October was a productive month for the BDSP and marked a shifting of focus towards v3 in preparation of a late Q4 launch. Various activities and accomplishments are outlined below. From an expense standpoint, the BDSP had no discretionary spending in October.
Initiative 1: Foster the growth of the Balancer v2 protocol
Main noteworthy accomplishments during month include:
- New yield bearing pools for partners such as Affine, Hinkal, Mellow, Treehouse, Paxos (USDL), inEIGEN, and EtherFi (weETHs)
- Developed a pipeline of new yield bearing assets interested in deploying on Balancer on various chains including Trident (rlUSD), Ondo (USDY), Lombard (lBTC), BTC LRTs (Obtc, Lorenzo stBTC, enzoBTC, aBTC, uBTC, uniBTC, solvBTC), and Tainet (TAO LSTs)
- Gyroscope: began discussions with nexus mutual for gyro coverage (blocker for some asset managers to use ECLPs), helping gyro get approved by Paxos for Paxos projects to use ECLPs, connected with Notional
- CowAMM: coordinated with Frax for sfrxETH / FXS pool, Lido interested in pool in November, Euler interested in 8020 pool
- Worked with Beets on OP Yield Bearing Asset (YBA) mission and discussed with OP grants team for amenable middle ground after Balancer’s grant application was denied
- Other partnerships: Lens network (announcement coming at Devcon), yield aggregators (CIAN, Veda)
- veMODE program launched. More here. Coordinated with Maxis for how Balancer will handle incentives and partnership management. We are also onboarding new pools such as STONE, pufETH, and many of the BTC LRTs listed above. Please note that while Mode planned to allocate 50% of the veMODE rewards to BPT holders and 50% to single sided staking (SSS) holders, they changed that plan to favor SSS holders. This presents a challenge to Balancer’s strategy on Mode and something the team will work through.
Initiative 2: Support the launch of Balancer v3
In October, the BDSP, Maxis, and broader DAO contributors began shifting their focus to v3 launch preparation. Overall, October was about internally defining a direction for v3’s launch strategy and getting things prepared to support it. These are some of the notable accomplishments during October:
- Defined a launch strategy with respect to initial chain deployments, phase 2 chain deployments, v3 features to emphasize, veBAL strategy, and fee strategy. The BDSP’s role varied by topic.
- Secured Morpho as a boosted pool launch partner in addition to AAVE.
- Identified a comprehensive strategy for rolling out boosted pools and which partners to target initially.
- Developed a pipeline of lending protocols to enable new boosted pool markets such as Yearn, Beefy, Gearbox, Euler, Compound, Zerolend (likely for early 2025)
- Began exploring ideas with new hook creators such as Fyde Treasury.
- Began working with the Nexus Mutual team for potential v3 coverage
- Worked with Maxis to begin creating collateral that can be shared with partners to socialize v3 and why partners would want to migrate/adopt
- Invited partners to Balancer devcon event for IRL v3 discussion and relationship building
- Met with Head of Defi for Base to lay groundwork for boosted pools on Base. Base has begun introducing us to relevant projects.
Financial Breakdown
- Discretionary spending = $0
- USDC = $12,000
- BAL = 1,462
Conclusion
October was a good mix of continuing to build out partnerships and opportunities for v2 and plan for the future with v3. Given all the work and decision making that occurred with respect to v3, Balancer is well-positioned to move forward with v3 once v3 launch dates are finalized. Also, @ZenDragon beginning his full-time contribution to the DAO has been a boon for biz dev related efforts. Zen has been instrumental in many of the activities listed above and works very closely with the BDSP.