Guild Funding Proposal

Governance Treasury Proposals
1

Hey Astar community,

We’re submitting this proposal to request direct funding support for integrating and providing Guild services to the Astar ecosystem.

Service details

Guild provides full community management platform access for all Astar projects, including:

  • Astar chain integration on Guild

  • Token-gating, quest campaigns, and reward distribution for Astar projects

  • Discord/Telegram management with Astar onchain verification

  • Analytics and community insights for the ecosystem

  • Ongoing technical support and maintenance

  • Regular feature updates and improvements

Funding Request

Guild’s Enterprise plan starts at $1,000/month and includes full platform access, chain integrations, priority support, and all premium features. For the Astar integration, we’re providing this Enterprise-level service.

To cover the costs of the Enterprise plan, we’re requesting $1,000 USD / month to cover the integration and ongoing operational costs. The payment will be calculated in ASTR based on the EMA30 price at the time of conversion.

Exchange Rate

2026-01-09 14:00:00 (+UTC)

Having Guild integrated means Astar projects can build stronger communities, run better onboarding campaigns, and reward their users more effectively. It’s infrastructure that helps the whole ecosystem grow.

Thanks for considering this proposal. Happy to answer any questions or provide more details if needed.

2 Likes
2

Guild is being used as the main tool for AAF and is an important component.

I have a question: does this mean that the tools already being provided are equivalent to an Enterprise plan, and that this invoice corresponds to that level of usage?

Also, which month does this invoice cover?
At the moment it is labeled simply as “one month,” so it’s hard to tell the specific period.

Additionally, going forward, it might be easier to bundle invoices quarterly (e.g., every three months) rather than billing every single month.

1 Like
3

Yes!

Subscriptions are usually monthly-based, but in your case, it would be better to bundle them quarterly or, preferably half-yearly. Which one would you prefer?

Also, as the integration went live in November (and the Astar Guild launch as well), I would like to include the past 2 months in the payment.

Please let me know your preference and I will finalize the funding request.

1 Like
4

I see, understood.
I think quarterly billing would be appropriate.

In that case, it would make sense to include the three months of November, December, and January in the invoice.

5

Alright! Then I will edit the funding request to include November, December and January, which will be a total of 272 727.27 ASTR (based on the calculation in the original post).

6

I am opposed to this proposal on both strategic and economic grounds.

The Astar ecosystem already has access to Peepr, a community and incentive infrastructure built by NEET, which outperforms Guild on functionality, cost-efficiency, and ecosystem alignment.

Why funding Guild is inefficient

  1. Redundant spend

    • Guild is requesting $12,000/year for features that already exist on Peepr.

    • Funding a second overlapping platform fragments tooling instead of consolidating it.

  2. Vendor lock-in risk

    • Guild is a closed, external SaaS.

    • Peepr is ecosystem-native, extensible, and designed to evolve with Astar’s needs.

  3. Weak value-to-cost ratio

    • $1,000/month for basic gating, quests, and analytics is not competitive in 2026.

    • Peepr delivers more advanced mechanics without recurring enterprise rent.

What Peepr does better

Peepr is not just a “guild tool.” It is an onchain coordination and incentive engine.

Key advantages:

  • Onchain VRF-based reward distribution (verifiable, fair, manipulation revealable)

  • Composable quest logic (multi-condition, cross-dApp, cross-token)

  • Native token & NFT gating

  • Sybil-resistance via behavior + wallet history, not just Discord roles

  • Designed for campaigns, raffles, drops, and long-term engagement, not just onboarding

  • Already battle-tested by NEET products, not theoretical integrations

Technical reference:

Strategic concern for Astar

Funding Guild signals that:

  • Astar prefers renting generic Web2.5 tooling

  • over supporting builders already delivering superior Web3-native infrastructure

This contradicts the goal of growing sovereign, competitive ecosystem primitives.

Important clarification: Peepr is not just a community tool. It is a Twitter/X SocialFi protocol that turns social engagement into onchain, verifiable actions and rewards.

7

I wasn’t familiar with Peepr, so I checked their website, but it looks like they only have a testnet at the moment. On top of that, I couldn’t find any documentation, so it was hard to understand what it can actually do. At first glance, it feels more like an SNS, and I didn’t get the impression that it could be used in a way that matches the intended purpose.

Also, Guild is already being used for AAF (Astar Ambassador Fellowship). If there were to be a switch to another tool, it would require close coordination with the Astar Foundation. This isn’t something that can be changed at the moment, and since Guild is already in use, the billing itself is justified.

That said, I don’t know how discussions with the Astar Foundation have been progressing on this topic, so I think that point needs to be clarified (I was expecting someone to show up in this thread at some point).

@Juminstock @Gaius_sama
How have discussions around Guild been handled so far?

2 Likes
8

Thanks for the details. I am not going to address the concerns of @WakeUp, I’d only say that Guild is a 4+ years old product and we have worked with top projects like Base and Magic Newton. And Guild has been a permissionless, free product that any project can use.

But let me know if someone from the Astar team wants me to elaborate more, and happy to do it!

10

Thanks for the clarification.

That said, product age, brand associations, and past usage are not decision criteria for treasury allocation.

A few points worth grounding this discussion:

1. “4+ years old” is not a moat

Longevity alone does not imply:

  • cost efficiency,

  • ecosystem alignment,

  • or superiority over newer, purpose-built primitives.

Many legacy Web3 tools persist due to inertia, not because they remain the best option.

2. “Worked with top projects” is not the same as being the right fit

Base, Magic Newton, and similar ecosystems have very different growth strategies and budgets.

Astar/Soneium’s challenge is not access to generic community tooling — it is differentiated user acquisition, retention, and onchain engagement.

That problem is not solved by Discord role management.

3. “Permissionless and free” does not justify treasury rent

If Guild is permissionless and free:

  • projects can already opt into it individually,

  • without committing ecosystem-level recurring spend.

Treasury funding requires clear marginal benefit over the status quo — not just continued availability of an existing service.

4. The core question remains unanswered

The unresolved question is simple:

What new ecosystem capability does this $1,000/month unlock that Astar does not already have — and that native builders cannot deliver or exceed?

Until that is clearly articulated, the proposal is about maintaining convenience, not investing in growth.

Happy to continue this discussion if the Astar team wants to define:

  • success metrics,

  • evaluation criteria,

  • and how native builders are expected to compete for ecosystem adoption.

1 Like
11

Hello @rolandxyz, thank you for adding your proposal here on the Astar forum!

The spending request for the three months during which the Astar Space has been operating on Guild is something we have already discussed in the past, so I am in favor of the request without any issues. That said, allow me to provide additional context to the broader community:

The fact that the Astar Community Program and the Astar Ambassador Fellowship are primarily operating on Guild is mainly due to a collaboration proposal made by the Astar Foundation with the Guild team, and now led by the Astar Community Council. This means it was planned, internally discussed, and is currently being executed.

The Guild team is submitting this spending request to the Community Treasury because this was one of the points discussed with them and aligned on by the ACC. As a team that is part of the ecosystem and with which we have an ongoing collaboration, Guild is within its rights to submit this type of request with proper justification, which I am clarifying here.

Now, @WakeUp, I appreciate you sharing your opinion and highlighting one of the many products built by NEET for the ecosystem. However, I do not currently see a clear use case for Peepr as the platform to host the Astar Community Program. Peepr appears more like a social network with limited features rather than a community management platform.

@WakeUp, whenever you wish, please feel free to propose the use of Peepr to host the Community Program. However, this deserves its own dedicated discussion thread, with appropriate reasoning to reach consensus. While the Community Program and the Ambassador Fellowship are now managed by the ACC, we remain open to the community’s preferences when supported by proper justification.

I hope this provides all the necessary context :raising_hands:.

cc @Community_Council

1 Like
12

Hi @WakeUp

If you would like to introduce the Peepr project, we encourage you to create a separate thread. This discussion is dedicated solely to the Guild Funding Proposal. You are welcome to share arguments opposing this proposal, but this is not the appropriate place to promote another project.

Any further posts promoting Peepr will be removed from this discussion.

Thank you.

1 Like
13

I’m not here to create or promote a separate project thread. If a dedicated introduction is needed, that’s something the project owner can decide to do.

I’m here to question how decisions are made in this ecosystem and to express an opinion on the process, not to market anything.

I’ve been in this exact situation before, Neurolaunch.

At the time, I raised concerns, was opposed, and told it wasn’t the right place.

In the end, the app was taken down, and the concerns were validated.

So this is not about Peepr.

It’s about a pattern:

  • ambassadors supporting friends’ projects,

  • external tools getting funded by default,

  • native builders being sidelined or ignored once they actually ship.

I speak up when I see systemic issues.

I did it then, and I’m doing it again now.

You don’t need me to create threads.

You’ll just see me when the system needs to be questioned, not you personally, the system.

As long as builders are encouraged to build but not valued, adopted, or fairly evaluated, this ecosystem will continue to stagnate.

That’s the point I’m making here.