[BIP-114] Symmetric as the Official Friendly Fork of Balancer on Celo

Symmetric as the official friendly fork of Balancer on Celo

This proposal aims to expand the Balancer ecosystem to Celo, managed by Symmetric,and make Symmetric the official Friendly Fork of Balancer on Celo.

Background:

Symmetric is a fork of Balancer that currently runs on the Celo and Gnosis Network, and will soft launch on Kava imminently. The project launched in 2021 and has since deployed a V1 and V2 fork of Balancer on both networks in addition to graduating from Celo Camp. Symmetric has close ties to the Celo community and looks to play a large part in Celo’s mission-based activity moving forward.

Symmetric approached BalancerDAO before launching V2, which did not result in an agreement. Symmetric has since shipped and operated their V2 on Gnosis and Celo in July, while BalancerDAO introduced the veBAL tokenomics, launched on Optimism in collaboration with Beethoven, and the bLabs team added a deployment to Gnosis to their roadmap.

Based on these changes, we think it’s the right moment to re-engage and find a mutually beneficial outcome.

Motivation

The Celo Ecosystem, despite relatively low usage, is seeing an increase in interest as the ReFi space native to the chain is growing fast, with projects such as Toucan protocol moving onto Celo recently. Another example is Uniswap moving to Celo with a $10M incentive package from the Celo Foundation’s DeFi for the People initiative focusing on Green Assets. Another significant point is that PrimeDAO is launching a ReFi Launchpad program on Celo in Q4 with $1M in funds available for project launches and liquidity rewards (bribes).

We believe we have the right knowledge, skillset, and network to successfully expand the Balancer protocol onto the Celo network and become one of the top three DEXs on Celo by the end of 2023.

Specifications

Friendly Fork Status

If this vote successfully passes, the Celo deployment of Symmetric will be recognized as the official friendly fork of Balancer on Celo.

SYMM token distribution mechanism

Symmetric plans on developing a system similar to veBAL by which SYMM token distribution is optimized and decentralized through holding of SYMM’s core pool on Celo (SYMM-CUSD) and voting via a simple gauge.

Tokens to become a FF

SymmetricDAO proposes distributing SYMM tokens to BalancerDAO and Balancer Stakeholders to become a Friendly Fork. In exchange for becoming the Friendly Fork on Celo, SymmetricDAO will distribute ~2.5% (12,500 SYMM) of the tokens to BalancerDAO and ~1% (5000 SYMM) to veBAL holders that engage with the deployment by December 31, 2022.