git / moonbite-network / docs/ADR-009-relief-grant-program.md · raw

# ADR-009 — Relief-Grant Program (gifts of MBITE)- **Status:** Proposed (dormant — activates only when ADR-008 preconditions are met)- **Date:** 2026-07-22- **Supersedes:** —- **Superseded by:** —- **Related:** ADR-006 (founder allocation / burn — the program is funded from  disclosed, non-premine sources), ADR-008 (liquidity & merchant adoption — the  precondition this ADR waits on).## ContextThe project wants to eventually direct some MBITE toward people in genuine need —a "relief grant." The intent is charitable, but the design constraints are sharp,and getting them wrong turns a good intention into either fraud, an unregisteredsecurity, or unlicensed money transmission.Three hard truths shape this decision:1. **MBITE has no established value yet** (pre-mainnet, unlisted, zero trades).   Granting a thing of undefined value is not charity — it is theatre, and it   invites accusations of pumping a worthless token. Per ADR-008, value only   becomes honest once liquidity **and** spend-utility exist. **This program stays   dormant until then.**2. **A grant must be an unconditional gift of MBITE — nothing else.** The moment   the program takes fiat, pays someone's bills, converts MBITE to dollars, or   holds funds on a recipient's behalf, it crosses the crypto↔fiat boundary and   becomes **money transmission** (MSB licensing, KYC/AML). It also must not be a   payment *for labor or services* (that reframes it as compensation/airdrop) nor   carry any promise of future price appreciation (that risks looking like an   investment contract / security). It is a gift. Full stop.3. **Grants funded from a common pool need an honest, tamper-evident source and a   transparent decision process**, or the program becomes a slush fund and a   reputational liability for a project whose entire brand (ADR-006/007) is   "every rule is fixed in code and public."Four parameters were left open in earlier discussion and are decided here:**eligibility**, **per-grant caps**, **pool size/source**, and **who approves**.## DecisionAdopt a **dormant, opt-in, non-custodial relief-grant program** with thefollowing rules. It does **not** run until the ADR-008 preconditions are live.### 0. Activation preconditions (all required)- A functioning liquidity venue exists (ADR-008 order book has real, non-trivial  two-sided activity, **or** MBITE is listed somewhere it can be exchanged).- Real merchant spend-utility exists (ADR-008 directory has active merchants and  at least some real on-chain invoice settlements).- A published, auditable funding source exists (see §3).Until every box is checked, the program is documentation only. No grants issue.### 1. Nature of the grant- Each grant is an **unconditional, one-way transfer of MBITE** to a recipient's  **own** address. Non-custodial: the recipient controls the keys the moment it  lands.- **No fiat leg. No bill-pay. No conversion. No custody.** The program never holds  a recipient's funds and never touches money.- **No strings, no vesting, no clawback, no expectation of profit.** It is a gift,  documented as such. The program makes **no** representation that MBITE will hold  or gain value; recipients are told plainly it may be worth nothing.- It is **not** compensation. Recipients are never asked to perform work, promote  the project, refer others, or complete tasks in exchange. That would make it an  airdrop-for-labor / compensation event, not relief.### 2. Eligibility (default)- **Self-attested need, lightweight.** An applicant submits their own MBITE  address and a brief, honest statement of need. No fee to apply.- **One active grant per person and per address.** Anti-Sybil is handled by the  per-grant cap and pool rate-limits (§3), *not* by collecting sensitive identity  documents — the program deliberately avoids becoming a KYC data honeypot, which  is consistent with the project's pseudonymity posture.- **Excluded:** the project's own maintainers, addresses associated with the  funding source, and anyone using the grant as disguised compensation.- Eligibility rules are published; changes ship as an amendment to this ADR.### 3. Pool size & source (default)- **Funded only from disclosed, non-premine MBITE.** Because ADR-006 burns founder  allocation rather than holding it, the pool is **not** a premine slice. Permitted  sources: voluntary donations to a published, watch-only program address, and/or  a fixed, publicly announced allocation the community can verify on-chain. The  source and every inflow/outflow are **publicly auditable on the chain**.- **Fixed, announced pool per cycle** (e.g. per quarter). The program never spends  beyond the announced cycle amount; when a cycle's pool is exhausted, grants pause  until the next cycle. No borrowing against future cycles.- The program address is **watch-only for observation**; actual disbursement keys  are held by the approvers (§4), not by any server.### 4. Approval (default)- **Multisig, m-of-n, no single signer.** Disbursements require an **M-of-N  multisig** (default **2-of-3**) so no one person can drain the pool. Signers are  publicly named (by pseudonym) at activation.- Every approved grant is **logged publicly** (grant id, amount, recipient address,  date, and the on-chain txid) so the whole program is verifiable, matching the  transparency standard of ADR-006/007.- Denials require no justification beyond "cycle exhausted" or "failed the  published eligibility rules"; the process is not adversarial.### 5. Per-grant cap (default)- A **small, fixed maximum per grant**, denominated in **MBITE** (not fiat — the  program never references a dollar value, since doing so both implies a price and  drifts toward money-transmission framing). The exact figure is set at activation  relative to the then-current subsidy/emission, and published. Caps exist to make  the pool reach more people and to blunt Sybil farming.## Consequences**Positive**- The program can do genuine good *without* the project becoming a regulated money  transmitter, a securities issuer, or a KYC data honeypot.- Full on-chain auditability (funding source, multisig approvals, every grant txid)  keeps it consistent with MoonBite's "fixed in code and public" brand.- Dormancy-until-value prevents the worst failure mode: loudly gifting a  valueless token and looking like a pump.**Negative / accepted trade-offs**- **The program does nothing for a while.** By design it waits on ADR-008. That is  the honest cost of not overpromising.- **Light-touch eligibility is Sybil-imperfect.** We accept some gaming as the  price of not building an identity-document honeypot; caps + fixed pools bound the  damage.- **Self-attested need can be abused.** Mitigated, not eliminated, by public logs  and small caps.- **Multisig coordination is slower** than a single signer — accepted, because no  single party should be able to move the pool.## Alternatives considered- **Run the program now, pre-value.** Rejected: grants of a valueless token are  theatre and read as a pump (see ADR-008).- **Pay recipients' bills / give fiat.** Rejected: money transmission (MSB), the  exact boundary the project refuses to cross.- **Condition grants on promotion, referrals, or tasks.** Rejected: that is  compensation / an airdrop-for-labor, not relief, and muddies the gift framing.- **Collect ID documents for eligibility.** Rejected: builds a KYC honeypot at odds  with the project's pseudonymity and privacy posture; caps + public logs are the  chosen anti-abuse tools instead.- **Fund from a premine slice.** Rejected: contradicts ADR-006's no-premine burn;  the pool must come from disclosed donations or a publicly verifiable allocation.- **Single-signer treasury for speed.** Rejected: unacceptable custody/rug risk;  multisig only.## NotesThis ADR is intentionally **dormant**. Nothing in it should be presented publiclyas an active program or a promise. When (and only when) the ADR-008 preconditionsare met, activation means: publish the pool source and cycle amount, name themultisig signers, publish the per-grant cap in MBITE, and open applications. Untilthen it is a design record, not an offer.