Hello here; glad to see a healthy discussion happening! I wanted to give some perspective on what those OP lock bonuses achieve from the point of view of a project involved in the Velodrome races.
I am TokenBrice, DeFi Strategist at Liquity, leading the charge on topics related to LUSD/LQTY liquidity strategies and integrations of LUSD within DeFi.
We are currently leading various campaigns to sustain liquidity, whether on Curve, through Warden Bribes, or on Velodrome. In terms of the amount of liquidity sustained / $-invested, Velodrome is one to two orders of magnitude above the competition.
Thanks to an initial 3.4M veVELO position (protocol airdrop), compounded weekly to now ~4.5M veVELO, Liquity can sustain about ~$6.3M on four different pools (LUSD/sUSD, LUSD/USDC, LUSD/MAI, LUSD/USD+).
Adding the OP lock bonus drove us to adjust our strategy, increasing the weekly locks to enhance our gauge supporting power while maximizing the reward.
To put some numbers in perspective:
- 4.5M veVELO (~$120K) locked enable to support ~$6M of stablecoin liquidity on Velodrome. (+some bribes from projects we work with that are re-injected as bribes again the following round)
- To direct 1% of CRV emissions, you’d need to bribe either ~25K a week or a ~5M veCRV position costing ~$4.8M. 1% of CRV-gauge votes is enough to draw a ~3% base APY to a $25M TVL pool.
- Translating back above into similar terms, it means that to sustain a >3% base APY on a 6M TVL stable Curve Pool you’d need roughly either 6.2K weekly bribes (0.25% total gauge voting) or 1.25M veCRV ($1.2M)
I think those napkin maths illustrate what I meant by “one or two orders of magnitude above” when it comes to Velodrome’s efficiency for a project. Of course, there are other things to consider, and the comparison should be based on various dimensions.
However, one of Velodrome’s core value propositions is enabling projects to attract and sustain liquidity efficiently. In that regard, it is delivering beyond what was expected: the OP veVELO locking bonus is a key part of the equation - increasing the efficiency of the flywheel even further. Besides, it drives projects to lock VELO, which means they enter a long-term commitment with Velodrome and Optimism.
Hope this helps fuel the discussion, I am available if there are more questions about the impact of the OP-bonuses on the strategies projects involved in the races harness.