Decision

Decision is the stage where funding outcomes are made. Every proposal that passes Curation is scored on two fronts: a technical review (is the integration sound and buildable to mainnet within the timeline?) and a business review (is there real demand, a credible route to users, and usage that lasts?). Declared adoption targets are scored in both directions: too timid loses points, and too aggressive without supporting evidence loses points too.

Assessments from a decision panel of institutional and community members are merged into a single outcome, and the top-ranked eligible proposals that fit the budget and cohort are selected. The funding pool is a ceiling, not a quota: if too few proposals meet the bar, the program funds fewer teams than the target cohort. Applying does not guarantee funding.

A note on community voting. Multi-stage public voting is not part of this pilot. That is not because it is deprecated: a pilot is the place to trial a different selection model at small scale. The community remains in the process, since the curation pool is drawn from experienced community members and community members sit on the decision panel. How future rounds decide, including the role of public voting, stays an open question, and this pilot's published results are part of how it gets answered.

In this section:

• Panelist Guidance - the mission, how reviews and scoring work, etc.

• Panelist Terms & Conditions - the terms every Panelist accepts before reviewing.