“Community Owned Liquidity” NFT Project Funding Request

Proposals Active Proposals
1

Title: “Community Owned Liquidity” NFT project funding request

Author: The Real Tuna

Contributors: Britt, Daywiss, EASports, TheRealTuna, Underthesea

Status: RFC

Related Discussions: N/A

Submission Date: 03/07/2023

Summary

Our team will manage the design, distribution, and treasury associated with our unique avatar style NFT collection that will act as a governing share over an ACX-ETH LP position. This Liquidity will be locked in long term and NFT owners will take on the risk and reward of that LP position for years to come. NFT holders can benefit from LP growth, private discord channel access, weekly draws, and ownership of a fun collectible that proves commitment and loyalty to Across. If a holder wishes to exit they would do so by selling their NFT on the open market.

  • Unique NFT collection of 2000 avatar style characters
  • ETH proceeds locked in to an ACX/ETH UNI LP, some ACX from treasury and some converted using the ETH.
  • Proceeds from LP fees split 65/25/10 between funds rolled back into LP(65%), weekly raffle(25%), and future development including paying multisig managers(10%).
  • NFT holders have access to a private discord channel
  • NFT receive a larger value than their purchase price by having ACX treasury provide some ACX tokens
  • Treasury controlled by a multisig for flexibility needed to manage an LP

Motivation

This project has been inspired by protocols such as Pooltogether, CityClash, EVMavericks and more. It aims to help solve the issue of having deep token liquidity without some of the disadvantages that come along with other methods(liquidity mining, protocol owned liquidity, etc). It is a sustainable solution to long term liquidity, once the NFT’s are minted, that liquidity will remain locked in long term. By owning an NFT you own a share in the community owned LP and can benefit from its long term growth. These unique NFT’s have an avatar style personalized aspect that the community can rally behind and prove their support of Across while collecting. NFT holders also don’t have to deal with the hassle of managing an LP as those management efforts will be taken care of for them by the community managers of the multisig. If ACX and ETH rise together then so does the value behind each NFT, perhaps one day this sub community of Across will manage millions of dollars in ACX/ETH liquidity due to market growth and fee revenue(DYOR, Not Financial Advice). This NFT mint is a public good that enriches the Across community as a whole by committing the tokens received from mint straight towards long term community managed liquidity.

Specification & Implementation

This project will have a 3 stage process. Stage 1 is the design stage, where we’ll settle on several of the visual and logistical pieces of the project. This includes NFT design, mint website design, raffle mechanism, marketing plan, and LP fund management plan. Stage 2 is the launch stage, where contracts go live and NFT sales begin. It also includes deploying LP funds according to the fund management plan. Stage 3 is the management stage, which will involve maintaining the LP positions and executing raffles according to the raffle schedule. Our goal is to reach the launch stage 3 months from being funded.

Design Stage

NFT Design

  • Artist: We have a design artist chosen for the NFT’s but for now we would like to keep that a surprise. Will provide teasers during the process leading up to launch.
  • Technical: @daywiss and @underthesea are currently assisting with the technical design and we will hire a web designer and contract out the work for any needs that arise.
  • 2,000 NFT’s with 100-150 traits and varying rarity.

Webpage design

  • Webpage will allow users to mint and view their NFT’s may possibly also include raffle information if it falls within the budget(alternatively raffle info will be maintained on discord)
  • Whitelist eligibility checker leading up to launch.

Plan to deploy Liquidity

  • Financial managers:Multisig members with input from community members who can provide insights and advice.
  • ACX/ETH LP parameters to be determined by the team leading up to launch stage. Initial thoughts are to either do a nice wide UNI V3 range and adjust as necessary or to setup in 3 tiers(one for rise, one for fall, and one for current range).

If the community accepts this proposal then the requested funding will be sent to our multisig address. From the multisig we will pay our contributors which include those designing the website, designing the NFT’s, developing the mint contract, and managing the project.
We have already secured an NFT designer and developers to help but will also need to higher a web designer and possibly contract more tech help in the lead up to launch. The NFT collection is meant to be 2,000 unique avatar style characters that will be minted by sending ETH ($250 USD value) through the webpage to the project multisig.

Launch Stage

  • Hype Plan
    • Pre-launch collaboration opportunities, Across official marketing, publish article on community owned liquidity, Twitter space or AMA
  • NFT mint opens up with whitelist followed by public mint.
  • Deploying LP Funds
    • The multisig wallet will manage the LP with the mandate of providing long term and deep liquidity for ACX while also acting in the best interest of NFT holders. Owning an NFT represents a share in the treasury that is being used to provide Across liquidity.

Prior to launch we will market the NFT sale on twitter and other necessary social platforms to generate hype. Minters should be aware that the underlying value behind each NFT will start out at $325/each which is more than the mint cost ($500,000 raised from mint + $150,000 provided from Across treasury). Since the treasury will be illiquid to NFT minters this will act as an incentive for locking in long term to support the growth of Across. This adds up to a 30% value boost right up front. NFT’s will be minted by whitelisted wallets for the first 24 hours and then open to the public. Whitelisted wallets could Include ACX holders, staked ACX holders and ACX liquidity providers. We could also discuss including UMA holders and potentially other communities we are aligned with.

Upon launch the multisig managers would convert funds from mints to the LP in batches, this would also be paired with $150,000 in ACX tokens to be requested from ACX treasury, this will ensure the initial value backing each NFT will be higher than the mint cost and acts as a way to reward purchasers for locking in long term. Managers will transfer the batches at their own discretion and I’d imagine the transfer of funds will be dependent on the speed of the NFT’s minting out.

Management/Governance stage

  • Ongoing fund management
    • Review LP position monthly and make adjustments every 1-3 months.
    • Eventual governance improvements if necessary. Potential switch from multisig to Optimistic governance down the road.
  • Raffle details
    • Mechanism: TBD
      Frequency: Weekly draw
      Results announced on private discord channel
  • Other Regular Perks
    • Access to NFT holder only discord.

Once the LP is in action the managers will conduct the weekly raffle and roll the fee share back into the LP. This could be an automated process but may require manual action in the beginning.

  • 65% of weekly LP fees to be rolled back into the NFT creating a perpetual growth cycle of the LP.
  • 25% of the LP fees will be awarded to a random winner of the weekly raffle. Details of how the raffle will be conducted are not yet sorted but can be worked out during the design stage.
  • The remaining 10% will be distributed to the LP managers for their ongoing management of the treasury. If this amount exceeds what is required then any excess can be returned to the LP or held in treasury.
  • NFT royalties on platforms like Opensea will be split between the community treasury address(75%) and the NFT designer(25%). The treasury portion can be rolled into the LP or used to cover any future costs associated with the project.

The 4/7 multisig that manages the treasury would ultimately determine what strategy to use for the LP but would take feedback from the community. Liquidity would use UNI V3 but could also explore options like Arrakkis finance to manage LP funds. LP strategy can be looked at more in depth after the launch stage. Upon Launch the multisig will have the final say on implementing changes to treasury but our mandate will be to act in the best interest of both the Across community and NFT holders, both of whom will have contributed funds towards this project. A snapshot voting mechanism will be added to help gauge community sentiment. (1 NFT=1 vote in the snapshot).
The multisig will start out as a 3/5 during the design stage but will be upgraded to a 4/7 before launch.
4/7 multisig would include the following signers:

  • Britt
  • Daywiss
  • EAsports
  • TheRealTuna
  • Underthesea
  • TBD Community member(to be added prior to launch)
  • TBD Community member(to be added prior to launch)

Proposed Budget

Part 1: Build budget for contributors. This portion will be used for payment to website designers, contract creator, NFT designer, and other contributors. We have an NFT designer and several contributors to the webpage/UI + contracts but may also hire out as needed.

$40,000 USD equivalent in ACX tokens(550,000 ACX)

Part 2: Contribution from Across to the NFT community run LP. To be transferred from Across Treasury just before launch and used as an added incentive by adding to the liquidity.

$150,000 USD equivalent in ACX tokens(2,000,000 ACX)

Rationale

Current liquidity options such as liquidity mining can come with some disadvantages:
Liquidity mining is not sustainable as it requires distributing tokens from treasury that can end up being dumped on the market and when the rewards end the participants exit the LP.

Having POL “Protocol Owned Liquidity” requires raising funds and if the only funds in the treasury are the protocol token you would have to dump tokens in order to fund the LP and on top of that the protocol token side of the LP is essentially selling tokens which will compound the downside.

COL “Community Owned Liquidity” via NFT sale is funded by the community and ensures the funds will be locked in long term. Incentives from Across treasury are deposited directly to the LP which further guarantees there will be no dumping of ACX rewards. Having trading fees split between going back to the LP and being raffled to holders both ensures the LP continues to grow and the NFT holders have an added fun way to win some of the LP fees.

Uniswap V3 is the dex of choice for liquidity at this time as it is the most secure and trusted exchange in the DEFI ecosystem. The choice could be made in future to deposit to another platform but we feel it is best to start in a safe and trusted place that already secures Billions of dollars in funds.

Risk

LPing comes with risk and there are no guarantees that the LP will rise in value. There is also risk that the NFT collection does not sell out immediately and that could lead to ongoing additional management and delays in reaching full liquidity. There is also no guarantees of getting fair market value for the NFT’s if trying to exit.

Do you support this proposal moving forward
  • Support
  • Reject
  • Abstain

0 voters

Would you be likely to mint the NFT to support Across Liquidity?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Abstain

0 voters

Is the proposed budget reasonable to build a web UI, NFT contracts, NFT design, etc?
  • Yes
  • No, cost is too high.
  • Abstain

0 voters

8 Likes
2

Lovely idea! Will read it in details in the morning but everything looks spot on while I skimmed through the text.
You have my full support.

3 Likes
3

Fantastic experiment to lock liquidity long term and give participants an opportunity for growth.

Only concern is for nft minters/hodlrs is the potential event there is no market for the nfts and folks are permalocked in an illiquid position.

Other than that, big fan! Let’s go!

3 Likes
4

This is a pretty interesting concept I’ll need to reread this one a few times initial thoughts are it sounds really cool.

1 Like
5

Good question,

It is very possible there could be difficulty finding a buyer but I personally would see that as an opportunity to snag some more NFT’s below the underlying value. Mint cost is $250 but the underlying value behind each NFT will be $325 at mint when you consider the added $150,000 incentive from Across treasury. As an NFT minter you would have to know that you are taking on some risks but those risks will only strengthen the Across community by ensuring deep liquidity. For me I will hold some of these NFT’s and if I see a chance to buy one at a discount I will jump on it.

6

Hey Tuna,

Is there any way to redeem the NFTs for the undelrying LP? If not how do you consider it underlying value? A that point its really just a lottery ticket for the fee distribution.

Love the overall concept and I have been working on a very similar thing but with gamified redemption to support the value of the NFTs. Will be cool to see different models hit the market.

1 Like
7

Hey Jonto,
Good to see you here! As currently intended there would be no mechanism to redeem the NFT for the underlying value. Ideally anybody who wants to unlock the underlying value would have to try their luck via selling the NFT in an NFT marketplace. Joining this sub community of Across is sort of like forming a liquidity pod to support the community as a whole. With that said, I see potential for profit taking further down the road as long as we maintain deep liquidity for ACX. Given that the LP is paired in both ETH and ACX I see potential for exponential growth of the LP. This new approach has the potential to produce the most stable token liquidity around as there will be no dumping of rewards. This NFT can be collectible, profitable, and a proof of commitment to the Across community.

2 Likes
8

absolutely brilliant. you really put a lot of thought into this proposal and it shows, you have my sword ser… :clap:

3 Likes
9

Without the ability to redeem the NFT for LP or equivalent, its tough to consider it underlying value no? I think the rest of the idea is great but I would love to see more discussion around this

1 Like
10

I definitely like this idea. I have only one input. Is it possible, for once, that a huge project like this isn’t on mainnet? This is a bridge, and the use of multiple chains is important for us to grow in the future. Wouldn’t it be neat if people had to travel to mint the NFT? I wonder what bridge they’d use to mint the Across NFT?
A wonderful counter to this idea is that the Liquidity Providers are on Mainnet. The only counter that I have is that the LP’s wouldn’t earn their yields without the growing layer two ecosystem, but I am sure that is not sufficient.
If there is any challenge to this idea, please look at the GMX Blueberries. They are doing pretty well on Arbitrum. As a person who is, in my opinion, new to defi I enjoy evading the fees of mainnet.

2 Likes
11

Excellent! Really like the idea, and if moves forward count on my participation!

How can I not have typed 100 characters yet? :grinning:

1 Like
12

Having the NFT’s on Arbitrum is definitely something to consider, the liquidity definitely needs to be on Ethereum but the NFT’s don’t have to.

13

The idea of community owned liquidity sounds great and it’s clear tuna put a lot of thought into this proposal. There are some things I would like clarity on and also discuss. Also, I think in order for the Across DAO / ACX holders to approve sending $190k of tokens they would need to know the funds are serving the purpose of liquidity, secure (which questions the multisig) and managed well (the LP strategy needs to be well defined and sound).

  1. It’s mentioned by others the need for redemption and i would agree. To ensure there is some risk free value to this NFT I think that’s necessary or else we risk the value dropping and holders losing interest. I think combining this with oSnap would allow this to happen, but there needs to be implementation details to consider.
  2. If there is redemption, NFT holders need to commit to holding this for an extended period of time (1 year?) so that they can’t just mint and redeem and take the bonus ACX from the DAO. This I believe can be defined by oSnap as well.
  3. There is concern that if you have oSnap that somebody could buy up more than half the NFTs and then vote to send the entire wallet to themselves. This is very expensive to do as it’s a “shoot the moon” strategy and if unsuccessful they could be punished severely for paying the wrong price. In any case oSnap can again limit what transactions can be proposed. So maybe you can only call redemption which would be an all or nothing event that forces all holders to get their assets back and would require a high quorum. I’ll need UMA devs to confirm all this.
  4. I’m not a fan of the multisig. I know the signers and feel OK but I don’t think that’s the case for all ACX hokders. And we also have an alternative now.
  5. The key to this whole proposal is how we implement and manage this liquidity. That’s why we are doing this. So we need better clarity on how this is managed and what strategies are used. A wide uni v3 strategy I think is not optimal and having a group manage this now and then is not ideal. I rather see a passive LP instead or using a known active management protocol to help in comparison. And I think the NFT holders can change this strategy in the future. So more thought needs to be put here.

All together I think there’s an idea here that is appealing but implementation details are important in order for this to be successful.

3 Likes
14

Very interesting ideas in this proposal, and very much in line with the original proposal on gamification posted about a year ago when addressing the token launch -but with a lot more details thrushed out now. I may have missed it, but is selling the NFT the only way to release its value? Could it not also be a combination of locking and burning? Of course, one would then lose the NFT, but that would then be the price anyone willing to unlock would need to pay. This would not necessarily need to exclude being able to sell of the NFT. Also, what are the royalties that would be incured upon sale of the NFT on, lets say, Opensea? This would be preset in the underlying contract is my understanding.

15

Hey @TheRealTuna_Across
Love the thought and the rationale. The key to improvement is experimenting and innovation. And this brings both to the table.

I find @Kevin_UMA’s input valuable and integrating with 0Snap is a great suggestion.

16

Definitely open to using oSnap as long as we can tailor or to allow the flexibility needed to manage an LP, which sounds like it could work by giving permissions to a multisig to interact with Uniswap for swaps between ACX-ETH + adding/removing liquidity. This would protect against the multisig sending unauthorized funds to a 3rd party wallet.
Redemption is a bit difficult to envision as it is important we maintain/grow the promised liquidity as well as preventing profit seekers from gaming the system to unlock the incentives early, that being said it is worth further discussing how we could incorporate something like this.
I hope to include an LP strategy in our proposal before we table it for a final vote.

At this point selling the NFT is the only short term exit but there has been some debate around redemption ideas and those ideas can still be considered. The primary goal of this initiative are bringing deep liquidity to Across without selling off ACX tokens for the non ACX side of this pair.
As it stands the Opensea royalties are to be split between the NFT designer and the community treasury with 75% going to the community treasury and 25% to the designer.

17

If minted on layer 2 wouldn’t that force more liquidity to said l2, I’m not against it but it seems counter productive to have to move liquidity from l2 back to mainet after mint most acx liquidity is on l1

1 Like
18

Plan is still currently to have everything happen on L1 but I’m not totally opposed to the idea of NFT being elsewhere if that’s what the majority wanted. Since we are a bridge I don’t think we should fear bridging funds, that being said we want to make sure the NFT is accessible to everyone and it is safe to say that everyone uses Ethereum.

1 Like
19

I’m going to abstain on this proposal for now. I love the idea of build ACX liquidity using NFTs, but I think it needs a few tweaks as others have suggested.

In particular

  • I’d like to see something that showcased L2s, given that Across is a bridge. Creating the NFTs on an L2 would offer Across a good opportunity to develop its relationship with one (or more?) of the chains that we bridge to.

  • Allowing redemption for underlying liquidity is important for sustainability and keeping the NFT tokens value anchored.

  • This could be combined with some kind of “vesting” - such as it cant be redeemed until x time after minting/transfer in order to protect against people either immediately liquidating to take advantage of the ACX treasury “bonus”, or a sweep at a time of price volatility, where people can purchase the NFT at less than “face value” then immediately liquidate; drying up ACX liquidity when it is most needed.

  • I’m a big cheerleader for oSnap. I think this is the way that protocol decisions should be executed, without needing individuals to take on personal risk or responsibility, and ensuring that parameter changes are fully decentralised. Its very easy to set up, like Across itself, its secured by UMA’s Oracle and built by UMA engineers and this seems a perfect fit.

  • I understand the concern that someone could buy up 1/2 the NFTs to send a malicious proposal, (although it would be difficult in practice) but if that were to happen oSnap would stop the transaction if it was disputed (regardless of outcome) and there are other potential guardrails that can also be implemented.

  • LPing to UniV3 tends to result in impermanent loss. I’m not really an expert on dexes but I wonder if we could delegate the liquidity management to bots and manage the bot parameters through oSnap, hmm actually on a further read thats using flashloans, like I said no expert, but UniV3 feels risky.

1 Like
20

@Kevin_UMA this resonates a lot with me. Maybe you could help suggest a couple of options that you might consider more ideal?

I think that the redemption details are going to be the most technically difficult part to sort out in this implementation. So I’d like to call on anyone reading this to make recommendations of protocols who might do something like this that we could work with.