Community Newsletter 12
Aura Finance - Community Newsletter (December 10th, 2022)
Community News
Happy festive season Meditators! With crypto volatility continuing across the entire space, as the FTX debacle continues to play out, the Aura community remains strong and ready for whatever may come. Aura has recently climbed in TVL to over $450 Million with a 22% veBAL capture across the Balancer ecosystem. It continues to be worth noting that not all of that veBAL votes on emissions so the strength of the Aura votes is likely much larger than the 22 % would imply!
The past couple weeks have seen some very interesting developments for Aura finance including the signing of a Peace treaty with the veBAL whale, Humpy, for a more healthy and equitable system of governance moving forward. You can read all about the peace treaty including the terms and agreements in the latest snapshot here. There is a TLDR further in the document and you can read BIP 128 for more details. In other news Aura Finance is about to migrate nearly all of the LPs across to a new set of pools commencing on the 13th of December. This migration is being completed in a deliberate and detailed manner to allow for some security updates to be made and for some new features to be implemented. More details below.
In some big signs of strength for the Aura ecosystem we are also seeing very large staked ETH deposits across a number of pools. Currently there is over 200 Million in wstETH/WETH pool yielding over 7% and a new entrant currently yielding over 15% in the form of rETH/wstETH/sfrxETH. Each of these pools provide excellent returns for pools in ETH which drives enormous TVL to Balancer and Aura ecosystems. Further developments from Silo, Notional Finance, Jones DAO, Resonate and others continue to ensure that the future for Aura Finance looks bright.
Check out some of the great community content below. To see your tweets or community focused content displayed in the newsletter then ensure you tag @aurafinance!
Steve P @steve0xp has done an enormous 32 part thread that explains types of Balancer pools, Aura Finance and significantly more about the entire ecosystem. This thread is an absolute treasure trove of information and takes the spot for our best tweet/thread for this Newsletter! https://twitter.com/steve0xp/status/1598750525721382912
Barry Fried 
@BarryFried1 has completed a very insightful thread on Balancer and Impermanent Loss. With detailed breakdowns and examples that cover a myriad of differing options this is a great thread to learn more about the ecosystem. https://twitter.com/BarryFried1/status/1598370252752326656
Everything Blockchain 
@EverythingB0x has completed a detailed twitter thread that discusses the benefits of the Notional Finance leveraged vaults and how they have been integrated with Aura Finance. If you are interested in leveraged vaults, especially for your staked ETH positions, then this thread might be worth a read. https://twitter.com/EverythingB0x/status/1601291638793306113
Wired Network @wiredprotocol has linked us to an interesting International Business Times article that provides a TLDR on the Aura Finance ecosystem. Although this is not really a community article it is nice to see increased interest in Aura Finance from a variety of news and pop-news sites. It means we are getting attention! https://twitter.com/wiredprotocol/status/1601275494774743041
Picsou23(
,
)@QcPicsou23 is very bullish on the work being done by the Jones DAO ‘Jeenies” to bring further integrations with their new jAURA vaults as well as the recent returns on their DPX vaults. Congrats to the Jeenies! https://twitter.com/QcPicsou23/status/1601270431264419842
Small Cap Scientist 
@SmallCapScience our long time friend has ensured that the new vault migration is being shared widely and accurately. Good point on marking our calendars to ensure we migrate at the right moment! https://twitter.com/SmallCapScience/status/1601077289454047232
hash_error@HashError has welcomed Across protocol to Aura Finance and their new pools. Exciting times and great new partnerships with Across. https://twitter.com/HashError/status/1600912727740149761
Larpseidon.bera @Larpseidon has come up with some interesting ideas using Themis protocol and leveraged vaults using both Balancer and Aura Finance. Some interesting stuff here, although Themis v2.0 is apparently coming soon??? https://twitter.com/Larpseidon/status/1600862880391258112
GEM HODLERS News & Marketing Co.® 
@TheGemHodlers have written an article explaining the entire race for veBAL, the Balancer wars and the benefits of Aura Finance. The article is a very clear and well presented summary of the protocol that drives home the benefits of amassing AuraBAL tokens, and vlAURA tokens for DAOs who are interested in maximising their liquidity. https://twitter.com/TheGemHodlers/status/1600772462739918848
Paladin 
@Paladin_vote. Our friends at Paladin have written an inspirational piece on the current state of the Balancer wars. The details and the depth of the discussions and analysis are very good and are a great start point for anyone who wants to see what the future of Aura and indeed TetuBAL might look like as the 2 layers looking to amass veBAL voting power for their protocols. https://twitter.com/Paladin_vote/status/1600536702203863041
@Balancer have included Aura Finance as Day 5 in their 25 days of Builders series on Twitter. We love the Christmas spirit! https://twitter.com/ApyVision/status/1592729200250978305
Noximus @Noximus5 has provided some French Language content for our French readers that covers off on Balancer, Paladin and importantly aura Finance. It has been too long since we saw some good non-English content! https://twitter.com/Noximus5/status/1600499799899660289
Silo @SiloFinance have completed their Aura Finance vaults for lending and borrowing. Earning around 7% per deposit for Aura is a great option and is part of some very interesting AIP votes over the past couple of weeks. https://twitter.com/SiloFinance/status/1599746207718309888
jasperthefriendlyghost.eth @Jasper_ETH has some very strong opinions about onboarding the new CoinBase staked ETH token into Aura vaults as per BIP 128. The view is that it is bad for de-centralization and that Aura might be making a mistake in voting for the inclusion of the cbETH pool. It is great to see discussion on what Aura is doing in terms of governance and we hope to see more of this discussion in the forum in the future so everyone can make the best decisions in support of the DAO’s future. https://twitter.com/Jasper_ETH/status/1599056893565030400
0xkaisn @0xkaisn, yes we agree, great news that the Balancer wars have ended. This will be ratified in BIP 128. https://twitter.com/0xkaisn/status/1598397267949793280
YouTube
YouTube is the home of longer form content for Aura Finance, especially for news and updates.
Ceazor, of Ceazor snack sandwich fame, has done a complete break down video on Aura Finance and the Hidden Hand ecosystem. This video provides an in-depth summary of the entire ecosystem through explanations and guides in a manner that only Ceazor can! Balancer - Aura Finance - Hidden Hand - ecosystem $BAL, $AURA - YouTube
Shelley Mae has done a video on Notional finance and using Aura vaults. Some interesting ideas in here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndaYBq7_hDo
Aura News
The Balancer Wars – Peace at last!
With BIP 128 currently up for a vote and all parties seemingly agreeable to the compromise, the Balancer wars have taken a new turn. The Whale, known as Humpy and his delegates, have come to an agreement with the Balancer and Aura Finance contributors to bury the hatchet and to move forward in the best possible spirit of ecosystem health. Paladin have done a very detailed summary of what took place here (https://weeklygauge.substack.com/p/weekly-gauge-23-burying-the-hatchet ) which provides some great perspectives. The wonderful part about this peace treaty is the commitment from both sides on finding a fair and equitable way forward. To read more about how Aura and Humpy will apply vote weights to future pools, head over to Snapshot and read the proposal.
Aura LP Migration
Early next week, a migration is scheduled to take place for Aura liquidity providers (not vlAURA or the auraBAL token). Liquidity providers will have 7 days to opt into this migration to continue earning rewards going forward, as Aura is entirely non-custodial and even the multisig cannot migrate on the user’s behalf. The upgrade includes new features to allow for easier cross-chain implementation, and gives Aura more flexibility in fee capture to create a sustainable flywheel by enabling reward boosting on certain pools. This migration is a sign of a strong focus on security and long term health and is being completed in a controlled and deliberate way. For more details head over to Telegram, Twitter or the discord for a full explanation https://twitter.com/AuraFinance/status/1601065333925650432 .
Frax enters the Fray??
Frax finance has recently launched the new rETH/wstETH/sfrxETH pool which is currently yielding a very nice return on those interested in staked ETH derivatives. Pool size at the moment remains modest although is likely to increase significantly as Frax seeks to build deeper liquidity on their positions and to compete with the Lido and Rocket Pool ETH pools. Watch this space for more developments!
Silo Finance
In our last newsletter we spoke about AIP 18 and the planned capital injection of Aura into the Silo Finance protocol. With AIP 18 having passed and the deposits made, it is now possible for users to deposit their Aura tokens and earn yield in a risk isolated manner. This integration is the first on-chain lending pool for $AURA, greatly expanding the use case for the Aura token.
Aura’s Balancer votes and the Delegate Council
Aura Finance has moved to a new and improved voting strategy that allows for the best possible voting options for the Aura ecosystem. In the new system, Aura users can vote directly on Balancer Improvement Proposals internally to Aura using their vlAURA. The winning vote then carries over to a Winer takes all vote using all of Aura’s veBAL voting power to vote on any Balancer gauges. This new system was not without challenges prior to the signing of the aforementioned peace treaty, but it has finally been implemented and is now ready to go! If you are not interested in voting for every Balancer vote you can also delegate your votes to the Aura Delegate Council. The Delegate Council votes on internal Aura proposals much like any other vlAURA voter but uses the combined weight of everyone who has delegated to them. This is a great way to ensure that your votes will always count towards the best interests of the DAO without needing to track every single vote on a weekly basis.
DeFi Wars
The legends over at defi wars have created an easy to use and understand dash board that provides a summary of the Aura wars and who controls the most Aura! This dashboard neatly complements the one already constructed on Balancer Wars and provides a very useful point of comparison. Check them out here:
Aura Wars: https://www.defiwars.xyz/wars/aura
Balancer Wars: https://www.defiwars.xyz/wars/balancer
Meditator NFT
For those who continue to relock their Aura positions there is some exciting news, the first of the Legendary NFT is still yet to be minted! Who will be the first to mint one of these Legendary Meditators? To relock your Aura head over to the Aura.app and relock before your vlAURA expires to ensure you don’t miss out on any vote weight and to have a chance at minting one the legendary NFT!
Eco-system Governance
To get the latest on Aura governance updates head over to the Aura Discord and track the channel ‘Governance updates’.
Disclaimer
This newsletter is not official Aura correspondence and is written by community members.