Use Sablier for the Arbitrum Foundation's Grants Program

Grants Discussions
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TL;DR

Use Sablier for the Arbitrum Foundation’s grants program.

What is Sablier?

Sablier is a token streaming protocol available on eight chains, including Arbitrum. It is the first of its kind to have ever been built in web3, tracing its origins back to 2019. Similar to how you can stream a movie on Netflix or a song on Spotify, Sablier lets you stream money every second.

The Sablier protocol features a streaming model Lockup, in which the sender locks up a specified amount of ERC-20 tokens in a contract. The contract progressively allocates the funds to the designated recipient, who can access them as they become available over time. The streaming rate is influenced by various factors, including the start and end times, as well as the total amount of assets locked up.

For more details, please visit our website and our documentation.

What problems does token streaming solve?

Traditional payroll and token vesting suffer from three key problems.

  1. Payments need to be made manually over a long period of time, requiring ongoing efforts from the grant management team. Conversely, Sablier streams only have to be set up once. You just have to provide the total duration of the stream (can be a month, a year, or even multiple years) and that’s it — there’s no further action needed from you again, ever.

  2. Grants, as we know them, have issues. The traditional approach relies heavily on milestones or lump sum payments, either upfront or at the completion of the project. However, this poses a risk with grantees potentially abandoning the mission after receiving a part or the whole grant. Conversely, grantees have to wait for the milestones in order to receive their income, and payment delays sometimes happen.With token streaming, none of these problems occur, as the grantee is paid by the second. If the grantor notices that the grantee stopped working, they can simply cancel the stream, and get the funds back which haven’t yet been streamed.

  3. Discrete payments lack transparency because it’s hard to aggregate them. When the tokens are streamed, anyone can check the Sablier interfaces to monitor the status of a stream and all transactions associated with it. Here is an example of a stream.

Why should the Arbitrum Foundation use Sablier?

Sablier is entirely free to use, has no token, and is a proven solution with (at the time of posting this) a TVL of $117M+ according to DefiLlama. The protocol was first launched in 2019 and quickly received support from MakerDAO. Today, Sablier’s token streaming solution is used by teams like Shapeshift, Nouns DAO, Astaria, Reflexer, and others for token vesting and payroll purposes.

Streaming on Sablier can be done by manually calling our contracts, via our interface, or via our Safe multisig app, making it a great fit for any set up. Every stream is associated with a unique link, which makes it easy to share the status of a stream with other people. Streams can be canceled by either the streamer or the recipient, which prevents any dead-end situation if an employee/contributor leaves or if certain KPIs aren’t met while the stream is still running.

Conclusion

Sablier is a protocol that has stood the test of time and that can provide the Arbitrum Foundation with a great web3-native solution for grants. We would love for you to become a Sablier user.

Technicals

  • Links: Twitter - Website - GitHub - Discord - Blog
  • Our contract addresses can be found in the docs.
  • TVL of $120M+ according to DefiLlama across all versions of the Sablier protocol, as of July 24, 2023.
  • Security: two audits from Cantina, plus five other audits from both individual auditors and other auditing firms. Sablier has been around since 2019 with 0 hacks and a cumulative TVL of over $1.5B.
  • Fees: just like Uniswap, we have a built-in protocol fee, which is currently set to zero. We have no plans to adjust it any time soon, as we are focusing on growth and will be for a long while. If we ever do adjust the protocol fee, it will be applied to new streams (the fee is paid when creating the stream), not the ones already created.
  • Control: Sablier is completely decentralized, permissionless protocol for token streaming. We have the ability through a multisig to update some of the protocol’s configuration parameters, but the core part of the protocol is decentralized and immutable. We have no access to user funds. See our governance page in our documentation for more info.
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I moved this to the Grants Discussion forum as Sablier might be relevant for more than just the Arbitrum Foundation’s grant program.

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As a long time supporter of the Arbitrum ecosystem, I’d like to add comment and propose that Hedgey is considered for the platform used to distribute and manage token grants for the Arbitrum Foundation’s Grants program.

Background on Hedgey
Hedgey creates onchain token streaming products and over the last year has worked with Gitcoin, Shapeshift, Celo, Index Coop, BanklessDAO and other great DAOs to create vesting, lockups, and grants solution through our free, public goods solutions.

History supporting Arbitrum
We first began supporting the Arbitrum ecosystem a year ago and have since been creating the tools that help DAOs and protocols deploy and grow on Arbitrum.

Why should Arbitrum use Hedgey?

  1. Hedgey is a token streaming solution that allows grant issuers to set up one or multiple grants in a single transaction and reduce the management overhead by the foundation while streamlining grant issuance and management for recipients. Both issuers and recipients have feature-complete platforms to track and manage grants.
  2. Hedgey also allows for the ability to distribute grants via stream. These grants can be both revocable or non-revocable, pay out in continuous streams(every second) or periodically (weekly, monthly,) and include hyper-customized features in grant creation. New grants cost pennies to create and can be created individually or up to 40 in a single transaction.
  3. Hedgey allows grant issuers to optionally create and share public dashboards where an entire grant program can be shared with the broader DAO. Here is a demo public dashboard featuring Arbitrum.

Unique reasons to use Hedgey for grants

  1. Hedgey Grants can be set as transferable, non-transferable, and transferable-by-admin. Our approach to grants allows DAOs to restrict how grants can move and restrict them from being sold.
  2. Hedgey is completely free with no fee switch.
  3. Hedgey allows grant issuers to (optionally) add onchain governance rights to locked/vesting token grants. Should Arbitrum want grant recipients to participate in governance with their grants, they will be able to allow it.

Total Cost
Hedgey is a 100% free public good. There are no fees and there is no fee switch.

Security
Hedgey is audited by Consensys Diligence. We are trusted by incredible orgs like Gitcoin, Celo, IndexCoop, Shapeshift and 50+ other DAOs with over 6000 streams/lockups.

Conclusion
Hedgey has been a long time supporter of Arbitrum and is mission driven to help more DAOs grow and prosper by supporting your grants program. As the teams mentioned above will vouch for, we will go hands-on, above and beyond to create an incredible experience for the Arbitrum DAO ecosystem and continue building out the products and features to make the grants program on Arbitrum incredible for everyone.

Thank you for your consideration and support.

Technicals

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May I suggest that you create a different proposal to market your protocol, @lindsey?

Feels a bit undiplomatic to do it here. The title of this post is specifically about Sablier.

The fair way to compare competing solutions is create a generic, separate post specifically for that. And ideally the comparison would not be made by either one of us, but by someone working at the Arbitrum Foundation.

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I’ve always loved the idea of streaming tokens and it should be chain agnostic, no? Sablier is the OG in this and seeing AF use feels like the right partnership!!

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I believe using Sablier for token streaming can add value. It’ll allow Arb grants to be distributed more efficiently and create a rigorous process that the foundation can rely on.

I’ve had the pleasure to work with the team at Sablier, Paul, Max & team. They’re on 24/7 & always there to help.

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Employing Sablier for token streaming has potential to contribute value by enabling a more effective distribution of Arb grants and establish a robust procedure that the foundation can depend upon.

The team is solid and very in tune with what they’re building.

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Hi Paul - my intent was not to overstep on you marketing your protocol - apologies there.

I believe a healthy discussion is helpful for DAOs in evaluating service providers, saw this topic, and figured this would be a good place to have a discussion.

I’ve gone ahead and created a separate topic (pending approval) and have added a note to encourage other grants service providers to share a note in the thread there. I do think having a discussion in a single place is pretty healthy on a topic like this one. You are more than welcome to copy/paste your proposal there as well.

Cheers

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i think adding other options in this thread is a great idea, could we get a feature comparison one sheet for the different options? any native to arb?

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Love that idea. Happy to add to it and share other options that aren’t us.

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FWIW, Sablier is the creator and as a result, the OG of the token streaming service. I would put a lot of confidence in them as an OG in the space for 4 years as a result. Since so many protocols use gnosis safe multisig app, supporting safe, is icing on the cake IMO. I really think that Sabliers usage for vesting is the right call, especially in a grants program. If milestones aren’t hit or someone rugs, cancel and refund the remaining stream.

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The use case for Sablier is clear and straightforward. Personally, I’m excited to see it used for token vesting in newly launched Arbitrum projects. By gradually releasing tokens to holders through Sablier streams, it prevents a few whales, VCs, and insiders from simultaneously dumping their tokens on newcomers to the market. Sablier will undoubtedly transform crypto payments in everything from grants to HR. However, creating a fair and healthy market, and preventing mercenary capital from sabotaging projects before they have a chance to thrive, is perhaps my most compelling reason for supporting this proposal.

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