Context
Shutter DAO 0x36 distributes grants and elects the Keypers. It has funded 17 organizations, including brainbot, Decent, Tailored Agency, Artis, Dappnode, Blockful, JLH, Privacy Guardians, Protocol Guild, etc.
This pilot adds a new selection tool: decision markets that identify the applicants most likely to create value for the Shutter ecosystem with the final approval still in the hands of SHU holders.
TL;DR
Shutter Foresight Grants is a pilot that uses decision markets to select three projects for maximum grants of $5,000 each.
After six months, one shielded Snapshot vote per project assigns an Impact Score of 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100; the voting-power-weighted median determines both the proportional SHU payment from the DAO Treasury and the market resolution.
Two grant problems this Design solve:
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Attracting and selecting the best projects. Committee-only reviews concentrate judgment in a small group and give evaluators little incentive to be right. Decision markets can involve a wider set of informed participants, update as new information appears and reward traders that have skin in the game. The three highest market estimates determine admission.
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Keeping selected projects involved under the control of the DAO. Selection is only the beginning: the three teams must remain active for six months, publish progress and deliver. A final DAO score releases 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of each project’s maximum $5,000 grant, avoiding an all-or-nothing cliff while preserving DAO control.
The division of roles is simple: markets identify talent; builders deliver; the DAO scores results and authorizes proportional payment.
The pilot will run on Kleros Foresight, a platform that was built to make Vitalik’s idea of Distilled Human Judgement and Decision Markets a reality.
1. How the Mechanism Would Work for Shutter Grants
The pilot follows one cohort of eligible applicants. For illustration, assume eight projects apply.
Phase 1 — Enlist and approve projects (4 weeks)
Applicants submit a short proposal and evidence that traders can review. The DAO holds an approval vote on Snapshot to admit eligible projects. This vote checks relevance and basic feasibility; it does not rank the applicants.
Phase 2 — Commit a sealed shadow-committee ranking
Before trading begins, a panel composed of brainbot and Kleros ranks all eligible applicants by their expected impact on the Shutter ecosystem. The panel submits its ranking through Shutter Predict, a tool that will also be open to anyone, and a cryptographic commitment to the aggregated ranking is published before the markets open.
The ranking remains sealed until Phase 5 and has no effect on project selection, funding or market trading. Once revealed and verified against the commitment, the relative ordering of the three selected projects is compared with their market ranking and final DAO Impact Scores. This provides a clean benchmark for comparing panel judgment, market forecasts and token-holder evaluation.
Phase 3 — Market creation and trading (4 weeks)
One conditional scalar market is created for each eligible project. Every market asks:
Market question. If Project X is selected, what Impact Score will it receive after six months?
Resolution. For a selected project, the market resolves to the voting-power-weighted median of its final shielded Snapshot vote: 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100. The median is the lowest score at which cumulative voting power reaches or exceeds 50% of all voting power cast. No participation quorum applies.
Anyone can trade. At the end of the trading period, applicants are ranked by their seven-day time-weighted average market estimate. The three highest-ranked projects are admitted to the program. No grant is paid at this stage.
Only the three selected markets will later resolve. Markets for unselected projects settle neutrally, so traders recover their positions without profit or loss.
Phase 4 — Six-month delivery period
The three selected projects work with the Shutter ecosystem for six months. They publish regular progress updates, remain responsive, and present a final deliverable. Their grants remain reserved by the DAO.
Phase 5 — DAO scoring, payment and market resolution
At the end of the six-month period, the DAO evaluates each selected project through a separate shielded Single Choice Snapshot proposal. Each proposal asks:
3 Snapshot Proposals (1 for each project selected): Based on Project X’s delivery and demonstrated value to the Shutter ecosystem, what percentage of its maximum $5,000 grant should the DAO release? This percentage is the Impact Score.
While the Impact Score is inherently subjective, SHU token holders are incentivized to distribute DAO funds responsibly and foster long-term trust and value creation thanks to this grant program.
Voters choose one of five options:
The project’s Impact Score is the voting-power-weighted median of all votes cast. The median is the lowest option at which cumulative voting power reaches or exceeds 50%. The DAO releases the same percentage of the maximum grant: Payment = Impact Score ÷ 100 × $5,000.
The same Impact Score resolves the project’s prediction market.The result is posted through Reality.eth, with Kleros Court available for disputed resolutions.
How the median works — three examples
Read each table from the lowest score upward. The weighted median is the first option where cumulative voting power reaches or exceeds 50%.
Example 1 — Partial approval
Example 2 — Strong delivery
Example 3 — Rejection
Process overview
Worked examples
The table below shows selection and proportional evaluation, including full, partial and zero payouts.
2. Precedents Deep Funding
This is not a theoretical mechanism. Seer and Kleros have already operated a similar mechanism.
Deep Funding (Gitcoin GG24). The Ethereum Foundation sponsors and promotes Deep Funding, which uses the Seer prediction market (deep.seer.pm) as its infrastructure. In the GG24 Dev Tooling and Web3 Infra Round, $350k was allocated through Deep Funding via 500 evaluations across 98 eligible repositories (gov.gitcoin.co/t/deep-funding-gg24). Deep Funding’s infrastructure was Seer prediction markets with similar underlying Conditional Tokens Framework, is the same stack this proposal would use.
Kleros Foresight, live today. Kleros built and operates Kleros Foresight, the interface proposed here, with Seer providing market infrastructure and Kleros handling dispute resolution. Foresight has been tested through live experiments with real money and refined based on user feedback.
3. Liquidity Flow
The markets need enough liquidity to produce meaningful price signals.
Who provides the liquidity: Kleros Cooperative provides the reusable liquidity capital across the cohort, not a program expense. A portion could be distributed as trading credits to encourage participation. Any impermanent loss is a small information-discovery cost paid by Kleros Cooperative.
Trading asset and network: sDAI on Gnosis Chain The prediction markets will run in sDAI on Gnosis Chain. sDAI provides a stable unit of account for trading and liquidity, while Gnosis Chain offers low-cost, EVM-compatible execution.
4. The Ask
Kleros Cooperative covers the operational costs of the pilot, supplies the reusable market liquidity capital from its own treasury and all the costs related to the development of Foresight interface and Seer provides the prediction-market infrastructure.
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Shutter DAO 0x36 is asked only for an up to $15,000 grant pool (the final amount would probably be lower): three maximum grants of $5,000 each, paid proportionally in SHU tokens coming from the Treasury according to each project’s final median Impact Score.
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Shutter DAO 0x36 funds the pilot pool, approves the eligible cohort, evaluates each selected project in a separate final shielded vote and authorizes the resulting proportional payments.
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Kleros & brainbot supports marketing, communications, applicant support and initial applicant vetting.
Foresight Interface preview
5. Conclusion
Shutter Foresight Grants create a clear division of responsibility:
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markets search for promising talent,
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builders prove themselves over six months
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the DAO scores delivery and authorizes proportional payment
The result is a low-cost grant pilot with stronger selection and proportional accountability that can attract interest from governance and decision-market communities. Leveraging decision markets and maintaining DAO control through final delivery ensures every dollar invested in grants provides maximum value to the Shutter Ecosystem.
Special thanks to @Loring-Brainbot for reviewing and giving feedbacks on this Proposal