[Pickle Finance][DRAFT][STIP - Round 1]

DAO Grant Programs Incentive Framework (Round 1)
1

SECTION 1: APPLICANT INFORMATION

Applicant Name: Larry the Cucumber

Project Name: Pickle Finance

Project Description:

Pickle aggregates and compounds yield from other protocols, saving users time and money compared to doing it themselves.

Team Members and Qualifications:

Larry the Cucumber - Co-founder
MisterMard - Smart contract engineer

Project Links:

Contact Information:

Do You Acknowledge That Your Team Will Be Subject to a KYC Requirement?: Yes

SECTION 2: GRANT INFORMATION

Requested Grant Size: 80k ARB

Grant Matching: N/A

Grant Breakdown:

  • Liquidity incentives to depositors: 80k ARB

Funding Address: 0xf02CeB58d549E4b403e8F85FBBaEe4c5dfA47c01

Funding Address Characteristics:

2/6 Gnosis Safe (will be modified to be compliant with the 2/3 requirement)

Distribution Contract Address:

A generic rewarder contract will be deployed, similar to the one used here. This will be registered on the existing incentives controller here to provide dual PICKLE and ARB incentives.

Incentivized Contract Addresses:

Incentivzed contracts include existing vaults here, with more contracts being incentivized as new vaults are developed

SECTION 3: GRANT OBJECTIVES AND EXECUTION

Objectives:

  1. Expand Pickle’s suite of products on Arbitrum and grow its usage
  2. Foster community engagement on exploring the opportunities on Arbitrum
  3. Strengthen synergies between Pickle and other Arbitrum-native protocols

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

  1. Number of new products launched (vaults + others)
  2. Increase in TVL in Pickle’s Arbitrum products
  3. Amount of yield processed for users
  4. Community engagement on Twitter and Discord

How will receiving a grant enable you to foster growth or innovation within the Arbitrum ecosystem?:

Receiving a grant will enable Pickle to allocate more resources to developing innovative products on Arbitrum, and provide better liquidity incentives, thereby contributing to the overall growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem. Pickle can leverage its long-standing and strong reputation in DeFi, as well as its active community to advance these objectives.

Justification for the size of the grant:

We request a modest grant to start because we believe it will be adequate for incentivizing builders and garnering renewed interest in Pickle on Arbitrum. Arbitrum remains Pickle’s most active chain after Ethereum mainnet, and there is much alignment with our community and Arbitrum such that the grant will advance both our project’s objectives.

Execution Strategy:

To start, ARB incentives will be given to all active vaults on Arbitrum, apportioned based on current deposits. However, distribution of liquidity incentives will be subject to ongoing impact assessments in order to determine optimal allocations and make corresponding changes. Effectiveness will be based on a number of factors including:
a. Incremental TVL per $ of incentives
b. Amount of yield processed (i.e. on-chain volume) generated per $ of incentives
c. Cross-pollination between protocols based on limited-time targeted incentive programs

Grant Timeline:

We plan to distribute/utilize the incentives linearly from the date funds are received until January 31, 2024

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 4: Protocol Details

Is the Protocol Native to Arbitrum?

No - Pickle was initially launched on Ethereum Mainnet, but Arbitrum has been where the majority of its L2 activity has concentrated.

On what other networks is the protocol deployed?:

Ethereum mainnet, Aurora, Fantom, Moonriver, Moonbeam, Optimism, Polygon

What date did you deploy on Arbitrum?:

September 2021 - see the announcement here

Protocol Performance:

Pickle has a very rich history of on-chain activity on Arbitrum. A total of 16227 transactions have been performed on Pickle-related contracts on Arbitrum (see Spreadsheet). Over 35 smart contracts have been deployed by the protocol on the network.

At its peak, Pickle had over $16M in deposits on Arbitrum according to DefiLlama.

Numbers aside, owing to its strong community, brand-name and eagerness to partner with other protocols, Pickle can be credited with originally onboarding many users to Arbitrum, seen in this Arbitrum forum discussion.

Protocol Roadmap:

Activity on Pickle has admittedly admittedly slowed since the beginning of the bear market. This was a conscious decision by its contributors to conserve treasury funds until the bull market returned. However, the community/contributors remains active and is re-invigorated by the possibility of a catalyst such as this to fully resume operations.

This modest grant proposal will enable Pickle to continue developing and refining yield-optimizing strategies and develop deeper integration with Arbitrum ecosystem partners, all with the support of an enthusiastic community who is eager to use Pickle’s products.

Audit History:

All audits provided here: https://github.com/pickle-finance/protocol/tree/master/audits

SECTION 5: Data and Reporting

Is your team prepared to create Dune Spells and/or Dashboards for your incentive program?:

Yes

Does your team agree to provide bi-weekly program updates on the Arbitrum Forum thread?

Yes

Does your team acknowledge that failure to comply with any of the above requests can result in the halting of the program’s funding stream?:

Yes

7 Likes
2

An actual reasonable request which is nice to see! 80k ARB is not much at all given what we are seeing.

Unfortunately this is not valid as should still count as development costs technically?

3

Pickle was one of the first adopters of arbitrum, it brought a relevant amount of users and volume to arbitrum. I think the fees pickle generated for ARB should be higher than the grant amount. So I think this is a fair proposal.

2 Likes
4

I support this proposal. Pickle was in the first wave of protocols to launch on arbitrum and boasted TVL higher than most competing yield aggregators. Looking forward to seeing pickles arbitrum pressence being revitalised with this proposal. It is also worth noting that Pickle has a long history of using incentive funds appropriately with successful campaigns on Metis, Optimism, Polygon and OKC to name a few.

2 Likes
5

I support the Pickle proposal. Pickle was early to develop on arbitrum and pushed its arbitrum jars to its users. Many users including me bridged funds to arbitrum and used it really only because of pickle’s influence.

2 Likes
7

Full support to the Pickle proposal :green_heart:

1 Like
8

Hello @Larry thank you for submitting! Please make the following changes to your proposal to comply with the program rules.

  1. Grant funds may only be used to incentivize Arbitrum contracts and can not be used for “developer funding” as per the following:
1 Like
9

Thanks for the feedback @ArbUSER and @Matt_StableLab! I have revised my proposal to comply with the program rules :pray:

10

Hello @Larry, unfortunately your proposal still does not comply with program rules as you are still using funds for “development funding”.

Grant funds may only be used to incentivize Arbitrum contracts as per the following:

1 Like
11

Apologies - I didn’t make a thorough enough edit on my first pass. Please check the edited proposal :pray:

1 Like
12

Thank you for these changes! Your submission now meets all requirements to be considered for a snapshot vote.

13

Hello @Larry ,

Now that your application has been marked eligible, please be advised of the remaining steps in the application process to be completed prior to the Review Period Deadline:

Please complete the following steps required for your application to proceed to Snapshot:

To change your proposal to final, please tag an Arbitrum Foundation Forum Moderator (@ stonecoldpat @ cliffton.eth @ eli_defi) by the Review Period deadline to notify them of your proposal’s readiness to proceed from [Draft] to [Final] status.

Once notified, the Arbitrum Foundation Forum Moderator will adjust your title from [Draft] to [Final] status. Once marked as [FInal], your application post will be locked by moderators and you will no longer be able to edit your proposal.

14

@Larry Friendly reminder to complete the following:

15

Apologies @Matt_StableLab, I had urgent commitments to deal with these past few days. Could you please mark this proposal as FINAL and allow it to proceed to Snapshot? :pray: