SECTION 1: APPLICANT INFORMATION
Provide personal or organizational details, including applicant name, contact information, and any associated organization. This information ensures proper identification and communication throughout the grant process.
Applicant Name: Amitej Gajjala
Project Name: Kelp DAO
Project Description:
KelpDAO (https://www.kelpdao.xyz/restake/) is one of the largest liquid restaking protocol built on top of the Eigen Layer. Restakers on Kelp get access to multiple benefits like restaking rewards, staking rewards and DeFi yields.
Latest stats:
- USD 700 Mn+ (~190k+ Eth) TVL
- 25K restakers onboarded
- Accepts ETHx, stETH and sfrxETH and Native ETH as collateral
- Live across mainnet, Arbitrum
- Over $35 Mn rsETH bridged to Arbitrum using Layer Zero
Team Members and Roles:
Team Members and Roles:
-
Amitej Gajjala (Cofounder)
- Education IIM and IIT
- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitej-gajjala/
- Twitter- https://twitter.com/GAmitej
- 11+ years of Management and Leadership experience at Swiggy, AT Kearney
-
Dheeraj Borra (Cofounder)
- Education- IIT and University of Texas, Austin
- LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/dheeraj-borra/
- Twitter - https://twitter.com/galacticminter
- 13+ years of technology experience across LinkedIn, Paypal and other top US startups
-
Eshwar Nilankantan (Business Head)
- Education - IIM
- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshwar-nilakantan-347a798/
- Twitter - https://twitter.com/eshwar_nc
- 14+ years of experience in scaling businesses across Web 3 & Web 2
Project Links:
Website - https://www.kelpdao.xyz/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/KelpDAO
TG - Telegram: Contact @KelpDAOxyz
Github - GitHub - Kelp-DAO/LRT-rsETH
Docs - Introduction - Kelp
Discord - Kelp DAO
Contact Information
Point of Contact (note: this should be an individual’s name, not the name of the protocol):
Cofounder - Amitej Gajjala
Point of Contact’s TG handle:@agstaderkelp
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GAmitej
Email: amit@kelpdao.xyz
Do you acknowledge that your team will be subject to a KYC requirement?: [Yes/No]
Yes
SECTION 2a: Team and Product Information
Provide details on your team’s past and current experience. Any details relating to past projects, recent achievements and any past experience utilizing incentives. Additionally, please provide further details on the state of your product, audience segments, and how you expect incentives to impact the product’s long-term growth and sustainability.
Team information
KelpDAO’s founder’s and core team members have previously worked on building and scaling, Stader Labs, a liquid staking protocol with $720 Mn+ TVL across 6 chains including Ethereum, Polygon, BNB, Hedera etc… Integrations with 50+ DeFi protocols and ecosystem partners including Aave, Compound, MetaMask, Ledger etc. Over 90k users stake with Stader.
Stader’s liquid staking smart contracts across all chains can be reviewed on their Github page
Product Info & Status
KelpDAO is a leading liquid staking protocol bringing liquidity to assets on EigenLayer. KelpDAO’s rsETH allows users to restake their LSTs (stETH, ETHx, and sfrxETH) and ETH and earn staking and additional restaking rewards in return. Currently, about 190k+ ETH ($700+ Mn) has been restaked with Kelp and has been deployed through EigenLayer.
Users can deploy their rsETH liquidity in DeFi opportunities across major protocols such as Pendle, Curve, Uniswap, Maverick and many more. Here’s a list of DeFi opportunities for rsETH across chains- link.
Kelp’s on-chain stats can be viewed on Dune.
Restaking Innovation
KelpDAO’s innovation in the restaking ecosystem has been focused on bringing about the following benefits to users and services-
- Restakers
- Liquidity for restaked assets (stETH, ETHx, sfrxETH and Native ETH)
- Access to staking & restaking rewards
- Participate in DeFi using rsETH
- AVSs
- Borrow economic security
- Lower emissions for higher security
- Operators
- Higher revenue earning potential
- Effective use of dormant compute
- Service onboarding and community support
- Marketing for node delegation
- Additionally, KelpDAO also offers the following benefits to users and ecosystems
- Multi-Collateral LRT: Kelp offers restaking with multiple collateral (Native ETH, ETHx, stETH and sfrxETH)
- Simplify Node Operator & AVS Selection: KelpDAO will simplify the NO & AVS selection for rsETH holders
- L2 Distribution & Defi Ecosystem
- The unlocked liquidity with rsETH will be deployed across various DeFi primitives like DeXs, lending markets, Yield aggregators across mainnet and L2 chains
- Currently over 10+ DeFi partnerships are live on the mainnet and L2s. More integrations are coming up in the coming month.
Technical Architecture
Detailed explanation on Kelp’s technical architecture - Technical Architecture - Kelp
Team experience (Any relevant experience that may be useful in evaluating ability to ship, or execution with grant incentives. Please provide references knowledgeable about past work, where relevant. If you wish to do so privately, indicate that. [Optional, but recommended]):
KelpDAO’s founder’s and core team members have previously worked on building and scaling, Stader Labs, a liquid staking protocol with 720 Mn+ TVL across 6 chains including Ethereum, Polygon, BNB, Hedera etc. Integrations with 50+ DeFi protocols and ecosystem partners including Aave, Compound, MetaMask, Ledger etc. Over 90k users stake with Stader.
What novelty or innovation does your product bring to Arbitrum?
- Native ETH Restaking - KelpDAO brings with itself the opportunity and tech infrastructure to establish ETH Native restaking on Arbitrum. This allows users to diversify their yield opportunities and improve risk management across their portfolios
- Chain agnostic yields - Restaking yields and opportunities are currently natively available only on Ethereum chain, we aim at broadening the options for ETH holders on Arb chain to benefit from both ecosystems + lower gas fees + staking + restaking rewards.
Is your project composable with other projects on Arbitrum? If so, please explain:
-
Interoperability: Our smart contracts are built with compatibility in mind, adhering to industry standards and protocols commonly used on Arbitrum. This ensures that our LRT rsETH can seamlessly interact with other projects, protocols, and DeFi applications deployed on Arbitrum.
-
Token Standards: Our rsETH is an ERC-20 token contract, enabling easy integration with other projects and allowing users to transfer or utilize their staked assets across various Arbitrum-based protocols.
Do you have any comparable protocols within the Arbitrum ecosystem or other blockchains?
Comparable projects include -
- Ether Fi etc.
How do you measure and think about retention internally? (metrics, target KPIs)
-
Weekly Total Value Locked (TVL): TVL is the key metric that represents the health of the protocol.
-
Active User Engagement: Tracking active users on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis provides a comprehensive view of user engagement. Additionally, segmenting users based on the size of their holdings offers nuanced insights into user behavior and retention trends.
-
Defi TVL and Liquidity: This metric measures the total value locked and liquidity across various decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols integrated with our platform, providing insights into the ecosystem’s overall health and growth trajectory.
Relevant usage metrics - Please refer to the OBL relevant metrics chart 26. For your category (DEX, lending, gaming, etc) please provide a list of all respective metrics as well as all metrics in the general section:
We are best compared with LST protocols, hence adding the relevant data points requested below-
KelpDAO’s metrics-
TVL: $700 Mn+ restaked on Ethereum, $96 Mn+ TVL on Arbitrum
- Mainnet Dune dashboard
- We are also working on creating an Arbitrum specific Dune dashboard which would highlight $TVL, users of rsETH and analytics for DeFi opportunities for rsETH users
- 26.8K rsETH on Arbitrum - Arbitrum token page
- Arbitrum based DeFi opportunities available across Pendle, Camelot, and Ramses
Trading Volume: $3.6 Mn Average Trading volume per day on mainnet (30 day average) (Source - CoinmarketCap historical data)
Total Circulating LST Tokens: 26.8K rsETH on Arbitrum and 190K rsETH on Ethereum are in circulation and can be tracked on our mainnet dashboard and Arbitrum token page
List of Depositors: 25K total depositors across mainnet and Arbitrum Top 100 depositors on rsETH on mainnet
List of Holders:
Staker Retention Rate: We have over 25K stakers across mainnet and Arbitrum. 15K+ of those who are long term stakers. Number of stakers can be found on our Mainnet dashboard
General Metrics -
Daily Active Users: We currently have about 30 active users in a day (1 month average) - Dune Dashboard link
Daily User Growth: We currently have about 10% MoM growth in users (Feb-March’24) - link
Daily Transaction Count: Approximately 250 Transactions a day (1 week average) - Etherescan link
Daily Protocol Fee: At the moment, KelpDAO doesn’t charge any commissions., Typically LST providers charge 5%-10% of the Ethereum staking rewards as their commission (e.g. Lido, Stader etc.).
Do you agree to remove team-controlled wallets from all milestone metrics AND exclude team-controlled wallets from any incentives included in your plan: [Yes/No]
Yes
Did you utilize a grants consultant or other third party not named as a grantee to draft this proposal? If so, please disclose the details of that arrangement here, including conflicts of interest (Note: this does NOT disqualify an applicant):
No grants consultant or third parties were involved in drafting this proposal.