PR with Payload
Service Provider Name: Beethoven X DAO
Core Contributor(s): franz, vee, jedi rasta, naly, josey, jeff, groninge, tom, daniel
Pledge to abide by the DAO’s Code of Conduct (or link to your own): Yes
Pledge to abide by the Accountability Guidelines: Yes
Introduction & Domains of Operation:
Since becoming a Friendly Fork, Beethoven X and Balancer have developed a strong working relationship, marked by the successful launch of a joint venture on Optimism.
Throughout this collaboration, it has become clear that there is a significant amount of overlap in the work being done on both sides, and there is an opportunity to streamline efforts. Recognizing this, both Balancer and Beethoven X have continually expressed a desire to work closer together.
In an effort to accelerate the collaboration, Balancer Labs engaged Beethoven X contributors in a 3-month trial contract beginning on February 1, 2023. This collaboration has allowed both teams to leverage each other’s strengths and work together to drive technical innovation for the Balancer DAO.
As Balancer pursues its path towards further decentralization, we believe the inclusion of the Beethoven X DAO in its pool of service providers would represent a significant step in furthering this goal.
In this proposal, we will provide an update on the progress of the collaboration and present our plans for the future. We believe that by working collaboratively, we can achieve greater efficiency and drive innovation for the benefit of the entire Balancer ecosystem.
Balancer API
Beethoven X launched a custom UI in August 2022, with the goal of providing a fast and smooth user experience. To facilitate this goal, a significant amount of energy and resources were invested into the development of a custom backend API.
https://github.com/beethovenxfi/beethovenx-backend/
While OpCo has also been in the process of developing their own API, it was recognized that the Beethoven X API is in a more mature state and both sides would benefit from collectively supporting and building on a single API moving forward. Over the last two months, members from OpCo, Balancer Labs and Beethoven X have worked collaboratively to deploy a joint API infrastructure that will service both Balancer and Beethoven X moving forward:
OpCo has started the process of integrating the API into the Balancer UI, which should serve to provide a smoother UX in many ways. The success of this project speaks to the collaborative nature of all teams involved.
Scaffold-balancer
As part of the roadmap planning for Q1 of 2023, Beethoven X contributors proposed the development of a suite of tools that could make it significantly easier to start developing a custom pool contract on top of the Balancer protocol.
https://github.com/balancer/scaffold-balancer
Scaffold-balancer is a fork of the well known scaffold-eth project geared specifically around facilitating the rapid prototyping of new Balancer pool types. We strongly believe that if we make it simple to get started and succeed early, it will provide developers the motivation and inspiration to slowly peel back the layers of complexity that is the Balancer protocol and develop something truly innovative.
Current feature set:
- Generic Pool UI - Allows you to interact with any existing or locally deployed pool contracts, making the time-to-test significantly shorter. The UI focuses on single contract actions (swap/join/exit) for both query and tx submission.
- SOR Playground - Provides granular config on the pools, tokens, types, etc that are included into the routing. The idea being that you can provide tight constraints around the dataset to see how your custom pool performs when benchmarked against existing liquidity, although it could also quite easily be used to benchmark the performance of the SOR generally.
- Batchswap builder - A UI for building arbitrarily complex batch swaps.
Beyond the initially developed feature set, João from Orb integrations has also started to build out managed pool controller examples inside scaffold-balancer.
While still in its infancy, we believe this tool already provides significant value to developers looking to start the journey of developing their own custom pool on Balancer.
SDK / SOR
The existing SOR was built before the widespread adoption of BigInt math and the advent of boosted pools. As the number of deployed pools has continued to grow, the existing SOR has come up against performance limitations. Mike McDonald recently initiated a project to rewrite the SOR with a focus on speed and performance. We’ve supported Mike in this process, including implementing a novel graph traversal algorithm for path finding that is boosted pool native.
https://github.com/balancer/b-sdk
The implementation of a robust API has presented an opportunity to rethink the role that the Balancer SDK should fill. This repo will become the home of the new Balancer SDK.
Technical Advisor
While I (daniel) am a builder at heart, I’ve worked in senior developer and CTO roles for the better part of 10 years, and have worked professionally as a software developer for 15 years. The Balancer Labs leadership has been incredibly open and allowed me to begin to play a larger role across the entire ecosystem. Over the last several months, I’ve started attending regular ecosystem meetings, engaged in conversations on product development, participated in partnership discussions, and taken a role in helping to collaboratively define the future of the Balancer SDK.
Marketing, content and design
Over the past 18 months the Beethoven X marketing team have established a brand that has come to be recognised for not only its unique personality but its approach to community building and content creation. Our goal has been to build a competent community of engaged users that are as passionate about our ecosystem as we are.
The focus for our marketing efforts has been centered around producing high quality educational material on the underlying technology as well as cultivating an ethos of care and compassion for our community. Combining a strong visual aesthetic with an approachable brand identity has allowed our content, voice and style to flourish and has cemented our place as one of the top DeFi protocols on Fantom and Optimism.
Weekly newsletters, threads, docs, NFTs, giveaways, community competitions, animations, long form articles, ambassador programs, live events, and financial reporting has enabled community members to keep up to date with the Beethoven X ecosystem.
Building from a foundation of innovation that intertwines within current trends, social narratives and symbiosis offers the opportunity to establish a flourishing community base that is educated and empowered to engage in the ecosystem.
While not part of the original agreement, we set forth to showcase this competency. For the past 3 months the marketing team has started to work on the following initiatives.
Landing Page
As part of the roadmap planning for Q1 2023, Beethoven X contributors proposed the development of a landing page that clearly, concisely and with strong visuals, answers the question that is at the center of the growth of Balancer as a platform. “Why should I build on Balancer?” To date, 10 in-depth interviews have been performed with developers and key contributors across the Balancer ecosystem, and work has begun on developing a cohesive storyline. The landing page will intertwine strong visual design with technical information to create an engaging experience that highlights what sets Balancer apart.
Social Media & Design
Beethoven X contributors have started developing a framework for the evolution of the Balancer social media presence. The goal is to create a strong visual identity that not only showcases the technical capabilities of Balancer but also embodies a compelling personality that leverages current trends and social narratives, similar to what we strive for with the Beethoven X brand.
Content Creation
Beethoven X contributors have started producing in depth twitter threads on relevant topics in the Balancer ecosystem:
https://twitter.com/Balancer/status/1643985415135952896
https://twitter.com/Balancer/status/1633490690788462592
and kickstarted a technical article series:
https://medium.com/balancer-protocol/inside-balancer-contracts-a-composable-symphony-1-229f6e90224
Key Objectives & Success Metrics:
- Make it easier to build on Balancer - Having become domain experts on Balancer tech, Beethoven X collaborators are uniquely positioned to identify and help build solutions for many of the pain points that exist in the current Balancer tech stack.
- Reduce duplicate effort across the ecosystem - A joint API deployment is the first of several projects we see where Beethoven X contributors can leverage their domain expertise to reduce duplicate effort. How do we as an ecosystem invest significantly more energy into the future success of Balancer protocol and spend less time on the problems of today?
- Help drive the direction of the Balancer protocol - We believe Balancer protocol should be a platform that empowers current and future AMM innovation. We will continue to work to align the various parties in the balancer ecosystem around this vision. How do we put a true focus on this goal? How do we empower developers to build the next generation of AMMs on Balancer protocol?
Our strategy for Balancer marketing would be to highlight the major benefits of Balancer protocol across its user demographics in an engaging, informative manner. The focus of this strategy would be to educate users on product innovation, current trends and partnership developments. Coupled with engaging design / visuals the strategy stands to bring Balancer back into the limelight on social media and hopefully ignite a flywheel for growth based on relevancy, product and community.
Balancer has never been more successful than it is today and we would strive to complement its immense success.
In this regard there are 2 key focuses:
- Brand Development - Encapture the core brand values and inspire. Although a reputable figure, there is room to create an inspirational brand aesthetic that speaks well to current trends in a timeless, tasteful fashion.
- Social Presence - Building from a foundation of insightful content and leveraging an unique aesthetic, social presence represents Balancer’s voice. As a thought leader in the industry the goal for the Balancer voice is to showcase competency and relevancy through social media outlets in a playful, engaging manner.
Length of Engagement & Budget:
Beethoven X is requesting 3 months of funding starting May 1, 2023 and ending July 31, 2023.
We request to continue the budget of $25,000 USDC (or BAL equivalent) per month for technical development and advisory. Additionally, we strongly believe that Beethoven X contributors can provide significant value in the areas of marketing, content creation and design. For this effort, we propose an additional budget of $15,000 USDC (or BAL equivalent) per month.
As these funds will be used to cover a portion of contributor salaries, we request that this amount be made available in a liquid form. If approved, $40,000 USDC or BAL equivalent would be sent to the below ETH address around the first of each month.
ETH Address to Receive Funds: 0x811912c19eEF91b9Dc3cA52fc426590cFB84FC86