Motivation
There has long been a desire to see Balancer on Avalanche from many in the community. Over the last few months important projects like making it easier for the UI to support new chains and generalized boosted pool support have been completed which removes previous blockers for Balancer to expand to new chains.
In terms of top chains by TVL per Defillama, Avalanche sits between Polygon and Optimism. It’s weathered the bear market quite well, and other metrics like volume are also comparable to networks we’re already deployed on. Importantly, Aave has a large presence on Avalanche and I believe Aave v3 Boosted Pools would be a very popular new primitive for users and developers. Beyond that, there’s a growing market for liquid staked AVAX, in particular sAVAX by Benqi who have signaled an interest in seeing liquidity on Balancer if we were to come. Therefore, Balancer could bring value to Avalanche through its composable liquidity products.
When assessing whether a new chain makes sense I think three important factors are:
- Network size & growth trajectory
- Balancer’s competitive advantage (boosted pools & liquid staked tokens)
- 3rd party incentives
In this case Avalanche is of a similar size to networks we already support and seems at least on par with others in terms of growth/metrics lately. We have a strong partner in Aave for boosted pools and interest from new friends to grow liquid staked AVAX. The DAO has been in early discussions of bootstrapping AVAX incentives but no agreements have been made yet.
Another reason I think expansion is a good idea is because of how effective BIP-19 has been in growing Balancer’s position on networks beyond Ethereum. Before things got derailed with the issue disclosed in January we had gained significant ground on Polygon to nearly become the top DEX by TVL. The imminent launch of Aave v3 boosted pools will be a major growth catalyst in key markets like Arbitrum & Polygon and combined with BIP-19 I’m optimistic on our multi-chain future.
Specification
This vote does not have any particular on-chain execution. If approved, the various contributors to Balancer DAO will work towards deploying on Avalanche in the next 2-3 months. If not approved then this deployment will be scrapped, pending further discussion or another vote.
