How to work for Cardano blockchain

One of the changes that the cryptocurrency industry brings is decentralization of work. More and more people work for DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) and unlike with BigTech companies, there is no single point of decision-making, which gives more freedom and flexibility.

In this article, I will explain how to work for Cardano blockchain. Yes, not for Cardano company, but for blockchain itself, as the payments are done from Cardano treasury.

Project Catalyst is DAO (or Decentralized Innovation Fund) in the Cardano ecosystem. The first and probably most important thing — is that you need to look for long-term results. On the long-term distance, you will develop your knowledge, expertise, connections, reputation, and experience. If this area is new for you — you will need to learn a lot before and it’s just not worth investing so much time if you don’t consider this work for the long term. Even from a financial planning perspective — here is an example — Fund9 Project Catalyst Proposal Assessors (PA, people who write reviews on proposals) -did the work during the summer and was paid only today, at the end of October 2022.

Where to Start

The best way to start is to register at https://cardano.ideascale.com/

This is the platform where the major steps happen — submission of proposals, and writing reviews. So you need to be there.

Sign up for Catalyst Telegram Announcement Channel — so you will know about all the main updates. Attend townhalls, which happen every Wednesday, or watch them after recording.

There are many telegram, discord channels, groups and entities inside the Project Catalyst, in some time you will have a big variety of options to choose. Sometime after you will have the idea of where you can contribute, what you can contribute and how you can be rewarded. You can choose your career yourself, and you can combine them by choosing several careers.

Career #1 — Proposer

On Ideascale you can see which challenges (categories) will be in the next Fund (as I’m writing this — the next Fund will be Fund10 which starts in November 2022)

You can see if there is something you can contribute and if you are confident — submit your proposal. It can be a small proposal or big one. Several new companies were created in Project Catalyst, once the proposal is successful — it will be easier to win votes in the future. Companies that already operate in the blockchain space also come to Catalyst with proposal, and many individuals are just submitting a small proposal for their particular work.

Be prepared that the competition is hard, and Catalyst process takes several months, so if you are looking for fast money — that’s not the best option.

Career #2 — Proposal Assessor (PA)

You can become Proposal Assessor and write reviews on proposals. During the Fund there will be 2-week period when it’s possible to write reviews. As you can see from the recent open data from Fund9 — some PAs are making really good money.

PAs are anonymous, there are no requirements for becoming PA. That’s an easy way to write a review, but to write a Good review — that’s not so easy. And to write an Excellent review is hard. Only Excellent and Good reviews will be rewarded, so there is no point in writing reviews that lack quality — they will be filtered out. “Good” and “Excellent” in terms of the quality of the text, which shows the research and thinking which was done on a particular proposal. Along with review, you are assigning 1–5 stars on the proposal and in a way influence its fate as voters later will look at the rankings.

Career #3 — Veteran Proposal Assessor (vPA)

Only some part of PAs can become vPA in the next Fund (so if you become PA in Fund10, you can be vPA only in Fund11, it will depend from the number of reviews you wrote and % of good reviews. This may change in the future)

vPAs evaluate the reviews done by PAs by selecting “Excellent”, “Good” or “Filter out”. That’s how part of the reviews are filtered, and those which are good and excellent are later visible to the voters. vPAs influence the amount of PAs earnings.

Career #4 — Referrer

If you invite to Catalyst proposers who win the vote — you will get a referral fee. The amount fee depends on the total Fund size and the total number of referrers, but it’s not small. When submitting a proposal there will be a line to indicate who recommended you Catalyst. For example, if you put my e-mail (cryptotexty @ gmail.com) and then your proposal is successful — I will get a reward at the end of the Fund.

Career #5 — dREp

dRep — Delegated Representative will be an analogy of Catalyst Senator who will vote on behalf of others. Ordinary ADA holders don’t have time to read, evaluate and vote on hundreds of proposals — so this new position of Catalyst is a new evolution of DAO. ADA holders will be able to choose the dRep to whom they will delegate their voting power and like in national parliaments, all the votes will be transparent. dReps will be able to earn up to $3000 per Fund (depending on the amount of voting power they will receive).

Career #6 — Freelancer

So many different projects won in Catalyst and got funds, so it’s possible to join one of them as a Freelance worker (or even in some cases as a full-time worker, especially if you are a developer — there is always a need for good developers). If you are active in the community — you might be invited to take part in some project and get rewards. But it’s better not to wait, and check winners, check their plans, team, and budget and if you see that you can contribute — you can contact them. Funded projects receive ADA from the treasury, so this will still count as you are working for Cardano blockchain.