[Mission Request] Targeted extension of Superfest

Delegate Mission Request Summary:

Speaking anecodtally, Superfest had several implementation issues but was effective in encouraging projects to migrate onto Superchain. Provisioning host Superchain defi protocols with means of continuing to stimulate project migration onto Superchain remains pound-for-pound one of the best ways to achieve Intent 3a.

This Mission Request will be similar in structure to previous Growth Experiments grants or Builder grants but will have a particular DeFi focus.

S6 Intent 42: Intent 3a

Proposing Delegate/Citizen: Jack Anorak

Total grant amount: 350k OP

Should this Mission be fulfilled by one or multiple applicants: Multiple

How will this Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?

Providing DeFi projects a home to compose and attract, potentially with an eye toward creating their own Superchains in the future.

What is required to execute this Mission Request?

  • Applicants must be either OP Mainnet-native DeFi projects or new projects
  • Existing DeFi projects must:
    • Have a track record of onboarding new DeFi protocols onto Superchain OR a credible plan that would specifically encourage more DeFi builders to come to Superchain
  • New DeFi projects must:
    • Provide a theory of growth that encourages others building on Superchain
    • Offer a reasonably sourced expectation of user growth and impact
    • Present a product that has a meaningful opportunity to add something new and valuable to Optimism DeFi

How should governance participants measure impact upon completion of this Mission?

  • Metrics:
    • TVL halfway into incentive program
    • TVL 6 weeks after end of incentive program
    • (If new): number of first-time wallets onboarding meaningful capital into Superchain
    • For the purpose of the standardized metrics: TVL in the grantee’s protocol
  • Impact:
    • Number of new DeFi projects attracted by this grant
    • These DeFi projects’ incremental TVL attributable to this grant

Has anyone other than the proposer contributed to this Mission Request? No

6 Likes

agreed that this extension, with a proper rebuild of the dashboards showing opportunities, yield potential would draw a large amount of value, etc

@Michael is going to love this, but taking inspiration from this page (and having protocols build out adapters showing the opportunities for TVL) would be great

also - for non-TVL focused protocols (say synthetix, kwenta, tlx, toros/dhedge) would/could there be a separate stream to drive users to structured products, basis trades, leveraged tokens, and just overall trading as well?

4 Likes

For the metrics team to be able to compare multiple approved applicant’s success in this mission request we need you to propose only one metric from this table as the Northstar:

  1. Number of addresses voting for the first time
  2. Number of addresses delegating for the first time
  3. Total amount of OP delegated from new addresses using the grantee’s protocol
  4. TVL in the grantee’s protocol
  5. Number of transactions emitting event logs
  6. Number of active addresses interacting with grantee’s contracts
  7. Total amount of gas fees generated from grantee’s contracts
  8. Percentage of retained active addresses interacting with grantee’s contracts
  9. DAA/MAA ratio
  10. Number of testnet transactions emitting event logs
  11. Number of active developer addresses interacting with grantee’s contracts
1 Like

yeah i think that should def be in scope - though we may want to increase the budget given that, depending on how much room there is

Hey I’m Mark and I work at the Foundation, I’m speaking on my own behalf.

100% that the proposal should include a sizable budget for reporting. This is seriously lacking and is critical to any incentives campaign.

For instance, there is not enough reporting at the pool level–tracking deposits, withdrawals, APRs, supply/borrow caps (for lending protocols), trading volume, etc.

4 Likes

Hi @jackanorak,

I find it hard to evaluate the relevancy of this MR without any Superfest insights attached to this thread. Can you please link any data?

Extending without analyzing and incorporating learning seems counterproductive.

Especially with @0xmark’s comment, it seems more reasonable to ensure we have a proper data pipeline before extending!

I managed to find a Dune Dashboard by Jumper - but that only covers bridging volume.

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@LuukDAO We’re standing by for some official data from Optimism – i"ve nudged the Foundation to get something out for this.

Anecdotally I can say that although there were hangups in the program’s UX and messaging (stuff we’d avoid here being focused on OP Mainnet), it was certainly successful in onboarding a ton of staked ETH across Mode, OP Mainnet, and Base—etherfi was a major beneficiary here, for instance. There were also wholesale migrations of protocols, including several that could act as alternatives to Pendle (which arguably singlehandedly handed Arbitrum the defi advantage over the past year).

The difference here is that a lot of this growth we saw on Base – but what I want is a more Superchain-agnostic breed of protocols that would start right here on OP Mainnet.

I view this MR as more or less an extension of not just Superfest but the Growth Experiments types of grants we had success with earlier. The objective here is officially TVL but in my view it’s beside the point – what we want are more defi protocols coming onto Superchain, making it a valuable place to do business here. Same stuff I’ve been trying to push for since day one.

Without a general-purpose Mission Request like we had with Growth Experiments in previous seasons, this is the best chance we have to onboard DeFi protocols.

1 Like

Hi @jackanorak, thanks a lot for providing more details. I agree that having a targeted budget for developing and growing OP Mainnet makes sense!

I do feel that an MR like this could benefit from having a clear Program Manager(s) that leads the coordination and is able to curate and support projects.

Given the focus on new and innovative OP DeFi applications, would you imagine teams to propose a combination of User incentives + deployment costs? Or only user incentives?

all of the above. let the applications decide what they think is best and then the GC can evaluate

later today i’m going to publish more details on what i think should be the outcome. we probably do want to see a program manager

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Do you think it makes sense for a program to be created with a Program Manager being compensated with a share of the OP (locked for 1y) - or would you imagine each project applying separately (might make it harder to compare and measure).

Jack, this is awesome! I love seeing this.

A couple of things to share from my perspective, hit me with any questions anyone may have:

  1. We want to run a couple more of these programs in 2025. They’re valuable to Superchain partners and prepare the OP Stack chains in the Superchain to drive TVL and users before they become Stage 1 chains and join the interoperable set.
  2. We will share our postmortem with the GC and the community. It yielded good insights, some of which we should definitely do differently and some of which we need to double down on.
  3. What I love most about this post is that we need to make this scalable, repeatable, and something that can be taken outside the Foundation. Your input, thoughts, and ideas about how we continue to do this would be great.
3 Likes

Here’s a broader rundown in light of these questions:

What this Mission Request does

Proactive grants are one of the Collective’s primary levers—if not the primary lever—helping to onboard DeFi protocols and capital. We’ve seen consistent success in diverging from simple liquidity mining and similar short-term practices, offering more builder grants and combined initiatives such as Velodrome’s locking incentives, which lead to an increase of capital committed to Optimism for years, and Synthetix’s perps trading rebates, which established hundreds of millions of trading volume with a high enduring retention rate. Superfest had several UX issues, but there absolutely were success cases that we can learn from in continuing catalytic grants to promising builders.

When the Grants program shifted from being application-led to Mission Request-led, many new DeFi builders found themselves—unless they were building something already specified—without a clear way to apply for grants, effectively locking them out in many cases from Superchain DeFi. Although this move has been helpful in reducing noise and overhead for the Grant Council, it’s important to maintain some flexibility to allow these builders to give us their best ideas and to allow the Collective to offer compelling pitches to launch with us.

OP Mainnet is in the middle of an identity crisis, but that doesn’t mean we stop funding DeFi. Many protocols in the wings could be on track to service the entire Superchain and need somewhere neutral to launch from. Some may end up on their own chains – this should be a launchpad for them.

Who we’re targeting

Anyone in defi, in high-potential verticals. We want to prioritize initiatives/projects that:

  • can onboard capital throughout the Superchain
  • can onboard other protocols throughout the Superchain
  • have seen onchain success in another ecosystem
  • unlock some new fundamental composability in anticipation of Superchain interop
  • are something we haven’t seen before!

What we’re going to track

Superfest (and this Mission Request) had TVL as a simple success metric. As we know, this is a valuable dimension but not the complete picture we’re talking. We want to see durability of users, of integrations, of verifiable, high-quality builders, and of new capital, i.e., the capital that hasn’t already moved between ecosystems chasing grants. Applications should think expansively along these lines, being specific to what exactly they’re going to deliver—otherwise they will not be approved.

How we’re going to accomplish this

A problem we’ve had at the Collective – and one that even persisted throughout Superfest – is the relative lack of coordinated BD efforts to notify high-potential protocols and guide them throughout.

We’ve seen grant consultants claim to do this, but realistically we’ve seen very little quality come through this direction because incentives aren’t aligned. They get paid on grant approval, not on success.

There is a concurrent Mission Request out that is looking to map available growth avenues, and ideally we’ll be able to tap into work in this direction.

This is all going to take administration

As of now, it’s going to fall to the Grant Council to make this all work. I think the work is important and doable, but as many ppl here have noted, it’s also a lot. To this end, we should also entertain applications by groups who will expand on the ideas in this document and offer means of administering this project to success. As a disclosure, in response to suggestions I am weighing administering the BD and reporting along with a group (i don’t want to do this for a market rate, i want to see this succeed), but my time’s also stretched and I think there is an opportunity for a capable group to come in and offer ideas / work that I have not or could not.

One of the main challenges with SuperFest was its confusing UI/UX and the lack of coordination to present the initative as a cohesive effort. Administering a program like this will take time and require centralized management to streamline protocols efforts and engage users. This could be as simple as creating a Notion page to outline the types of use cases we’re incentivizing and providing resources for further learning, or as complex as developing a custom Ethena-style dashboard to highlight participating projects.

3 Likes