Provide a grant to brainbot gmbh (July 2026)

Shutter DAO 0x36 SD 0x36 Proposals
1
Proposal Title Author(s) Phase Date Created
Provide an unconditional ecosystem grant to brainbot gmbh (July 2026) brainbot gmbh On-chain 3 July 2026

Proposal

Provide a one time grant of $107,000 to brainbot gmbh (July 2026):

  • 107,000 USDC

Context

brainbot gmbh has been involved in various research, development, and ecosystem-related activities in the Shutter ecosystem, including but not limited to the following areas:

Encrypted Mempool Priorities

  1. Improve EIP Design (key withholding, optimized execution, etc.)
  2. Draft execution and consensus specs
  3. Launch and grow an “Encrypt The Mempool!” coalition
  4. Launch out-of-protocol EM with Primev + builders
  5. Explore encrypting DEXes

Private Voting Priorities

  1. Munich real-world private voting project finished
  2. At least one additional real-world private voting project secured
  3. Snapshot Permanent Private Voting Alpha released and communicated
  4. Release a shared agents blog post and PoC

Misc Priorities

  1. Release decrypted Ethereum Time Capsule entries
  2. Propose a blueprint for a Shutter PEN
  3. Grow Shutter Champions (ecosystem growth program)

To support brainbot’s contribution, this grant is provided as voluntary support. This grant does not compensate for specific services, work, deliverables, or availability, and does not create any obligation to perform work for the DAO.

Team

brainbot gmbh currently has 6.22 FTEs working on Shutter - 0.2 CEO, 0.67 Admin, 1.25 Business, 0.7 MarComs, 3.4 Developers.

Disbursement Method and Schedule

If passed, Shutter DAO 0x36 will disburse the following assets to the brainbot gmbh address (0xb75E2fB01521Bd7b6369F831414840A54a3C7234) on Ethereum Mainnet upon approval of this proposal:

  • 107,000 USDC

Platform

Onchain voting

Voting Options

Vote “Yes” to provide a grant to brainbot gmbh

OR

Vote “No” to not provide a grant

OR

Vote “Abstain” if you do not have an opinion but want to help the vote reach quorum

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Thank you for putting this together @Loring-Brainbot. Brainbot has clearly been carrying a meaningful amount of the research, development, and ecosystem work around Shutter, so we understand the rationale for continued DAO support here.

Our main question is about how the DAO should evaluate the size and structure of the grant request. The proposal asks for $107,000 and notes that 6.22 FTEs are currently working on Shutter. Since this is framed as an unconditional ecosystem grant rather than payment for specific services, I do not think the DAO needs a highly detailed services-style breakdown. At the same time, a bit more context would help delegates better understand the request.

In the June update, some items appear to be marked with yellow circles, which we read as areas that may still be in progress or being carried forward. If that interpretation is right, it would be helpful to understand how those items relate to the July grant request and whether they represent the main priorities for this funding period.

Relatedly, it would be helpful to have a light-touch view of how the grant broadly maps across the major workstreams. Not individual compensation or anything overly granular, but a simple high-level split across areas like development, research, business/ecosystem work, marcoms, and admin/operations would make the request easier to evaluate.

The monthly updates are useful, and I would not want to add unnecessary reporting burden. But since these grants are recurring, we think it would be helpful if future updates continued to connect progress back to the funded priority areas, so the DAO can track the relationship between treasury disbursements and ecosystem progress over time.

We’re not asking for the proposal to become overly formal or for brainbot to commit to specific deliverables if that is not the intent of the grant. But because this is a meaningful recurring support request from the DAO treasury, we think a modest amount of additional financial and strategic context would improve confidence for delegates and help establish a useful precedent for future grant requests.

We’re also very open to iterating and collaborating with brainbot on what this reporting should look like, so that what is being asked for is actually useful to the DAO and also realistic for brainbot to provide.

3 Likes
3

Hi @Rika_AxiaNetwork and Axia Network,

Thanks so much for your detailed review of this proposal.

I have provided replies to your questions / requests below.

brainbot is happy to discuss our ongoing work on Shutter and to share more information about our proposed unconditional ecosystem grant.

brainbot defines our priorities on a trimesterly basis. We provide an outline of these priorities in the monthly grant proposals, and we provide updates on their progress in the monthly reports.

The current T2 2026 trimester runs May - August 2026. Of our T2 2026 priorities:

  • 1 is complete
  • 6 are on track for completion by Aug 2026
  • 5 need additional work
  • 0 are “not achievable”

We will continue to work on our T2 2026 priorities and provide monthly updates on our progress.

FTEs by project

  • 40% encrypted mempools / DEXs
  • 40% private voting
  • 20% Shutter core & Keyper set

FTEs by focus area

  • 55% tech development
  • 20% business & partnerships
  • 11% marcomms
  • 11% admin
  • 3% CEO

Costs by accounting group

  • 65% staff
  • 7.5% software and infrastructure (mostly for Keyper setup, management and testing)
  • 6.5% legal, accounting, tax
  • 4% marketing and conferences
  • 3% office
  • 15% misc, buffer and contingency
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