Payload with PR
Introduction
Over the last 6 months, the Maxis have transformed into a professional on-chain DevOps team, ensuring smooth operations of Balancer technology across chains as well as providing white-glove service to partners in the ecosystem. Our key success metrics are showcased by fast response times to partner requests and successful execution of many initiatives like supporting the launch of CoWAMM, the related incentive program, or the design and execution of token grants. Furthermore, we are constantly improving our technology stack with the ultimate goal of achieving self-service autonomy for most operations.
Given the Maxis are an integral part of Balancer technology and partner management, we aim to switch to bi-annual funding starting in Q4 2024. This provides us with more funding stability and also guarantees that resources for the upcoming Balancer v3 launch will be adequately allocated.
Initiatives
As with previous funding proposals, we want to make the most impact to Balancer DAO by working on key initiatives with clearly measurable objectives.
As context, you can refer to our last quarters performance reports to evaluate our progress in relation to initiatives executed in Q3 2024 (July, August, reports)
Initiative 1: Scale Balancer’s On-Chain DevOps Hub
Co-Leads: Xeonus & Tritium
Team: gosuto, Zekraken, Zen Dragon (and freelancers)
Summary
Over the last 6 months, we have taken over responsibility over most of the on-chain operations tech stack, including multi-sig management, OpenZepellin infrastructure to distribute BAL rewards, secondary incentive management as well as new chain deployments and access management.
Our main focus for the next half year is to simplify and further automate any on-chain operations that the DAO has to manage. These include but are not limited to new AMM management (e.g. CoWAMMs), Balancer v3 and its corresponding new fee sweeping mechanism as well as governance operations. Two components will be crucial to drive this initiative forward: our automation code base and our operations UI.
Objectives
- Operate and maintain new chain deployments for Balancer v2
- Support custom infrastructure for the Balancer v2 MODE deployment incl. a dedicated MODE ve8020 gauge system on MODE network.
- Support and integrate potential new chain deployments into our operations infrastructure such as BAL token emission scheduling through OpenZeppelin
- Deploy and maintain any needed infrastructure to operate those chains
- Fee processing for Balancer v2
- Coordinate and run fee processing of Balancer v2’s core pool framework as long as it is operational in light of the v3 launch
- Coordinate with Mimic fee processing
- Secondary Token reward management
- Build a rewards management system on Mode as part of a veMODE initiative
- Launch a injector configuration tool on the operations UI to further improve partner management and self-service capabilities
- AURA position management
- Launch a safe module to automatically relock AURA
- Maintain the self-service module for vote placement for the BD team and design potential automation work to assign incentives without human intervention.
- Gauges and Core Pool Framework (Balancer v2)
- Continued management of core pool detection and pool list curation
- Optimization of fee structure after transitioning our focus from Balancer v2 to Balancer v3
- Management and Execution of Token Grants
- Maintaining and provisioning of upcoming token distribution grants
- Advising on how to design and execute token grant programs
- Omni-chain operations: Chainlink Automation & Gas Stations
- Further optimize Chainlink upkeep monitoring and automate LINK top-ups as well as the design and development of backup systems
- Incorporate more monitoring solutions into the operations UI
- Establish omni-chain gas station contracts to feed all relevant dependencies with ETH (or chain gas tokens) and LINK (gas for automation jobs)
- Collaborate with Chainlink to define and ship client-side cross-chain rate providers as well as advising on oracles for omni-chain operations.
- Analytics (v2)
- Transition to maintenance mode for DeFilytica deployments
- Financial reporting (v2 & v3)
- Advise on financial reporting metrics with karpatkey
- Build and ship artifacts to monitor revenue generation on Balancer v3
- Operations UI
- Full GitHub integration to propose changes from the UI
- Completion of security review with Hypernative
- Exploration of token whitelisting module
- Building of tooling surrounding Balancer v2 and v3 management such as monitoring dashboards for Chainlink, Injector v2 configurator or the migration of legacy pool creators for Balancer v2
Initiative 2: Support and execute on the launch of Balancer v3 and new Products
Co-Leads: Xeonus, Tritium
Team: Zen Dragon, gosuto, MikeB
Summary
Balancer v3 is planned to release between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. The Maxis will play a crucial role in setting up key infrastructure that guarantees correct operations of the new protocol version across chains. We will collaborate with BLabs and other ecosystem partners to plan and execute a smooth launch which will include a rollout to a defined set of target chains and the subsequent management thereafter. Additionally, we will explore new revenue models and tokenomics adjustments that will have the most beneficial impact on both partners and the DAO.
Objectives
- Plan and execute on v3 launch
- Design, deploy and maintain all key infrastructure necessary to manage Balancer v3 on-chain
- Integration tests before launch
- Support and build a potential testnet deployment together with Balancer labs
- Automation
- Permission sets and monitoring
- Fee collection mechanisms
- Fee processing for Balancer v3
- Design and implement a new fee collection mechanism for Balancer v3, either on-chain or off-chain. Balancer v3’s new design will allow to more easily collect fees per pool and therefore has the potential to be built completely in-house and onchain
- Support and manage deployments on strategic chains
- Work together with the BD Unit to utilize synergies in chain deployments
- Coordinate expansion plans with ecosystem partners
- Design and execute a liquidity seeding plan with potential bootstrapping reward programs.
- Management and execution of secondary token reward programs to bootstrap liquidity on products build on top of Balancer v3
- Support partners and builders in execution of product launches
- Management and monitoring of creator fees in Balancer v3
- Work to align new pool logic with users (DAOs seeking liquidity solutions)
- Be leaders and/or available resources in the Balancer Community and Developer Ecosystem
- Design and build new analytics artifacts together with the product and data teams
- Explore potential deployment of a native analytics platform on the native app
- Advise service providers on how to incorporate key metric data based on partner feedback
- Advance Tokenomics and the DAOs Revenue Strategy
- Balancer v3 offers the opportunity to rethink the current setup of Balancer’s tokenomics. The Maxis will lead any strategic workshops or workstreams together with key stakeholders in the DAO
- Optimize the core pool framework based on the reduced BAL emission schedule that will go into effect in Q1 2025 (according to the BAL emission schedule)
Initiative 3: Partner Management
Co-Leads: MikeB, Zen Dragon
Team: Tritium, Zekraken
Summary
Balancer’s partner pipeline has experienced substantial growth across the 10 networks we support, and this momentum is expected to continue as V3 and aligned stakeholders drive new opportunities. Our partner management team’s core objective is to not only sustain but also maximize the value of relationships with both current and new partners for the benefit of the DAO and veBAL holders. To achieve this, we will collaborate closely with the business development and DevOps teams to strategically enhance the partner experience and streamline the onboarding process for new partners. By leveraging our technical expertise and commercial focus, the partner management group is dedicated to providing the best possible experience for all stakeholders on the Balancer platform.
Objectives
- Assisting partners in pool choice, strategy, design, and launch assistance
- Utilizing internal partners such as Cowswap and Gyroscope
- Building strong working relationships with internal partners to provide the best possible service and options to our partners.
- Employing the advanced tech built on Balancer to provide optimal outcomes
- ncluding Cowswap, Gyroscope, Xave, QuantAMM, hooks, boosted pools, and others as they present themselves.
- Overseeing ongoing revenue improvements to suggest to partners. I.e. swap fees, pool migrations, amplification parameters etc.
- Providing proactive partner support and guiding new partners through the ecosystem.
- Governance, incentive markets, new launches and pooling opportunities.
- Rate Provider review facilitation and continuous process improvement
- Spearheading with the DevOps team to execute BD and partner requests not limited to, primarily related to smart contract interactions in a safe and efficient manner.
- Coordinating with compounders and wrappers to ensure our partners receive seamless integration to all relevant platforms. I.e. Beefy, Aura, StakeDAO.
- Working with various vote markets to improve partner incentive efficiencies and an agnostic approach to revenue flows through veBAL incentive platforms.
Service Provider Name & Overview: Balancer Maxis
Leader(s): Xeonus, joined by the talented Mike B, Zekraken, Zen Dragon, Tritium and Gosuto
Contributors/Freelancers: Hyferion, jalbrekt
Pledge to abide by [BIP-629] Balancer DAO Service Provider & Grantee Standards: Yes
Domains of Operation:
- Governance and Protocol Operations
- Strategy and Business Development
- On-Chain Operations (DevOps)
- Pool Design and Ecosystem Coordination
- Data Analytics and Reporting
Key Objectives per Operational Discipline:
- Governance and Protocol Operations
- Leading governance procedures, ensuring their execution and integrity.
- Facilitating technical discussions within governance scopes.
- Setting up governance votes and reviewing payloads for DAO transactions.
- Crafting detailed governance proposals and specifications.
- Offering deep technological insights during governance deliberations.
- Assisting in specifications to proposals for proper payload execution
- Infrastructure and tool creation for enhancing governance operations.
- Automating tasks, reducing human dependency in governance functions.
- Creating UI tools that support operational tasks (past examples: pool creation, reward injectors, linear pool deployment [deprecated])
- Strategy and Business Development
- Applying profound product and technical knowledge in strategic planning.
- Engaging with new partners and broader Web3 communities.
- Providing technical support and insights for strategic development.
- Assisting in custom pool creations and new chain launches.
- Managing revenue flows and direct incentives with partners.
- Facilitating discussions on financial incentives and revenue optimization.
- Acting as active partner support and assisting new partners navigate the ecosystem
- On-Chain Operations (DevOps)
- Buid, administer and operate governance associated change control processes surrounding on-chain treasury and protocol operations (if applicable)
- Overseeing DevOps and automating multisig operations.
- Building multisig payloads and conducting multi-person peer-reviews
- Guidance on infrastructure-related and operational aspects of the protocol and the DAO.
- Maintaining and developing Taking over automation of regular on-chain tasks through on- chain automation for OZ Defender and Chainlink Automation.migrating to new version of it
- Core development, aiding in automation and data management.
- Smart contract development(when needed) of helpers and tooling for partners.
- Support in technical best practices.
- Bi-weekly fees processing and reporting
- Grant program management and incentive distribution automation and handling.
- Overseeing Stipend Distribution Automation
- Pool Design and Ecosystem Coordination
- Designing pools for the protocol, aligning with governance specifications.
- Liaising with the ecosystem for synchronized functionality and growth.
- Assistance in pool design and migration to v3
- Token whitelisting and front-end testing.
- Assisting in the technical aspects of pool and gauge creation.
- Testing of v3 front-end infrastructure
- Data Analytics and Reporting
- Spearheading data analytics, offering valuable insights through reports and dashboards.
- Maintaining high-level expertise in protocol-related data.
- Providing quarterly financial reports
- Assisting in data handling, contributing to informed decision-making.
Reporting
We have been providing extensive reports on our work throughout the year. To ensure full transparency on our working objectives, achievements and cost basis, we will update the ecosystem and community participants regularly through weekly meetings and monthly community reports:
Weekly Ecosystem Meeting
- Inform ecosystem participants of our weekly progress and planned activities
- Coordinate collaborations and issues with other ecosystem stakeholders
Monthly reports
- Write up detailed monthly reports on key objectives
- Provide a financial statement of the usage of discretionary funds as in previous funding rounds
Length of Engagement & Budget:
The Maxis have established a conservative and effective budgeting framework with a mix of fixed contributor salaries and flexible discretionary budgeting. Over the last 6 months we have always been handling the discretionary portion very conservatively. In the last quarter, we only utilized approximately half of the $60k in allocated funds for Q3 2024. We will roll over savings from this cost point of more than $25k USDC and deduct them from this proposal.
Furthermore, we improved our cost basis per FTE, all while we increased our headcount and capacity for the anticipated higher demand for Balancers v3 launch. Our average costs came down from an average of $13,484 $ / FTE to $13,212.50 $ / FTE (incl. BAL vests) compared to Q3 2024.
A detailed breakdown of our proposed costs is visualized below:
We are additionally asking for a BAL token grant of 32,738 BAL for the next half-year (at BAL price of $1.89). BAL will be locked for 1 year either as veBAL or in a veBAL wrapper such as auraBAL.
Quarterly BAL allocation: $30,937.50 ( = 16,369 BAL)
In total our USDC and BAL cost basis breakdown looks as follows for 5 FTE:
| Position | Cost Basis |
|---|---|
| $ / FTE / month (USDC + BAL vest) | $13,212.50 |
| $ / FTE / month (USDC) | $11,150 |
| $ / Freelance FTE / month (USDC) | $9,600 |
Length of engagement: 6 months
Budget: 398,135 USDC and 32,738 BAL
ETH Address to Receive Funds: 0x166f54F44F271407f24AA1BE415a730035637325
Impact on the Treasury
The Treasury wallets currently hold 3,507,473 BAL. Funding the Balancer Maxis for the next half year would impact 0.93% of the treasury’s BAL holdings, which annualizes to 1.87% of the treasury’s BAL. The Treasury wallets currently hold 5.727mln in stables. Funding the USDC portion would cost around 6.95% of the treasury’s stable reserve, which annualizes to 13.9%.
Technical Specification
The Balancer DAO multisig 0x10A19e7eE7d7F8a52822f6817de8ea18204F2e4f will interact with USDC 0xA0b86991c6218b36c1d19D4a2e9Eb0cE3606eB48 by writing transfer passing the Maxi Safe 0x166f54F44F271407f24AA1BE415a730035637325 as recipient and amount 398135 USDC as 398135000000.
Furthermore the Balancer DAO multisig 0x10A19e7eE7d7F8a52822f6817de8ea18204F2e4f will interact with BAL 0xba100000625a3754423978a60c9317c58a424e3D by writing transfer passing the Maxi Safe 0x166f54F44F271407f24AA1BE415a730035637325 as recipient and amount 32738 as 32738000000000000000000.
