[BIP-832] Transfer and automation of vlAURA management

Governance General Proposal
1

PR with Payload

Summary

  • The Balancer DAO has been managing a position of 2mln vlAURA on the DAO multisig
  • The intention is to unlock and move the position to a dedicated multi-sig controlled by the Balancer Maxis
  • Additionally, a new safe module shall be installed that can handle both relocking of existing expiring locks as well as locking newly added AURA
  • This reduced friction of timely execution on the DAO multi-sig and reduces overall risk by moving it to a dedicated multi-sig
  • Missed out emission allocations will be matched with USDC incentives from our HiddenHand refund allocation

Motivation

The Balancer DAO has been managing and locking the designated vlAURA on the DAO multi-sig since 2023 (BIP-481, BIP-551, BIP-638 to name a few). Given the low price of BAL and AURA and the transition to Balancer Alliance, now is a good time to move the position to a new dedicated wallet to reduce load on the DAO multi-sig and to simplify vlAURA management.

Therefore, we aim to let the position unlock after Jun 5, 2025. Then we intend to transfer the tokens to a new dedicated multi-sig controlled by the Balancer Maxi signer set, identical to the Omni-Multi-sigs (see signer set in bal_addresses). This means, however, that we will miss out on at least one cycle of placing votes for strategic partner programs. To circumvent this gap, we propose to utilize parts of our hidden hand refund to compensate for the loss of incentives during that period, given BIP-711 provides us with this flexibility.

As of the last few voting cycles, emission $/vote spent hover around 0.0041 to 0.0039 (ref: Aura DeFilytica voting-incentive dashboard). Given, we are controlling 2mln vlAURA, this means we need to match on average $8’000 worth of incentives (assuming an average 0.004 emission $/vote) per bi-weekly cycle. If emission efficiency is above 1, then Maxis will provide voting incentives on HiddenHand to the selected pools to match the missed out emissions that would result from voting.

Therefore, the action plan is as follows:

  1. Set up a new dedicated multi-sig with Maxis as signer set
  2. Unlock, withdraw and transfer 2mln AURA to the new multi-sig from the DAO multisig
  3. During the “cool down period”, provide $8’000 of voting incentives or direct incentives to pools that would otherwise receive BAL and AURA emissions
  4. Lock and continue to manage the position as before without a delegate in place
  5. Do not blacklist the new position on HiddenHand for voting incentives as before but rather utilize voting incentives to buy and lock more AURA in the newly established multisig. This creates a positive flywheel for this position where it can potentially gain more voting power and emission control.
  6. Install a new safe module that handles both locking of bought back AURA as well as relocking expired locks

Risks

Overall, the currently most obvious risk is the transfer of the tokens to a dedicated multi-sig controlled by an external entity (being the Balancer Maxis). The Maxis will ensure to swiftly lock the position and report back here on the forums once it has been executed. Afterwards a safe module will handle automatic locking and relocking mitigating any risk of potential withdrawals to another address.

Technical Specifications

The Balancer DAO multi-sig 0x10A19e7eE7d7F8a52822f6817de8ea18204F2e4f will interact with the vlAURA contract at 0x3fa73f1e5d8a792c80f426fc8f84fbf7ce9bbcac and call processExpiredLocks with _relock set to false. The transaction needs to be executed after May 29th 2025 00:00 UTC (unix timestamp 1748469600) and before June 5th 23:59 UTC (unix timestamp 1749160740).

The DAO multi-sig will then interact with the AURA token contract at 0xC0c293ce456fF0ED870ADd98a0828Dd4d2903DBF by calling transfer with recipient 0x9a5BDF08a6969A4bDb7724beE3c6d8964BDc0B28 being the newly established multi-sig and amount 2000000 as 2000000000000000000000000

Upon receiving of the 2mln AURA, the Maxis will lock the position immediately by first approving spending of AURA on the locker contract. This is done by calling approve on the AURA token contract 0xC0c293ce456fF0ED870ADd98a0828Dd4d2903DBF with input values spender as 0x3Fa73f1E5d8A792C80F426fc8F84FBF7Ce9bBCAC and amount as 2000000000000000000000000. Then the multi-sig will call the function lock on the locker contract 0x3fa73f1e5d8a792c80f426fc8f84fbf7ce9bbcac with _account as 0x9a5BDF08a6969A4bDb7724beE3c6d8964BDc0B28 and _amount as 2000000000000000000000000

2 Likes
2

I support this change.
It’s an important step not just for vlAURA management, but for making Balancer more flexible and operationally agile as a whole. All while maintaining strong security through the safe module and dedicated multisig setup.

1 Like
3

https://snapshot.box/#/s:balancer.eth/proposal/0x460b8907a8edac673df90787619644a2ba3afc201f1ec2227778944cb05dd7a4

4

The AURA was successfully transferred to our new Aura locker multi-sig. The lock will be initiated before the next voting epoch.