SECTION 1: APPLICANT INFORMATION
Applicant Name: Jeong Park
Project Name: Limitless Finance
Project Description: Limitless is a liquidation-free & oracle free margin trading protocol. Traders can permissionlessly create a leverage trading market for any pairs and trade without liquidations. LPs can rehypothecate UniV3 liquidity and earn strictly higher yields by lending out idle out-of-range liquidity.
Team Members and Roles:
Jeong: Lead developer & business dev
Previously data scientist at South Koreaâs top 3 payment app
Previously ML engineer at a robotics startup
Zeke: Full stack developer
Previously zk engineer at Harmony Foundation
4cyte: Frontend developer
Laksa: Growth & Strategy
Previously portfolio manager at private equity / venture capital fund
Previously M&A and restructuring at global bulge bracket investment bank
Project Links
Website: https://limitlessfi.xyz
App(private beta): https://limitlessfi.app
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LimitlessFi_
Docs: https://limitless.gitbook.io/limitless/intro/why-limitless
Contact Information
Point of Contact: Jeong
Point of Contactâs TG handle: @jeongwonpark0315,
Do you acknowledge that your team will be subject to a KYC requirement?: Yes
SECTION 2a: Team and Product Information
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.):
Our team has dedicated the past 9 months to creating an innovative DeFi protocol within the Arbitrum ecosystem. This work culminated in a live beta launched around a month ago, demonstrating our rapid development cycle. The proposed protocol is novel and addresses several critical problems of incumbents, reflecting our teamâs ability to deliver innovative solutions to problems echoed by many DeFi natives.
During the month-long beta, we have not only addressed bugs swiftly but also incorporated user insights into product iterations, showcasing our commitment to meeting user needs and responsiveness to feedback. The active testing phase and TVL indicate strong user engagement and trust in our projectâs potential.
What novelty or innovation does your product bring to Arbitrum?
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Liquidation Free: No forced price-based liquidations nor maintenance margin. Traders can HODL levered position under any price action.
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Limitless Pairs: Leverage for every possible asset pairs, with permissionless listing
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Uni V3 liquidity rehypothecation: LPs ârestakeâ their lp tokens for strictly higher yields from increased capital efficiency.
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Covered call yields(perpetual) for any asset on chain.
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Oracle free leverage: Free from oracle based attacks, the largest attack vector in DeFi
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Unlimited liquidity: Take levered position and trade against the entire chain, not just one protocol, for best execution
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Positive sum dynamics: LPs in Limitless are not trading against the trader. The traders trade against the overall chain liquidity in Uniswap. Limitless LPs will earn yield from lending liquidity to the trader, regardless of the traderâs PnL.
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Unique use case: Limitless allows users to express their view on any token with existing liquidity in the form of Uniswap LPs, allowing users to long or short any token with leverage, as opposed to only being able to buy/sell spot tokens from/into the LP pools.
Is your project composable with other projects on Arbitrum? If so, please explain:
Yes. Since our LPs ârestakeâ uniswap LP tokens, our TVL growth directly leads to the same TVL growth of Uniswap in arbitrum. This also means Limitless can help other projects increase liquidity for their native tokens, either via strategic partnerships or market demand.
Moreover, all trades are routed through the most liquid exchanges of the given pair. This means increased trading activity on Limitless will increase the volume of other dexes on Arbitrum.
Do you have any comparable protocols within the Arbitrum ecosystem or other blockchains?
Our product is comparable to all perp dexes launched on Arbitrum. Despite the competitive landscape of perp dexes on Arbitrum, we think our multiple 0-1 improvements can serve as strong USPs for growth.
How do you measure and think about retention internally? (metrics, target KPIs)
Trading: Weekly Volume, Open Interest, Turnover, Transaction counts, Protocol Fee
LP: TVL, Fees collected by LPs, and Depositorsâ profiles.
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
SECTION 2b: PROTOCOL DETAILS
Provide details about the Arbitrum protocol requirements relevant to the grant. This information ensures that the applicant is aligned with the technical specifications and commitments of the grant.
Is the protocol native to Arbitrum?: [Yes/No, and provide explanation]
Yes, it is currently live on arbitrum.
On what other networks is the protocol deployed?: [Yes/No, and provide chains]
None
What date did you deploy on Arbitrum mainnet?: [Date + transaction ID. If not yet live on mainnet, explain why.]
Jan-02
Do you have a native token?: [Yes/No/Planned, link tokenomics docs]
No, but TGE planned Q2 or Q3 2024
Past Incentivization: What liquidity mining/incentive programs, if any, have you previously run? Please share results and dashboards, as applicable?
None
Current Incentivization: How are you currently incentivizing your protocol?
We have a native point system https://limitless.gitbook.io/limitless/tokenomics-and-roadmap/lmt which we use to reward early testers
Have you received a grant from the DAO, Foundation, or any Arbitrum ecosystem related program? [yes/no, please provide any details around how the funds were allocated and any relevant results/learnings(Note: this does NOT disqualify an applicant)]
No
Protocol Performance: [Detail the past performance of the protocol and relevance, including any key metrics or achievements, dashboards, etc.]
Over the past month we have gained a TVL of around $300K, with ~$11k fees generated for LPs(including both uniswap and limitless fees). We had ~600 trades executed, from 80 unique testers.
Note that these figures highlight the performance of our invite-only beta, in a gated-only environment.
The protocol currently enables leverage on the following pairs
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Weth-rdnt
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Weth-crv
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Weth-stg
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Weth-xpet
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Weth-xai
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With-magic
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Weth-arb
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Weth-pendle
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Weth-ldo
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Weth-gns
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Weth-uni
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weth-link
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Weth-gmx
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Weth-wbtc
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Weth-usdc
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Usdc-wbtc
With significantly more to come. Note that for a lot of these pairs Limitless would be the only protocol to users to access leverage natively on chain, or to enter into a net short position.
Protocol Roadmap: [Describe relevant roadmap details for your pr otocol or relevant products to your grant application. Include tangible milestones over the next 12 months.]
We have our second audit ongoing. As soon as that finishes(late March) we plan to open up the beta to all Arbitrum users. If our proposal is approved, we will start incentivization when this phase begins.
Audit History & Security Vendors: [Provide historic audits and audit results. Do you have a bug bounty program? Please provide details around your security implementation including any advisors and vendors.]
We have finished our first audit with https://twitter.com/Offside_Labs, report: DocSend
and are currently conducting our second audit with ABDK.
Security Incidents: None
SECTION 3: GRANT INFORMATION
Requested Grant Size:
75,000 ARB
[Justification for the size of the grant]: [Enter explanation. More details are better, including how you arrived at the required funding for individual categories of expenses covered by your grant plan]
The objective is to increase Limitlessâs visibility and kick-start the TVL<->trading activity flywheel,
So far, Limitless has secured pre-commitments for liquidity amounting to approximately $1M (for the Arbitrum deployment) but aims to attract additional liquidity to reach a $5M target. Achieving this level of liquidity is crucial for initiating the desired momentum, as $5M in liquidity could support a monthly trading volume of $200M. This is due to the protocolâs high leverage feature, resulting in positions with shorter durations and high turnover, potentially leading to a cumulative trading volume of $1B over three months.
Grant Breakdown: [Please provide a high-level overview of the budget breakdown and planned use of funds]
Specifically, the grant funds will be allocated as follows:
- 75k ARB will incentivize an additional APR of 6~20% for a TVL range of $3M to $10M.
All ARB rewards will be distributed as esARB, requiring liquidity providers (LPs) to vest their rewards for six months, provided they continue to contribute liquidity to Limitless. This approach ensures both healthy ARB emissions and maintains LP engagement beyond the reward period.
Funding Address: 0x25D2345FcE7F992877B308170551A5977cD22F54 2/3 Gnosis Safe Multisig. The private keys are securely stored. It can interact with ERC-721s
Contract Address:
MarginFacility(trading contract): 0x3611CD2B957514222a94C93e1A9a5be66b0b2841
PoolManager(core LP contract): 0x536801AaE40cb214c08f178c6727d7594a7c655b
NonFungiblePositionManager(periphery LP contract): 0x6D73fc6F4C299E369377C0e60CebFef2409f86A0
Treasury Address: 0x6799e4fb8bEc9eaB7496c98B4668DDef146Ef6E0
SECTION 4: GRANT OBJECTIVES, EXECUTION AND MILESTONES
Clearly outline the primary objectives of the program and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), execution strategy, and milestones used to measure success. This helps reviewers understand what the program aims to achieve and how progress will be assessed.
Objectives: [Clearly state the primary objectives of the grant and what you intend to achieve]
The primary objective of the grant is to boost TVL and initiate a flywheel.
Execution Strategy: [Describe the plan for executing including token distribution method (e.g. farming, staking, bonds, referral program, etc), what you are incentivizing, resources, products, use of funds, and risk management. This includes allocations for specific pools, eligible assets, products, etc.]
ARB tokens will be distributed through a staking contract, rewarding all staked LP NFTs with esARB. The emission rate will be based on the liquidity providerâs time-weighted value added, measured in USD. Incentives will be offered only to pairs demonstrating significant speculative interest, guaranteeing that the farming activity benefits both sides of the market.
Specifically, we will start with incentivizing the pairs below with the following distributions
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Weth-wbtc 20%
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Weth-usdc 20%
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Weth-arb 20%
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Usdc-wbtc 15%
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Weth-rdnt 6%
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Weth-pendle 6%
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Weth-gns 6%
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Weth-gmx 7%
Not only will we be able to increase the spot liquidity of these tokens in Uniswap, the following tokens are also from protocols with a high presence in the Arbitrum ecosystem, so our co-marketing campaign with these protocols will aid the distribution.
However, note that the protocol is permissionless when it comes to listing. If, for example, the market seeks leverage for a trending asset(i.e erc404, pendle yt tokens, LRTs, tokenized vaults, etc), we will be able to incentivize these pairs instead.
Also, as a grant matching scheme, we have a unique go-to-market strategy (executed in tandem with the LTIP commencement), where we distribute âloot boxesâ that power users of Arbitrum protocols(GMX, Uniswap, Camelot, etc), and where these users have to actively use the platform (by way of trading or providing liquidity) to unlock these boxes for native $LIMIT token. This will be executed over the early life of the project.
For example, we would distribute âlootboxesâ to active Uniswap LPs, and they would rehypothecate their liquidity in Limitless to earn extra yields and incentives while unlocking their lootboxes.
What mechanisms within the incentive design will you implement to incentivize âstickinessâ whether it be users, liquidity or some other targeted metric? [Provide relevant design and implementation details]
All ARB rewards will be issued as semi locked ARB, with a stipulation that liquidity providers must vest their rewards for 3 months after the incentive period, contingent upon their continued participation as LPs in Limitless. This approach aims to achieve a) sustainable ARB distribution and b) consistent engagement from LPs even beyond the reward period. Additionally, we plan to enhance the vesting rewards by integrating them with our proprietary point system for additional benefits.
Specify the KPIs that will be used to measure success in achieving the grant objectives and designate a source of truth for governance to use to verify accuracy. [Please also justify why these specific KPIs will indicate that the grant has met its objective. Distribution of the grant itself should not be one of the KPIs.]
5M+ TVL
200M+ Total Volume
500K+ Total Fees Generated(Uniswap and Limitless Combined)
Grant Timeline and Milestones: [Describe the timeline for the grant, including ideal milestones with respective KPIs. Include at least one milestone that shows progress en route to a final outcome. Please justify the feasibility of these milestones.]
The DAO can remit the first tranche of funds and the Limitless team will initialize liquidity mining incentives. Once the mining contracts are deployed we will share the verified addresses on Arbiscan in the forum post.
How will receiving a grant enable you to foster growth or innovation within the Arbitrum ecosystem? [Clearly explain how the inputs of your program justify the expected benefits to the DAO. Be very clear and tangible, and you must back up your claims with data]
Uniswap V3 LPing is a product that already has strong native demand with active users. Limitless offers a product that enables strictly higher yields than the vanilla v3 LPing. If we can subsidize a ~20% yield on top of a product already adopted by the market, we will be able to rapidly bootstrap the TVL.
Our protocol introduces the ability to create leverage for any on-chain assets, free from the constraints of oracle or liquidation risks. This innovation allows protocols to offer on-chain native leverage and perpetual markets for their tokens without relying on market makers. Additionally, it grants traders and liquidity providers the unprecedented ability to establish leverage markets for any token, opening up a pathway to a more efficient financial market.
Do you accept the funding of your grant streamed linearly for the duration of your grant proposal, and that the multisig holds the power to halt your stream?
Yes
SECTION 5: Data and Reporting
OpenBlock Labs has developed a comprehensive data and reporting checklist for tracking essential metrics across participating protocols. Teams must adhere to the specifications outlined in the provided link here: Onboarding Checklist from OBL 30. Along with this list, please answer the following:
Is your team prepared to comply with OBLâs data requirements for the entire life of the program and three months following and then handoff to the Arbitrum DAO? Are there any special requests/considerations that should be considered?
Yes
Does your team agree to provide bi-weekly program updates on the Arbitrum Forum thread that reference your OBL dashboard?
Yes
Does your team agree to provide a final closeout report not later than two weeks from the ending date of your program? This report should include summaries of work completed, final cost structure, whether any funds were returned, and any lessons the grantee feels came out of this grant. Where applicable, be sure to include final estimates of acquisition costs of any users, developers, or assets onboarded to Arbitrum chains.
Yes
Does your team acknowledge that failure to comply with any of the above requests can result in the halting of the programâs funding stream?:
Yes