which the entry had the status Working.

Submit Work

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

member_id

Member identifier for a worker.

bounty_id

Identifier for bounty to which work entry corresponds.

entry_id

Identifier for work entry.

work_data

Encoded work metadata.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to identifier member_id for a member.

  • bounty_id corresponds to an existing bounty.

  • bounty is in stage Working Period.

  • entry_id corresponds to an entry entry with status Working and where the worker has identifier

Effect

None.

Submit Oracle Judgement

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

oracle

Bounty actor that is oracle.

bounty_id

Identifier for bounty for which judgement is being submitted.

judgement

Set of entries to be identified as winners, and set of entries to be identified as rejected.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to identifier member_id for a member.

  • bounty_id corresponds to an existing bounty.

  • bounty is in stage Working Period.

  • judgement references two disjoint sets of entries that all have status Working

    • a, possibly empty, set of entries designated as winners, each having submitted at least one work submission, and each with an associated non-zero balance designated as the reward, and where all rewards add up to the total funding of the bounty.

    • a set of entries designated as rejected, to be slashed.

Effect

  • for each winner entry referenced by judgement, credit worker account and debited from ModuleAccountId, remove lock with Id LOCK_ID, and set status to Winner.

  • for each rejected entry referenced by judgement, apply slashing, remove lock with Id LOCK_ID, and set status to Rejected.

  • transition bounty to stage Bounty Failed if there are no winners, otherwise transition to Bounty Successful.

  • credit oracle account with oracle cherry, and debited from ModuleAccountId.

Cashout Work Entrant Funds

Parameters

Name
Description

origin

Caller origin.

member_id

Member identifier for a worker.

bounty_id

Identifier for bounty to which work entry corresponds.

entry_id

Identifier for work entry.

Conditions

  • origin corresponds to identifier member_id for a member.

  • bounty_id corresponds to an existing bounty bounty.

  • entry_id corresponds to an entry entry where worker has identifier member_id and the status is not CashedOutor Rejected or Withdrawn .

  • bounty is in stageWithdrawal Period.

Effect

  • if entity has status Winner, then the associated reward is credited to member_id controller account and debited from ModuleAccountId.

  • entity staking account has lock with Id LOCK_ID removed.

  • entity status is updated to CashedOut.

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