Information about STIP/STIP Backfund
1. Can you provide a link to your previous STIP proposal (round 1 or backfund)? [RAMSES] [FINAL] [STIP - Round 1]
2. How much, in the previous STIP proposal, did you request in ARB? 1,248,000 ARB
3. What date did you start the incentive program and what date did it end? December 27th 2023 - March 20th 2024
4. Could you provide the links to the bi-weekly STIP performance reports and Openblocks Dashboard? RAMSES Bi-Weekly Updates Thread
OpenBlock Labs
- Could you provide the KPI(s) that you deem relevant for your protocol, both in absolute terms and percentage change, month over month, for the first of each month starting from October 2023 until April 2024, including the extremes? If you don’t know what KPI might be relevant for you or how to properly define them, please refer to the following document:[Arbitrum DAO] OpenBlock Labs Incentive Onboarding Spec
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Important growth metrics that were bolstered included but were not limited to: Volume growth, transactions growth, and overall reach to users. The STIP grant allowed us to put incentives towards high value pairings which attracted users, and sticky liquidity providers. It should be noted that a slight anomaly in volume was incurred due to the Gamma hack which caused one day of extreme volume due to the hacker swapping through our DEX, no other anomalies are worth noting.
6. [Optional] Any lessons learned from the previous STIP round? We were able to gather a deeper understanding of a wide range of user needs, what we needed to improve on, and where we excelled. Specifically, our backend (contracts) provide unique advantages since we heavily invest internally on the technology– and our frontend has improved many times over due to user complaints of initial complexity.
A finding we were able to ascertain was that having a set schedule did not benefit us when the option to extend programs while we had our STIP. Having more flexibility is in our best interest going forward.
New Plans for STIP Bridge
7. How much are you requesting for this STIP Bridge proposal? 624,000 ARB (50% of STIP ask)
8 Do you plan to use the incentives in the same ways* as highlighted in Section 3 of the STIP proposal? Yes, we plan to have the same distribution method of: distributing 50% based on the previous epoch’s fees generated. Focusing on the fee generators allows us to ensure high value pairs are being incentivized still, as these are always pairs like: ARB/WETH, ARB/USDC, ETH/USDC. Following this strict guideline for this 50% ensures no qualitative bias and has a pure focus on verifiable quantitative evidence. The aforementioned reasons are why we believe it is an effective, yet fair, way to distribute a large portion of our STIP.
The remaining 50% was based on our discretion of the current climate of which protocols needed bootstrapping on the chain and didn’t already have an abundance of liquidity support from other avenues, thus helping strengthen the ecosystem as a whole. We will be allocating a good chunk (probably 1/4 of the total amount) towards LRTs as they are proving to be a gigantic success for us, the chain as a whole, and the broader EVM umbrella. Other protocols such as Radiant or silo may require us to have deep liquidity on tokens like weETH, ezETH, or other LRTs in order to properly tap into liquidations due to the large size of these tokens being present on the platforms. Having the flexibility to allocate this 50% based on the current conditions allows us to ensure the STIP is able to reach the most broad audience from across many chains/ecosystems.
9. [Only if answered “no” to the previous question] How will the incentive distribution change in terms of mechanisms and products? N/A
10. Could you provide the addresses involved in the STIP Bridge initiative (multisig to receive funds, contracts for distribution, and any other relevant contract involved), and highlight if they changed compared to the previous STIP proposal?
The address will be:
- Multisig to receive the incentives: 0xF201d600BB9CefB544BA6261583773f03415b244
- Contracts that will distribute the incentives: STIPIncentivesDistributorV2 (will be deployed prior to program starting)
- Could you share any feedback or suggestions on what could be improved in future incentive programs, what were the pain points and what was your general evaluation of the experience?
Something that was a bit confusing for the ecosystem was the arbitrary end timing that was extended, making any previously defined cadence less effective. On the other hand, the STIP was extremely important due to it revitalizing the chain and kept Arbitrum at the top of everyone’s minds when they were looking for places to deploy capital and trade.
What we believe could be a valuable change to the process would be less arbitrary distribution timings, and less leeway for people to use incentives in self-serving manners. We believe it should’ve been more coordinated and the DAO/Committee should’ve had more involvement.
A notable blocker which we faced is that the rewards distribution was claimable after our epochs started, so we had to loan ourselves ARB to cover the STIP distribution each week until the rewards were claimable for us. Would prefer this to be modified to give protocols that use weekly epoch’s to have proper timing to align.