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

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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I’m going against the DeFi committee recommendation and voting no on this proposal. I don’t like that this involves a closed source DeFi protocol (at least major elements of it are closed source from what I’m understanding in this thread) and suggest requesting funding later on once it becomes open source.

I will have to go against committe recommendation here and I agree with @millie.

I am voting against. Iron bank is a project with almost no users, and supporing a closed source (fully or partially) is a big no for me.