Moderator: Troy Murray
Scribe: Rayne L.
Attendees: Keegan Selby, Troy Murray, Pavlo Bendus, Vitalik Cherniak, Christian Crowley, Tyler Ward, Max Fiege
Intro [00:00]
Troy: Welcome to BarnBridge project call 20!
The tech team is on a retreat for the weekend doing team-building exercises of some sort. So, I'll be giving the update myself for the tech side.
Tech/Dev [00:18]
Troy: We have Smart Exposure launching next week on mainnet. Then the week after that Smart Yield launches on Polygon.
From the update Bogdan gave me, it sounds as if Smart Exposure and Yield will be launching on the same week on Polygon. And that may be the reason why they delayed the release.
So they can launch both at once instead of working backwards. That's what it's looking like based on the update that Bogdan gave me. We'll have Polygon in two weeks and next week is Smart Exposure.
There is a ton of other stuff happening in the background. Like we've said before to the community. We don't want to discuss it too much before those launches are imminent.
We have audits lined up, and there is some exciting stuff coming. I'll leave it at that because I don't want to open it up.
Tyler: We can say, on the audit stuff, for Polygon. Some of the setbacks came from the testnet nuances. We don't test in prod like some groups in crypto. Their testnet was slightly shaky. Their team is awesome to work with– it's not a knock on the team –they've been getting a lot of usage, a lot of people are building, and a ton of people are testing.
Also, figuring out how we can claim fees on the DAO and the bridge gets back to mainnet Ethereum. I can at least say those are some of the setbacks. I also suggested we wait to launch Smart Exposure on Polygon and do it in a short timeframe– one or two weeks from launching on mainnet.
I think it will get a ton more usage on Polygon. Because of how it works. Polygon is excited about it, and they'll be incentivizing it. I don't want to get front-run.
We have the specs pretty well built out. Ser Speculor did all the markdowns. He told me two days ago he was up until 4 AM working on it. So we'll have all of the documentation in place.
Smart Secret got scheduled to go to audit mid-July, and then end of July, Smart Alpha should be going to audit.
It doesn't mean that those will be launching right afterwards because we've been doing a ton of front-end and back-end work with Polygon. Like switching between interfaces. From a Smart contract perspective, we are pretty far along. Mid-July/end of July is 3-5 weeks away. So, there is a lot of shit coming.
To Troy's point, that's everything we are going to say.
Troy: Yes.
With that, I think we hand it over to Christian to direct the operations update.
Operations [03:57]
Christian: Thanks, guys!
So, quick update up-front. During the first few weeks here, my main priority has been building out a newer, more refined operational process to catalogue what is happening. To ensure we get aligned across marketing and product– streamlining several things.
So, that's gotten built and rolled out. We'll be using that framework moving forward. My focus will shift from here to business development & outreach.
With that, I'll pass it along to Max for more tactical updates around integrations.
Max (Integrations) [04:34]
Max: I have a laundry list I'll be going through. So bear with me if I get a bit monotone.
First, on the bat, I've been working with Leo, our China community manager. Given the events of the past few weeks, he's still confident about what we are doing in China. But, he does think it may be better to house the operations underneath a pre-established company there.
I'm working with him on a proposal for that. It will likely be one of the more interesting governance items we've had to date. I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
Secondly, I'm working with a few community members on getting reporting standards in place. You can expect to see a Q2 BarnBridge report. The typical format, financials, core team commentary on past quarter developments etc.
I think that will be an interesting precedent to set– for us especially. It follows in line with what YFI has been doing for the past few quarters.
Thirdly, a few items you may not have seen– busy week – Bonds now listed on sDeFi index, maintained by Synthetix. I think there is a 0.5% exposure in that index. It will be interesting to see how that changes over time– hopefully.
Over the past week, we've also seen the snapshot votes for supporting shield mining pass, as well as filling up the rest of the Bancor co-investment. So, we'll be looking to bring those decisions through DAO governance next. That means deploying both DAO Bond & Stablecoin holdings. More interesting precedents set.
Another point I'd like to touch on, governance items that are in the pipeline at the moment.
There are two– ImmuneFi is the first. It regards setting aside a bug bounty through their platform. The neat thing about them, you can set aside a bug bounty without the need to escrow the funds. And with Smart Yield launching on Polygon, for instance. We could do weekly senior tranches, and every week we may pay out a bug bounty or reinvest into our products– earning a bit of yield for the DAO. That should be a unique experiment seeing how that goes forward.
The other item is a community proposed initiative. It's called the 'Benevolent Bond Philanthropy Fund' currently it suggests that 1% of the quarterly revenues get donated to on-chain charitable efforts.
If you haven't seen that, but you find it compelling. I encourage you to check out the forum read how it's getting laid out. Provide feedback, ask questions and raise concerns. I think it's a step in the right direction of a DAO that is more than BarnBridge. We've built a community, and it would be ideal to see us continue to act like one, getting a bit more integrated with everyone.
That's essentially it– If anyone has questions about what I covered, DM me on Discord or raise further questions on the general chat.
Troy: Max, I'm sorry, I might have missed it. Did you cover the Curve request?
Max: I did not. However, I can. It's still slightly in the air.
What we've realized, with the Curve V2 update, the new pool format would allow for a Smart Yield junior tranche mega pool. I'd say the big three stablecoins from Compound and Aave.
They are all put into one pool, which allows us to address secondary market concerns. (bootstrapping liquidity) And making it possible/easy for folks to switch between different tranches. Depending on the rates– you can optimize how you see fit. That's an idea we are considering. I've reached out to their team. So, hopefully, we get some feedback on the feasibility of that. I think it's a productive use of our resources vs the current liquidity mining program in effect on the junior side.
Stay tuned!
Keegan: Hey Max! Quick thing to add to that point. I'll introduce you to Julien at Curve. He'll help push that through or get you connected.
Max: Perfect. 👌
Tyler: Thank god. Please do. We've been trying to get in touch with them, but it's been a run-around.
They've been super communicative with us when engaged, but they're busy. Everyone in this industry gets busy. So, it will help us if you do that.
Also, to Max's point about the juniors and how we handle incentives. It's tough because I don't want to give out a bunch of information. But, I think Smart Secret will change how incentives get handled. I think it will fix the current problem of loading out the Senior side. Polygon will, as well.
Someone was in our Discord yesterday asking how to deposit 1000$ for a month on the senior side. Even at 7 GWEI– it's not worth it. The capital efficiency of being a money lego is hurting the senior side. And some of the things I've been clear about in the Discord are also issues. Polygon fixes the gas price component, and Smart Secret solves other problems.
We need to make sure not to stop rewards too soon. We don't have a set date (or I don't know if it) that rewards end or a date that Smart Secret launches. We at least need to make sure we extend the rewards long enough to keep TVL but not too long. Long term, these products need to have a positive cash-flow flywheel. We are very close to that.
TLDR; I don't want to lose TVL before that.
It's something we need to dance with the community on– we only extended the rewards until we've released our other product. I hope they trust that what's in store will be enough to need new capital incentive structures.
Max: To Tyler's point, we do have two sets of rewards going out for juniors. The first being the Compound USDC pool– scheduled to end sometime in September. The second wave rewards we voted in. They'll expire around August 8th. (if my math is correct)
With this Curve idea, if it proves feasible at both the technical and political level. It's interesting because the pool would remove the need to differentiate between different juniors on the rewards side.
AKA; Take the ongoing rewards, plow them into one pool, and see what juniors the market decides to use to get those rewards.
A combination of that Curve pool migration along with an extension of rewards around September. (I think that's a conservative timeline for Smart Secret) We'd have the runway and a way to do this without having to increase the rewards given out every week. All of this needs to get thought through still. It will be open for a long community discussion, I'm sure. We'll do the legwork on the Curve side and then present the information once we've obtained it.
Troy: I think we can move on. I believe we are all looking forward to the community discussion around that because there is a lot of information there, and it's a lot to unpack. Although, I think it makes sense.
Pavlo, do you want to give an update on what's going on with you?
Pavlo [14:31]
Pavlo: Mine will be short and sweet.
Firstly, the email newsletter, we had a slightly official newsletter ran by Max. Then Barn Burner. So, we agreed it makes more sense to put our efforts towards having one combined newsletter under the official one.
So they are getting merged. There will still be weekly additions of Barn Burner on Friday. And it will also contain project announcements and community calls– anything we've done up until now.
We've recently sent an email to everyone who has subscribed with a list regarding what content to expect going forward. If you haven't checked and you know you subscribed– make sure to check out that email.
Secondly, we've started working with a motion designer for animated explainer videos– that we discussed in the past. It's a work in progress. We are getting started, and we're excited about it already. I think that the first content piece will likely be a generalized introduction to BarnBridge.
So, that's coming along.
Lastly, more website updates are coming. We've been working on the dark theme. We aligned it with the app style– you can switch between the light/dark mode easily.
I updated some copywriting. (simplified) There are other slight updates/tweaks on the website you'll see soon.
That's generally it on my side.
Troy: Cool! Last but not least...
We were saving the best for last, and we didn't put this on the agenda. I'll let Tyler take over.
The reason why this call came out so late is because of what is getting released later today. We filmed this in the morning, but there is a bunch of stuff coming.
Tyler, would you like to do the honours?
BarnBridge & Coinbase [17:19]
Tyler: One thing, Coinbase, I think everyone will want to know. (some of this stuff may need to get cut depending on when we release this video and what happens)
We are going on Coinbase prime, and one reason we haven't retweeted it or announced anything. (I haven't liked any of the posts which are painful–and everyone is talking about it) They asked us not to amplify it at any capacity until all of their updates get launched.
We're not only getting launched on Coinbase pro but also consumer and earn. We've been working with them since November– when we created the secret service multi-sig. That was one of the reasons we decided on DAO first. Other teams that I've told, I say the same thing. To go DAO first, you need a multi-sig to operate under an NDA. We couldn't talk about what we were doing with 3% of the token supply earmarked with an asterisk for a lengthy amount of time.
In February, Coinbase went under wraps because of the IPO and listing. We didn't have our entire product suite launched at that time, so everything got delayed until now. Although, we've been working with them for quite some time. Everything from the earn videos and helping push everything along. One of the biggest things– everyone should know –I don't want to violate my NDA with Coinbase. By discussing how the tokens get distributed. But, those 300K tokens are going to new Barn Bridge community members.
So, the way you can think of this, it's a community distribution of the Bond token. People have to learn how Barn Bridge works, and through that process, they'll get Bond tokens. There are other things that we are loosely talking about with Coinbase. As a result of where some of those funds go and how we handle everything. But the bulk majority is going to users that learn about Barn Bridge.
Also, this is extremely important, and I didn't realize it beforehand. From a decentralization perspective, we have 5 - 6 thousand people with Bond tokens. (let's say it's ten because I'm unsure if Etherscan counts DAO stakers as token holders) Millions of users interact with Coinbase in one way or another.
So, we will quickly get to a vastly distributed token. With upwards of 50K - 100K users. Compound used it as a distribution mechanism that decentralized their governance better than what people did in the ICO days. From a manner of looking at this as our efforts towards decentralizing the protocol, we believe in this mechanism. (I'm more excited about this than the listing itself)
We are using it as an opportunity to teach a lot of consumers around the world– how our products work and why they are valuable to them.
Even some of the messaging that we've been saying in the Discord. And with Christian from a marketing perspective. When we first started our community, we went after the degen heavy crypto head people. The comms and communications were very complex because we aimed at attracting the most intelligent people in DeFi.
However, not only has DeFi grown, but now, we'll be in a bigger spotlight for the rest of the world.
As a result, I think you'll be seeing more questions in the Discord– some may be dumb. But we need to be cognizant and patient. We need to teach people what it is that we're building. A step further from that, I think you can also expect to see refreshes in our messaging. Based on conversations we've had with TradFi people– Max introduced me to a traditional finance person with 35 years of experience. He was giving some advice on how to communicate with TradFi. And this may reverberate towards even the average user of Barn Bridge protocol. To the point that we don't refer to it as senior or junior tranches on the yield side. It's fixed and variable instead.
I believe, as a result of the questions that get brought up and the confusion that we can expect to see, we'll have the ability to take it in and dissect it. To create comms and buckets around how we describe our products and offerings. We are starting to bridge the gap between being an esoteric Discord full of people that understand DeFi to a more mainstream appeal that captures a vast audience. I'm not saying earn will immediately give us mainstream appeal. But, it will get us the questions and the feedback that we need to improve external communications with outsiders of the ecosystem. And then we can attract those people.
So, that coupled with all of the decentralization factors that earn brings, that's what we are doing here.
Keegan: To add quick. 4C is stepping up its partnership with DeFi Dad. He hasn't done a proper tutorial since that Bankless episode that he put out last year– when the yield farming pools went live. So, let us get him queued up. Christian, and Max, we can get you guys on. We'll go through a legit demo with all the products and how to use them. Get that out to his 80K Twitter followers and his social channels.
Tyler: Nice!
Keegan: Maybe once Polygon goes live? That way, it's more retail facing.
Tyler: He can show a senior deposit. I did the math when GWEI was very high, and it's gone down substantially thanks to Polygon. But, when we first launched Smart Yield, we needed to make sure that it worked correctly on mainnet Ethereum. Because it's a money lego, you'd have to deposit 1mill for a one-month maturity before it's worth the money. Polygon changes that. Between earn and Polygon, we'll start accruing more users.
At the end of the day, BarnBridge's senior side of Smart Yield is better than any certificate of deposit, anywhere, at any bank in the entire world. The number of people depositing into a certificate of deposits every single day on three-month maturities is greater than all of DeFi combined x10. There are tons of people around the globe that will use this product if it's capital efficient and makes sense for them.
I believe we need to start thinking about the senior side that way, and DeFi Dad will push us in that direction.
Keegan: Hell yeah!
Troy: That sounds awesome, Keegan!
I put the agenda up pretty late because we were still sorting out the details with Coinbase. So, we don't have any questions from the community right now.
Pavlo: I do have one thing to add.
There is a scam website under BarnBridge.us, and they are sending private messages to Discord members. They are announcing a BarnBridge v2, and it looks very similar to our official website. So, be careful.
Tyler: We also have a 'BarnBridge Official Telegram' with over 6000 members. I don't know how we can counter it. With more eyeballs on us, we will see more scams, and I'm not sure how to combat them.
Troy: We'll have to look into it. Just know, Bond is BarnBridge, and it's BarnBridge.com
Tyler: I think BarnBridge signalled that for the industry. Sorry, Bonded finance...that it took you nearly a year to fork Compound.
Keegan: Pavlo, I have a question. I've been talking with a ton of people in the community about this. With the UI, now that there are so many products and options with the protocol.
Do you guys think that a comprehensive dashboard? Which allows you to see all the collateral you have across BarnBridge contracts. And you can manage it from one place without having to click through all the pages and track down your collateral. I've likely been in every pool at least once at some point in time. I still find crumbs around in places that I've forgotten about them.
Troy: Do you mean like a user profile/dashboard?
Keegan: Yeah!
Troy: We have so many products we are going to need something like that.
Tyler: I agree with that. I think Sushi does a great job with that– the bento box displays their products well. I told the dev team to look at how they did that and how they handle the switch from Polygon on their interface.
Keegan, the answer is yes. I know Emilio is helping with the Smart Secret modelling. After we work on the communications– like changing the senior/junior tranche wording, I think tranche scares the average consumer –and after we improve a few other aspects. When Smart Secret and Alpha are out, those will have things that we'll need to improve on.
We need to work on it now so we can implement it in August/September. Your point about dashboards is an overarching thing that needs improvement. The UI is sick. I'm not knocking on that.
Troy: It's grown!
It's a tranche! 😂
Keegan: Sounds great, guys!
Troy: I think with that, we'll let it go. We have a lot of work to get done today, In preparation for our announcement.
We're signing off! Have a good one, everyone!
Everyone: ✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️