Introduction
Given most of this proposal is inevitably copy pasta’d quarter to quarter I’ll highlight the key changes compared to Q4 to ensure nothing is missed. First, a group decision was made to add Tritium as the seventh Maxi. We have interfaced with him over the last few weeks and believe his skill set to be complementary to the responsibilities carried out by Maxis. One near term initiative for Tritium will be decentralizing Balancer’s snapshot operations and dissolving the Governance Council. A proposal will soon be presented for community feedback on this topic.
Prior to joining the Maxis Tritium contributed at Badger and Aura.
The second major change compared to Q4 is that Maxis took over the lead on Partnerships for the ecosystem so we’ve added a relevant section outlining our key objectives in this area. The north star success metric is increasing protocol revenue, with secondary goals being growing TVL dominance on L2’s and increasing market share of DEX volume. If these numbers move in the right direction it will not solely be driven by Maxis but by every team across the entire ecosystem. In the case that we are not successful in seeing positive growth continue to develop during ‘23 the community would be justified in seeking alternative teams to lead Partnerships.
Finally, we are increasing the monthly allocation of BAL for gas expenses as we expect to deploy many new boosted pools in January. We’re also increasing the monthly BAL allocated to Coordinape from 4,000 to 5,000 given the decline of BAL price and the recent addition of new community contributors who are solely compensated from Coordinape.
Service Provider Name: Balancer Maxis
Leader(s): Solarcurve, joined by the returning cast of Mike B, Zekraken, Xeonus, Zen Dragon, and Danko. Please welcome the newest addition to the cast - Tritium!
Pledge to abide by the DAO’s Code of Conduct (or link to your own): Yes
Pledge to abide by the Accountability Guidelines: Yes
Domains of Operation + Key Objectives & Success Metrics:
As Balancer pursues its path for further decentralization, the Balancer Maxis workgroup presents community contributors aligned with the protocol’s future and long-term sustainability. Whether proposing and executing innovative ideas, or protecting the interests of the ecosystem and helping third-party projects, Maxis have proven to be a key component of Balancer.
Our Q1 proposal is effectively asking veBAL Governance the continuation of this decentralized collaboration group, and reading on previous Q4 funding post might bring some additional context to the present proposal.The following will be kept brief and at a high level with some reflections on Q3 and the path ahead of us. More granular metrics can be found in our monthly updates for October, November, and December.
Multisig Management
- Linear (boosted) pool settings
- Swap fee and amplification adjustments
- Adding newly approved gauges to veBAL
- Adding new reward tokens to gauges
- Withdrawing and distributing protocol fees
- Verifying and queuing all transactions before execution by the DAO Multisig
- Together with Balancer Labs we operate the Emergency subDAO Multisig
These are some of the basic functions required to ensure smooth operation of the Balancer Protocol for all its end users. We believe the best metric for success is that most users are not even aware that these tasks exist – they simply observe a new gauge being approved by voters then appearing on the voting list or find protocol fees in the claim section every week, etc. Maxis ensure that the various multisigs and their relevant functions are used properly and promptly, and all transactions are verified for accuracy by at least two people.
Governance
- We serve on the Governance Council and ensure continuity of Balancer’s Governance Process
- Active participants in Discord and the Forum on governance topics
- Several of us are delegates
- Advise projects on Balancer’s governance process
- Manage admin of the Governance Forum
- We will pursue various strategic initiatives (such as BIP-19) at our discretion, either individually or as a group.
During Q4 Balancer governance processed many proposals as usual. The Maxis ensured that proposals were put up for a vote according to the schedule in BIP-9 and followed through on execution of each approved vote. We believe active governance is a good thing for Balancer – we will continue to make proposals, engage in constructive dialogue, and represent Balancer’s interests both on our home forum and elsewhere.
Partnerships
- We manage Balancer’s Discord and ensure questions or concerns are addressed
- Help projects use Balancer by offering advice or answering questions
- We often deploy new pools for other projects
- Whitelisting and maintaining token lists
- We help with UI testing for Balancer
- Seek out new opportunities to apply Balancer’s technology, primarily in the DeFi realm
- Manage relationships with partners across the entire lifecycle from initial conversations to implementation to final results
- Coordinate partner needs with other teams in the Balancer ecosystem, e.g. integrations.
Maxis took the lead on partnerships in the Balancer ecosystem during Q4 after the biz dev team at Orb was dissolved. The primary near term goals are significantly expanding boosted pool offerings, encouraging adoption of ve80/20 or similar systems, and increasing utilization of the veBAL flywheel (projects bribing, parking POL, etc). We believe Balancer has made strong progress over the last few months as we pivoted into yield bearing liquidity (an initiative spearheaded by Maxis) and we look to build on this momentum into ‘23 and beyond.
Community
- We manage a monthly Coordinape circle, open to all DAO contributors
- Onboarding framework for new contributors
- Offboarding for contributors transitioning from the DAO or between SPs
Having an open community for new contributors wanting to join the Balancer ecosystem is a great concern for us. By adopting an easy and seamless onboarding framework, every applicant is being reached through discovery calls and monthly follow-ups. We help contributors understand the DAO operating framework (BIP-1) and set in motion their ideas for Balancer. By keeping contributors engaged, we aim to retain talents in the Balancer ecosystem as Ballers, Grantees or shaping their own Service Provider.
Record Keeping
- We will maintain a notion page detailing the activity of each of our controlled multisigs. Included will be documentation on how to use the powers of the multisig so a future SP can easily take it over in case we are off boarded.
Length of Engagement & Budget:
3 months.
Budget of 10,800 BAL per month for salaries (1,800 per person, Danko & Tritium at 900) which will be max locked in veBAL by contributors. This represents $10k/mo for each contributor (Danko/Tritium at half) at today’s BAL price (~$5.5). Additional monthly allocations of 200 BAL for gas costs and 5,000 BAL for Coordinape.
Total for 3 month engagement: 48,000 BAL
Impact on the Treasury: The Treasury currently holds ~4.8M BAL. Funding the Balancer Maxis for Q4 would cost around 1% of the treasury’s BAL holdings, which annualizes to ~4% of the treasury’s BAL.
ETH Address to Receive Funds: 0x166f54F44F271407f24AA1BE415a730035637325
Link to SLA (if going through the Foundation: N/A