Symmetric Balancer Friendly Fork Proposal

Governance General Proposal
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Hello friends, Ballers, and Balancer community!

We are SymmetricDAO, a Balancer fork currently of v1 (launching v2 in the next few weeks) deployed on Gnosis Chain and Celo. We are big fans of what Balancer has brought to innovate the world of decentralized finance and want to see the protocol expand.

Quick Summary

  • We believe in the friendly fork model and aim to share economics, knowledge, and network with the BalancerDAO.

  • We are experienced with the Balancer protocol, having successfully run a Balancer V1 fork on two chains for over 9 months.

  • Being an early builder in the xDAI (now Gnosis) ecosystem and having completed a Celo-native Incubator, we are considered a “ Chain native project” on both xDAI and Gnosis. We have strong relationships with builders and the wider community on both chains.

  • We propose Symmetric becomes the first official friendly fork on Celo and Gnosis Chain.

  • SymmetricDAO is willing to offer 20000 SYMM (6.9% of circulating supply | 4% of max supply) instantly and offers BalancerDAO the ability to earn approximately 7.5% of the max supply if it actively LPs in Symmetric V2.0.

  • We request 10,000 BAL to seed liquidity for 50% SYMM <> 50% BAL pools on Symmetric V2.0 and Balancer on Mainnet. In addition, we request a strategic grant of $100K USDC to fuel the further development and marketing of Symmetric V2.0.

  • Once stable and mature on Celo and GnosisChain, SymmetricDAO is willing to lead/support complementary Friendly Fork deployments on alternative chains that the Balancer ecosystem aims to venture into.

Project Team

SymmetricDAO is a diverse and committed community that launched Symmetric Finance, a fork of Balancer V1.0, in June of 2021 on Gnosis Chain (then xDAI) and Celo in October 2021. The core team consists of the 3 project founders (2 Engineers and a Business Development Lead), two additional engineers, an ecosystem coordinator, and a marketer. Developers and other SymmetricDAO contributors support the core team. Our primary governance mechanism is Moloch V2.0 on Gnosis Chain, through which the Symm stakeholders align on initiatives by the DAO.

Background on the Friendly Fork
We’re just weeks away from launching Symmetric V2.0 (fork of Balancer V2.0) and have recently partnered with PrimeDAO to collective bring their LBP, Rating & Deals technology to Celo & Gnosis; we think this is the perfect time to formalize the relationship between Symmetric and BalancerDAO.

Besides partnering with PrimeDAO, we are also (with success) re-engaging both Celo and Gnosis Chain to increase the ecosystem support and native token rewards allocated to Symmetric. We have already secured ~1M in ecosystem resources and liquidity rewards for Symmetric V2.0 and aim to request more once if and when this Balancer Friendly Fork proposal passes.

Our vision is to become the number one liquidity protocol on Celo and Gnosis chain by pro-actively building an ecosystem of DAOs and services around our Balancer Friendly Fork deployment.

We propose Symmetric becomes the first official friendly fork on Celo and Gnosis Chain.

Commitment of the Organizations
Both parties agreed that they intend to contribute the following:

SymmetricDAO

  • To issue 20000 SYMM (7.1% of circulating supply | 4% of max supply) instantly and offers BalancerDAO the ability to earn approximately 7.5% of the max supply if it actively LPs in Symmetric V2.0.
  • To create, maintain and incentivize SYMM <> BAL liquidity pools on Symmetric V2.0 (both Celo and Gnosis Network) and Balancer Protocol on mainnet.
  • To support the development of the Balancer Protocol and subsequent Balancer Friendly forks.

BalancerDAO

  • To acknowledge Symmetric as the first Balancer Friendly Fork on Celo and Gnosis Chain.
  • To send 10,000 BAL to SymmetricDAO to be used to bootstrap SYMM <> BAL liquidity on Celo, Gnosis Chain, and Mainnet.
  • To issue a 100,000 USDC Grant to Symmetric for further development and expansion.

To get the most out of the Friendly fork, both DAOs also agree to:
Co-marketing

  • To ensure both entities will profit from each other’s reach and marketing or sales activities, we will do co-branded communication & services where applicable.

Knowledge and research sharing

  • To share the latest technical insights about the Balancer protocol and collaborate on a joint ecosystemic technical roadmap. The DAOs will also support each other when collectively engaging third parties for mutual benefits.

Friendly Fork Agreement
If accepted by the Governance process of both DAOs, this friendly fork will start effective immediately. There is no expiry date to the agreement; however, both DAOs can override this Friendly Fork agreement through their governance process to remove the Friendly Fork title and rides with a one-month notice period.

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Excited to see this proposal hit the Forum!

Having worked closely with the Symmetric team for the past weeks, I’m convinced they are the right partner for BFFs on Celo and Gnosis.

Symmetric is in a unique position where they are considered “native” on both chains, which helps a lot! PrimeDAO has also partnered with Symmetric to bring Prime Launch and the other Prime dApps to these chains.

Finally, I really dig the idea of having Friendly Forks move their mainnet liquidity to Balancer and vice-versa having Balancer tokens available in all Friendly Fork platforms.

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Hi everyone! I’m Uzi (yes - like the gun! :laughing: )

I am one of the founders at Symmetric and we have been in touch with several members of the Balancer community, ecosystem and core team, to ensure we put together something that will be beneficial for both our communities and lead to a long lasting partnership - while creating synergy for everyone!
I just wanted to let everyone know that WE (our DAO, community and our networks Gnosis & Celo) are all extremely excited about this and are available to answer any questions anyone may have! Here’s to all of us winning together, and we eagerly look forward to your feedback and input!!

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Thank you to Luuk and everyone who has worked on this - I know it’s been talked about for a long time.

I was hoping to see something more like 10% of max supply for Balancer in exchange for the $100k grant. 4% of max supply in exchange for $100k plus 10,000 BAL seems like a bad deal considering the other two approved friendly forks.

As it stands this feels quite heavily in favor of Symmetric to me, which is a small project that stands to benefit significantly if this deal is approved.

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Thanks @solarcurve for sharing your thoughts… I understand the concern raised - having said that, I wanted to point out that each project is different.

  • Symmetric brings Balancer V2 to two more networks, not one
  • There is also already a V1 fork on both these networks
  • Finally there is a lot more upside because the project is small (going from 5-100 is 20X, while going from 100-300 is only 3X)
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10% would be a potential end goal we could work towards - if synergies continue to develop between both parties.

The agreement would be for 4% instant unlock + the ability to LP to earn an additional approx 3.5% = which will put the total at 7.5% of the max supply - which would be the highest BAL has had so far + it’s for two chains in one go where the project is considered native.

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The concern with earning that extra 3.5% is that it requires additional capital outlay by the DAO (the other asset we’re LP’ing). Digging deeper, is this a 3.5% guaranteed to the DAO as in we get a special pool with a special farm allocation that only we can participate in? Or can this 3.5% be diluted by 3rd parties LP’ing in this same pool?

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It would indeed take some of BalancerDAO’s assets - most likely native BAL tokens paired with SYMM, which receives an extra LP bonus. I don’t see this as a bad thing for Balancer - as it would create new markets and promotes the Balancer technology and token into new ecosystems.

SymmetricDAO has control over the LP buckets and can make sure they comply with the outcome of this Proposal; BalancerDAO earning 3.5% by the end of the Liquidity Mining campaign; however, I think this is a problem to solve for if and when it arrives, as we would ideally avoid liquidity fragmentation.

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Gotcha. Personally, I don’t see BAL liquidity on these chains being very useful as there is no purpose to it other than farming these pools so trading volume will be microscopic. Compared to other liquidity that can actually generate volume and revenues it’s not a very effective spend of emissions. This is why there is no BAL pool on BeethovenX. I guess you all have another opinion as BAL liquidity seems to be a key focal point of this proposal.

Overall, this is an expensive deal from Balancer’s POV in my opinion. $100k grant + 10,000 BAL (effectively a grant too) + X BAL we’ll have to use to LP with SYMM to earn our extra 3.5%.

If you generously take today’s fully diluted value of SYMM, which has appreciated significantly this week, of $2.5M you arrive at a cost of $187,500 to purchase 7.5% of the FDV. We’re being asked to pay $100,000 + 10,000 * $12 BAL Price = $220,000 + X BAL.

If anything, we should be getting a below market deal. I hate to armchair quarterback at the 11th hour but feels like if we vote this down perhaps a more favorable deal could be arrived at?

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I think there is much more to this than the plain numbers. This expands the Balancer model to two value-aligned chains in partnership with a proven and capable group.

Balancer and the Balancer Friendly Forks are on the same team. I think it’s in our best interest to empower groups like Symmetric. Giving them a deal that is also in their favor will ultimately increase the amount of interest and resources that they are able to gain, which will flow back to the Balancer Ecosystem.

I think your claim of BAL liquidity on other chains being useful is something that is yet to be proven and discredits the network effects and communities of these chains.

There are multiple ways to approach the BFF - from my PoV taking a pro-active and supportive approach where we don’t just say " you get our blessing" but help with knowledge and resources is the best way forward. Happy to let Governance decide if they agree or not. If needed we can always re-engage with a different approach.

Eager to have other stakeholders chime in

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Hey everyone, thanks for your comments so far. I’m Wdude (initiator of the proposal) and am happy to help anyway I can. Let us know if you have any questions about Symmetric or the proposal. Our community is incredibly excited about the potential of partnering with the Balancer community.

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Agree on this, having tokens of projects on chains where they aren’t present doesn’t seem useful to me.

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I am excited about this proposal! I have known the Symmetric team for over a year and they’ve been great partners to our community.

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This comment isn’t directed at the Symmetric team, but rather to the DAO/community that votes on Friendly Fork proposals. It is not intended in any way meant to accuse anyone of ill-intent, but is instead a proposition to the community not to blindly approve a fork without solid, trustless verification.

There is undoubtedly a huge amount of work that goes into getting a Friendly Fork off the ground from market/chain identification, to finding a team, to getting all of the many, many the parts together. I do not want to belittle the work on the BalancerDAO side and the forking team side. What I do want to say though is that it’s a massive reputation risk on Balancer to approve any FF that comes along. Especially when teams are anonymous/pseudonymous/etc, there is an even greater risk that something bad could happen.

I would therefore like to propose that having deployed, verifiably identical bytecode of the core contracts is an absolute precondition to a FF even being considered. I have high hopes for the Hexagon project, for example, but have a really bad taste in my mouth that that vote went through so easily and there are no contracts anywhere to be found.

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Those are fair and valid comments, protecting the Balancer brand is of course very important.
Just a couple of points to add in relation to your points raised.

Firstly, the founding team of Symmetric isn’t anonymous, we made a conscious decision at the very beginning to be transparent regarding our identities since why would we expect anyone to trust our team if they don’t know who we are? We take a similar approach when creating partnerships, we want to avoid reputational and regulatory headaches from unknown elements and so we take care with who we partner with. Our brand of course is much smaller than Balancer’s and so we wouldn’t expect Balancer to take risks that we wouldn’t take in their situation.

With regards to identity, for my part, I’m a developer with almost 25 years industry experience working in sectors including OS development, banking and finance and UK gov. I’m a Certified Ethical Hacker, Certified Network Defence Architect, Professional Chartered Member of the British Computer Society and as well as my developer and ethical hacking roles I’ve given workshops and lectures at places including universities, industry events and the London Stock Exchange. Integrity is very important to me and it’s something I know is very important to the Symmetric team as a whole.

With regards to contracts being verified, for v1 we audited and verified contracts but I’m of course happy to revisit that work to ensure everything is in order as required. V2 contracts are also being verified and we intend to have an independent audit of these also.

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Wasn’t throwing mud at you all, just feels like this is the second FF proposal in rapid succession. In my opinion the last one felt like a marketing push in search of a rubber stamp, not an approval of a forked protocol on a technical level. I want to avoid that becoming a precedent.

I’m totally on board with that mindset, but even better imo is not needing to trust you at all. Very glad to hear you’re on board with verification, and pleasantly surprised to see you’re getting an independent audit :slight_smile:

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Just for added comment, I’m extremely excited about BFFs in general.

Beethoven (cc: @danielmk) has set an incredible example by taking Balancer tech, putting their own spin on it, and constantly making PRs back to Balancer repos to improve the SOR/infra/UI for the Balancer community, not just the Beethoven community. They’ve done a fantastic job experimenting with pool design and even have a boosted weighted pool between their boosted USD and WFTM which is super neat.

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Thanks gerg,

We aim to add to the creativity and new ideas as well. This is most definitely the way Gnosis Chain plans to interact with mainnet, and we have an active DAO with innovative thinkers.

Celo offers similar ground for experimentation and growth. We have worked with Celo to make Symmetric a mobile-friendly Defi experience and I think there’s opportunity there for innovation, especially in emerging markets where mobile usage is the only available access for most.

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You raised a solid point about this deal being heavily in favor of Symmetric.

I observe the past Friendly Fork Proposal it seems that Balancer didn’t have to contribute any grants or BAL tokens toward the friendly forking team. Approving this could be a precedent for future projects.

the past discussion could also be found here Balancer on other chains: Friendly Forks (aka Franchise Model)

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Hi Gerg,

I understand your concerns and I’m happy to expand and increase the number of requirements we want for a new team to be “approved”.

Indeed, there is a certain level of uncertainty which would be impossible to neutralise completely. But we hope that a proper due diligence can alleviate those risks significantly.

If you are up for the job, please let me know what other requirements you would like to see so we can implement them.

As for teams being anonymos/semi-anonymous, well unfortunately this is what it is. But being Anon yourself, how would you approach the issue?

Regarding approvals: the new “governance revamp” eliminates completely any need for discussions/reccomendations —> go back to the drawing table —> submit again etc.
Today we don’t need any of that and this has positive and negative implications.

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