Solarcurve Delegate Thread

Name: Solarcurve aka balancermaxi.eth

Snapshot profile: Snapshot

Discord username/TG username: solarcurve#5075 / @solarcurve

I have read and understood the Delegate process: Yes

I understand that becoming a delegate is a significant commitment: Yes

My reasons for wanting to be a delegate:

I was a LP on Balancer v1 before the token launched - I was never a significant percent of the TVL but at times my 8 token 1% fee pool was responsible for a noticeable percentage of the 24h fees. My motivation for being a delegate is because I still believe Balancer has incredible potential and after being here for two years I can bring a lot of experience to the table. My focus will be on growing Balancer’s most important metric (revenue), pushing to minimize the amount of BAL we must sell to fund ongoing operations, and bringing value to the veBAL system.

My view on Fernando’s vision for Balancer:

I don’t disagree that projects building on top of us is important and should be an easy thing to do. However, I strongly believe we have all the tools necessary to be successful and gain market share entirely on our own - we don’t need to wait around for Element or Sense to hit it big. Curve and Uniswap have many projects building on top of them because they are the largest dex’s - the biggest advertisement we can make for why you should build on Balancer is for Balancer to become a bigger player in the dex market.

How do we gain market share? Embrace the veBAL flywheel, focus on revenue generation, move quickly to establish ourselves in promising L2’s. I have been pushing these items for a long time - I proposed raising the protocol fee to 50% (I proposed turning it on nearly a year ago), I pushed for a new pool factory that will apply the protocol fee to yield bearing tokens like wstETH and boosted pools, and I put together the deal with BeethovenX to put us in the best possible position to dominate Optimism.

There is much more to do though I think we are better positioned now than we’ve ever been to start gaining market share from Sushi and Curve in particular. As a delegate I will continue working towards these goals with as much transparency as possible.

My web3 interests: DAO’s, Governance, DeFi, some NFT’s here and there. I believe we should rely on veBAL voters to make good decisions rather than put rules in place that make decisions for them - I have done my best to help design Balancer’s governance system with this in mind.

Languages I speak/write: English

My skills and areas of expertise: I have been in the Balancer community for two years so I have some first hand experience in DAO’s and Governance. I’m also an avid reader of governance forums. I consider myself DeFi native and was a user of protocols like Uniswap, Curve, and Balancer before they launched tokens.

Other web3 projects I’m involved in:

Advisor to BeethovenX, otherwise most of my interactions with other projects are on behalf of Balancer.

6 Likes

Introduce ProtocolFeesWithdrawer

https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0x957a15d3809f703338b7f830df61a57dd5247d0d0bc14bf55bb77bd8986d7bb5

Voted yes. Fee withdrawals and distributions should resume as normal starting next week. Credit to Balancer Labs for moving quickly on a fix to the recently disclosed SNX bug.

1 Like

Enable CREAM/WETH 80/20 Gauge [Ethereum]

https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0xa8ef52b06d2e5742e9068582276e878441c29a924e8bb2a9c26686d5284a9106

Voted yes. I generally support adding more gauges which should lead to more projects participating in veBAL.

1 Like

Allowlist Pickle Finance in veBAL Voting Escrow
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0x2f746dedc0f399ebac3d3bbcc9f765a7f847b9cce62a53137b040a5e8e6f0ba4

Voted yes. I support having many diverse systems built on top of veBAL - let the market choose which one is the best, not Balancer governance. Credit to the Pickle team for putting in the effort on this proposal.

Form the Emergency subDAO
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0x63fab7ab9ef5b9579dabb82058b8ea309e39c766d435438b55fff8db7c1f69fd

Voted yes. This is a necessary protection in the unlikely event a gauge becomes malicious. This guy taking advantage of the element pools had a good run though.

1 Like

Allocate 31,250 BAL for Optimism Incentives
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0xf1eb5c0e79020e29111150ee4efd1cb4b23799bddd6baf6d562f9292adb4826b

voted yes. A new Balancer is arriving… soon™

Amend the Agreement with 1inch
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0x7a865dcd5ca81f643d493c37d0ce855eedf864f777c703885fe5fa7474cc10a1

voted yes. my mistake on this (rip)

2 Likes

Enable PAL/WETH 80/20 Gauge [Ethereum]
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0xacfe21207c80680bfbc259ffeb4aa27cdf854cb092e6b8aad4f7b8b3a0cbc9b5

Voted yes. Nice to see a project go from LBP to adding a gauge.

Whitelist Stake DAO to lock BAL
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0xaa18205c59f7d8a176332314e1e6223b3f9836a992e7dfabb1e2b3fefea723f7

Voted yes. bring on the convex layer wars!

3 Likes

TribeDAO: boost delegation
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0xea5d85ea83360d496e5154ed92d2f247c8269296095810d94cf50ca6c9044528

Voted yes. let’s help our TribeDAO frens

Introduce ChildChainGaugeTokenAdder
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0xcf17f3174f1d80783c2506362fd8d8b762e9c376122ab8ac31d8782e371cf19f

Voted yes. Let’s get some new token incentives going on L2’s!

Send back 3CRV stuck to Stake Dao Multisig Address
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0x8cdec0e2b5510ab824ad887cf015c3efba0e999c8d9c0f05c4b6a7fc62c39971

Voted yes. Helping our frens at StakeDAO

Allocate BAL to a Ribbon Finance Vault
https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0x54d9df33e17f3cf2cc8259b356be2d80b79129c092001df89dcdd8d2fa3d44c4

Voted yes. This puts idle BAL to work in a way that cushions downside risk to BAL price. It will result in some losses if BAL goes up significantly, though in my view this is an acceptable risk.

BIPs 1-6

voted Yes on all

BIP 7-13

voted Yes, all standard.

BIP 14-17

voted yes, all standard

BIP 18

Abstained due to conflict of interest as this is the funding proposal for an SP I contribute to.

2 Likes

[BIP-19] Incentivize Core Pools & L2 Usage

Voted yes. This is probably the most important vote Balancer will ever see as it will determine if we set the protocol on the path to sustainability or remain captured (perhaps indefinitely) by outside interests looking to extract maximum value from us.

[BIP-20] Funding Proposal for Orb Collective

Voted yes. It is a lot of money (far more than Balancer is earning currently) but there is great talent and passion here. This is a bet that we will reach sustainability in the next couple of years with the help of the great team at Orb.

[BIP-21] Funding Proposal for Ecosystem Ops and Development Squad

Voted no. I don’t see value being added that is in line with the requested spend. Luuk has taken max salary for six months in the DAO with little if any results to show for that - even if we could spare the funds I’d still rather allocate them towards initiatives that have a clearer path towards creating value for the protocol. Orb is fully capable of executing on partnerships without Luuk’s assistance and the “DAO” has no need for any admin services.

[BIP-22] Fund Balancer Grants for Q3

Voted yes. Burns & Zen Dragon are capable leaders and are joined by great committee members like zekraken and John. Frankly we are lucky to have these folks doing grants for us.

[BIP-23a] AURA/ETH/graviAURA Gauge [Ethereum]

Voted no. While I give Badger a ton of credit for developing this system of their own initiative the simple fact is core pools solves the same problem graviAURA does, only without giving Badger 10% of voting power and 3-5% in various fees. If core pools fails then graviAURA becomes more interesting to me - otherwise, I believe going with core pools only is the best option for Balancer.

[BIP-23b] auraBAL/ETH/graviAURA Gauge [Ethereum]

Voted no for same reason as above

[BIP-24] Allocate BAL to a Ribbon Finance Vault

Voted yes. There are many flaws with this - namely predatory pricing of options in favor of the MM and possibility of significant losses in a bull market - but the goal is protecting against a downside scenario where BAL is low single digits for years. We have significant funding costs to carry as an ecosystem - if BAL price goes up and we lose on this that’s actually great because we should be earning a lot more money from protocol fees. If BAL price goes down this will help us not have to market sell as much BAL to pay people’s salaries.

[BIP-25] Enable AURA/ETH 50/50 Gauge

Voted yes. Aura & Balancer are best friends and the AURA pool has already generated a lot of fees for us in its short life span.

[BIP-7] Enable auraBAL/[8020 BAL/WETH bpt] Gauge [second vote]

Voted yes. This is necessary for auraBAL to return to peg and begin growing again. If this occurs it will be VERY good news for Balancer.

1 Like

I decided to flip my vote on BIP-23 a&b to Yes. The downsides I cite above are still a factor but increasing BAL emissions to auraBAL & AURA should help dilute the CREAM gauge. Rolling this out in combination with BIP-19 could help accelerate the process of better allocating BAL emissions via market forces. I still hope to see improvements made to graviAURA in the future to address the longer term concerns like potentially a high concentration of voting power for Badger if the system sees a lot of adoption.

1 Like

In response to these concerns we the Badger Council has approved a special regulation model for this pool that will prevent it form spinning out of control and pump more yields to core pools.

You can read the decision here:
https://badger.com/gravity-news/graviaura-regulation

We look forward to working with the Aura and Balancer teams to continue thinking in this direction.

We’re more focused on the auraBAL gauge than the AURA gauge as AURA won their own gauge for liquidity. While we are ahead by a few votes, it would be great if anyone voting with Solarcurve could consider changing their votes on this snapshot (ends today at 19:30 CET)

https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0x0592d89a5efea91cc463b44a4df26fe5572b06b196f1e8b70e5b66b0b83efa86

4 Likes

[BIP-8] Enable TetuBAL/20WETH-80BAL Gauge [second vote]

Voted yes given sdBAL and auraBAL both have similar gauges.

[BIP-26] Enable MAGIC/USDC Gauge [Arbitrum]

Voted yes as this is a 50/50 pool paired against USDC which should be able to generate decent arbs against the MAGIC/WETH Sushi pool.

[BIP-27] Enable DIGG/wBTC/graviAURA 40/40/20 Gauge [Ethereum]

Voted no as I don’t see a DIGG pool as being capable of generating enough fees to justify the BAL rewards that would result from this gauge approval.

Will we be considering removal of gauges for all the active and future pools that don’t generate the fees expected?

Are there thresholds established as to what the appropriate fee generation level is?

Which other gauge requests have been voted no to date for the concern mentioned with the DIGG gauge request?

Regards, hash

Will we be considering removal of gauges for all the active and future pools that don’t generate the fees expected?

I wouldn’t think so but predicting the future is a tricky business.

Are there thresholds established as to what the appropriate fee generation level is?

Nope

Which other gauge requests have been voted no to date for the concern mentioned with the DIGG gauge request?

None. In the beginning of veBAL my view on gauges was we should add whatever people wanted to lock BAL and vote for - this would bring more users/projects into the system. Since then experience has shown this was a naive belief. Gauges must be assessed based on a reasonable expectation of the value they can generate for Balancer as any gauge at any time could see a large amount of emissions directed towards it. If we have some gauges which are very good and some which are very bad (in terms of value for Balancer) we are setting ourselves up for failure.

My assessment is DIGG cannot generate sufficient trading interest to justify the creation of a gauge, particularly when combined with graviAURA which will force emissions to this pool as it grows in TVL. High TVL won’t cause any additional trading to occur in my opinion so this mechanism is fundamentally flawed from Balancer’s perspective.

3 Likes

[BIP-28] Kill CREAM/WETH Gauge

Voted yes. Why vote to kill it when I voted to enable it two months ago?

Enable CREAM/WETH 80/20 Gauge [Ethereum]

https://snapshot.org/#/balancer.eth/proposal/0xa8ef52b06d2e5742e9068582276e878441c29a924e8bb2a9c26686d5284a9106

Voted yes. I generally support adding more gauges which should lead to more projects participating in veBAL.

Simply put I’ve come to realize that we cannot add gauges without a clear reason to believe they can add value to the protocol in terms of fee generation. I knew CREAM was effectively a dead project which could not generate any fees and should have raised those concerns - but I didn’t. I assumed all would work out on its own and we could add any and all gauges in the hope of driving demand to lock veBAL. Two months later I now believe we need to more carefully curate the gauges we choose to add.

How will this gauge bring value to Balancer? If 10%+ of our emissions are directed to this gauge, would that be a catastrophe?

I’ll be asking and pondering questions along those lines in all future gauge votes. For now I must admit I was wrong (as should the community as this gauge was approved with 91% in favor), vote to remove this gauge, and we all move on.

7 Likes

[BIP-29] Introduce GaugeAdder v2

Voted yes. Lays the ground work for Optimism, zksync, and Gnosis chain gauges. LFG

[BIP-30] Purge Unused Gauges

Voted yes. A bit of pre-emptive house cleaning in case any of these fairly useless gauges ever get targeted by a large voter in the future.

[BIP-31] Authorize the Batch Relayer v3

Voted yes. hyped for the new bbaUSD pool

[BIP-32] Funding Proposal for Daoism Systems: PROTOCOL REVENUE SHARING FOR POOL & FACTORY CREATORS

Voted yes. Onboards more builders to the Balancer ecosystem and the Orb integrations team has pledged their support to ensure everything is done properly. We’ll need to carefully consider how a pool with revenue sharing enabled can qualify for a gauge (or not) but for now, let’s build this.

[BIP-33] Orb Marketing Budget Proposal for the Remainder of Q3

Voted yes. We’re already paying the salaries of the Orb marketing department so let’s not rug them of the budget they need to execute.

2 Likes

[BIP-30] Purge Unused Gauges [second vote]

Voted yes, again. This vote is made all the more important because the CREAM whale wants to stop it. Many of these gauges could be used to execute pump and dump schemes when paired with the amount of voting power he controls.

[BIP-34] Enable the 50/50 RBW/wETH Gauge on Polygon

Voted yes. This pool has been around on Polygon for awhile and this is 50/50 so it seems appropriate to me.

[BIP-35] Whitelist the Laguna Games’ Gnosis Safe for Balancer’s Voting Escrow

Voted yes since more Gnosis Safes locking veBAL should only be a positive.

[BIP-36] Enable TEMPLE/DAI 80/20 Gague (Ethereum)

Voted yes. The primary risk is adding another 80/20 gauge that’s likely to have perpetually low or zero fees - however, as I outline in the forum discussion, I think there are unique positives that offset this risk. TEMPLE has fairly deep on-chain liquidity and has historically been a very low volatility token so I don’t see this as a great target for a pump & dump by the CREAM whale. Onboarding Temple to the Balancer ecosystem is worth taking the small risk that this gauge is targeted.

BIP 37-39

voted yes, all standard NPC votes.

2 Likes

[BIP-40] Enable FOLD/ETH 50/50 Gauge [Ethereum]

Voted yes. Seems to be a token with solid trading activity.

[BIP-41] Whitelist THX Network Gnosis Safe multisig for Balancer’s Vote-Escrow

Voted yes as more lockers is always good.

[BIP-42] Enable rETH/weth Metastable Gauge [Optimism]

Voted yes. Long road to get here but we made it. First of many soon to come.

[BIP-43] Redeem Treasury FEI for USDC

Voted yes. Given the Fei project is winding down this makes all the more sense.

[BIP-44] Support Balancer Space delegation on Snapshot for vlAURA holders

Voted yes. Important change to allow those delegating to hidden hand for gauge voting to also express their views on Balancer governance.

[BIP-45] Balancer LP BAL into MLP

Voted yes. Good use of idle BAL in the treasury and helps a long term Balancer partner on Arbitrum.

[BIP-46] Enable SILO/ETH Gauge on Ethereum

Voted yes, though as other delegates have pointed out this gauge is only palatable if the proposed gauge framework passes. It being a 50/50 pool also helps though.

[BIP-47] Balancer <> Across Protocol for Bridging Tokens Across Chains

Voted yes. Their bridge design solves the main pain point of Multichain where bridge liquidity can get stuck on one side of the bridge. They’re also willing to put up 10k of their own BAL to get the system operational. Feels like a pretty comfy deal to me.

1 Like