The month of August resulted in the completion of many important milestones such as the launch of CoWAMM which the Maxis closely managed and supported, the execution of the Market Maker deal with Amber as well as moving forward with the alpha test of the new operations UI. Together, these advancements showcase our commitment to our initiatives and passion for Balancer.
Below a summary of our work conducted in August
Initiative 1: On-Chain DevOps Hub
We continue to improve our operating procedures and strengthen our peer-review process for on-chain operations. As mentioned in July, we now adhere to our strict internal review process and make sure all on-chain activities are reflected in code artifacts on our multi-sig ops repository. The month of August was also marked with handling large sums of money to be provisioned as POL, such as the CoWAMM launch, seeding of POL as well as the connector pool proposal to improve veBAL wrapper price stability. Many important lessons were learned, and our focus for September and moving forward will be a better coordination of POL provisioning and accounting. Examples of our full-transparency approach can also be found on the forums discussions around CoWAMM POL provisioning
One of the most exciting developments is the alpha launch of the Balancer Operations UI. You can check it out here: https://balancer.defilytica.tools/
Here is a detailed breakdown of of the goals achieved compared to our proposal goals:
- Operate and maintain new chain deployments
- Working together with Mimic to operationalize Fraxtal
- Working closely with BD to work on a new framework for Mode. Details will follow soon
- Fee Processing
- Deep code review for fee allocator v2 incl. Building of backtesting code-base
- Monitoring and optimization of voting incentive alllocations
- Secondary Token Reward Management
- Provisioning of a BAL secondary rewards injector for CoWAMM
- Monitoring and execution of an incentive program
- AURA Position Management
- Voting on key strategic pools with our vlAURA position
- Improved automatic payloads and on-chain exexution
- Gauges and Core Pools
- Migrated to api-v3 for core pool flagging
- Onboarding of more than 12 gauges
- Execution of token grants
- Execution of ARB LTIP
- Writing of reports and coordinating with ARB committee
- Omni-Chain operations
- Mgmt of BAL token incentives through omin-chain multi-sig
- Swapping of signer sets across wallets, see [BIP-681],
- Maintenance of access policies across wallets such as [BIP-685]
- Integration of dRPC into our pipelines for better performance and resiliancy
- Analytics
- Assisting in building and reviewing new Dune dashboards for the DAO
- Migration of Balancer analytics to the decentralized network
- Working on backend integration of voting incentive market datasets
Discretionary Budget Breakdown
| Project | Budget spent |
|---|---|
| Operations: Fee Allocator code Base and Refactoring and Documentation | $2’940 |
| Operations: Transaction builders and vlAURA mgmt | $3’360 |
| Operations Front-end: Github integration, alpha test build setup, DB configurations | $2’550 |
| Injector V2: integration tests, injector viewer setup | $540 |
In total, the Maxis have spent $9’390 on discretionary budget for the various tasks mentioned above in August. At the current setup we have more than $44,000 in discretionary budget left which is a testament to the very conservative approach we are taking. We will have to consider additional cost points for September, but they should not inflate spendings significantly. Overall, we can expect a decent savings package to roll over to the next funding round.
Initiative 2: Support and execution of Growth Initiatives and Product Launches
In terms of growth initiatives, the Maxis have expanded the fruitful collaboration with @lipman which lead to many great BD leads and new liquidity onboarding. Furthermore, we executed and coordinated closely with BLabs and CoW DAO the successful launch of CoWAMM. The Maxis made sure POL was provisioned and coordinated the first incentive program with direct BAL rewards on strategic CoWAMM pools. Furthermore, the Maxis learned many lessons from the CoWAMM launch that will flow into the planning and execution of v3 later this year.
Other Initiatives
Market Makers
The Maxis are continuing to work with our designated market maker to hit KPIs with Binance. We will report on progress through the foundation.
DAO Treasury Management and Reporting
We have been working closely together with @karpatkey to revamp the currently set up treasury configuration. The goal is to optimize for maximum efficiency while reducing organizational overhead. Both teams will present a new plan moving forward soon.
Additionally, I have been working closely together with Dmitry and Jerry from @karpatkey to establish a “State of the DAO” financial reporting and performance series based on the newly developed tooling. This will allow us to reflect on what drives revenue, where we can optimize our cost basis and how we can increase runway.
Conclusion
As we look back on August’s achievements, we’re grateful for the progress made and the lessons learned. The successful launch of CoWAMM, the Market Maker deal, and our new operations UI alpha test are testament to our collective efforts.
Overall, the Maxis are on track to achieve their goals for Q3 and continue to collaboratively push the protocol forward. Balancer has a lot of positive momentum ahead and we are very grateful for being part of this journey!