Following the discussion around the Symmetric Friendly Fork Proposal - I would like to create an open call for input around the formalization of the Balancer Friendly Fork Framework.
Over the past weeks, Mog and I - supported by the Partnership Sub-DAO have worked on a first draft for a Friendly Fork Framework. I’m eager to poll perspectives from the BAL ecosystem on how they believe a Friendly Fork Framework should function.
I believe in formalizing what we consider a Friendly Fork, what we expect from counterparties, and what BalancerDAO is willing to provide in return (support, knowledge, access, BAL tokens, funds) we create a better base for discussion.
Hey @LuukDAO
I highly appreciate that you took the initiative to set up this thread. I will provide inputs in the doc on what I think is expected from a tec and working product view point. I am very interested what we all will gather / come up with in the upcoming days.
Luuk, this is quite comprehensive. After a first read I would like to suggest the following ideas which BAL holders could find useful to make decisions on approval of Friendly forks.
From the objectives part:
Maintain active relationships with the Balancer Friendly Forks and increase/decrease mutual-stake based on key parameters
Parameters I would find useful for making informed decisions about a friendly fork.
Expected governance power (voting) gained per BAL held
Expected governance power over FF protocol revenue
Expected cost for the Balancer DAO to get FF governance power ( dollar & FTE amounts )
Expected demand increase for BAL token
For the chain parameter you are looking to rate as part of this framework. I find the size of a chain a high level entry parameter. I feel including the market position the FF can realistically achieve also part of this (protocol revenue) for example.
While these are mostly financial metrics in my view they have the advantage that everyone understands them pretty universally.
I find it hard to estimate value accrual to the Balancer protocol based on guiding principles as “strategic alignment” and “synergies”. So I am very interested in how others would try to quantify this value accrual to the Balancer protocol.
I like what Mog and you wrote up so far. What do others think? What parameters can be used to help BAL holders approve friendly forks?
I do echo @Mkflow27’s concerns re: strategic alignment and synergies – those could apply to any fork thus, should not be a factor into any, unless they can be quantified.
Regarding USD and BAL grants, I don’t find those to be aligned with the spirit of the BFF program. These projects enter the market with their own tokens that often provide large treasuries. Additionally, The BFF program is meant to preserve the DAO’s resources and in turn makes a trade-off of foregoing a much larger stake and control that would’ve been achieved if the DAO were to spend resources on its own deployment.
Under veBAL, forks or deployments on other chains could direct emissions to themselves. This should be welcomed if the projects are playing fair and acquiring BAL off of the market. Any BAL grants would be a granting of emission power in the expense of current veBAL holders’ voting power since it would reduce shares of other gauges without taking BAL off of circulation (because the granted BAL is coming out of the treasury not the market).
The BFFs could separately apply for a grant via the Grant Committee’s framework. Furthermore, the Treasury subDAO could contemplate a treasury swap under their own framework – this should be separate consideration than the tokens deposited from the BFF to the Balancer Treasury.
Lastly, I want to emphasize that although it’s great to see a more concrete framework come into place for BFFs, the rejection of the Symmetric proposal had less to do with the BFF framework and more to do with how the proposal was rushed and mishandled through the governance proposal.
Request for comments, forum polls and temperature checks have been common practice across most DAOs to prevent such instances.
I’ve made a ton of comments/suggestions in the google doc. To say the least, we clearly have drastically different philosophies on how Friendly Forks should be handled.
In short:
I don’t think we should chase down teams for friendly forks
I don’t think we should pay them
Saying “Beethoven spoiled us” is a friendly way to say we’re dramatically lowering our bar
airdrops should be entirely based on BAL, BPT, or veBAL token-holdings, with optional interaction with the forking team’s on-chain contracts. any social media requirements should be strictly forbidden as they dox addresses and are generally regarded as spammy