SNXweave Weekly Recap 15
November 23, 2021
The following post contains a recap of news, projects, and important updates from the Spartan Council and Core Contributors, as well as the grantsDAO and ambassadorDAO from last week.
Spartan Council and SIP updates
Present at the November 16, 2021 Spartan Council Weekly Project Sync:
Spartan Council: Afif, BigPenny, bojan, Danijel, jj, Kain, KALEB, Michael
Core Contributors: db, Jordan, Mark, Rafa
Alkaid has been released! This release brought SIP-120 to L1, which creates a new exchange function that allows users to atomically exchange synths via TWAP Uniswap oracles secured by Chainlink oracles. Alkaid also implemented the Wrappr Factory SIP on L1, which was previously implemented on L2 during the Avior release.
Now that SIP-120 is out, there are only two SIPs left to be implemented for phase 1 of the v2x roadmap: L2 Bridged Governance is the first of the two and will be going out today, and Dynamic Exchange Fees is the second and will be going out in the next couple of weeks, as it still needs an audit.
We all know Futures has been “almost here” for quite some time, but the Spartan Council has made it their goal to have it out by the new year. The Council recognizes that there has been some lack of communication on their part surrounding Futures, but they’re hoping to rectify this by writing up a detailed status update to post on the Synthetix blog.
The main blocker for Futures is that Dynamic Exchange Fees and next price fee fulfillment are both necessary for its implementation. And since Dynamic Exchange Fees still needs to be audited, it likely won’t be completed until mid-December, hopefully allowing for Futures to go out before the end of the year.
Kain brought up the discussion of doing another testnet competition, which is still up in the air. Afif said that it probably wouldn’t be necessary to have an additional competition as long as they can test Dynamic Fees on testnet internally and with Kaleb. He emphasized that Mainnet will also need to have very conservative open interest thresholds.
As for next price fulfillment, Afif said Core Contributor Arthur has been reworking some of the logic from the old code, so he’s still fleshing out some details. They’re planning on running a keeper that will confirm at the next price, or allowing arbitragers to just run their own keeper. He added that there will also be built-in slippage protection, so orders won’t go through if the price moves too much. Kain suggested updating SIP-80 with any and all additions or changes so that it can be presented one last time before being implemented.
Once the previously mentioned SIPs are completed, we’ll be moving into phase 2 of the v2x roadmap. SIP-146 to Add Synth Supply Caps and SIP-181 for Simulated Liquidity for Synthetix Exchanges were both originally part of phase 2, but have now been de-scoped to be the first couple of SIPs of v3. Since the goal is to get as much of v2x closed out before the end of the year, SIP-146 is now 301 and SIP-181 is now 303.
Kain will be writing up a debt synthesis overview, which will detail the various components of the debt pool merge, what the sequence of events will be, etc. so that everyone is familiar with what the process will look like, which SIPs are being implemented, and how it will happen.
The Debt Migration contract doesn’t have a SIP yet, but will allow migration of debt position without requiring you to burn debt. And then Synth Teleporters will likely be the final step to finish off phase 2 of v2x. This SIP will allow you to move a synth from L1 to L2 — so rather than a standard bridge, this will actually burn the synths and remint them on either side, in both directions. While this is probably the last step of v2x, Kain says ideally we’ll want to have synth teleporters ready to go at the same time as the other debt synthesis SIPs. He will therefore be writing up the process for the synth teleporters now.
After the implementation of these last few SIPs, v2x will be complete and all focus can be on building v3.
Lastly in Spartan Council news, Kaleb presented SIP-189 for the LUSD Wrappr to the Council and community last week. As we all now know, this SIP added a LUSD wrappr on L2 that mints one sUSD for each LUSD deposited, and releases one LUSD for each sUSD burned. This SIP was approved with all eight Council members voting in favor, and the LUSD Wrappr Cap was then raised to 30 million sUSD on L2 with SCCP-148.
grantsDAO
Present at the November 18, 2021 grantsDAO meeting:
grantsDAO Team: CT, Mike, rubber^duck
In grantsDAO news, CT and rubber^duck met with some of the guys from Gitcoin to run through the processes they’ll need in order to have everything in place for the gDAO’s Retroactive Public Goods Grants initiative that starts December 1st.
CT noted that their approach is a little different from what Gitcoin is used to because the gDAO will be closely managing their list of pre-approved projects. The community will be able to contribute to this initiative according to the quadratic funding mechanism, which will determine what portion of the funding gets allocated to which of the selected projects.
The gDAO will be releasing a PDF that details the eligibility criteria for public good projects to be invited to this private side round of grant funding that will take place as part of Gitcoin Grants’ round 12. The selection criteria for the gDAO’s curated list is done based on this Retroactive Public Goods Grants model that they have adopted, and will be up to the community to decide how to allocate the $50,000 of Synthetix Grants funding.
There will be two parts to the funding of this initiative: the first is the gDAO’s main round of funding, where the $50,000 is being dedicated to their curated list of projects; and the second is a public round where the gDAO donates $25,000 to a “general round” funding pool. The next step for the grantsDAO is to start contacting the projects on their list, which they will be doing this week. Get excited for this initiative to go live next Wednesday, December 1st, and keep spreading the word!
Tools.Synthetix is also coming along well — there have been some updated designs for this site, and Clem will be chatting with the developer to plan how they want to take this project forward.
Lastly in grantsDAO news, Mike has been working on some dune analytics on Synthetix stakers with Core Contributor db. This includes staking sizes, number of stakers, duration, reward claiming regularity, etc. The gDAO hopes that this data will give them a better picture of the Synthetix stakers landscape, allowing them and The 300 to better target marketing campaigns.
ambassadorDAO
Present at the November 19, 2021 ambassadorDAO meeting:
Ambassadors: andy, GUNBOATs, MiLLiE
In ambassadorDAO updates, the aDAO had their third Spartan City Hall with Aelin Protocol last week. If you missed it, be sure to check out the recording here. We got to hear from Core Contributor Alex who gave us a high-level overview of the project and answered some great questions. He explained that Aelin is a deal-sourcing protocol that basically serves as a way for the community to deal with a single entity, where every participant in the system is aligned with each other. But to be more specific, Aelin is an open and permissionless set of factory contracts that enables anyone to instantiate a pool of capital that can be used to source deals within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Alex explained that there are a few parties involved in such deals: a purchaser, a sponsor, and a counterparty, or holder of the asset. Aelin enables a Sponsor to create a pool that anyone, aka the Purchasers, can deposit funds into. In exchange for their deposit, the Purchaser will get a token representing their claim on the pool of funds. The Sponsor then structures a deal with a counterparty, aka the Holder. Once the Sponsor and Holder finalize the deal terms, conversions are enabled between the pool contract and the deal contract. Any Purchaser who has a claim in the pool can then choose to reject the deal and redeem their tokens for the underlying funds, or accept the deal and redeem their tokens under the terms of the deal.
The protocol benefits from these deals by collecting a fixed percentage of each one, which will be set at 2% initially. The Sponsor also benefits if they elect to capture a percentage of the deal as well. All fees are paid in tokens under the deal terms.
Andy asked an important question at the City Hall — do sponsors need to build up a reputation for themselves? Alex explained that anyone can be a sponsor, so it’s really just about who you trust. The first few deals you make as a sponsor will set the tone for you, as purchasers will likely look for people who have acted as successful sponsors in past deals. He added that Aelin doesn’t have whitelisting capabilities for v1, but they’re hoping to have it for v2, which will probably lead to sub-communities and sub-cultures under different sponsors.
Alex also explained that there are two redemption periods: the first is an initial pro rata period where purchasers can claim their pro rata portion of the deal; the second is an open redemption period where anyone who claimed their full pro rata share can continue to redeem the rest of their pool tokens for any unredeemed deal tokens based on the number of purchasers who opted out.
Lastly, Alex said the next big thing for Aelin is to elect the Aelin DAO. The Aelin DAO for v1 will be charge of managing funding, paying contributors, organizing the community, and preparing for v2, which will be a much more complex governance system. The initial Aelin Council will have 5 members voted in by SNX holders, and anybody from the community can run, where you will earn Aelin tokens for guiding the protocol in its first phase.
Responsibilities include managing the fund of the Treasury, paying Core Contributors, organizing the community, helping Aelin move towards v2, helping guide Aelin Improvement Proposals (or AELIPs), put forward AELIPs in order to build a more dynamic governance system, come up with ideas for v2 and beyond, and work out incentives for community members to come together and help shape the future of Aelin.
At the end of the city hall, Kain invited any feedback from the community on SIP-180 for Aelin Protocol. The plan is to present this SIP in the next couple of weeks, so be on the look-out for this presentation in the community stage!
SNXweave Podcast: https://anchor.fm/snxweave
Follow us on Twitter! @snx_weave
SIP/SCCP status tracker:
SIP-120: Atomic Exchange Function, Status: approved
SIP-182: Wrappr Factory, Status: implemented
SIP-167: L2 Bridged Governance, Status: approved
SIP-184: Dynamic Exchange Fees, Status: approved
SIP-80: Synthetic Futures, Status: feasibility
SIP-301: Add Synth Supply Caps, Status: draft
SIP-303: Simulated Liquidity for Synthetix Exchanges, Status: approved
SIP-189: Add LUSD/sUSD Wrappr, Status: implemented
SCCP-148: Increase Cap on LUSD Wrappr to 30 million sUSD On L2, Status: implemented
SIP-180: Aelin Protocol, Status: SC review pending