Risk Labs Retroactive Funding and Future Development

Proposals
1

Title: Risk Labs Retroactive Funding and Future Development
Author: Kevin Chan
Status: Proposal
Related Discussions: Risk Labs Funding Proposal for Growth, Expansion and Across v3
Submission Date: September 11, 2024

Summary:
The Risk Labs foundation is requesting 50,000,000 $ACX for retroactive funding and future development of Across protocol. Across is now a recognized leader in the cross chain interoperability space. The cross chain interoperability space continues to be competitive; however, Across remains a leader and is well positioned to capture many new opportunities. Risk Labs would use these ACX tokens to establish strategic partnerships and to incentivize developers and contractors. Tokens used in this way will include terms that restrict them from being sold for at least 2 years.

Motivation:
It has been almost a year since the last funding proposal from Risk Labs. The purpose of that proposal was to help fund the development of Across v3, but Risk Labs delivered much more than that. Over the last year Risk Labs has contributed to the following Across protocol achievements:

  • Across launched V3 - a full interoperability protocol that utilizes intents for fast value transfer and chain abstraction
  • Across supports 13 different chains and is still rapidly expanding
  • Across delivers the fastest bridge fill times with transfers between L2s completing in seconds
  • Across has completed over $11.8B of bridge transfers since inception and currently averages around $25MM of volume per day
  • Across consistently battles for the #1 spot in bridge volume according to DeFiLlama
  • Across has built strong relationships and partnerships with well respected teams such as Uniswap and Optimism
  • Across’ success is recognized widely across Web3 - the $ACX token price has almost 10x since last year and top tier exchanges such as Coinbase have listed the token

Across protocol has become more than just a bridge. It has opened up its intents based architecture which will allow any Web3 projects to bring in their own order flow and utilize Across’ settlement system. ERC 7683, a standard for cross chain intents developed by Across and Uniswap, will help unify relayers and solvers to power this intents based ecosystem. This will deliver a seamless and intuitive experience for end users as it abstracts away the complexity and time constraints of bridging. This is where the future of cross chain interoperability lies and will be a key focus for Across protocol going forward.

Risk Labs is requesting retroactive funding for the research and development efforts that led to last year’s success with Across protocol. Funding received will be used to continue the growth of Across. The cross chain interoperability space continues to be competitive; however, Across remains a leader and is well positioned to capture many new opportunities. Future development includes, but are not limited to the following:

  • Establish an even larger and more diverse set of relayers by building on and promoting the ERC 7683 standard - this will deliver unparalleled transfer speeds and empower Web3 projects to build chain abstracted dApps

  • Expand to many more chains which includes non EVM chains such as Solana

  • Grow the number of projects utilizing Across Bridge and Across protocol as a whole by making the integration process easy and seamless

  • Acquire more strategic investors (major investors will be announced soon, but more will follow if this funding proposal passes)

All of these developments will bring more volume and revenue into Across protocol. Risk Labs is requesting 50,000,000 $ACX tokens for retroactive funding and future development. Risk Labs would use these $ACX tokens to establish strategic partnerships and to incentivize developers and contractors. Risk Labs will ensure that in any agreement where there is a transfer of ownership of tokens, whether onchain or offchain, these tokens will clearly have restrictions that prevent the sale of the tokens for at least 2 years.

Specification & Implementation:
To fulfill this funding request, the Across DAO will need to vote for and execute this proposal using oSnap. $ACX token holders will vote through Snapshot and the proposal will include the exact transfer transaction that will send 50,000,000 $ACX to the Risk Labs multisig address on mainnet (0x8180D59b7175d4064bDFA8138A58e9baBFFdA44a). If the vote passes, anybody can propose to execute this transaction and a 3 day dispute window will be open to UMA’s optimistic oracle to verify the validity of the transaction.

Voting:

Should the Across DAO transfer 50,000,000 ACX tokens to Risk Labs to fund the continuing growth and expansion of Across protocol? All tokens will be locked and not sold for at least 2 years.
  • Yes
  • No
  • Abstain
0 voters
3 Likes
2

This is what I want to see! ERC-7683 everywhere! :clap: :clap: Not only this will push Across as a market leader but will also enhance the whole ecosystem

1 Like
3

I’ve got to say, the team’s been doing amazing work, and their intentions are spot on. I trust they’ll keep making smart, strategic moves like they always have. The stats speak for themselves—it’s no wonder I have so much confidence in them. If this is what we need to keep pushing to the top, then let’s go for it! Across has already achieved so much, and the year isn’t even over yet. We ride!
KUDOS to the team

2 Likes
4

@Kevin_UMA, thanks for sharing this proposal with the community. Overall, I am in agreement with the retroactive funding for the RL team. However, could you please provide further details on the following points:

  1. The 50,000,000 $ACX tokens at the current market price are approximately $14,000,000 (rounded down). I support the 2-year lockup, but can you confirm if stakeholders will be open to staking their $ACX? If so, are there any restrictions in place to prevent them from selling their staking rewards?

  2. Could you provide a breakdown of how much (approximately) is allocated to the various ventures mentioned in the proposal?

  3. On the subject of relying on external contractors: to my understanding, most external contractors are paid in a DAO token that is freely trade able, allowing the contractor to convert their payment to USD. Could you elaborate on the type of contractors RL has in mind? Or will RL be paying them in $USD from internal reserves, with an additional $ACX token package as an incentive?

  4. While I fully support the use of external contractors, I would like to request that the RL team allocates a portion of the budget for community growth. I see the same few faces in Discord, going above and beyond. These early supporters should be rewarded in some way—not just VCs and KOLs. Additionally, we should ensure there is a healthy budget to attract new community members to the Across Discord. In my experience, while strategic partners are valuable, the existing and future community members should not be overlooked.

  5. Lastly, for the sake of transparency, are there any conflicts of interest that the community should be made aware of?

1 Like
5

Hey @x_momo - thanks for the questions. I’ll try my best to answer:

  1. I cannot confirm what terms will be in future agreements, but a large portion of the use of the previous funding proposal were in token option agreements where the tokens actually sit in the Risk Labs multisig and the recipient does not have access to them; therefore, they cannot stake them. For strategic investors/partnerships their primary reason for owning tokens is long term gains so they are not looking to farm and sell tokens.
  2. This will be hard to breakdown. There isn’t a specific number of devs assigned to each initiative and part of the work that needs to be done is scoping out how to tackle each opportunity.
  3. The compensation arrangement you described is similar to what we do. We generally pay a salary in stables through Risk Labs current foundation and we provide a long term incentive agreement that is usually a token option agreement. These tokens vest over multiple years. Therefore, no ACX tokens are sold by Risk Labs and no tokens are released until 1 year out the earliest and the balance slowly vests.
  4. Yes, I think ACX tokenholders are happy to support this. We have the CEC that receives funding from the DAO and in the past some members have retroactively received ACX tokens for their contributions as well. I think if there is a well laid out proposal ACX tokenholder should be happy to consider it.
  5. No conflicts that I can think of. Risk Labs is very focused on the growth of Across protocol.

Let me know if you have any more questions and I can also get others from Risk Labs to comment.

6

1. This makes sense. To expand further, a few protocols have garnered bad press due to VCs/whales being able to stake and sell their farmed tokens. Additionally, a few months ago, Bryan criticized the Across brand on CT for a lack of transparency regarding OTC deals. Considering future optics, any Across deals should clearly outline this stipulation in the announcement, which would likely translate positively on CT. This transparency builds confidence in the Across brand.

2. Got it. Makes sense.

3. I’m glad to see that contractors are being given a mix of stables and $ACX tokens. For what it’s worth, having skin in the game is the best model, as opposed to opting solely for stables.

4. CEC, as it stands, is a closed-door/exclusive initiative. Discussing the merits of this is outside the scope of this conversation. However, I propose modifying the suggested proposal request of 50,000,000 ACX to include an additional 10% (5,000,000 ACX) set aside exclusively for future community retention/growth campaigns. By taking this approach, we are signaling to CT that RL recognizes the value of establishing strategic partnerships and incentivizing developers, contractors, and talented community members. This would help Across present itself as a more community-focused Web3 protocol, which CT and potential partners should see in a positive light when the announcement is made. We can stipulate that any unused funds will be returned to the treasury after a certain period of time. Kevin, would RL be in agreement with this?

5. Thank you for confirming that there are no conflicts of interest to declare.