Detailed Description of Project :
Provide Monthly Reports about the Financial State of the Balancer DAO. The reports would include : Revenues, Expenses, Treasury Analysis, Competition Analysis, Macro Trends Analysis …
In 4 days (end of year), the partnership with Messari to provide financial reporting for the DAO will be over. This proposal is calling for balancer community to fund the production of these reports by me.
How will your project benefit the Balancer Ecosystem?
Inform the community about what’s going on with the DAO financially and how it is impacted by crypto trends & news.
These reports will be the go to for the community to get informed about the financial state of the DAO similar to how investors look into financial statements to get informed about their equity investments in traditional finance.
Yes many of the figures are already available in dune dashboards or Balancer Analytics, and Xeonus does a good job summarizing the state of the Balancer treasury. The goal is to aggregate all figures, query new information if not available and produce a monthly report that will be shared here on the forum with the community under a “Finance” category. If you want to know how much the DAO made last month, BAL emissions, the state of the treasury … you look into the report, no need to go looking into multiple data sources and forum posts. If the community wants new metrics to be added, they will be added (if possible ofc). This is similar to an in house finance department but with a low price tag and without the creation of a service provider (SP).
How much are you requesting for these reports ?
12k USD (Paid in BAL or Stables) for 12 Monthly Reports (1k USD per Monthly Report)
Requested Budget Breakdown
1k/Month as Compensation for my time & efforts and to pay for any potential subscriptions (Token Terminal costs 350 USD/Month & Dune’s most popular plan costs 420 USD/Month for example).
Other Information :
The reports would be similar to what I produce for Uniswap. Add to that Protocol Revenues & Expenses analysis since Uniswap doesn’t have that!
The Uniswap report linked above doesn’t include Treasury Analysis but it will be added in the next issues.
First of all, I should state that I am working on a revamped analytics site that will provide a real-time view of most metrics you plan to show. The new iteration of Balancer analytics will show earned fees, SP spendings and an aggregate financials view, including the Treasury etc (links are from the current alpha build).
So off the bat, I am actually working on an interactive solution with the goal to provide full transparency to the DAO and that we are spending less BAL on financial reports in general.
Therefore, I have following questions:
I couldn’t grasp why a BIP is needed for such an initiative? I guess to obtain community consensus? Your ask is rather competitive and I personally think we don’t need a BIP for your engagement.
Given the work I plan to do, does it even make sense for you to write up those reports?
Are you familiar with our SP landscape? This would be one of the most crucial aspects to analyze as I have demonstrated in the “State of the DAO treasury” posts.
As you applied for a grant I initially thought it would be enough for you to get a first “test run” grant and re-apply if the outcome is desirable.
Maybe also others can chime in here what they think.
Thank you Xeonus!
I could use your dashboards to get some of the figures that would be included in my reports. Any plans to make the data downloadable (xls or csv)?
To answer your questions :
The grants team suggested that I go through the community since they stand to benefit the most from these reports! If I can get the funding without a vote, even better for me …
Not eveyone likes/is used to dashboards, most of us are used to simple pdf formats… Also, I personally like when figures are commented and linked to news. You see a spike in fees or spendings, what caused the spike ? The value add on my side would be the commentary and linking data to news/Governance votes …So complementary to what’s you’re building which would make my work easier.
I know that the DAO transitionned recently to SPs structure (similar to CUs for MakerDAO), I know that they are mainly focused on Partnerships, Integrations, Marketing, DAO Management… So DAO Operations really!
I am a balancer user, forum reader, and Balancer financials were already integrated in my Uniswap Reports and any research I do on DEXs. So I am familiar with Balancer, not a complete newbie !
Just another mention, I am ready to commit to answering any questions related to the Financials of the DAO on the forum similar to the Finance department in traditional companies, so just tag me!
As mentioned in the proposal, you can think of me as one person finance department without the need of setting up a SP and the costs that go with it!
From the grants side, I would think a test run is the best way to approach this if we were to do it. For simplicity’s sake, grants should execute any transaction related to this as it is relatively small in comparison to other deals made by the DAO. I do not think this should go to vote, but should serve as a place for discussion regarding if people would actually be interested in or use this source of information. One month for 1k USD in BAL was the original proposal. I see the price has gone up to 2.5 - 3k USD.
To be frank I do not think we need this if Xeonus’ analytics will be filterable from one point in time to another to show inflow vs. outflow after a few clicks. I am not in favor of funding this, but if the consensus is to take a low cost chance on one month and see if it is worth proceeding from there; i will not fight it by any means. I can see the argument that this would bridge the gap to when the analytics site is fully deployed, but by no means do i think we should approve 12 months out of the gate. Also, interested in what Messari will propose if anything, given the new analytics site will lighten their work load substantially.
I am open for a test run with the grants but with a quarter not just one month for two reasons :
Setting up the templates and finding the appropriate data sources (especially now that the analytics site is not complete) takes big time and efforts. Doing all the work for just one month is unfeasable on my side.
It takes more than one report to assess the quality of the analysis and see the value add.
In this case, the funding would be 1.5k BAL for the quarter 50% upfront, 50% after completion. If the reports gain traction from the community, we extend for the full year.
I believe this is needed and under the scope of what @Xeonus has been working on. Although he’s building a great tool, I agree a written report might have a different approach and reach a different audience. But (taking the Uniswap report as an example) personally, I don’t see it will be adding any value and so ~3k USD seems pricey.
Either way, I don’t see a reason for it going to a vote. The ask is under the value delegated for Grants to handle. Ideally, they can fund the first run at the initial asking price of ~1k/mo for the first quarter and collect feedback if this is needed.
For 2022, Messari has done a great job so far, but the value (125k/y USD) requires reassessment in current conditions of the bera. Personally, I would like to see the continuation of their quarterly reports, but having two grantees working on reporting seems like a waste. @John_TV_Locke could you guys expedite a proposal so the community and the Grants committee can compare?
Proposal amended to bring the price tag back to the initial grant request : 12k USD for 12 Monthly reports (1k USD per report)
Let me know if you want to continue this discussion with the grants team via email as I don’t see any objections from the community so far.
Speaking on behalf of Messari here, we welcome all competing proposals as DAOs should always have several options to choose from for any service provider. That said, I don’t think this should be thought of as a replacement due to the limited scope compared to a more full-service investor relations/data analytics offering:
Based on the Uniswap example, the Asymmetric Defi reports are useful data-driven pieces but not the same institutional-grade report with as much depth and context as what we’ve produced.
The value not only lies in the content itself which informs existing stakeholders but from getting the growth of the protocol out to a wider audience. Since our last proposal, our subscriber list has grown to ~300k crypto natives while we’ve also secured redistribution on the Bloomberg terminal, S&P Capital IQ, and Refinitiv, 3 of the largest tradfi research platforms in the world.
Our data science team is building out an open-source data layer for the Balancer ecosystem (see subgraphs
This feeds into live data dashboards tracking TVL, trading volume, revenue, liquidity added/removed not only from the macro level but on an individual pool basis
We also have governance-specific analysts tracking every proposal and writing long-form reports on major events to further inform the ecosystem (The veBAL Wars)
I’ll be providing more details in our upcoming proposal for renewal. In the meantime, you can expect our Q4 report to come out in the next week or so
The balancer reports will have a broader scope than what I produced for Uniswap. Uniswap doesn’t have protocol fees & SPs to analyze!
The reports will focus on governance votes analysis, revenues analysis and expenses (SPs) analysis.
Other than Protocol stuff (what I did for Uniswap), I will be analyzing Balancer from the perspecives of :
BAL Holders : What dilution can they expect ?
veBAL Holders : What revenues can they expect ? ie Fees + Emissions - Dilution
Balancer DAO : Revenues & Expenses (SPs) of the treasury
I see 4 options :
Fund my reports for a quarter (3k USD) through grants, if the reports aren’t satisfactory, vote Messari in.
Fund Messari for 2 semi annual reports for 50k (like what they did with Euler & Goldfinch) for distribution + Fund my reports that will be produced for the community for 1 quarter then renew if the community sees a value add.
Fund Messari alone.
Not fund any of us.
For subgraphs, there are already Balancer subgraphs that exist. For governance coverage, it is paid for by subscribers. I believe that any funding for Messari from Balancer community should be focused on distibution value add only!
Please note that Karpatkey will be handling treasury management for the Balancer DAO, as specified in BIP-103. In accordance with the proposal, we will also be responsible for producing regular treasury reports.
Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or comments regarding this matter.
Below is a list of reporting topics that fall within the scope of Karpatkey.
What areas not mentioned in the list do you plan to address in your reports?
As mentioned, Karpatkey only handles the investment side. Revenue sources (Fees and any revenue sharing from partners) & treasury expenses are not included in your reports.
Karpatkey itself as a SP will have two items in my reports :
