[BIP-525] Business Development Funding Proposal Q1-2024 and Retroactive Q4-2023 Funding

PR with Payload

https://github.com/BalancerMaxis/multisig-ops/pull/717

Background

The intent of this proposal is to gain alignment with the Balancer DAO on the creation and funding of the Business Development Service Provider (‘BDSP’). The BDSP will track and facilitate ongoing and future growth for the Balancer ecosystem. Furthermore, the proposal presents the responsibilities for the future BD contributor who will represent Balancer in the new year, 2024. Lastly, the proposal is a request from the DAO for payment from the approved Q4 BD budget to contributors who have provided continuous efforts toward the growth of Balancer.

Creation of the BDSP

Historically, Balancer DAO’s resources have been split amongst many different work streams such as governance, gauge creation, legal, marketing, etc.. Since the beginning of 2023, other protocols have executed on the growth of the ecosystem by collaborating, developing, and launching on top of Balancer’s technology layers. Whilst the development has been quite healthy, despite an otherwise turbulent and unforgiving market, there still remains a dire need for more growth-focused work. Current DAO service providers simply do not have the capacity nor the resources needed to facilitate business development specific workstreams with adequate focus.

The following contributor description is intended to elucidate the purpose of the business development role, detail the expectations of the contributor, and outline their responsibilities. If deemed as necessary and aligned on by the community and DAO, the new contributor would help to facilitate growth for Balancer beginning in Q1 of 2024. It is desirable for the DAO to provide input to the role so as to ensure a strong first quarter of 2024.

BD Contributor Description

In this role, the contributor will collaborate closely with the Balancer DAO, Balancer Maxis, Aura contributors, and a vibrant community of skilled professionals, to execute on ecosystem-critical growth strategies. As a key player in the ecosystem, the BD contributor will play a pivotal role in fostering partnerships, driving adoption, and expanding Balancer's presence in the rapidly evolving DeFi space.

Responsibilities

1. Partnership Development:

   • Maintain and cultivate current strategic partnerships with key players in the broader DeFi space.
   • Collaborate on, provide input to, and execute on a network-specific growth strategy during the duration of 2024.
   • Explore new external, high-quality partnerships within the growing DeFi ecosystems.
   • Collaborate with Aura and in-network partner protocol’s contributors to maintain current and grow future market share of DeFi composability within key networks (e.g. Arbitrum, Base, OP, etc.)
   • Ideation, collaboration on the creation, and monitoring of KPI-tracking Dune dashboards.

2. Protocol Expansion:

   • Collaborate with key network partners of the ideation and execution of growth strategies.
   • Define framework for measuring ROI of layer 2 deployments.
   • Collaborate with ecosystem partners on future layer 2 deployments.
   • Collaborate with marketing contributors on launch campaigns for networks

3. Ecosystem Engagement:

   • Engage with the broader blockchain and DeFi communities to promote awareness of Balancer and its unique value proposition.
   • If deemed as a beneficial opportunity, represent Balancer DAO at conferences, meetups, and industry events.
   • Track KPIs for critical ecosystems to ensure adequate ROI of dApp deployment.

4. Market Analysis:

   • Stay informed about market trends, competitor activities, and regulatory developments to inform business strategies.
   • Provide quarterly reports and insights to the DAO regarding the competitive landscape and potential opportunities.

A current ecosystem contributor (json) that focuses on business development will help the new BD individual (lipman) during the first quarter, completing a handover period. The expectation is that the new individual will take over full responsibility starting the second quarter of 2024.

The new contributor (lipman) will be responsible for BD on a part-time basis during a ‘trial period’ which will give the DAO a low-cost opportunity to vet the contributor’s impact and determine how the contributor’s role, and the Service Provider at large, should be expanded in Q2 and beyond. Ultimately, the contributor will undergo an iterative process with other service providers to ensure that tangible value is provided to both the DAO and the ecosystem.

Service Provider Name: Business Development

Contributors: json, lipman

Pledge to abide by the DAO’s Code of Conduct: Yes

Pledge to abide by the Accountability Guidelines: Yes

Key Objectives for Q1-2024

• Transition Balancer related BD activity from json to lipman
• Onboarding of lipman to broader Balancer ecosystem
  • Develop general understanding of internal Balancer operations + processes for BD support
  • Develop understanding of Maxi priorities, their ideas for growth, and include within a prioritized list of initiatives to pursue in Q1.
  • Meet with existing, key Balancer partners to get introduced, offer support, uncover needs, etc.
  • Develop grasp of V3 and its implications for growth to position BD ahead of Q2 launch
• Apply for new grant programs and monitor current grant programs
  • Reapply for Optimism grant
  • Pursue grants for Gnosis, Avalanche, Polygon zkEVM (partners only), Scroll (TBD), Linea (TBD), etc.
• Create a framework to quantify layer 2 expansion opportunities and collaborate with Balancer DAO developers on the execution of each expansion
• Develop and maintain relationships with potential new networks (e.g. Scroll, Linea, X1) and current networks (e.g. Arbitrum, Optimism)
• Perform a competitive landscape review to understand where Balancer sits in comparison to industry peers
  • Understand gaps via the analysis and work with the Balancer DAO to determine how to close the aforementioned gaps
• Frame Key Performance Indicators and success targets for 2024
  • Retrofit or design a dashboard to monitor success of growth for 2024

Length of Engagement & Budget

3 months. January 2024 - March 2024

Compensation amounts will be funded by the $20k approved for BD activity in Q1 2024 BIP-433.

• lipman: Max budget of 5,000 USDC per month. Given this is a part-time role, lipman’s availability and need may fluctuate week-to-week. A quarterly recap of activities will be provided.
• json: Budget of 5,000 USDC for Q1

Funds to Transfer: 20,000 USDC + 0.3 ETH

ETH Address to Receive Funds:

0xC7E84373FC63A17B5B22EBaF86219141B630cD7a, the BD Service Provider multisig, which will include json, lipman, and MikeB as signers.

Json wallet: 0xE2A4DE267cdD4fF5ED9Ba13552F5c624b12db9b2

Lipman wallet: 0x72658e9A5c55371A5e80559B8E07AbC14F212120

MikeB wallet: 0xF01Cc7154e255D20489E091a5aEA10Bc136696a8

Retro Funding of Business Development of Q4 2023

Balancer’s primary aggregator, Aura Finance, has allocated continuous resources toward the growth of the Balancer ecosystem spanning everything from grants to marketing to protocol integrations. Naturally, the aggregator layer has helped to amplify the benefits of Balancer’s vote escrow tokenomics given the function of the protocol. However, Aura Finance contributors continued to provide tangible value not only to the DAO via revenue streams but also to the ecosystem as a whole. A portion of this proposal aims to help compensate for the efforts that supported Balancer’s growth throughout 2023.

Non-Exhaustive List of Contributions:

• Application, monitoring, and execution of the Optimism grant program.
  • Progress report on the Optimism grant program
  • Dune dashboard for tracking Optimism grant program
• Development, coordination, and continued execution of Layer 2 growth initiatives.
  • Networks: Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Polygon zkEVM, Gnosis, and Base.
  • Creation of 2024 growth strategies for each of the above-mentioned networks.
• Outreach and execution of protocol integrations
  • Protocols: Sentiment, VMEX, Timeswap, Gyrsocope, JonesDAO, Extra Fi, BitGet Wallet, Notional, Beefy, Radiant, etc
• Outreach for ve8020 program
  • Protocols: Mimo, VMEX, Radiant, Manifold etc
• Exposure from DeFi Industry Leaders
  • Aave DAO, Swell, DeFi Collective, Paraswap, etc
• Growth of key ecosystem assets (i.e. LSTs)
  • LST outreach: mevETH, ether.fi, Stakewise, Origin, etc.
  • Future-facing high-revenue assets for Balancer (undisclosed)

The Balancer DAO approved a budget for business development and growth for Q4 of 2023. This proposal asks for the payout of 25% (5k USD) of the total budget for the quarter. The payout will be made to an Aura Finance contributor, json.

While this proposal provides a general overview of the work that has been done in Q4 2023 it is highly encouraged that the DAO and community provide feedback on what they would like to see as a requirement for business and development growth contributors moving forward. Transparency and accountability will help to ensure that the protocol is progressing in the right direction while maximizing the efficiency of its runway.

Technical Specifications

The Balancer DAO multisig 0x10A19e7eE7d7F8a52822f6817de8ea18204F2e4f will interact with USDC 0xa0b86991c6218b36c1d19d4a2e9eb0ce3606eb48 by writing transfer passing json’s wallet, 0xE2A4DE267cdD4fF5ED9Ba13552F5c624b12db9b2, as recipient and amount 5000 USDC as 5000000000.

The Balancer DAO multisig 0x10A19e7eE7d7F8a52822f6817de8ea18204F2e4f will send 20,000 USDC and 0.3 ETH to the BD Service Provider multisig 0xC7E84373FC63A17B5B22EBaF86219141B630cD7a