Balancer Business Development Service Provider May Update

Service Providers
1

Below is a recap for May and updates for the key Q2 objectives. For April’s update, please see here.

  1. Initiate the launch of new chains:

  • Finalize the selection of chains for Balancer’s launch. Done

  • Conclude agreements with the chosen chains, including incentive structures, seeding liquidity, co-marketing, etc. Done.

  • Collaborate with engineering, Maxis, and marketing teams for the deployment on these new chains. In progress. Deployments should be finalized the week of June 3rd.

  • Establish a comprehensive partnership network and ecosystem on the new chains, encompassing liquidity providers, yield-bearing assets, lending protocols, etc. In progress. Example: working directly with Mode team and have started conversations with multiple lending protocols, LRTs, and yield bearing assets on Mode.

  • Complete grant applications and administrative tasks necessary to secure incentives and other advantages from the new chains. Done.

  • Enhance presence on existing chains:

    1. Develop, coordinate, and execute growth initiatives on Layer 2 solutions for existing chains, focusing on Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base networks.

  • Base examples

    1. Brought new partners to Base (ex: sDAI rehype pool, weETH/WETH)
    2. Exploring opportunities with Coinbase One team for special Balancer perks for Coinbase One members on Base (also intro’d to QuantAMM team).

  • OP examples

    1. Secured 100k OP grant for LST and LRT incentives
    2. Brought new partners to OP (e.g. [sDAI rehype pool](Gyroscope Protocol), wrsETH / WETH)

  • Arbitrum examples

    1. Secured STIP Bridge grant program for 600k ARB for incentives

  1. Expand the yield-bearing thesis initiative. See above

  2. Launch new pools for LSTs and LRTs on mainnet. No new pools in May on mainnet.

  3. Introduce new pools for yield-bearing stablecoins. See above

  4. Bring LST/LRT partners to new chains where Balancer is deployed In progress. See OP/ARB/Base discussion above.

  5. Extend the ve8020 governance initiative. In progress.

  • Explore ve8020 collaborations with pre-token projects, such as LRT projects.
  • Promote ve8020 to projects with existing tokens.
  1. Manage the application, monitoring, and execution of the Optimism grant program. Application is complete. Grant has been awarded to Balancer.
  2. Streamline partner onboarding: Effort being spearheaded by Maxis for v3. Continuing to seek alternatives for easier onboarding in general (e.g. evaluating API3 as a potential rate provider solution due to its low cost and speed to spin up)
  • Find ways to reduce friction in partner onboarding processes.
  • Iterate on the notion pack, created by Marketing, to highlight the benefits of Balancer and guide new partners through the onboarding process.
  • Collaborate with a small project team, including design, marketing, and Maxis, to rethink the partner onboarding process, potentially introducing a self-service UI.
  • Evaluate the CCIP with Chainlink and implement it if necessary to streamline the rate provider onboarding process.
  1. Prepare for v3 launch and seek partnerships: Working closely with cross-functional team to co-lead aggregator outreach and relationships (integration discussions now happening with all aggregators), GTM funnel, partnerships, and key prospecting initiatives (e.g. creating a pitch deck to recruit teams to build on Balancer).
  • Seek integrations and partnerships in anticipation of the v3 launch.
  • Collaborate with the Maxis to identify innovative use cases for exploration.
  • Reach out to projects to present the v3 opportunity and establish partnerships ahead of the launch.
  1. Continue ad hoc outreach to projects, exploring new partnerships and opportunities.

  • Examples include (in no order):

    1. Secured Wormhole airdrop (100k $W)
    2. Exploring new partnerships with:

    • Composable Finance, Spectra, Usual Finance, Royco, Magma, Fringe Finance, Xield, Maple Finance, CIAN, Angle, DeSci World, Ducata, DEIN, Boost, Rubic, VNX, Conduit, YieldNext, GGP, Benqi, Trident, etc.

    • Tokemak v2 - exploring opportunities for Balancer to receive priority access to Tokemak v2

    • Avalanche Icebreaker Program - working with Avalanche, protocols, and Gyro to potentially bring gyroscope to Avalanche with initial liquidity and incentives provided by Avalanche Foundation

    • Completed Optimism Retro Grant Application

    • Symbiotic - new Eigenlayer competitor backed by Paradigm. Introduced by Paradigm and met with head of BD. Symbiotic introduced us to Mellow Protocol, which is creating LRTs on Symbiotic. Currently onboarding them.

    • Lining up exposure to Karak and Symbiotic LRT ecosystems (e.g. Vector Reserve pivoting to Karak)

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2

Just wanted to say I (and I know many more people in the ecosystem feel the same way) am very grateful you are with us @lipman.

All the work you are doing is going to pay off hugely in the mid to long term. Can’t wait to see all the cool stuff coming out of it.

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