<h3>
<a name="situation-1" href="#situation-1"></a>Situation</h3>
<p>Hello owls!</p>
<p>I am proposing the third iteration of the Growth Working Group (GWG) for Q3 2021 from July 1 to Oct 1.</p>
<p><a href="https://gov.indexcoop.com/t/launching-a-growth-working-group/602">GWG I Proposal <span>13</span></a><br />
<a href="https://gov.indexcoop.com/t/proposing-a-growth-working-group-pt-ii/983">GWG II Proposal <span>10</span></a><br />
Updates: <a href="https://gov.indexcoop.com/t/gwg-ii-april-progress-report/1453">Apr <span>3</span></a>, <a href="https://gov.indexcoop.com/t/gwg-ii-may-progress-report/1670">May <span>2</span></a></p>
<h3>
<a name="what-is-the-core-problems-you-want-to-solve-2" href="#what-is-the-core-problems-you-want-to-solve-2"></a>What is the core problem(s) you want to solve?</h3>
<p>The growth working group exists to accelerate adoption of Index Coop’s products. The working group structure provides the rails for coordination and funding of growth initiatives.</p>
<h3>
<a name="why-is-this-worth-addressing-today-3" href="#why-is-this-worth-addressing-today-3"></a>Why is this worth addressing today?</h3>
<p>Growing our products is core to the success of the Index Cooperative. As we increase adoption, downstream effects such as revenue and unit economic improvements ensure protocol sustainability.</p>
<h3>
<a name="how-will-you-address-it-4" href="#how-will-you-address-it-4"></a>How will you address it?</h3>
<p>In order to grow our products we must continually:</p>
<ul>
<li>Craft messaging to position our products as solutions to customer problems</li>
<li>Prioritize channels to efficiently reach our target audiences with that messaging</li>
<li>Optimize our conversion flows</li>
<li>Turn our customers into advocates</li>
</ul>
<h3>
<a name="what-impact-will-this-project-have-5" href="#what-impact-will-this-project-have-5"></a>What impact will this project have?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Introduce and reintroduce Index Coop Products in relevant channels (as measured by Impressions)</p>
<ul>
<li>Serve Twitter impressions which introduce our products and speak to product value at a rate of 5m monthly across accounts tracked.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Reinforce product value with content (as measured by words / multimedia minutes and reads / views)</p>
<ul>
<li>Publish 2 pieces of product value editorial content per week</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>Convert visitors / readers to owned channel (as measured by email conversions)</p>
<ul>
<li>Collect 2500+ of email addresses</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>APAC penetration</p>
<ul>
<li>Major rollout in top 3 strategic geographies including operational social channel and media blitz</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Working Group Leaders</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Lemonade</li>
<li>Mr Madila (co-lead)</li>
</ul>
<h3>
<a name="request-for-funding-6" href="#request-for-funding-6"></a>Request for Funding</h3>
<p></p><div><a href="https://global.discourse-cdn.com/standard10/uploads/theindexdao/original/2X/1/1d07a27efadad2c4b6b43185c01831df006bf669.jpeg"><div>
<span>Screen Shot 2021-07-19 at 3.43.16 PM</span><span>1368×740 140 KB</span>
</div></a></div><p></p>
<p><strong>Proposed Budget:</strong><br />
$278,500 for 3 months (approx. 14,094 INDEX)</p>
<p>Current GWG multisig balance: <a href="https://gnosis-safe.io/app/#/safes/0xd4bcc2b5d21FE67c8bE351cDB47Ec1B2Cd7e84A7/transactions">8,685 INDEX <span>5</span></a><br />
4/5, GWG II: Requested $450k (+13,069 -5654) = ~7415 surplus<br />
1/16, GWG I: Requested $100k (+9,173.6 -7,900) = ~1270 surplus</p>
<p><strong>Use of Funds:</strong></p>
<p><span>@Lemonade</span>: Paid, WG lead<br />
<a href="/u/mrmadila">@mrmadila</a>: Data, special projects<br />
<a href="/u/dev">@dev</a>: strategy, website tech<br />
<a href="/u/marshmellow">@marshmellow</a>: content<br />
<a href="/u/dochabanero">@dochabanero</a>: product marketing<br />
<a href="/u/lanks">@lanks</a>: APAC expansion<br />
<a href="/u/defijesus">@DeFiJesus</a>: conversions<br />
<a href="/u/caf">@caf</a>: micro content<br />
<span>@static</span> : micro content<br />
<span>@nftzakk</span>: impression mining, Twitter</p>
<p>-Special project consultant work<br />
-Ad hoc rewards &amp; bounties: copywriting, writing, etc<br />
-Impression Mining<br />
-Ads &amp; Sponsorships: Decrypt, DeFiant, Coingecko, new experimental channels<br />
-Discretionary programs: Wallet promotions, referrals<br />
-SaaS Licenses: CMS (e.g. Contently), Email (Getresponse)</p>
<h3>
<a name="organization-how-will-it-work-7" href="#organization-how-will-it-work-7"></a>Organization - How will it work?</h3>
<p><strong>What will you be doing?</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Communicate with customers to understand their motivations</li>
<li>Craft product value messaging to distribute via social media, blogs, etc</li>
<li>Localize that content to leverage in more geographies; with a look towards APAC</li>
<li>Prioritize channels to optimize for targeted reach of that messaging with a low mixed-CAC</li>
<li>Create and optimize conversion flows for key website events</li>
<li>Empower customers to serve as advocates for Index Coop products</li>
<li>Experimentation process for rapid learnings and further application of them</li>
<li>Special projects, including: MMM attribution model, Referral infrastructure, SEO implementation</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>How will you interface with the community?</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Weekly GWG calls and pizza group vertical calls.</li>
<li>Forum posts and discord (Monthly update, with stretch goal of weekly).</li>
<li>Permissioned contribution programs</li>
<li>Permissionless contribution programs</li>
<li>1 on 1’s with GWG members.</li>
<li>Cross functional groups where required.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Commitments</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>I am committed to  <a href="https://docs.indexcoop.com/our-guiding-principles">Index Coop principles</a>
</li>
<li>I am committed to serving the entire Index Coop with my work.</li>
<li>I am committed to open, rapid communication: I know that clear, constant, public communication lifts up the entire Index Coop community. I am committed to this style of communication.</li>
<li>Shared learnings: I will share my progress, learnings with the entire community. I will ensure that anything I create is accessible beyond my own tenure for future generations of Indexers to access &amp; build on.</li>
<li>Intellectual honesty: I am committed to growth and improvement. I am open to feedback and will use feedback to improve my work for the benefit of the entire Coop community.</li>
<li>I am committed to making Index Coop a welcoming, fun, and engaging community to work in!</li>
</ul>

Proposing a Growth Working Group III [NEW BUDGET + POLL ADDED] 
  Situation 
 Hello owls! 
 I am

Proposing a Growth Working Group III [NEW BUDGET + POLL ADDED]

<h1>
<a name="overview-1" href="#overview-1"></a>Overview</h1>
<p>The working group draft budgets for Q3/Q4 2022 are posted and available for discussion. Please use the available discussion threads.</p>
<p>These draft budget proposals will be voted on independently. If passed, they will be combined into a collective proposal. This process is defined in <a href="https://docs.ens.domains/v/governance/governance-proposals/ep12-working-group-rules">[EP12] [Social] Working Group Rules <span>7</span></a>.</p>
<h1>
<a name="working-group-draft-budgets-2" href="#working-group-draft-budgets-2"></a>Working Group Draft Budgets</h1>
<h2>
<a name="meta-gov-3" href="#meta-gov-3"></a>Meta-Gov</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://discuss.ens.domains/t/draft-q3-q4-budget-request-meta-governance-working-group/13754">Budget Overview <span>61</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://discuss.ens.domains/t/discuss-the-meta-governance-q3-q4-budget-request/13756">Discussion Post <span>18</span></a></li>
</ul>
<h2>
<a name="ecosystem-4" href="#ecosystem-4"></a>Ecosystem</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://discuss.ens.domains/t/draft-q3-q4-2022-budget-request-ens-ecosystem-wg/13755">Budget Overview <span>47</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://discuss.ens.domains/t/discuss-the-ecosystem-q3-q4-budget-request/13757">Discussion Post <span>13</span></a></li>
</ul>
<h2>
<a name="public-goods-5" href="#public-goods-5"></a>Public Goods</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://discuss.ens.domains/t/draft-q3-q4-2022-budget-request-public-goods-wg/13758">Budget Overview <span>33</span></a></li>
<li><a href="https://discuss.ens.domains/t/discuss-the-public-goods-q3-q4-budget-request/13759">Discussion Post <span>7</span></a></li>
</ul>

Q3/Q4 2022 Draft Budget Overview 
  Overview 
 The working group draft budgets for Q3/Q4 2022 are

Q3/Q4 2022 Draft Budget Overview

<p>| <strong>Status</strong> | Draft  |</p>
<h1>
<a name="abstract-1" href="#abstract-1"></a>Abstract</h1>
<p>Establish basic parameters around the DAO’s working capital / runway and the handling of revenue on an ongoing basis.</p>
<h1>
<a name="justification-2" href="#justification-2"></a>Justification</h1>
<p>Presently the DAO keeps almost all of its treasury funds in ETH, and has not heretofore had a standard process for converting income to stablecoins in order to fund ongoing operations. This EP proposes standard expectations for the DAO to follow, specifying expected balances and actions to be taken on an ongoing basis in order to ensure the DAO continues to be able to execute on its goals effectively.</p>
<h1>
<a name="specification-3" href="#specification-3"></a>Specification</h1>
<ol>
<li>The DAO shall at all times aim to keep funds equivalent to 24 months expenditures available in a combination of USDC and DAI in its primary timelock account.</li>
<li>This figure will initially be set at $16,000,000 USD. After each term’s working group budgets are approved by the DAO, the Lead Steward shall provide an updated estimate of the DAO’s expenditures for the next 24 months.</li>
<li>On an ongoing basis and at least monthly, the DAO shall ‘sweep’ newly earned revenue collected by the .eth registrar contract. Enough of this will be converted to stablecoins and sent to the DAO’s primary timelock account to restore the balance to the amount specified in (1). If insufficient funds are available, all available funds will be converted and sent.</li>
<li>Any additional funds that remain after topping up the DAO’s primary timelock shall be sent in ETH to the DAO’s endowment fund to be invested according to the rules established for that fund.</li>
<li>Upon passing this proposal, the DAO will vote to implement an executable proposal that:
<ol>
<li>Converts sufficient ETH to USDC to increase the DAO timelock’s balance to $16,000,000.</li>
<li>Implements a non-custodial system to automate the regular collection, conversion, and transmission of revenue. This may make use of an automated process with limited permissions to conduct these actions without taking custody of the funds.</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Upon passing this proposal, the DAO notifies the Lead Steward of their responsiblity to monitor the state of the DAO’s accounts, and regularly update the DAO as to their state, and to make reports to the DAO whenever they judge that action from the DAO may be required.</li>
</ol>

[Social] Routine DAO treasury management |  Status  | Draft  | 
 
  Abstract 
 Establish basic parameters around the DAO’s working

[Social] Routine DAO treasury management

Proposal: Llama <> Aave 
  Summary 
 We outline a 12-month proposal to work with Aave on

Proposal: Llama <> Aave

<p>Leader(s): LuukDAO</p>
<p>Pledge to abide by the DAO’s Code of Conduct (or link to your own): We pledge to abide by the Balancer DAO’s Code of Conduct.</p>
<p>Pledge to abide by the Accountability Guidelines: We pledge to abide by the Accountability Guidelines set forward by Balancer DAO.</p>
<p>Domains of Operation: DAOops, Business Development, Design</p>
<p>Length of Engagement &amp; Budget: 6-month engagement with a total budget of 108,000 USDC for 4 fixed contributors (1.8 FTEs) and on-demand support with potential vests up to 9,130 BAL depending on milestones accomplished by the team.</p>
<p>ETH Address to Receive Funds: 0x5D82fA4F29fB22A9ed9E64E1c9C36873EE4D93bA</p>
<p>Link to SLA (if going through the Foundation): TBD</p>
<p><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RD6qCptGcbQxEuClTwPV72B_vMWqEbaOvTtrjsyD5a8/edit?usp=sharing">Link to the gDocs version of the Proposal <span>3</span></a></p>
<p><strong>Call for Collaboration</strong><br />
We’ve attempted to coordinate closely with Ballers and potential service providers, including Orb Collective and Daoism systems. We are 100% committed to turning Balancer into a synergistic ecosystem. We invite any ecosystem stakeholders who want to align vision and workflow to engage with us. Let’s continue to develop the Balancer Ecosystem into a thriving ecosystem.</p>
<p><strong>Introduction</strong><br />
The BalancerDAO has seen steady development over the past 9 months and is now in the transition to becoming a full-fledged DAO managing the Balancer Ecosystem.</p>
<p>To support this ongoing transition, we propose creating the Ecosystem Ops and Development Workstream consisting of three different squads (DAOops, Ecosystem Development, and Content Creation) with the primary aim to streamline ecosystem efforts, BalancerDAO assets, and process over the next 6 months to allow BalancerDAO to establish a strategic roadmap and scale towards it in the years to come.</p>
<p>The contribution group consists of Ballers and Kolektivo Labs members who have all been exposed to BalancerDAO and the wider-DAO space for a longer time as specified in the contributor breakdown further in the proposal. We aim to combine our knowledge, network, and efforts to help develop the Balancer Ecosystem towards becoming the most used AMM.</p>
<p>For Q3 and Q4 - we aim to focus primarily on internal alignment within the BalancerDAO ecosystem by collaborating closely with other SPs to enhance the effectiveness of the Balancer Ecosystem as a whole.</p>
<p><strong>Objectives and KPIs per Focus Area (Squad)</strong></p>
<div>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Focus Area</th>
<th>Objectives</th>
<th>Success Criteria</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>DAOops</td>
<td>- Improve and maintain the BalancerDAO workspace and resources.</td>
<td>* Successfully manage Notion, gSuite and other accounts related to Balancer.Community and Balancer DAO for the full proposal period. Managed by up-time of workspace.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>- Establish a streamlined process for issuing and managing <span>@balancer.community</span> domains and access to contributors’ resources.</td>
<td>* Create clear guidelines and effective processes for issuing and revoking <span>@balancer</span> community emails by the end of Q3</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ecosystem Development</td>
<td>* Establish a shared CRM with Orb Collective and potential other Balancer DAO Ecosystem Teams.</td>
<td>* Establish a shared database for tracking different connections in the Balancer Ecosystem. Measured by an effective solution existing by end of Q3.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>* Establish different funnels for potential integrations &amp; partners</td>
<td>* Establish funnels that directly lead to the correct groups depending on their ask. Success will be measured by the effectiveness of the funnels.</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>* Host a monthly Ecosystem Development Session where Team Leads and contributors can gather, share updates, and discuss.</td>
<td>* Plan, host, and document 6 Ecosystem Development Sessions and digest the outcomes to make ecosystemic suggestions.</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>* Create a map of the Balancer ecosystem</td>
<td>* Create an overview and visualization that can be easily shared and digested that showcases the entirety of the Balancer Ecosystem</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Design</td>
<td>* Support the creation and maintenance of the re-worked Balancer brand guidelines</td>
<td>* Create and distribute Balancer brand assets. Measured by the ease of finding the right Balancer brand assets.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>* Create template assets to be used by the Balancer Ecosystem</td>
<td>* Develop templates that can be used by at least 2 ecosystem members to easily create Balancer visuals. Measured by having a clear template set by end of Q3.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>* Create marketing assets using the Balancer brand guides</td>
<td>* Ensure design needs are met timely and in line with Brand assets. Measured by timely delivery of marketing assets.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div><p><strong>Team</strong><br />
Ecosystem Ops and Development Workstream combines Ballers and Kolektivo Labs Contributors. A total of 4 people will be contributing a fixed amount of time for the full duration of the proposal - estimated in Full Time (40 hrs) equivalents measured of a monthly timeframe for 1.8 FTEs.</p>
<p><strong>Fixed Contributors</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Senior Ecosystem Developer &amp; DAOops (Luuk) - 0.3 FTE</li>
<li>Business Developer (Will) - 0.5 FTE</li>
<li>Senior Graphic Designer (Jaap) - 0.4 FTE</li>
<li>Graphic Designer (CryptoComical) - 0.6 FTE</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Contributor Backgrounds</strong><br />
Kolektivo Labs: An experienced Web 3.0 collective with about 25 contributors and offices in The Hague, Lisbon, and Switzerland. Has with and for DAOs for the past three years. Are actively contributing to PrimeDAO, DAOhaus, The DAOist, Kolektivo, and BalancerDAO. Will be responsible for streamlining contributor rewards and project management.</p>
<p><strong>Contributors to this proposal</strong></p>
<p>Luuk: Senior Ecosystem Developer with over four years of work experience in the DAO space. He started his journey contributing to DAOstack and is now mainly involved in PrimeDAO, Kolektivo, and Balancer. Has a background as a DeFi fund manager and a wide network in the ImpactDAO space.</p>
<p>Will: Strategic Consultant and project manager who has contributed to Symmetric Finance as Ecosystem Builder. Has a strong connection with the Gnosis ecosystem and understanding of the Balancer technology.</p>
<p>Jaap: Senior Graphic designer with 1.5+ years of experience making DeFi Applications and Web 3.0 Brand Assets. Has worked on The DAOist, DAOhaus, PrimeDAO, dHedge, and more.</p>
<p>CryptoComical: Designer who has contributed to BalancerDAO for the past half-year.</p>
<p><strong>Budget</strong></p>
<div>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Initiatives</th>
<th>Description</th>
<th>Monthly Budget</th>
<th>Quarterly Budget</th>
<th>Total Budget</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Ecosystem Development</td>
<td>0.8 FTE equivalent of contributors will be supporting Ecosystem Development.</td>
<td>$ 7,000</td>
<td>$ 21,000</td>
<td>$42,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Design</td>
<td>1 FTE equivalent of contributors will research, create and design assets for Balancer.</td>
<td>$ 7,000</td>
<td>$21,000</td>
<td>$42,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Expenses</td>
<td>Buffer for costs accrued by Workstream contributors related to BalancerDAO works - such as Gas costs, travel expenses, and Legal &amp; Accounting support. This also covers the costs of operating and maintaining all subscriptions.</td>
<td>$ 4,000</td>
<td>$ 12,000</td>
<td>$ 24,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>TOTAL USDC</td>
<td></td>
<td>$21,000</td>
<td>$63,000</td>
<td>$108,000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Bal Vests for Fixed Contributors equal to 50% of fixed rewards.</td>
<td>Description</td>
<td>Amount in BAL</td>
<td>USD value at current spot</td>
<td>Milestone</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Start proposal (20%)</td>
<td>1825</td>
<td>$8,400</td>
<td>At the start of Proposal</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>First tranch unlock (30%)</td>
<td>2740</td>
<td>$12,600</td>
<td>When 4 out of 9 Successes Reached</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Second tranch unlock (30%)</td>
<td>2740</td>
<td>$12,600</td>
<td>When 6 out of 9 Successes Reached</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Final tranch unlock (20%)</td>
<td>1825</td>
<td>$8,400</td>
<td>When 8 out of 9 Successes Reached</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>TOTAL</td>
<td>9,130</td>
<td>$42,000</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div><p><strong>veBAL rewards based on Success</strong><br />
An important part of this proposal is the desire of all contributors to align with Balancer for the longer term. To align incentives between contributors and lower the USD asks, a series of veBAL incentives are proposed as part of this Proposal for the fixed contributors of this proposal (1.8 FTEs).</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The veBAL incentives will be issued based on the milestones accomplished by the Ecosystem Ops and Development Workstream and will be matched with 25% WETH from the contributors’ own resources and locked by each individual for the full ve duration (1-year).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The BAL vests are valued in absolute BAL numbers and will be distributed to fixed contributors pro-rata based on their fixed rewards.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The value of the vest is taken by multiplying the fixed income times 0.50.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The group will submit Milestones to the Foundation based on completion. The Foundation will confirm whether Milestones are met or not and will do the payout.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Iterative Proposal Process</strong><br />
The initial proposal of the Ecosystem Ops and Development Workstream aims to follow an iterative proposal process where we absorb learnings in the coming months and actively support BalancerDAO in creating a multi-year ecosystem strategy that will allow us to shape up a value-aligned proposal for the full-year of 2023.</p>
<p>We will be documenting learnings and publishing it to the wider community, similar to the process we followed in the Grants Sub-DAO.</p>

[BIP-21] Funding Proposal for Ecosystem Ops and Development Squad Leader(s): LuukDAO 
 Pledge to

[BIP-21] Funding Proposal for Ecosystem Ops and Development Squad

<p>Authors from Llama: <a href="/u/matthewgraham">@MatthewGraham</a>, <a href="/u/dydymoon">@Dydymoon</a> and <a href="/u/acceleratedcapital">@AcceleratedCapital</a>.</p>
<h1>
<a name="introduction-1" href="#introduction-1"></a>Introduction</h1>
<p>Llama would like to present the Aave community an opportunity to deploy the Reserve Factor (RF) to earn additional yield by acquiring BAL rewards on Balancer V2. The balance of the RF and Ecosystem Reserve (ER) are shown below:</p>
<div>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Wallet</th>
<th>USD</th>
<th>Notes</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Ecosystem Reserve</td>
<td><a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0x25f2226b597e8f9514b3f68f00f494cf4f286491">$821M <span>38</span></a></td>
<td>100% AAVE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reserve Factor V1</td>
<td><a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0xe3d9988f676457123c5fd01297605efdd0cba1ae">$0.42M <span>22</span></a></td>
<td>$224K aDAI, $176K aUSDC, $340K ETH</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reserve Factor V2</td>
<td><a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0xe3d9988f676457123c5fd01297605efdd0cba1ae">$13.88M <span>22</span></a></td>
<td>$7.44M aUSDC, $2.4M aUSDT, $2.3M aDAI, $0.15M awETH</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Reserve Factor Polygon</td>
<td><a href="https://polygonscan.com/address/0x7734280a4337f37fbf4651073db7c28c80b339e9">$5.06M <span>7</span></a></td>
<td>$1.2M amUSDC, $1.2M amDAI, $0.6M amUSDT, $0.5M amWETH, $0.76M amWBTC</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div><p>This strategy has two goals:</p>
<ul>
<li>Earn additional yield with the aTokens from the treasury</li>
<li>Accumulate governance influence with protocols that interact with Aave</li>
</ul>
<p>Llama proposes depositing a portion of the aTokens held in the RF into Balancer V2 pools to earn BAL rewards. The aTokens are wrapped, creating a waToken, and the yield generated from holding the aToken accumulates within the wrapper. Aave is still earning yield from the aToken as if it was held within the RF wallet, but will also accrue trading fees and BAL rewards by providing liquidity on Balancer V2.</p>
<p>An alternative strategy is to use AAVE from the ER as collateral in order to borrow stables to fund the yield generating strategy. The cost of capital is reduced by the borrowing incentives on V2, the fee income that flows to the RF, and the interest received by the aTokens. Provided the loan is sufficiently overcollateralized and managed, the risk to the Aave treasury is largely derived from Balancer V2 Smart Contract risk. This risk seems very low, at the time of writing Balancer V2 has more than $1.6b TVL (mainnet and polygon combined) and offers the largest, unclaimed bug bounty (1000 ETH) in the industry. The investment generates a positive ROI due to the low cost of capital, Balancer trading fees, and BAL incentivises.</p>
<p>Further to the above, there exists the potential for the Balancer V2 liquidity provider (LP) token to be integrated into Aave’s AMM platform. This creates a further use case and presents an opportunity for Aave to provide liquidity to the underlying pools.</p>
<h1>
<a name="utilising-reserve-factor-to-earn-yield-2" href="#utilising-reserve-factor-to-earn-yield-2"></a>Utilising Reserve Factor to Earn Yield</h1>
<p>The general strategy is to deploy DAI, USDC, USDT equivalents held within the RF into Balancer V2 pools to earn yield from Aave V2, trading fees and BAL rewards. ETH and BTC equivalent assets are to be deposited into Balancer V2 to earn trading fee income and BAL rewards. The BAL rewards are to be accumulated over time and held as a strategic asset. Other governance tokes, like LDO are to be sold for ETH and reinvested into the ETH strategy.</p>
<h2>
<a name="stable-coins-dai-usdc-usdt-3" href="#stable-coins-dai-usdc-usdt-3"></a>Stable Coins (DAI, USDC, USDT)</h2>
<p>Llama has been discussing with Balancer a yield strategy that involves depositing Aave’s aDAI, aUSD, and aUSDT holdings into the next iteration of the metastable pool on V2. The staBAL3 pool deposits around 90% of the stables back into Aave V2 making them productive whilst also receiving additional BAL incentives.</p>
<p>In addition to the yield from Aave accruing for liquidity providers, Balancer is expected to offer incentives. The staBAL3 <a href="https://medium.com/balancer-protocol/balancer-launches-metastable-pools-to-further-pool-liquidity-9eade44d73d8">metastable pool <span>16</span></a> will boost productivity as the yield from the 10% of stables not deposited in Aave is more than offset by the entire stable balance earning BAL rewards plus trading fee income. The stables are now earning yield from Aave and BAL rewards, this is expected to roughly double the overall yield generated by these assets.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://app.balancer.fi/#/">Balancer V2 DAI / USDC / USDT pool <span>2</span></a> is $163M in size and generates 12.21% APR, comprising 0.03% in swap fees and 12.18% in BAL rewards. This pool still doesn’t lend its underlying stable coins to AAVE, which will be the case with the new version of the staBAL3 pool.</p>
<p>We expect the pool to be launched in the coming months, potentially early Q4, 2021. When the full details are released, we will be able to refine the strategy further and present an ARC to the community. At this point in time we are considering depositing around half of Aave V2’s DAI, USDC and USDT equivalent into the pool which is a bit over $6M. The final amount will be defined in the ARC and will depend on feedback received from this post.</p>
<p>The overview for deploying the stable coins is summarised below:</p>
<ul>
<li>Deposit half of Aave V2 RF’s aDAI, aUSDC, and aUSDT holdings on Balancer V2 to earn BAL rewards</li>
<li>Expected APR is difficult to predict, but is anticipated to be greater than 10% in addition to the aToken yield</li>
<li>BAL rewards are to be held as a strategic asset and not sold</li>
</ul>
<p>Acquiring the BAL tokens whilst only forgoing a fraction of the yield otherwise earned is a near-zero cost way of acquiring a Balancer holding. Given the relationship between Balancer and Aave, the BAL holding becomes a strategic asset that further aligns the two communities through ownership.</p>
<h2>
<a name="ethereum-eth-and-bitcoin-btc-4" href="#ethereum-eth-and-bitcoin-btc-4"></a>Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC)</h2>
<p>For the ETH and BTC allocation, we’ve identified two potential strategies to generate additional yield.</p>
<p>The first strategy is to take advantage of the recently <a href="https://medium.com/balancer-protocol/balancer-launches-metastable-pools-to-further-pool-liquidity-9eade44d73d8">launched metastable pools <span>16</span></a> from Balancer. The first pool Balancer has launched is wstETH / wETH. The stETH yield accumulates within the wstETH token. Currently, the pool is yielding 18.73% APR, comprising 0.46% swap fee, 3.07% stETH staking rewards, and 15.20% from liquidity mining (2.10% BAL and 13.1% LDO).</p>
<p>The alternative strategy is to deposit ETH into the Curve stETH / ETH pool and earn CRV and LDO rewards. The yield is currently around 6.7%, comprising 6.36% LDO and 0.27%-0.68% CRV.</p>
<p>When comparing these strategies, the rewards on Balancer are greater than Curve, with both Lido and Balancer offering relatively higher rewards than available on Curve. Due to this, Llama’s preference is to earn BAL rewards and concentrate on acquiring Balancer protocol governance influence.</p>
<p>ETH is typically deposited into Aave as collateral and the utilisation rate is less than 5% on V2, so the the yield generated from holding aETH is low relative to other productive use cases.</p>
<ul>
<li>Aave currently holds the equivalent of 391 ETH across the RFs and have a current market value of $1.3M (0.11% of the total treasury; comprising 156 amwETH, 44 awETH and 101 ETH)</li>
<li>Deposit 90% of the ETH into the wstETH / wETH pool on Balancer V2</li>
<li>Retain 10% for gas costs</li>
<li>BAL rewards are to be acquired as a strategic asset and not sold</li>
</ul>
<p>Similar to the ETH strategy, Balancer offers 7.15% APR on the stable pool wBTC / renBTC / sBTC of which 6.98% comes from BAL incentives. By comparison, Aave offers less than 1% on BTC assets.</p>
<ul>
<li>Aave holds the equivalent of 18.18 aBTC across the RFs with a current market value of $850K (0.1% of the total treasury; comprising 16.25maBTC, 1.93 aBTC)</li>
<li>Deposit all of the BTC-equivalent holdings into the Balancer pool to earn BAL rewards</li>
<li>BAL rewards are to be acquired as a strategic asset and not sold</li>
</ul>
<h1>
<a name="conclusion-5" href="#conclusion-5"></a>Conclusion</h1>
<p>This forum post introduces the concept of deploying the Reserve Factor to earn additional yield through BAL rewards by providing liquidity on Balancer V2. There will be a Snapshot vote to gauge community sentiment towards this proposal. If the sentiment and feedback in the comments below is favourable, then this strategy will be developed further and presented to the community at a later date when the details around the pools are known.</p>

Aave - Initial Treasury Strategy Authors from Llama:  @MatthewGraham ,  @Dydymoon  and  @AcceleratedCapital . 
 
  Introduction 
 Llama would like

Aave - Initial Treasury Strategy

<hr />
<p>title: ARC - Strategic Partnership with Balancer<br />
status: Proposed<br />
author: Llama Community - <a href="/u/matthewgraham">@MatthewGraham</a><br />
created: 21-03-2022</p>
<hr />
<h1>
<a name="simple-summary-1" href="#simple-summary-1"></a>Simple Summary</h1>
<p>Acquire 300,000 BAL tokens via a combination of performing a BAL for AAVE token swap and via deploying a Bonding Curve contract. The BAL tokens are to be deployed to earn yield and used to direct incentives to new aToken Boosted Pools when Balancer’s new tokenomics system is launched, [1].</p>
<h1>
<a name="abstract-2" href="#abstract-2"></a>Abstract</h1>
<p>Perform a token swap with Balancer by exchanging 14,666.67 AAVE from the Economic Reserve for 200,000 BAL token. Exchange rate $AAVE $150 and $BAL $11. Deploy a Bonding Curve to acquire an additional 100,000 BAL tokens on market at the chainlink oracle price +50 bps, for a cost $1,105,500 with BAL at $11. This is in addition to the existing 1,604 BAL in the Reserve Factor.</p>
<p>Aave will become one of eight token holders with 300,000 BAL tokens. All 300,000 BAL tokens are to be deposited into the Balancer V2 BAL:ETH (80:20) pool and participate in Balancer’s revised tokenomics come 28th March. This is equivalent to approximately 3.80% of the BAL:ETH pool at the time of writing.</p>
<p>Initially, the veBAL will be used to vote BAL rewards to pools which support aTokens that create TVL for Aave and/or AAVE liquidity pools.</p>
<h1>
<a name="motivation-3" href="#motivation-3"></a>Motivation</h1>
<p>Aave and Balance have a long history of working together. The AAVE : ETH (80/20) Balancer V1 pool BPT is accepted within the Aave Safe Module and the newly created Balancer Boosted Pools drive TVL to Aave markets, [2].</p>
<p>When the AAVE : ETH (80/20) Balancer V1 pool is moved to Balancer V2 and integrated into Aave’s Safety Module, the veBAL tokens can be used to vote BAL rewards to the newly created AAVE : ETH (80/20) Balancer V2 pool.</p>
<p>In addition, the veBAL can be used to vote BAL rewards to Balancer Boosted Pools which utilise Aave markets in the background to create yield for passively held liquidity, [3]. There are likely to be many more Balancer Boosted Pools that utilise aTokens in the future and the veBAL votes can be used to help bootstrap these pools by directing BAL rewards to those pools. Using veBAL to vote for BAL rewards to pools that strengthen Aave is a strategic advantage of deploying the BAL tokens into the BAL:ETH pool.</p>
<p>By exchanging AAVE for BAL, the tokenswap reflects the ongoing collaboration and shared vision through governance in each other’s community. The token exchange, plus additional acquisition, is significant enough for Aave to become a Top 30 holder of BAL tokens, based on etherscan BAL holder rankings, [4]. Balancer will become a Top 80 AAVE holder, [5]. Each community will have influence in the other’s governance process, enabling them to best represent their interests and to collaborate.</p>
<p>Aave will likely be one of the first movers in the upcoming BAL wars and will gain a strategic advantage to bootstrap new Balancer Boosted Pools which lead to tokens being deposited in Aave markets to earn yield. This has the benefit of creating TVL and Revenue for Aave.</p>
<p>The initial sizing to acquire 200,000 BAL was something that was reached via discussions with the Balancer community and happens to be the same size as the recent Tribe DAO and Balancer token swap, [6]. The additional 100,000 BAL purchase is something that could be extended in the future.</p>
<p>The initial cost from the Economic Reserve is 14,666.67 AAVE and $1,105,500 from the Reserve Factor with BAL at $11. This places Aave inside the Top 30 BAL holders which is an important consideration. If an additional 75,000 BAL was acquired then Aave would become a Top 20 holder and this includes three community wallets, one Polygon bridge pool and the main BAL liquidity pool. So really it would be more like the Top 15 holders if another 75,000 BAL was acquired.</p>
<p>The initial sizing was also determined by the ability to influence how the BAL emissions are to be distributed. If all BPT from the BAL : ETH pool are converted to veBAL, Aave will receive 3.8% of the 14,500 BAL emission schedule which is equivalent to 551 BAL weekly, or $6,061/week at $11/BAL or $315,172/year. This is approximately 9.5% ROI in Year 1 based on 3.8% of the veBAL supply. This is direct yield for supply BAL : ETH liquidity. Other deployments from the Reserve Factor will also earn BAL rewards over time, [7].</p>
<p>With 3.8% of veBAL supply, Aave will determine where 3,085 of the 81,200 BAL tokens are to be distributed each week via the Ethereum mainnet pool gauge. This is equivalent to 5% APR on a $35.30M pool without any compounding or other yield sources like swap fees or yield from Aave markets. This is sufficient to support bootstrapping new liquidity pools that support growing TVL for the Aave community. Given the size of the Aave community investment in the Balancer community, it is reasonable to think that Liquidity Mining Committee may also be voting to allocate a portion of there 14,500 weekly BAL emission to support Balancer Boosted Pools which drive TVL to Aave markets.</p>
<h1>
<a name="implementation-4" href="#implementation-4"></a>Implementation</h1>
<p>The token swap is to be performed by both Balancer and Aave by depositing tokens into a contract like how Tribe DAO swapped TRIBE for INDEX, [8].</p>
<p>A Bonding Curve deployment utilising Chainlink’s BAL/USD oracle feed with a 50 bps incentive for arbitrage trades to acquire BAL on market and deposit into the contract. Aave will provide USDC to fund the Bonding Curve contract. An example of this type of transaction occurred when Tribe purchased $10M of DPI on market, [9].</p>
<p>The 50 bps fee is to provide an economic incentive for arbitrage traders to attain BAL on market and deposit BAL into the contract profitably by more than offsetting gas costs. This mechanism enables everyone within defi to participate and essentially crowdsources the BAL tokens on Aave’s behalf. Once the BAL has been received it will be transferred to the Reserve Factor from there it will be deployed into the BAL : ETH pool on Balancer V2 and then into the veBAL contract.</p>
<h1>
<a name="references-5" href="#references-5"></a>References:</h1>
<p>[1] <a href="https://forum.balancer.fi/t/introducing-vebal-tokenomics/2512">Introducing veBAL tokenomics - Proposals - Balancer <span>10</span></a><br />
[2] <a href="https://pools.balancer.exchange/#/pool/0xc697051d1c6296c24ae3bcef39aca743861d9a81/">Pool management - Balancer <span>5</span></a><br />
[3] <a href="https://app.balancer.fi/#/pool/0x7b50775383d3d6f0215a8f290f2c9e2eebbeceb20000000000000000000000fe">Balancer</a><br />
[4] <a href="https://etherscan.io/token/0xba100000625a3754423978a60c9317c58a424e3d#balances">$17.88 | Balancer (BAL) Token Tracker | Etherscan <span>2</span></a><br />
[5] <a href="https://etherscan.io/token/0x7fc66500c84a76ad7e9c93437bfc5ac33e2ddae9#balances">$186.55 | Aave Token (AAVE) Token Tracker | Etherscan <span>5</span></a><br />
[6] <a href="https://tribe.fei.money/t/fip-33-swap-between-balancer-dao-and-fei-dao/3555">FIP 33: Swap between Balancer DAO and Fei DAO - Proposals - Tribe <span>3</span></a><br />
[7] <a href="https://governance.aave.com/t/arc-consolidate-aave-v1-v2-amm-reserve-factors-purchase-cvx-and-deploy-to-earn-yield/6797">ARC - Consolidate Aave V1, V2 &amp; AMM Reserve Factors, Purchase CVX and Deploy to Earn Yield <span>5</span></a><br />
[8] <a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Ffei-protocol%2Ffei-protocol-core%2Fblob%2Fdevelop%2Fcontracts%2Futils%2FOtcEscrow.sol&amp;data=04%7C01%7Cmatthew.graham2%40technipfmc.com%7Cfcf199dfb3f64bb3b4ca08da0b1a125b%7C0804c95193a0405d80e4fa87c7551d6a%7C0%7C0%7C637834504350429866%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&amp;sdata=wnFuy5LgP7IJ2G7A4%2B1x%2FBMp1k1bbqw9%2Bk6jkuimd0E%3D&amp;reserved=0">https://github.com/fei-protocol/fei-protocol-core/blob/develop/contracts/utils/OtcEscrow.sol <span>6</span></a><br />
[9] <a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0xbf5721c5e1c370f6f1a3e21b3972e0ace93a1e84">BondingCurve | Address 0xbf5721c5e1c370f6f1a3e21b3972e0ace93a1e84 | Etherscan <span>5</span></a></p>
<h1>
<a name="copyright-6" href="#copyright-6"></a>Copyright</h1>
<p>Copyright and related rights waived via <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 <span>3</span></a>.</p>
<h1>
<a name="amendments-7" href="#amendments-7"></a>Amendments:</h1>
<p>Change Token Swap Terms:</p>
<ul>
<li>From “exchanging 14,666.67 AAVE from the Economic Reserve for 200,000 BAL token. Exchange rate $AAVE $150 and $BAL $11.”  to “200,000 BAL from the Ecosystem Fund would be exchanged for the equivalent USD value of AAVE in equal proportions from DAO Treasury, using the 90-day moving average price when the votes pass on both sides.”</li>
</ul>
<p>Providing Liquidity for veBAL:</p>
<ul>
<li>Aave is to provide ETH when depositing BAL as to prevent significant negative price impact that coudl occur adding all that BAL as single sided liquidity in the 80/20. At the time of writing Aave holds around $336K in <a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0xe3d9988f676457123c5fd01297605efdd0cba1ae">V1</a> and $258K in <a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0x464c71f6c2f760dda6093dcb91c24c39e5d6e18c">V2</a> Reserve Factors which is more than enough to meet the 80/20 BAL/ETH requirements.</li>
</ul>

ARC - Strategic Partnership with Balancer Part #1 
 title: ARC - Strategic Partnership with Balancer 
status: Proposed

ARC - Strategic Partnership with Balancer Part #1

<p><strong>Proposal to form an Investment Committee</strong></p>
<p><strong>Summary:</strong></p>
<p>In simple terms, Index Coop is an asset management platform with a mission to create widely used crypto structured products. This means that over time, Index Coop will hold a growing number of underlying tokens while managing people’s investments in these tokens.</p>
<p>Just like Vanguard, BlackRock and others, we should aim to provide educational resources and investment insights to investors in our products. Whether it’s a macro piece of research on crypto or an investment thesis for a particular project.</p>
<p>This is a job for an Investment Committee (IC). To analyse and understand the underlying tokens and create investment insights for our investors. This further serves to cement our place in the centre of crypto investing, not just as a product provider, but also as an education and trusted resource.</p>
<p><strong>Abstract:</strong></p>
<p>The role of the IC is to really understand the underlying tokens held in the Index Coop products. Understand their tokenomics, roadmap, governance initiatives, etc. We can think of it as our own internal investment team.</p>
<p>In TradFi, every asset manager has investment analysts, portfolio managers, maybe a CIO and an IC. Published investment research adds to their credibility and helps investors to understand some of the underlying trends and portfolio positions.</p>
<p>I think we need to do the same. There’s an incredible value add opportunity from providing high quality information and research to crypto index investors. Think of it as Messari within the Index Coop.</p>
<p>If approved, the IC would have the following mandate:</p>
<ul>
<li>Cover and analyse the underlying tokens held in the Index Coop products;</li>
<li>Produce “investment insights” style content for internal and external distribution;</li>
<li>Cultivate relationships with crypto &amp; macro investors to challenge and guide our thinking.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Motivation:</strong></p>
<p>Simple:</p>
<ol>
<li>It would be beneficial for the Index Coop to have a group of community members who really understand the underlying tokens. This could help for some of the intrinsic productivity analysis, governance proposals, etc.</li>
<li>Adding high quality “investment insights” content will give us further credibility as a structured products platform and create a sort-of educational moat around Index Coop.</li>
<li>Expanding our contacts and building relationships with crypto investors could lead to positive second-order effects. An example would be <a href="/u/lemonadealpha">@LemonadeAlpha</a> getting the Maker whale to abstain on the governance proposal to add DPI as collateral.</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Specification:</strong></p>
<p>At this stage I propose that the IC has 4 members, meeting weekly. Each member will be responsible for covering individual tokens as the primary analyst and producing “investment insights” content for their respective token.</p>
<p>The IC will also seek out industry experts and crypto investors as guest speakers. This will help the IC to form macro views and create macro content, while raising the profile of the Index Coop in the crypto community.</p>
<p><strong>For:</strong><br />
Form the Investment Committee as per the above proposal.</p>
<p><strong>Against:</strong><br />
The Investment Committee is not necessary at this point.</p>
<p>Thanks <a href="/u/darkforestcapital">@DarkForestCapital</a>, <a href="/u/overanalyser">@overanalyser</a> , <a href="/u/thomas_hepner">@Thomas_Hepner</a> and <a href="/u/devondefi">@DevOnDeFi</a> for reviewing this proposal.</p>
<div><div><div>Investment Committee Proposal</div><ul><li> <span>FOR: Form the Investment Committee as per the above proposal.</span></li><li> <span>AGAINST: The Investment Committee is not necessary at this point.</span></li></ul></div><div><div><div><span>24</span><span>voters</span></div></div><ul><li>
                
                <span>Results will be shown on <strong>vote</strong>.</span>
               </li><li>
                   
                  <span>Votes are <strong>public</strong>.</span>
                 </li></ul></div><div><span>Vote now!</span></div></div>