[REVIEW] [GF: Phase1] Homora V2 x Ironbank on Optimism

Minor updates have been made but we are also discussing on allocating more % to builder’s grant which we will include once we get alignment from all parties (Homora & Ironbank). Will make sure to keep you posted on the updates. Thank you.

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Hi, thank you all for feedback (the delegates, OP community, etc.) over the past 2 months after we first submitted our proposal for the governance fund cycle #6. Here is a quick recap on what we have been through as there are lots of both iterations on feedback for improvement and significant changes to the proposal after submission

  • Submited the proposal for governance fund cycle #6 by creating a thread and submitting in gov-temp-check in discord
    • Received the feedback, majorly on 1) Too much number of token requests and allocation period 2) No existence of co-incentives matching 3) Homora V2 being non-open-sourced
  • Actively reached out for >=2 delegates’ approval for cycle #6 but managed to get the approvals (from @katie and @mastermojo) during cycle #7
  • Revised the proposal structure to apply as a joint-proposal with our partner; Ironbank, a protocol-to-protocol lending platform which provide liquidity for Homora users to enable leverage
    • Added Ironbank information
    • Included co-incentives matching in $IB tokens
    • Increased number of tokens request to 1M, extended the period to 1-year
  • [Current] Re-submitted the proposal for cycle #8 as there are substantial changes in proposal structure
    • Actively reach out to integration partners and set up a solid process on what are the requirements and how our builder’s grant will be allocated

Below is the list of some feedback we received so far on cycle #8 and how we incorporated that into our latest proposal in order to move the proposal forward from [DRAFT] to [REVIEW] phase as per the operating manual.

  1. From @jackanorak on no. of tokens requested and distribution period, suggesting that a longer term of allocation should not be the solution for too much number of request.

“I don’t believe that anyone here has suggested a longer term and yet you’ve gone from 8 to 10 to 16 to now 50 weeks in response to feedback that the weekly ask is too large.”

We are looking to shorten the distribution period to 6 months

  1. From @OPUser on pool listing suggestions and LM rewards, suggesting that the different OP pools should be considered for LM rewards

“One suggestion would you consider replacing WETH-OP 0.3% to a different $OP pair. Gamma has a join proposal of 900K OP dedicated for this pair, so what do you think about using different pair ?”

We have thought about it but as now we are collaborating with Gamma protocol on integrating new pools (with auto-compound and rebalance features) on Homora V2 (Tentative pools are OP-ETH 0.3%, USDC-DAI 0.01%, DAI-ETH 0.3%, USDC-ETH 0.05%) which will be available around end of November, the full resources are allocated there to support this partnership. Therefore, we might revisit new OP pools again once we completed integration with Gamma.

  1. From @ScaleWeb3 on no. of tokens requested and distribution period, how the granted tokens are used, sustainability of apply rewards, suggesting lower no. of tokens requested and distribution period (to 6 months) and allocating more % as builder incentives, as well as looking into integrating with active manager protocol.

“6 months distribution of LM rewards would make more sense. (Follow-up proposal possible).”

“20% (200K Op) Builder incentives can spur additional, sustainable growth.”

“Liquidity is very important for protocols to enable traders and other protocols to build on. That said, we should look more at effective liquidity, marginal value added to the Op ecosystem and sustainable incentives, which also means that tokens should not be temporary APY boosters which are instantly sold & less Op incentives are left for the rest of the ecosystem.”

We are allocating more % to the builder’s grant, lower the distribution period, and explored integration with Univ3 active liquidity manager protocols.

  1. From @Netrim on open-sourced concerns and potential workarounds to push the proposal forward

“Not being open source subtracts support but it will not be a hard NO. Also you hinted there was a way to having a workaround for open sourced code.”

“For instance moving things from LM to the builder grant amounts was very well recieved”

We are cutting off LM rewards allocation to the borrowers and focusing on builder’s grant instead.

  1. From DeFi committee C cycle #7 recommendation, majorly suggesting on more allocation % to builders with provision of more transparency on builder’s grant (ie. how it will be distributed and key milestones)

We have included details of what are the key criteria of getting the builder’s grant, how the grant will be allocated, and add integration milestones.

To sum up, we responded to the above feedback by proposing these changes

  1. Total no. of token requests – The overall ask is reduced from 800k to 684k by cutting off entire LM allocation (Type1) to borrowers and allocating some to builders (Type2) instead.
  2. Distribution period – Shorten to 6 months from previously 12 months
  3. Add milestones and details on builders’ grant – The builder’s grant will be allocated to the integrations partner on FCFS basis with more allocation ratio given to the protocols committing to integrate with us before the grant is approved. We target at total of 3 integration partners within 6 months with 2 protocols now committed to integrate with Homora V2 on Optimism.
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From the above update Homora V2 x Ironbank Cycle #8 proposal revision

We’d appreciate @mastermojo revision on changes and we are looking for a total of 2 delegates approval to proceed on [REVIEW] stage of cycle #8 @linda @katie @ScaleWeb3 @fig @ScaleWeb3 @GFXlabs @MoneyManDoug @david @MinimalGravitas @Gonna.eth

Thanks for incorporating feedback.

The selected supply pools (Op & ETH) are key pools for Optimism. The 20K distribution per week matched with IB incentives are a reasonable amount and could lead to a meaningful boost of TVL & activity. 300K Op for 3 integrations seems a bit large but proposal looks much better than last time.

Unfortunately, we don’t have 0.5% of voting power to approve.

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From the sound of it the committees are taking this on, but for completion I’ll say as a delegate with >0.5% votepower that this is ready for a vote.

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I am one of the Synthetix Ambassadors, and a member of the Defi Shadow Committee.

I am an Optimism delegate [Delegate Commitments - #65 by mastermojo ] with sufficient voting power, and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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Putting this here for more visibility.

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Recommendation from DeFi committee C

Details

Detailed proposal focused on liquidity mining and protocol integration. Homora (Prima) was active throughout the cycle, indulging community by answering their query and adjusting their proposal on the basis of suggestion and feedback.

Value-Add
Homora attracts significant liquidity (17MTVL according to Defillama) and can improve liquidity on key pairs for Optimism. They outline clearly in their proposal which pool/assets will be added and how liquidity will improve. The builder incentives are rather large but focused with a direct impact on Optimism.

Traction
Not native to Optimism but the integration with UniV3 is new and unique. Initial pool selection shows a good understanding of UniV3 volume drivers, already accounting for half of USDC/wETH (0.05%) total TVL on UniV3. Activity on other chains has shown a consistent pattern of integration and resilience in the face of a downturn market movement. Comparing Uniswap V3 TVL for the last months shows it has been steadily in the 49 to 55 M range. Their track record for Liquidity Mining shows a TVL expansion to accompany them.

Amount
Incorporated feedback and reduced the amount to 684K OP - which is reasonable for the size of Alpha & impact of this proposal.

a) Type 1 (56%): Liquidity Mining to incentivize borrowing (384k OP)

  • OP = 11,000 OP/week
  • ETH = 5,000 OP/week

b) Type 2 (44%): Builder grant for protocols on top of Homora (300K OP)

Intention to forward 3 large grants to 3 affiliated projects (Sharpe AI, Blue Swap Labs, x) which build yield strategies on top. They will use Op to incentivize growth which seems beneficial to Optimism & Homora.

OP Distribution
Good time-frame and reasonable weekly distribution

  • Liquidity incentives: 16K Op per week for 6 months
  • Builder grant will also be distributed over min 3 months

Co-incentives
Iron Bank will offer 45K IB Tokens ~154k USD at the moment of review. They represent around 40% of total liquidity ask which is rather low compared to others.

Alignment
Alpha seems to be very aligned with the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole and Homora implementation is a building block on top of many DEXs AND Iron Bank for additional yield strategy protocols.

General comment regarding Open Source, Homora has stated they will not open source on the short term, as a measure of security with its users.

KPIs
Clearly defined

  • Liquidity gains & TVL share
  • Support of key assets/pairs
  • Ecosystem integrations

Recommendation :- Yes
This proposal is focused on increasing liquidity along with protocol integration.

Our past recommendation is available on committee recommendation thread

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The Synthetix Ambassadors voted NO on this proposal despite the Committee recommendation, reasoning as such:

  • Closed sourced DeFi protocol, siting security risks as justification, is a red flag for us

  • It’s not clear how 56% of the incentives will be used. The proposal references incentivizing Iron Bank lending and Homora leveraged yield farms but isn’t clear how much will go to either. The current description suggests it will be used to reward the folding of ETH and OP on Iron Bank, which in our opinion doesn’t bring any sustainable value to Optimism.

  • The builders allocation doesn’t make much sense if Homora is closed source and building on Iron Bank is not a tremendous achievement since IB is a generic Compound v2 fork.

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Is the code completely closed, or is it source available? At a brief read, I didn’t really understand what this protocol (Homora V2) does - which is why I was deferring to committee recommendation.

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Alpha is building a DeFi suite and incubating various projects.

  • Homora is their core product: Leveraged yield farming incl. integration with Uni V3 as well lending incl. integration with Iron Bank (protocol to protocol lending where IronBank provides excess liquidity for leveraging on Homora V2)
  • The 56% go to the specified lending pools (optional to adjust based on demand). Alpha has asked Iron Bank (their exclusive partner) to add co-incentivizes to the OP received.
  • Benefits incl. a top protocol moving liquidity and users to Optimism (#1 for leveraged farming in the past with their v1), Op token sink, a potentially more sustainable adoption due to protocol to protocol use case moving to Optimism, as well as Homora de facto becoming a building block and onboarding at least 3 more innovative projects to Optimism (focus on uni v3 liquidity optimization).

Closed source issue was mentioned a couple times also by @OPUser. @prima pls clarify once again.

Edit: Only some part is closed source to our knowledge. See docs for lending integration & special whitelist/integration requirements for leveraged yield farming: “v2 lending can be integrated straight away” but leveraged yield farming requires some requirements for additional safety considerations". Github

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Homora is essentially a yield aggregator which specializes in leveraged strategies. On Optimism the leverage strategies available revolve around UniswapV3 positions. However the primary beneficiary of this proposal appears to be Iron Bank which is a generic Compound clone that has seen diminishing usage on every chain it’s deployed on.

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what are the three innovative projects you’re referring to

are you referring to the dev grant program and what they say here

can you tell us what these projects might offer

Yes, most of our info also available in this thread.

Pls feel free to do additional due diligence & vote accordingly.

so you saw that sharpe.ai is verifiably an alpha dao portco and i’m guessing that blue swan is as well? Did you examine what they might be offering and question whether there might be a hint of self-dealing there?

or did you simply copy-paste what was in their proposal?

Again, read thread and assessment. And pls stop spamming another thread. You can dm me anytime

Voted no - I’m going against the committee recommendation here but I share the same concerns around half of the funds going to builder grants for a closed sourced protocol. I do appreciate the engagement from the Homora team, however, I do not support this proposal.

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I’ve now gone through the proposal & thread in more detail. As I understand it, the ~56% is for liquidity mining, and ~44% is for builders incentives on top of Homora - so not directly incentivizing building a closed-source protocol. I don’t have a big issue if the protocol is not open source (e.g. business source is acceptable in certain cases); however, it’s not acceptable if parts of the protocol aren’t readable outside of the developers. I’m changing my vote to Abstain, until there’s further clarity. In general, if a protocol is “closed source now but planning to open source soon” I’d recommend waiting till it’s open sourced (or, at least, source available if opting for an alternate license) before applying for a Gov Fund grant.

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