Below is the recording of the third call, the call’s transcript, and the chat log. You will also find notes on the topics/questions we discussed and a summary of the views expressed. In the fourth call, we had Tnorm, the man who spearheaded STIP, present his views and learnings.
Recording - Liquidity Incentives Call #4 (11.9.2024)
Transcript - Liquidity Incentives Call #4 (11.9.2024)
Chat Log - Liquidity Incentives Call #4 (11.9.2024)
Summary
The things that were discussed were:
- The importance of having protocol representatives share their perspectives during the calls.
- The feasibility of a small grants program, noting the challenges of scaling and the high volume of applications, was questioned.
- That the classification of projects requires better definition and that the goals for different types of projects should be clearly stated.
- The need for a better definition of “good projects” and the importance of metrics in evaluating project success.
From the presentation of Tnorm, we discussed:
- STIP was designed as an emergency program to unlock capital and support the ecosystem. I was set up quickly with stakeholder input and prioritized speed over practicality.
- The need to return to first principles and strategic thinking around incentives and incentive programs.
- Onchain incentives aim to create actions onchain by making transactions cheaper and/or more attractive. There’s a spectrum of actions that can be incentivized.
- Objective-based grants, which can target specific actions like buying, selling, depositing, liquidity provision, and so on.
- Direct-to-contract incentives, which could offer granular, targeted incentives at the contract level. (more on this here).
- The differences between strategy and tactics in incentive programs, emphasizing the
importance of clear goals, KPIs, and objectives. - What three main stakeholder groups that Tnorm identifies are: network stakeholders, application stakeholders, and user stakeholders.
- The traditional program structure, where incentives flow from a treasury to decision-makers, who then distribute them to projects.
- Insights Tnorm’s interviews with delegates, highlighting the need for clear processes to serve different project buckets.
- Three main buckets for project-based incentive grants: small and early-stage projects, scaling projects, and large, established projects.
- The challenges of defining small projects and the need for a council to handle high-volume, low-admin grants.
- The need for higher oversight and clear KPIs for scaling projects, which aim to support projects with proven product-market fit.
- A partnership budget approach for large projects, where the DAO provides strategic support and high-level services.
- The importance of objective-based incentive programs, which focus on specific metrics like user incentives and native project support.
- The need for sophisticated user segmentation and the potential for targeted campaigns to attract valuable users.
- The importance of native token minting and strategic asset support as key objectives for incentive programs.
- The concept of network-wide campaigns, which could incentivize actions across multiple protocols and verticals.
- The use of service providers to support sophisticated analytics and distribution of incentives, at least for specific verticals.
- The need for tooling improvements to support innovative approaches, such as direct-to-contract incentives, which could eliminate the need for protocol-specific grants and support market dynamics.
In terms of ideas for future programs:
- The need for a layer of accountability and authoritative power to make decisions on project funding was highlighted.
For the next call:
As with previous calls, we encourage participants to prepare for the next one and share their visions and lessons earned with the rest of the working group. If you have an analysis, a report, or other findings to present during one of the upcoming calls, please contact Sinkas on Telegram