POTLOCK WRAPS UP 2024

POTLOCK wraps its inaugural year and look ahead to a bullish 2025

Author

POTLOCK
January 08, 2025

Happy New Year,

As we wrap up The Year of the Dragon (or Chef), it's time to celebrate a transformative year for Potlock. This year marked the official launch of our funding platform, with major achievements including new products, support for dozens of impactful projects, hundreds of new projects onboard, multichain expansion, multiple funding rounds, and enhanced funding agent infrastructure. From innovative features and major updates to strategic partnerships and highlights across the NEAR ecosystem, this year has been nothing short of remarkable.

Since our 2024 launch we have onboarded hundreds of projects, facilitated thousands of donations, and distributed over a quarter million in funding.

  • Launched POTLOCK platform with Quadratic Funding rounds in partnership with NF, Creatives DAO, Marketing DAO, and BAF. Visit docs.potlock.io

  • Completed security audits of POTLOCK v1 Pot contracts by Guvenkaya and Ottersec

  • Released BOS App with Alem Framework, followed by rebuilt Next application

  • Introduced Nadabot—a contract-based identity protocol

  • Developed AI-PGF program, featuring agent framework R&D, provider collaborations, and AIPGF forum implementation on BOS and NextJS. Explore the AIPGF ecosystem here

  • Created Lists feature for composable on-chain list creation

  • Implemented On-chain Referrals across all contracts to build decentralized BD native incentives

  • Launched GrantPicks testnet for head-to-head contests on Stellar & NEAR, with custom lists contracts (Veridise audit of Stellar Soroban contracts in progress)

  • Released Campaigns testnet featuring an on-chain crowdfunding system with refundable minimum targets

  • Unveiled Multimechanism beyond QF Rounds—Potlock v2 with flexible mechanisms and new voting contract, launching in 2025 with MpDAO preview

  • Launched first external agent (POTLOCK donation agent) on Bitte wallet

  • Created Public Goods Podcast, completing 7 episodes in Season 1

  • Initiated Activity DAO soft launch with Commit protocol integration (preview at testnet.activity.community)

  • Advanced AI R&D for developing own agent Grant Frameworks (announcement pending)

  • Started POTLOCK Templates at templates.potlock.org with major DevEx push planned for 2025

  • Launched AwesomePump.fun as an open-source ecosystem explorer, preparing for upcoming grants.fun initiative

  • Developed initial version of a general-purpose voting contract supporting diverse rule sets and pot integrations

  • AI-PGF has announced a partnership with VIaPrize to co-sponsor a Request for Proposals (RFP) aimed at developing a platform for creating, searching, and funding prizes and campaigns using AI.

  • Rebuilt POTLOCK BOS app as a NextJS application at alpha.potlock.org

  • Built open-source multichain indexer for all contracts

  • Launching NEAR YEAR, the first on-chain award show on NEAR commemorating projects and individuals, built on POTLOCK lists, profiles, and voting contracts

🤝 Partnerships

  • POTLOCK founder PlugRel joins the NEAR Foundation to head Public Goods, where he will focus on enhancing community-driven initiatives and funding models, before spinning out to concentrate on POTLOCK full time, ensuring its growth and innovation in the crowdfunded prize space.

  • Near Foundation Allocates $100k to Pilot Quadratic Funding on NEAR

  • The Near Marketing DAO, in partnership with Potlock, successfully launched its first marketing Funding Round using a quadratic funding model.

  • AI-PGF x LottoPGF - POTLOCK partners to fund to Build Lottery Agents to Fund Public Goods on top of Eliza Frameworks

  • AI-PGF x VIaPrize - Collaborate to fund and build Agents for Crowdfunded Prizes

  • POTLOCK partners with Holonym to introduce ZK enabled government issued IDs and biometric for on-chain contracts

📦 Products

We launched numerous products this year and continue developing more. Best of all, everything is open source—including projects still in development.

  • POTLOCK BOS App: Direct donation platform and quadratic funding platform on web3 social. Decentralized front end powered app accessible through 50+ gateways. Example NEAR Social. Dev NEAR)

  • POTLOCK App: NextJS application to facilaite ANY funding mechanisms and custom funding rounds

  • GrantPicks: GrantPicks is a multichain application that allows project creators to seek funding while giving community members a say in the decision-making process. GrantPicks is available both on Stellar & on NEAR (connect to the respective wallet on each chain to interface with each) Read more

  • AI-PGF: AI-PGF is redefining grant funding by leveraging AI to streamline workflows, reduce overhead, and ensure promising projects receive timely support.

  • Nadabot and subsequent stamps: Nada.bot is a NEAR Protocol-based smart contract-based sybil resistance aggregator that safeguards web3 communities and applications from malicious actors. Nadabot v2 in development to build your own custom identity rulesets.

  • Campaigns: Kickstarter on chain. Raise for accounts for specific initiatives with set refund targets

  • Activity DAO: create DAOs around activities and hold your friends accountable, built on Far caster, Social Layer, and Commit protocol

  • Alem.dev: decentralized front end framework use to build optimized BOS applications

  • Curate.fun (Soon) curate your own custom news feeds on twitter and turn them into content (announcements channels, podcasts, etc.)

  • Grants.fun soon: build autonomous grant programs directly on social, trained by token holders.

Funding Rounds

We are delighted with the progress of funding rounds this year, particularly from our first quadratic funding round with Creatives DAO to a deeper partnership with NEAR Foundation, and getting to the point where the round organizer can facilitate their rounds, and with mpDAO even use mechanisms outside of quadratic funding. This year dozens of projects were supported through funding rounds ranging from open source infrastructure, education projects, college clubs, AI infra, individual contributors, marketers, and creatives, with over a quarter million in funding dished out.

📋 Operations

🌱 Community Projects

  • Year of Chef launched as NEAR's first free mint for donors, successfully boosting donation activity. Kudos to the Chef & Sharddog team for making this happen.

  • Create Dev ecosystem emerged from the Potluck funding round and Creatives DAO legacy, focusing on the intersection of AI and art.

  • POTLOCK Donation Agent - Markjelan, now at Bitte, developed a donation agent temporarily halted by centralized Twitter API restrictions. New solutions are being developed using the Eliza framework.

  • Cronus, Budgetoor, and Deadproject Sniper received micro-grants through the AIPGF Program (Check out aipgf.com/explore)

🎉 Events

  • POTLOCK at ETHDenver with Proof of Vibes, Build DAO, and BluntDAO: We hosted a community feast at the Build DAO builder house, bringing the ecosystem together

  • POTLOCK at Consensus: Our team joined forces with Build DAO builders at their dedicated house during the conference

  • Activity DAO House in Chiang Mai (Archipelago): A month-long collaboration between BluntDAO and POTLOCK builders launched Activity DAOs—creating accountability ecosystems around shared activities. This led to Activity.community, an event platform and social client with Commit Protocol integration

  • NEAR Road to Redacted: We made a strong impact as the official hackathon sponsor, earned front-page coverage in NEARWEEK's yearly special edition, and showcased AI-PGF through Core Contributor Plug's presentation

Our team maintained a strong presence across major crypto events, including India Blockchain Week, Token2049, Korea Blockchain Week, Funding the Commons SF, Farcon, Edge Esmeralda, EthCC, and Devcon. You'll find POTLOCK contributors at every significant crypto gathering.

📷 Media

In the beginning of 2024 we launched the Public Goods Podcast, covering everything public goods with the top innovators in the space. From open source pioneers, regens, non-profit operators, and those building plural funding mechanisms.

Speaking Engagements

For more media appearances check out potlock.org/media

🐉 2024 NEAR Recap

Key NEAR ecosystem highlights from 2024 focusing on open funding stack, public goods funding, Chain Abstraction, and Agents. For NEAR's official 2024 review click here.

  • Governance Evolution: Shutdown of NDC, Creatives DAO, and Marketing DAO

  • House of Stake launches with initial call for delegates

  • Infrastructure Committee is established as biggest grants arm supporting analytics tools, wallets, and onboarding innovations. See their Year 1 Recap

  • Bitte Platform: Launches relayer for self-service gas abstraction, introduces agent framework and registry

  • MpDAO Governance launches (first multichain liquiid staking DAOs) and expands staking through multiple funding rounds

  • DAO Toolings: Astra Plus Plus and AstroDAO DAO tooling are no longer mantained

  • Treasury Innovation: Infrastructure Committee funds Devhub to build Treasury portal for on-chain grants and funding (currently used for AI-PGF forum)

  • Technical Focus: NEAR emphasizes Chain Abstraction with 1.4 trillion parameter model and AI, with significant R&D investment

  • Ecosystem Tools: Launch of NEAR Catalog as the ecosystem directory

  • NEAR Intents launches as liquidity layer enabling swaps between NEAR, Bitcoin, Solana, DOGE, Ethereum, Pepe and more

  • DApp Success: Hot Protocol becomes #1 crypto dapp by active users, pioneering Chain Abstraction. Active for seven years since its 2018 ICO

  • NF Founder Success team launches NEAR Protocol Rewards Program

  • Consumer Apps: NEAR leads in Web3 consumer applications with KaiKai & Sweat Economy in Web2, while Hot Protocol, Meteor, and Sender Wallet innovate in cross-chain experiences

  • User Growth: Monthly Active Wallets reach ATH of 41M through Chain Signatures, with HOT Protocol enabling seamless transactions across ETH, TON, Solana and other chains

  • Technical Achievements: NEAR enhances scalability through two new shards and Stateless Validation, improving capacity without compromising decentralization. Nightshade 2.0 implemented.

  • MetaMask Integration: NEAR becomes first non-EVM chain with full MetaMask compatibility. Explore at welcome-to-near.org - Read more

  • DeFi Growth: NEAR ecosystem achieves 329% YoY growth in 2024, with DeFi TVL rising from $93M to $308M. Including Liquid Staking, TVL reached $790M peak on Dec 6📈

🔮 2025 Looking Ahead

2025 promises unprecedented opportunities in funding innovation. POTLOCK has established itself as NEAR's premier Public Goods platform, evolving into an open, composable funding stack that's both multichain and chain-abstracted—all supercharged with AI. This year, we're doubling down as a protocol: building frameworks, experimenting with consumer apps, developing more funding products, expanding across different chains, and launching our protocol token and revolutionary platform to transform how grants are facilitated (with AI).

  • Integrations & Customization: Protocolization Enable anyone to deploy their own funding stack through templates, voting contracts, boilerplate apps, and v2 contract updates. Enhance contract-based identity with Nadabot v2 upgrades for advanced rules and onboard more on-chain Sybil providers. Focus on integration phase.

  • Token launch and platform → $GRANTS token as POTLOCK platform token, payment token for launchpad, and autonomous grant program with real funds. grants.fun announcement coming soon. Enable anyone to launch their own grant economies directly on social

  • Agent framework - Funding distribution agents, Eliza for grants (extensive R&D), plus enhanced tooling

  • Funding platform products - Continue to build novel funding use cases across different chains on the POTLOCK open funding stack; i.e., GrantPicks, Campaigns, Commit on Activity, and empower other developers to build the same

  • Chain Abstraction - Upgrade pots to support chain abstraction and CA liquidity layers. Collaborate with other ecosystems.

  • Experimentation - Consumer-facing apps and bull run strategy with Trenches Dev.

As we bid farewell to an extraordinary ingagural year and welcome the next chapter, we at POTLOCK are filled with gratitude for the milestones achieved and the community that made it all possible.

2024 was a year of bold innovations, strategic growth, and unwavering commitment to empowering public goods. From launching our first funding product to building out an entire protocol, expanding to different chains, and implementing groundbreaking features, we've built a more inclusive and sustainable funding ecosystem, setting the stage for an even brighter future.

Looking ahead to 2025, we're excited to continue evolving—bringing new integrations, expanding chain abstraction capabilities, launching $GRANTS, and doubling down on the tools that will shape the next wave of decentralized funding innovation.

Stay tuned, stay inspired, and let's make 2025 a year to remember.

From,

THE POTLOCK FAM

Reply

or to participate.