I’m not sure I understand the question, but it is possible for Governance or the EmergencyDAO to kill gauges in the veBAL system and it happens on a reasonably frequent basis for a variety of reasons, mostly housekeeping.
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If someone were to deposit 10 million in a hacked fund into a 100 million LP , would you disable the gauge? Additionally, what are your point on the efficiency of LP bribes, especially as their value tends to approach zero in the long term? From previous experiences, it seems that bribe matching on solidly model works way better, especially when looking at the previous OP incentive structure.
That would be up to governance.
I’ve only done a little bit of thinking myself around the differences here. Balancer tried something kinda like brib matching at the beginning our our airdrop program, and now we’re trying this. Hopefully I have time to study the comparative results more myself in the future.
I think the thing about the OP incentive structure, is that Velo kinda found something that worked a bit better than other things, and managed to kinda corner the market for DEX OP incentives as a result. II’m not sure that the research pertaining to Velo makes sense on other chains. Further, I don’t think Arbitrum wants to be OP. Maybe it makes sense to start with some different incentive models.
The only concern I have really seen raised here, which I agree with, is that it seems like this program sends most of the $ARB to a reasonably smol set of people. Anyone else wanting to buy into that has to lock veRAM for years. It’s a bit of an unfair deal, because they’re being diluted by this inside group who got the tokens for free, and so most don’t take that deal.
In the end, lots of ARB flows to a small circle, maybe they never sell. Then are they amassing governance and using it to make sure that all of the $ARB continues to flow to their smol circle? Is this a good thing?
I designed vaults on top of Soildly and OXD with BadgerDAO, I find the whole Solidly space an interesting playground that offers space for innovation and new ideas. Ramses integration of CL is a great example of this. I just think it makes more sense for projects to experiment a little more, and take into account the circumstances in which they are operating instead of trying to lean too hard on the Velo playbook.
Consider that at least for this program, the ask seems to be that $ARB does not flow to the treasury, builders or investors, and instead out into the ecosystem. Take it as a challenge to try something new.
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Great thread. I’ll just add what is purely an endorsement of the Ramses team, who we’ve found to be highly competent and easy to work with. But with one key asterisk: some other Inverse partners I’ve spoken with in the past few months have said the same thing.
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- this is not a concern
- it doesn’t send the ARB to a small set of people. It goes mostly to other protocols which will reuse the ARB to create more value
- nothing about that is unfair and there is no inside group. What is actually unfair? Some projects got a free veNFT which they are using to bribe and vote for their pool. If they haven’t contributed over the last 6 months, they are already diluted. If you want in, you need to buy RAM. Yes, that’s how Ramses works.
- What others do with their ARB rewards shouldn’t bother us
Now, what I want to hear from you is how LP bribing/giving straight to LPs will help with any of your concerns? It’s actually worse.
Ramses has shown its efficiency. The data is public. It’s by far one of the most efficient DEXs on Arbitrum. Just let them do what they think is good since they obviously know what they do. The money shouldn’t go to mercenary capital like you are proposing.
Btw, I saw your last post on the Balancer proposal. I don’t know why you are doing that but you should stop that. It’s not a good look for you guys. Especially if you come here and try to „change“ stuff when clearly there is something wrong when I look at your analytics.
Posting some changes that will be made to this proposal (based on current ongoing feedback)
Updated:
Requested Grant Size: (750,000 ARB - 1,500,000 ARB max) [Unused ARB will be returned to the DAO] concrete amount will be determined by the end of the forum discussion period.
Updated:
Grant Breakdown: Option A or B to be determined through forum discussions and governance consensus of what is more attractive to the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Option A (Vote Incentive Matching):
- 25% vote incentives weekly, directly to ARB/WETH and ARB/STABLE pairs
- 75% vote incentives matched to ecosystem partners such as: Frax, Liquity, Alchemix, Gravita, Swell, Radiant, etc.
Option B (Direct Liquidity Incentives):
- 100% of $ARB allocated to blue-chip liquidity pairs (such as ARB/ETH & ARB/USDC), as well as high volume ecosystem token pairings.
Updated:
- $ARB grants recycled will not be matched with more $ARB
- Partners who do not recycle the ARB, and/or manipulate the system in bad-faith, will be disqualified from participating in the program; and will be kindly asked to return their protocol NFT. RAMSES believes any ecosystem actor that tries to game a system is not operating in good faith.
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With this new proposal, it should accomodate to the criticism that arb grants should be used for incentivizing LPers “directly” (as they seem to believe) if the DAO really wants to.
Personally, I think RAM clearly deserves a grant as it is constantly in the top5 volume and revenue AMM for Arbitrum ecosystem, and top1-2 in terms of capital efficency since CL was introduced (so far), while also being a native protocol focused fully on Arbitrum.
So, if only way to access the grants is to accomodate to the demands that the incentives must be streamed to LPers, then so be it. That said, you have a lot of examples from people with much more experience in the granting process that have already vouched for this model. It is very notorious to keep in mind that Optimism first round of grants had a similar take on this, and everyone involved in the process unanimously deemed pool2 emissions for LPers not providing any significant value to the ecosytem.
I really hope the DAO here gives a chance to Ramses to prove their model as a better system for grant distribution. It’s clearly the one with least ARB sell pressure and the one that encourages most participation from Arbitrum-aligned people instead of pure mercenary capital. I would be really disappointed if they don’t even have the chance to prove themselves and we get yet another dump voucher token that will rent useless liquidity for 3 months until its over. But hey, if that’s what we want here, still better than nothing (I guess).
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Hey @Dog those are interesting changes, and that’s a great message to send in terms of the flexibility and opening from your team.
Since Option A (Vote Incentive Matching) still exists, I believe the questions and concerns in my last message still need to be addressed so everyone perfectly understand what they’d be voting for: [RAMSES] [DRAFT] [STIP - Round 1] - #40 by Perl
For Option B, would there be matching emissions from your / protocols’ side?
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@Perl It is clear and I appreciate that you are invested in the future success of Arbitrum. For transparency and a better understanding as this is the first of many future grant processes and developments as we build Arbitrum together:
- Are you a participant or contributor to any specific project?
- What is your voting power as it relates to the upcoming snapshot?
- Are there any circumstances under which you would vote in favor of a proposal from Ramses? If yes, what specifically would that proposal entail? If no, please explain.
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I’ve invested in multiple projects, particularly on Arbitrum. I also had the opportunity to informally exchange some opinions with a few people from various teams. That has been the limit of my involvement.
I’m not a delegate so my voting power is proportional to my holdings, and if that’s your question they are far from enough to have an impact on the final decision.
That being said, even if my answers were different, I don’t see how any of those points would make my questions less relevant.
I hope you’re not taking my remarks in a wrong way. I’m worried about multiple flaws I see in your proposal that could be not obvious to everyone but nevertheless extremely important to address.
I believe your team being transparent about it will be beneficial to everyone, and ultimately might even increase your chances to see your proposal pass.
Personally, I would have no issue to support a proposal that wouldn’t be directed to your ve, especially if the points I’ve raised aren’t clarified. It could be through direct liquidity incentives, or as @Tritium was suggesting why not a new experimental method.
I also believe a 2m grant was grossly overestimated, which is aligned with the new direction you’ve taken with your last update.
I hope you now have a satisfying enough understanding of myself, and am looking forward to your answers: [RAMSES] [FINAL] [STIP - Round 1] - #40 by Perl
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Thank you for the reply.
It seems you are more familiar with older AMM designs that support direct incentives to LPs versus newer AMM designs like Ramses that support decentralized voting and indirect incentives. Is that fair?
The AMM landscape and associated innovations move quickly as I’m sure you’re aware. We don’t believe we have a perfect solution with our current iteration, but we do see key benefits that help new and existing projects bootstrap liquidity with superior capital efficiency (note the comments from our partners).
In the spirit of open communication, learning and relationship building, would you be open to jump on a call where we can share more about our AMM design and answer any/all questions you may have?
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As the system is decentralized, yes they can vote (we can’t stop that), but you are saying these projects would risk their reputation for a week’s worth of ARB? We could quickly reach out and assure they understand the negative implications. We are a community, people can express the disdain to that project’s team and help us retrieve the NFT grant back if they act in bad-faith (hurting the ecosystem by extracting grant value with no tangible benefit). Protocols vote on their own token pairs, so it wouldn’t really be possible for them to earn ARB by voting unless they are doing so in bad-faith.
You are assuming a perfect voting distribution with max efficiency and no room for errors, which does not guarantee “at least” any amount. Also, every project has some vested interest in their own success, saying this is a downside is rather unbecoming and I can assure you our own personal capital choices should not have any impact since it’s not like we were locking only when this proposal template existed. We did it from the very start, many teams – including others who will get grants, have a large share of vested interest. This is normal and not something unique to us, other projects earn directly (as a team) from the grants programs boosting their token.
As mentioned in the newest update, only non-ARB is matched, so there is only matching for natural incentives.
We are not here to play police, and defeats the entire purpose of decentralization by saying we are somehow supposed to enforce this. The community and Arbitrum ecosystem can simply bring this point and ostracize any project that does this, since it means they are a negative to the ecosystem-- this would hurt them much more than any benefit they get from misappropriating funds. The above thing only pushes the program 1 week past 3 months (if at all) since we can put that stipulation for end week -1 so all is distributed by the end. This is not a concern at all.
The expectations have been adjusted, and accordingly are subject to change until the [FINAL] tag is added.
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The solidly model is inherently broken and outdated. It doesn’t work, and only in specific cases has it worked with huge support, such as Velo. Any DEX would have worked in that position, the underlying model played no part.
In this specific case of Velo, even now it has barely any volume and generates very little fees. The ve model is predatory and does not reward efficient incentives and/or efficient liquidity.
There is a reason there has been over 5 solidly forks on Arbitrum and they have all failed.
There is a reason that Rams has not maintained any TVL and is now looking to expand to Base and Mantle. How does Arbitrum remain a focus when you’re moving to two new chains?
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This is extremely inflammatory and absurd all-together.
This is not true, and frankly has no factual basis. Just because some teams do not succeed in their own rendition of a project, does not mean the system does not work. There’s tons of perp exchanges, dexes, lending markets, etc that all follow the example/path of successful ones-- but they fail too. Does this mean that those models are broken and outdated? We have been performing very well on our metrics and if this is broken and outdated I’m confused as to what that means for other projects who may not perform to the same standard?
We never once mentioned anything about Base, this is a flat out lie-- we have 0 plans to launch on Base and have never spoken about such. The mantle deployment is a friendly fork that is licensed and is not even live nor a focus. Arbitrum is our home, and RAMSES is still innovating to this very day. We pushed a new update less than a week ago, so yes-- we are still here and building, we are one of the most involved projects in the ecosystem, where are you getting this information from? 
Similar to what north asked above, do you have any association with any other AMM on Arbitrum? Thanks.
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Do you say this to everyone that does not compliment the model? It does require a bias to understand that Solidly does not work long-term. Am I a competitor of every application I critique? Am I not allowed to share an opinion?
Please feel free to look at every solidly fork - how are the fees, how is the revenue? If you can somehow justify it being a success with the current numbers, then I would love to see it.
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Any personal grudges against the incentive token or the model are irrelevant. The proof is in the pudding and in the data. Ramses is literally a top volume/fee DEX on arbitrum, can you deny this?
You are welcome to refute any of that with actual on-chain statistics instead of claiming something is broken without any ellaboration whatsoever. The moment you start digging into Ramses metrics on capital efficency, you might actually be pleasently surprised.
Respectfully
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Thank you for these specific questions. I’ll build on other’s responses:
- For instance, if a protocol X owning 10m ve doesn’t participate to the program, can he still vote with its large airdropped partner allocation and earn ARB from other gauges?
No. All partner allocated NFTs are required only to vote on their own pools.
- Some team members are large veRAM holders and would therefore benefit from any grants that improve performance
Of course. And any other founders who receive grants for projects that practice direct incentives to LPs also benefit personally. Noteworthy is that any ve positions built by individual team members have come by buying or earning and locking RAM. This demonstrates both a belief in the value of Ramses and a commitment to future growth and development. Unapologetically we will continue to invest personal resources into veRAM positions to both support and participate in the upside of Ramses and its impact on Arbitrum.
- ARB incentive recycling
Example:
Week 1 - Swell puts up 100 USDC. Ramses matches with 100 ARB. Swell recaptures 80 of the ARB from their vote.
Week 2 - Swell puts up 100 USDC and 80 ARB. Ramses matches with 100 ARB.
etc.
- Partner protocols misappropriating funds
- Look at the list of partners participating, highly unlikely any of them would risk the reputational hit from such a move
- Everything is verifiable on chain and, per the mandate of this incentives program, will be reported on bi-weekly. The accounting for compliance is simple and will be contained easily within the 3-month lifespan of the program. Corrections are also easily executed if necessary in the highly unlikely scenario of a partner protocol submarining their reputation inexplicably.
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Last week’s revenue,
Aerodrome: $1,637,804!!!
Thena: $145,576 (not including revenue from Alpha)
I don’t know Retro and Velodrome off hand but I know it was a lot.
It’s not really fair to throw Ramses and any of the examples above into the same basket with simple low-effort copy-paste solidly forks.
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I think this forum is an adapted place to openly talk about those questions, with anyone able to jump in and participate.
- You are forgetting the fact that partners also recapture their “matching” USDC
- Very important point, do they need to put back in the gauge the recycled ARB from the n-1 period only, or also from all the prior ones? That’s very different.
Since you’re taking a very simple example to explain the process, I’ll take the liberty to extend it. You mentioned I wasn’t understanding Solidly models. I’ll admit I certainly don’t have your knowledge in the field, but I should hopefully be able to do simple maths.
I’ll use your example with a 1200 ARB grant over 3 months (~100 ARB/week), and 1 ARB = 1 USDC.
Case 1: Protocols need to recycle the ARB from n-1 epochs only
Conclusion at the end of the 3-months incentives program:
- The protocol made a 544 (ARB+USDC) benefit (45% of the grant)
- Users earned 656 (ARB+USDC) (~50% of the grant!, ~25% of the grant+matching)
- Effective matching incentives for users is 20% (240 USDC)
Case 2: Protocols need to recycle all the ARB from ALL previous epochs
Conclusion at the end of the 3-months incentives program:
- The protocol made a 132 (ARB+USDC) benefit (10% of the grant)
- Users earned 1067 (ARB+USDC) (~90% of the grant, ~44% of the grant+matching)
- Effective matching incentives for users is 20% (240 USDC)
Hopefully I didn’t make any mistake in this quickly-made sheets, but I think we can all agree that:
- this way of distributing is highly inefficient
- we can’t call what protocols are doing “matching”
- at the end of the 3 months, protocols actually own more than at the beginning, and don’t need to recycle and match anything anymore
- all of this to currently vote for $30k of weekly RAM incentives for LPs, that will earn only 20% of the swap fees
The worst part being that those numbers are in the best case, and still don’t take into consideration the team allocations nor any potential bad player.
Actually you are, you’ll be responsible of those funds.
That’s exactly my point, how many of this is actually “spent” but recaptured and recycled by protocols?
Announce $10,000 of bribes => recapture $8,000 => only $2,000 are spent but the protocol has “generated” $10,000 of revenue.
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Protocols do not do any ‘matching.’
Ramses, rather, uses its own incentive budget + ARB incentives to match protocols’ incentives. Protocols only benefit when they bring their own investment into Arbitrum to the table.
Let’s jump on a call to clarify this and some of the other basic elements at play with how Ramses works.
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