Dear Balancer community,
As part of our commitment to accountability, transparency and open communication, we’re pleased to share another update with the Balancer community. This report details our progress since Q3 and outlines our ongoing efforts to support the protocol.
1. Liaising with the board on budgets, project proposals, and matters particularly as it relates to service providers including the BVI subsidiary
As part of this role, reporting to the Foundation Board and the Ecosystem Council is being done in a timely manner on all matters of importance including financial status, funding projections, program operations, employee matters.
Q1 is when typically we’ve been holding the annual board meeting in the Cayman Islands, preparing the agenda, financial reports and other matters of importance to the Directors. Also management has been providing adequate materials and analysis to assist the board in making decisions.
2. Manage Finances and Service Providers
Alongside @Lemma, we have concluded Q4 financial reports and Lemma published the Balancer FY24 Q4 Transparency Report in October, with a comprehensive view of the Year 3 budgets (forecast/actual) for both the Foundation and its subsidiary Balancer Opco. @kpk has been monitoring off-chain expenses through regular reporting of bank statements and access of Foundation’s accounting and bookkeeping (see latest State of the DAO presentations here).
Every on-chain transaction is pre-approved by the Balancer Foundation board (¾ multisig). All the off-chain payments are overseen by the board, @Lemma and @kpk for cross-referencing.
Other developments:
- transitioning FE team, new hires (Juanjo) and termination contracts (Gareth, Anastas) (BIP-799)
- new Marketing team (AliG) and transitioning Danimim to new role (BIP-798)
- onboarded Den for payment requests, following the Safe hack incident.
- managed expenses for ETH Denver participation
3. Compliance and Risk Management
Watching closely the developments in the US, specifically with the change of focus from DOJ (regulation by enforcement) and the SEC (clarity on decentralization and security tokens), the Balancer Foundation has consulted with advisors and partners to grasp the market sentiment for any significant tide shift.
Although there’s a great deal of positivity regarding the fundamentals of crypto, and added clarity from MiCA/EEUU, monitoring and engaging in industry best practices is still the best course of action. We concluded that the Cayman/BVI setup still remains a solid framework for DAOs, with the best cost-benefit for Balancer at the moment.
4. Community Engagement
With a new Marketing team living under the Foundation, community management is beginning to slowly transition to this focused area. Endeavours like the weekly newsletter, the ecosystem ONsites, and public Office Hours slowly begin to shift to more specific and strategic aligned domains.
Worth mentioning we have observed the Hookathon (Q4/24) proved to be good talent retention for builders, with participants still actively participating in our community, specifically on Discord, Twitter and weekly Office Hours calls.
Other developments under “Community Engagement”:
- Ecosytem ONsite Proposal Q2 2025
- The Balancer Report - weekly newsletter
- Anti-scam initiative
- User support tickets (see below)
5. What’s next?
Please expect the financial analysis for Q1 dropping in due time, as well as the full year report. Check out data metrics below regarding our ticket system and user support (Discord).
