[2603 Grant Proposal] Rootstock Buildathon Track and Sponsorship at Ipê Village 2026

Grants & Incentives
1

[2603 Grant Proposal] Rootstock Buildathon Track and Sponsorship at Ipê Village 2026

Summary

This proposal requests $6,500 to sponsor a dedicated Rootstock track within the “Buildathon” at Ipê Village 2026, a month-long builder residency in Florianópolis, Brazil (April 6 to May 1, 2026). The grant covers $3,000 in prizes for the top three Rootstock projects and $3,500 for event sponsorship, one month of on-site coordination, and community engagement activities throughout the event.

About Ipê Village

Ipê Village is Brazil’s first pop-up city experiment, organized by Jean Hansen through Ipê City (ipe.city). The format is not a typical weekend conference. Residents live, cowork, and build together for roughly four weeks in Jurerê Internacional, Florianópolis, with a structured arc from onboarding and team formation through weeks of continuous building, culminating in a final showcase and demo day.

The 2025 debut attracted 170+ residents from 10+ countries, earned an endorsement tweet from Balaji Srinivasan (former Coinbase CTO and author of The Network State, the book that launched the entire network state movement) with 163K views, and was mentioned in Forbes as a standout Latin American crypto event. The event has also secured an ENS DAO grant and integrated ENS-based digital identity into its infrastructure. Notably, Ipê Village 2025 shared its venue with the NASA Space Apps Challenge, where Brazilian teams were highly successful with several projects becoming global finalists. For 2026, the buildathon program is more structured, with expanded rewards and improved educational support.

The Buildathon runs for 20 continuous days (April 12 to May 1). Each week features idea pitches, team formation, prototyping, and progress showcases. Final presentations happen at the closing event on May 1. Architects (serious builders, capped at 80 spots via application) must demonstrate weekly progress and present final results to residents, partners, and investors.

The resident profile is highly qualified: mostly entrepreneurs, Web3 founders, builders, and crypto-native individuals who are pro-decentralization and self-sovereignty. This is precisely the audience that can become long-term Rootstock builders and users.

Video highlights:Ipê Village 2026 Announcement | Building an Internet City in Brazil

More details: Peerbase announcement | ipe.city | Ipê Village 2026

What Rootstock Gets

A dedicated Rootstock track in the Buildathon. We will prepare and distribute reference material covering Rootstock’s architecture, EVM compatibility, merged mining security, rBTC, RIF, and the types of projects we want to see built. Builders will have 20 days of focused development time, far beyond what a typical weekend hackathon offers. The result should be functional prototypes, not slide decks.

A Rootstock mini-event with keynote presentation. I will deliver a keynote about Rootstock, its value proposition, and what the ecosystem offers to builders. Other Rootstock community members or Rootstock Labs representatives may also present if available. This is an opportunity to position Rootstock directly in front of an engaged, technical audience.

Long-term ecosystem adoption potential. Ipê City already uses ENS for onchain identity and EFP for social graph within their Super App. RNS has a natural integration path here, mirroring what ENS has already achieved. If Rootstock and rBTC become part of the Ipê City infrastructure, that exposure scales across the broader network state movement connected to Balaji Srinivasan, Network School, and similar projects worldwide. This is not just a one-time event, it’s a potential long-term growth vector.

Direct builder engagement and visibility. Prize money incentivizes quality Rootstock submissions, and the 20-day format gives builders enough time to produce meaningful work. Projects that emerge from this Buildathon could become future grant applicants or strong ecosystem contributors.

Deliverables

  1. Rootstock track established within the Ipê Village 2026 Buildathon, with reference materials prepared and distributed to participants
  2. Keynote presentation and Rootstock mini-event delivered during the event
  3. Participation as a judge in the Buildathon, with ongoing availability for builders to interact and get guidance on their Rootstock projects throughout the residency
  4. Prizes awarded to top three Rootstock projects at the final showcase
  5. Post-event report with metrics: number of Rootstock submissions, participant engagement, and assessment of follow-up potential

Budget

Item Amount
Buildathon prizes for top Rootstock projects (TBD: tentatively Top 3 at $1,250 / $1,000 / $750) $3,000
Event sponsorship, one month of on-site coordination, and community engagement $3,500
Total $6,500

The $3,500 coordination budget covers event sponsorship costs, participation, preparing and distributing Rootstock materials, coordinating the track with Ipê Village organizers, and community engagement activities such as networking events and informal sessions that keep Rootstock visible throughout the four-week residency.

Team

Gui Tondello (@chronotrigger) is a Recognized Rootstock Collective Delegate, Bitcoin L2 investor, and Co-Founder of Arthur Mining, a Bitcoin mining company. He is currently Head of Product at a tokenization company with strong ties to Tether and global TradFi companies. He will be responsible for preparing the Rootstock reference materials, delivering the keynote presentation, coordinating the track, participating as a judge, and evaluating Rootstock submissions.

Jean Hansen is the founder of Ipê City and Peerbase, with 8+ years in crypto and Web3. He worked in Singapore for three months directly with Balaji Srinivasan on The Network State Book V2, spoke at the Network State Conference 2025 in Singapore alongside Vitalik Buterin and Brian Armstrong, and successfully organized the first Ipê Village in 2025. He is working directly with me to structure this initiative and will provide the event infrastructure, integrate the Rootstock track into the Buildathon program, and handle logistics and participant coordination.

Timeline

When What
Late March 2026 Rootstock track reference materials finalized and shared with Ipê Village organizers
April 6-9 Onboarding week begins, Rootstock track announced to participants
April 10-11 Startup Society Conference (keynote and mini-event slot)
April 12 - May 1 Buildathon execution (20 days), weekly progress check-ins on Rootstock submissions
May 1 Final showcase and demo day, prizes awarded
May 2026 Post-event report delivered to RootstockCollective

Expected Metrics

  • Number of projects submitted to the Rootstock track
  • Quality of submissions (functional prototypes vs. conceptual)
  • Number of builders directly engaged with Rootstock materials
  • Post-event follow-through: builders continuing on Rootstock, potential grant applications, or RNS integration discussions with Ipê City

Closing Remarks

Rootstock has a clear opportunity here to reach a curated audience of builders, founders, and crypto-native individuals in a unique format that favors depth over breadth. Twenty days of building gives participants the time to develop a real relationship with Rootstock’s tooling and architecture, which is something a 1-day or weekend hackathon or a conference workshop simply cannot replicate.

At $6,500, with $3,000 going directly to prize money and $3,500 covering a full month of on-site coordination and ecosystem presence, this is a capital-efficient way to put Rootstock in front of a highly curated builder audience for 20 consecutive days, while exploring real integration paths for Rootstock’s core stack, from rBTC and RIF to USDRIF/DoC and RNS, within the growing Network State movement.

6 Likes
Rootstock Collective Governance-at-a-Glance 26-03-12
2

Strongly recommend watching the two videos linked in the proposal and embedded below. They do a better job than any writeup of showing what this movement looks like in practice, its builder philosophy and what kind of environment we’d be positioning Rootstock in:

1 Like
3

@ChronoTrigger We love to see pop-up cities like this implemented more. Bringing together people from different backgrounds and knowledge domains and combining them can lead to innovation, which is good for society.

It looks like this year Ipê Village is going to focus on building a governance operating system. So we’re curious about the buildathon structure, do builders need to create something that becomes part of the Ipê Super App, or is it more open and independent? How are winners selected in the buildathon? What are the main criteria?

You mentioned that RNS could have a natural path to integrate with their Super App. Since ENS is already integrated into their super app, how are you planning to position RNS? How would you convince them to use RNS instead of ENS, or is the idea to complement it rather than replace it?

2 Likes
4

Thanks @Curia, great questions.

On the buildathon structure: it is not set in stone. There is no unified rulebook across all sponsors. Ipê Village gives sponsors a lot of flexibility to discuss with the organization and define how they want to award projects. This can range from selecting teams early on and disbursing funds upfront (working more like a grant) to selecting at the end based on final demos (working more like an award).

After careful consideration, we decided to distribute funds at the end, in order to maximize the number of possible projects and incentivize quality and competitiveness across applicants. The buildathon is open and independent. Builders don’t need to create something that becomes part of the Ipê Super App. Along with a Rootstock ecosystem presentation, we also intend to share what we expect from Rootstock-related projects, our evaluation criteria, suggested themes, and provide an overall foundation for builders to ideate on.

Since the organization is expecting roughly $10-15k total in buildathon awards across all sponsors, I believe our $3,000 allocation is well-positioned to draw meaningful interest from builders.
That said, I’d be lying though if I say I didn’t contemplate the idea of going larger, like $5,000 in awards and drawing massive attention, focus, and Rootstock projects in the Buildathon.

On RNS vs. ENS: very good observation, and we’ve had this exact discussion with Ipê City. Keep in mind that ENS awarded Ipê City $15,000 in grants last year specifically for the Super App integration. They are expected to participate again this year and are strong partners and supporters of the project.

That’s why I framed a possible RNS integration as a future possibility rather than a deliverable. My rationale is based on an evolving relationship between Rootstock, Ipê City, and the network state movement, or on the chance that buildathon projects emerge around RNS on their own. But unless the Collective and/or Labs are willing to allocate more resources and deepen the scope of its support to Ipê City and the network state movement, RNS growth there will be organic.

With the resources currently in discussion, an official RNS integration is not committed and depends entirely on organic interest from the community. I think this is a solid first step toward something larger though.

1 Like
5

love this initiative.

2 Likes
6

I fully support this proposal. @ChronoTrigger has consistently proven to be a top delegate, and Ipê Village has been on my radar for a while, I’ll be attending as well and happy to support on the ground (judging, builder guidance, etc.).

I believe longer-format events like this can generate much deeper alignment and real prototypes compared to typical hackathons. It would also be great to use this opportunity to connect with other Rootstock builders and contributors in the region, as I understand many are based nearby.

1 Like
7

With a budget of just $6.5K, I believe Ipê Village represents a very strong opportunity and a compelling use of capital for the ecosystem. Not only is the cost relatively low, but I also believe the potential impact is meaningful, especially in terms of creating a builder pipeline that could feed into future Rootstock grant applicants.

I agree replacing ENS at this stage is difficult. However, creating a real world use case , even if incremental or experimental is not unrealistic.

My only concern is that the $3K prize pool may feel relatively small considering the 20 days build commitment across three projects. The incentive level could influence how much attention builders allocate to Rootstock compared to other potential funding sources.

I will vote in support the initiative @ChronoTrigger, appreciate your commitment to being onsite, technical support, judge, and helping guide projects in alignment with Rootstock’s strategic direction.

2 Likes
8

Thank you so much for the positive words @Ignas, @Kaf_Anode and @tobyj

Thats a fair point on the prize pool, @Ignas.
My read is at $3,000 we’d likely be on par with other sponsors. I’d expect some good projects, but also plenty of superficial, quickly vibe-coded, hackathon-farmer submissions.

If we go higher, e.g. ~$5,000 to award the top 4 projects (e.g., $2,000/$1,500/$1,000/$500, TBD), we’d be poised to draw serious attention. People would genuinely look at Rootstock and BTC L2 synergy with the network state movement, and serious teams would put in real effort to compete.

On the coordination side, bumping from $3,500 to $4,500 would let us expand the on-the-ground presence with 2 or 3 presentations, including one focused on Rootstock and BTC L2s. @Kaf_Anode is attending too, so we can split presentations, local coordination, and interaction with builder teams.
As @Kaf_Anode pointed out, others are welcome. Especially for those based in Argentina, it’s just a 2.5h direct flight from Aeroparque.

Does it make sense to discuss a scope increase?

1 Like
9

Thanks for putting this together, @ChronoTrigger. Really interesting proposal.

A few things stand out to me. First — this isn’t just a typical hackathon or conference sponsorship. Twenty days of continuous building is closer to a small incubator program, which is a different value proposition entirely. Based on the delegate feedback so far, Ipê Village has a strong brand and has potential to attract and incubate great builders for Rootstock.

I noticed the proposal includes post-event follow-up, which is exactly what we need. Curious how others are thinking about this — what does that support look like in practice? For example, audit services (tagging @Tane who’s seen audit reimbursement programs work well in other DAOs), tooling, resources, investor connections — there’s a lot we could do here.

Would love to hear more about the pipeline. What’s the realistic follow-through rate on these builders? And what are tangible activities that can be done and measured to ensure the Collective is reaping good ROI?

I think if this proposal were to pass — and if executed well, with solid post-event follow-through, it could serve as a precedent for a broader events strategy for The Collective. That’s an exciting possibility.

10

Thank you , @ChronoTrigger for putting this proposal together. While we appreciate the effort to bring Rootstock to such an unique opportunity such as Ipê Village, we do not support this proposal. Our position is based on the following strategic concerns:

As this is the third proposal/sentiment check for events funding in the last two weeks, we are concerned that your own comments last week expressed a need for a combined strategy versus a one off approval on events. Something that we support.

As Tamara recently noted and on the TG group, Rootstock has been moving away from these types of isolated sponsorships.

We fully align with this direction. Without a comprehensive, unified event strategy developed in coordination with Rootstock Labs, we cannot evaluate which events deserve priority. Approving one-off grants in a vacuum, especially three in a single two week window, doesn’t feel like a good use of our treasury. And with our own experience with running events, and as Tamara has also already noted, there is a very high cost (fixed and variable expenses, in addition to sponsorship) + very low ROI for the majority of these events.

In addition, with our review of this proposal, it has a very high CAC for a low ROI. The financial metrics of this proposal do not present a strong, measurable ROI case. With a $6,500 spend for a maximum of 80 participants, the cost to “acquire” a single builder’s attention (CAC) is at minimum $81.25. If engagement follows typical trends and only 40 builders (i.e. being conservative at 50%) actively participate, that cost jumps to $162.50 per builder. Spending over $160 per person for “brand awareness” within a niche audience does not move the needle for our on-chain growth. Simply increasing the prize pool would only further inflate the total spend without solving the high acquisition cost or the narrow funnel problem.

The $3,500 “coordination” budget represents greater than 50% of the total request. As a matter of basic financial standards, we cannot support a lump sum grant request for “on-site presence” that lack any granular breakdown of expenses. Any funds not going directly to builder rewards must be rigorously justified with clear, performance-based KPIs.

And echoing the concerns of @axia and @Ignas , what specific mechanism ensures these projects move to Mainnet? Proposed integrations like RNS or social graphs could be considered low-utility wins compared to the core infrastructure Rootstock needs to drive $rBTC velocity. Without a defined incubation phase, we risk funding one-off (i.e. shelfware) projects that provide no lasting value to the Collective once the event ends.

Finally beyond “number of submissions,” what is the target for on-chain activity (transactions, TVL, or users) that would make this $6,500 investment a success in your view? It’s a narrow funnel in our opinion, as this event is capped at 80 Architects builders. Spending $6,500 to reach 80 people is a high CAC that doesn’t translate to strong ROI to increasing transactions, deployed use cases, retained builders, and long-term activation within the Rootstock Collective.

[2603] Rootstock BTCFi Onboarding & Builder Activation — CryptoVendimIA 2026
11

Thank you for the detailed response, @DAOplomats. Even when we disagree, this kind of thoughtful engagement is what makes governance stronger.
May I offer you a different perspective on a few points?

On the CAC framing

I think the cost-per-builder math, while logical on paper, applies the wrong framework here. At mainstream crypto events, $80 per person gets you someone walking past a booth, collecting a t-shirt, hat and a water bottle, alongside ten other sponsors doing the same thing. Sponsorship packages range from $10k to $50k before you even count the booth setup, collateral, giveaways, and team travel, which will double the final cost. I’ve been attending these events for some years now. The competition for attention is brutal, and most participants are retail users chasing short-term excitement and gratification.

This is structurally different. $80 per participant here buys you a builder spending 20 days prototyping on Rootstock’s testnet. That’s not brand awareness, that’s hands-on-keyboard time with the tooling and architecture. Following that same CAC thought process, if we get 40 or even 10 to 20 prototype projects on Rootstock, that’s a strong result. If only 3 to 5 are actually good and make it to mainnet, if only 2 reach any meaningful TVL, I’d say $6,500 was well spent, considering we hardly see any grant here under $6,500 for a single project. Here we might be funding a pipeline of projects.

It’s also worth noting that AI is a very strong narrative in our local Web3 community and a central pillar of Ipê Village, with a dedicated AI Hacker House and AI-focused events throughout the month. There’s a real chance we see innovative projects, e.g., connecting agentic AI with Rootstock’s economy. These are the types of projects with outsized upside potential that we wouldn’t surface through traditional crypto event sponsorship channels.

On the audience size

Ipê Village 2025 had 170+ residents from 10+ countries, and the 2026 edition has stronger momentum. The Architect membership is limited to 80, but the broader audience of founders, engineers, and crypto-native professionals attending for varying lengths of stay and forms of participation is significantly larger. We’re not reaching 80 people. We’re reaching a curated community where 80 of them are committed to shipping something.

On the event strategy concern

I think the point about one-off approvals versus a coordinated strategy is correct, and I agree we should eventually have that conversation at a strategic level with Rootstock Labs. But I don’t think that future or ongoing discussion should freeze all activity in the present, especially for such a unique opportunity at this price point. $6,500 is a low-risk way to test a format that, to my knowledge, no Bitcoin L2 has tried before. A 25-day in-residence event with a 20-day buildathon is genuinely unlike anything I’ve seen in 20 years of attending professional events across engineering, finance, and crypto.

On the coordination budget

I think $3,500 to sponsor and coordinate a 25-day event is modest by any standard. For reference, sponsorship packages at mainstream crypto events typically start at $5,000-10,000 for 1-2 days of visibility, and that’s before stand costs, collateral, and travel. Here we’re covering a full month of on-site ecosystem presence, presentations, builder support, and judging.

On post-event continuity

Fair concern. The buildathon structure itself helps here since 20 days of building creates significantly more momentum than a weekend hackathon. But more concretely, I expect some of these prototypes to end up right here on this forum, requesting grants with pre-built prototypes, a structured product vision and go-to-market strategy, deliverables, and milestones to be reviewed by us as delegates. I expect proponents to come better prepared than a grant application from a team that’s never touched Rootstock before. I see real chances of an established project with meaningful TVL coming from this pipeline. Me and @Kaf_Anode will be on the ground to identify and guide the strongest teams in that direction.

On scope

Due to mixed responses, I’ve decided to keep the original budget at $6,500. If results are good, we can increase scope next year with a dedicated BTCFi or Rootstock House in the Village.

I view this as the start of a longer relationship between Rootstock, BTCFi, and the Network State communities. There are an estimated 117 network state projects globally today. Bitcoin is intrinsically at the core of their philosophy. A small investment now positions us so that in 2 to 5 years, some meaningful share of those projects are using Rootstock for BTC, stablecoins, payments, and DeFi.

As a side update, @Kaf_Anode has booked his travel and is 100% confirmed to attend. If this proposal passes, we’ll have an additional recognized delegate with boots on the ground throughout the event to interact with participants, share presentations, and guide builders toward Rootstock.

2 Likes
12

Thank you for the positive feedback, @Axia. Glad the format resonated.

You’re right that this functions closer to a short-term incubator than a traditional hackathon. During the event, @Kaf_Anode and I should be available, interacting with builders, providing ongoing guidance and mentoring to teams building on Rootstock, not just judging at the end hoping for the best.

On post-event follow-through, the most promising projects that aren’t ready to go on their own can be invited into the grants program, adopting a focused and structured product vision, go-to-market strategy, and a milestone-based approach with clear deliverables and KPIs. And twenty days of building gives these teams a real head start.

On a more active role for delegates beyond grant reviews, this connects well to the discussion we had recently. I think audit facilitation programs like you mentioned are a great idea worth exploring, and this kind of event could be a good testing ground for that kind of expanded support. I think those are two discussions to keep building on.

If executed well, I agree this could serve as a template for how the Collective approaches event sponsorship going forward. Low cost, high builder engagement, and a clear pipeline back into the ecosystem.

1 Like
13

Gm, @ChronoTrigger , we really appreciate your comments regarding that this discourse is making our governance stronger (we agree!), and we also value your perspective on the structural differences between booth-style events and high-touch residencies.

However, looking at the proposal of all of ours shared goal for the Collective (building on-chain growth), we still find a couple fundamental hurdles that haven’t been fully defined:

  • While $3,500 might be “modest” compared to a $50k booth, it still represents 54% of this specific grant request. To maintain high financial standards for all grants, we believe it is necessary to include a granular breakdown for “coordination” fees. Could you please provide a line-item view of that $3,500? (e.g., How much is the venue sponsorship fee, how much is for materials/collateral, and how much is being allocated for the coordinator’s time/travel?)

  • We appreciate your perspective on how this event compares to mainstream sponsorships. You’re right that $50k for a booth and t-shirts turns into a low-ROI “visibility war.” However, our concern isn’t that your proposal is more expensive than a major conference; it’s that the unit economics for this specific niche audience still feel high relative to the expected output. While the broader residency may have more attendees, the “Buildathon” itself, the part where the actual work will happen, is limited to 80 people. Even if we reach the full 80, an $81.25 CAC is a high premium to pay for “brand awareness” if we don’t have a guaranteed conversion funnel.

  • You mentioned that 20 days of dedicated “hands-on-keyboard” time is superior to a weekend hackathon, and we totally agree. But that actually increases our concern: If the Collective is funding 20 days of a builder’s time, shouldn’t we expect a Mainnet deployment as a milestone, rather than just a testnet prototype? If we only see 3 to 5 projects make it to Mainnet, as you suggested might happen, our effective Cost Per Retained Project jumps to $1,300–$2,166, and that is a significant acquisition cost. Without a defined strategy for a this event, it is difficult to determine if this is the most efficient use of our treasury.

Looking forward to continuing this discussion and hearing your thoughts. Thks!

14

Thanks @ChronoTrigger for your comprehensive proposal that is very targeted and promising at an uprising event at Florianópolis!

First of all, we are in full support of this initiative. While we have discussions around the event grant strategy, this opportunity looks hard to miss; a focused, and dedicated initiative to attract high signal and quality developers by our top delegates and the event organizer himself with a reasonable budget. If we introduce and carefully operate it into the event, we would have a good pipeline of developers and grant proposals into the Rootstock ecosystem, which we can’t get from other events or marketing/promotion campaigns.

However, we understand some of the concerns from delegates too, so we would like to clarify a few points.

Do you have your estimate/target numbers on each metric? You mentioned 80 spots for the final presentations, but they are for the whole buildathon, or a specific track? As @Axia mentioned, we need to consider what kind of follow-ups we as Collective can support them with.

Jean is the organization of the whole conference, thus his time is going to be very limited. As a member of this initiative, what can he do in addition to “integrating” the Rootstock track?

We would propose $4,500 in total for the top 3 projects ($2,000, $1,500, $1,000). We are also open to discussing an increase in operational budgets as it’s a long-run event and it’s important to properly cover what Rootstock can provide.

15

Thank you @DAOplomats for continuing the discussion. I had a meeting with Jean Hansen (Ipê City founder) this week and came back with some information that I think reframes this opportunity significantly.

On the numbers

Briefly, because I think the real story here is bigger than CAC math. With AI and vibecoding, builders can now prototype end-to-end projects in about a day. In the first week alone, we’re likely to see more than 80 initial prototypes. As the buildathon progresses, teams collect feedback, validate ideas, and narrow focus toward the most promising projects, which get refined and polished by Demo Day. This creates a natural funnel dynamic where we’re continuously filtering for quality, rather than betting everything on a single Demo Day outcome.

Even if we use your framework and assume $2,000 to $3,000 per project that makes it to mainnet, that’s still significantly cheaper than our typical Milestone 1 grants, which frequently land at $5,000 to $8,000, or total grants in the $15,000 to $30,000 range. And $1,300 to $2,000 per project with a working prototype and validated concept is still a fraction of what we typically spend to get a single grantee to that same point through the standard pipeline. Mainnet deployment involves crytical additional steps like security reviews and audits that go beyond any buildathon’s scope, but a battle-tested prototype with 20 days of iteration is exactly the kind of strong foundation that makes a grant application credible and de-risked for the Collective.

But I think the more important conversation is what this sponsorship actually means beyond the buildathon.

On what “Tech Partner” actually means

Rootstock wouldn’t just be sponsoring a buildathon. We’d become a Tech Partner of Ipê Village, which carries a very different weight. I’ll let Jean Hansen explain it directly:

Role of a Tech Partner at Ipê Village

Ipê Village is a governance lab where we prototype the social, economic, and governance systems of an AI-native city running onchain.

Instead of starting with physical infrastructure, we focus on building the digital, economic and coordination layers that allow communities to organize, transact, and govern themselves.

Tech Partners play a key role in this process. They provide the foundational infrastructure that powers the experimental operating system of the village. This includes technologies such as digital identity, wallets and payments, blockchain and settlement layers, social graphs and communication protocols, reputation and credential frameworks, privacy infrastructure, and AI tools.

During the month-long pop-up city, builders use these platforms to create real services and applications for residents. Instead of theoretical concepts, the tools are tested in a live environment where hundreds of residents interact, transact, and coordinate daily.

This means Tech Partners become core infrastructure providers for the village, platforms that builders integrate into new apps and services, and technology stacks that power real-world experiments in governance and coordination.

In this sense, a Tech Partner is not just a sponsor. They become part of the operating system of an emerging city.

This is worth sitting with. We’re talking about Rootstock becoming a foundational infrastructure layer of a network state project, alongside the likes of Tether, Solana, and other major players that are investing well over a hundred thousand dollars to establish themselves at the infrastructure level of these communities. We’d be getting a seat at that table for $6,500. The expanded vision is detailed in Ipê City’s full deck.

On the long-term picture

Ipê City intends to become an actual city. Their approach is to lay the digital foundation first, then the physical foundation after. It’s also worth noting that alongside Ipê Village, there’s an active initiative called FloripaDEZ, which has already gathered political support to establish a special economic zone in Florianópolis. This isn’t a one-off event. It’s a movement with institutional momentum, and the infrastructure partners who get in early will be embedded at the foundation level.

On the budget breakdown

Here’s the approximate allocation for the $3,500 coordination budget:

  • ~$2,300 for Ipê Village sponsorship / Tech Partner integration
  • ~$600 for marketing collateral, branded materials, and sponsored mini-events (happy hours, food and beverages after presentations)
  • ~$300 each for me and @Kaf_Anode as symbolic compensation for local coordination and sustained availability to interact with builders throughout the event

Given the adaptive nature of Ipê Village, we’d like to retain some discretion for minor adjustments in budget utilization during the month, such as co-sponsoring side events with other projects or supporting emerging initiatives.

2 Likes
16

Thank you for the support and the constructive questions, @Tane.

On the metrics

The 80 Architect spots are for builders participating in the full buildathon. Each builder is free to submit as many projects as they want, across as many tracks as they want, including multiple projects in the same track. In practice, especially with AI and vibecoding accelerating prototyping to about a day per project, each builder typically creates multiple prototypes in the first week. So we may even see over 80 projects submitted to the Rootstock track in the initial phase. Over the following two weeks, builders collect feedback, validate, and narrow focus toward the most promising ones. This creates a natural filtering funnel rather than a single all-or-nothing Demo Day. As rough targets, I’d expect 15 to 30 initial submissions to the Rootstock track, narrowing to 5 to 15 serious prototypes, with the top 3 to 5 being strong enough to consider a grant application to the Collective. This is my best guess, but really it depends on many variables.

On Jean’s role

To clarify, Jean has been instrumental in structuring this initiative and defining how the Rootstock track integrates into the buildathon program. But during the event itself, the day-to-day coordination, builder interaction, presentations, and judging will be handled by me and @Kaf_Anode. Jean runs the entire village, so we shouldn’t count on his availability beyond the initial setup. Once we have our presentation details and mini-event sponsoring defined, we’re good to operate independently.

On the budget

We appreciate the suggestion to increase scope. A $4,500 prize pool for the top 3 projects ($2,000/$1,500/$1,000) would meaningfully increase the pull on builders and signal that the Rootstock track is one of the most competitive in the buildathon. We’re on board with that.

On the operational side, we’d welcome a modest increase as well, though we’d be cautious about going too high. An approximate allocation at $4,500 would look like:

  • ~$2,500 for Ipê Village sponsorship / Tech Partner integration
  • ~$1,000 for marketing collateral, branded materials, and sponsored mini-events (happy hours, food and beverages after presentations, and flexibility for emerging initiatives)
  • ~$500 each for me and @Kaf_Anode for local coordination and sustained availability throughout the event

That would bring the total to $9,000. We’re open to discussing the final numbers with the community and other delegates, but I’d suggest we move this to a vote soon. We need the 7-day voting window plus time on our end to coordinate marketing collateral, prepare our event presentations, arrange the happy hours, and put together accessory material to provide to builders. The event starts early April.

1 Like
17

Thanks for the quick response and clarifications. If we can attain 3-5 potential grant application candidates through this initiative, it’s going to be a real win. We agree with the proposed operational budget increase now that @Kaf_Anode will join the effort to support this initiative. We will vote for the proposal once it’s live. Thanks!

2 Likes
18

Not to let this be buried into the main discussion point…

@Axia raised a very important point for all delegates and contributors to discuss further. We would like to have a dedicated place to do so, not on this proposal thread.

2 Likes
19

Honestly, I really like this proposal. Having a 20 day Rootstock track in the Buildathon is great because it gives participants time to actually build things, not just make presentations. I also like how it connects with the Web3 community and the Network State movement, which could open many opportunities.

The team looks quite strong and the prizes seem fair to motivate people. What I would like to see more of is information about how many projects they expect to receive and how many builders will participate. Overall, it seems like a very good and promising idea.

2 Likes
20

Hey, @ChronoTrigger , it looks like you meant to tag @DAOstar_gov here, but we are always happy to weigh in! regarding execution: since major L1s like Solana will also be present, how are you planning to actively steer these rapid-prototyping teams toward choosing the Rootstock stack over competing chains?