Aura Finance - Community Newsletter (January 8th, 2023)
Community News
Hello Meditators and welcome to 2023. Let’s hope 2023 is a little kinder to the crypto markets than 2022! Despite overall market weakness however, the Aura community and the protocol have fared better than most. Launching during the height of the bear market, delivering on promises, capturing veBAL and maintaining value for holders have been some very noteworthy achievements. But of course, Aura won’t stop there!
2022 has been a year filled with some of the biggest collapses that crypto has ever seen, outside of Mt Gox of course, but protocols continue to build and defi continues to grow. Notably, the biggest collapses have largely been the result of centralized greed and corruption, something that DeFi is avoiding by design. It is decentralization that appears to be the reinforcing message here and Aura Finance is living the decentralization vision better than most. Recent Delegate Council elections have been successfully completed including the election of Yakitori, from Astrolab fi, to vote on proposals in support of the best interests of Aura Finance. The contributors continue to support new products and grantees through the ecosystem fund and opinions about a range of issues continue to be shared in the Aura Finance discord. All are great marks of a functioning and healthy ecosystem.
2022 has also seen a massive increase in the Total Value Locked in Aura Finance with well over 400 Million USD in Aura’s boosted pools. This represents an enormous percentage of Balancer’s Ethereum pools currently staked in Aura Finance and 2023 will see expansion into Layer 2’s such as Polygon and Arbitrum.
Finally, it is the acquisition of veBAL in the form of auraBAL that continues to drive value to vote locked Aura holders. AuraBAL is currently yielding very high returns to incentivise the minting and holding of auraBAL with discussions ongoing on how to best accelerate this growth. Be on the look out for proposals and ideas on the forum for how this will all play out!
@notional finance have released the Beta version of their ETH/wstETH leveraged vault and provided an update on their planned security audits after receiving Balancer and Aura funding from the grants committee. There is also a link to their newsletter and the year in review in the thread which is full of all the great stuff our friends at Notional Finance are doing. https://twitter.com/NotionalFinance/status/1611008938413006848
@gearboxprotocol are also discussing some ideas in their own forums on the potential to host liquidity on Balancer and Aura. Definitely worthwhile checking out the tweet to see what they are up to and what they are proposing here. https://twitter.com/GearboxProtocol/status/1610966240444416001
@jarvis_network are looking to push their liquidity for a series of synthetic stable coins using the Balancer ecosystem. With plenty of Balancer votes currently up and increasing engagement with the Aura community it is certainly worth checking out what they are up to! https://twitter.com/Jarvis_Network/status/1610965747861274624
The Block Geeks @blockgks have been keeping a close on eye on Aura Finance and the Balancer ecosystem. The recent summary and TLDR on Aura Finance has been well received and is worth a read for those new to DeFi and Aura Finance. https://twitter.com/Blockgks/status/1610418756135837697
@0xShual has posted an interesting discussion piece on the future value of Liquid Staking Derivatives and their importance to the Curve and Balancer ecosystems. The responses from across CT were also great with notable responses from @cryptocondom and @Punkgod. Discussions like this are what de-centralization is all about, people discussing and learning from each other! https://twitter.com/0xShual/status/1610244472285335552
WaynΞ @0505Crypto is a big believer in the cbETH pools and has provided some interesting numbers for potential upside in the event of re-pegging and for the sweet 10% yields on offer at Aura Finance. https://twitter.com/0505Crypto/status/1609378496144633856
@solarcurve has made some excellent tweets recently that have discussed the recent increase in Balancer fee generation, including surpassing Curve for the month of December, as well as discussing all of the great work being done by Aura Finance. Always great to hear positive feedback from a Balancer Maxi! https://twitter.com/0xSolarcurve/status/1608853556320436230
@Sagattya, we love seeing our non-English tweets getting some traction. Hello and keep up the good work for our Japanese friends! https://twitter.com/sagattya_/status/1611277787222126592
YouTube
YouTube is the home of longer form content for Aura Finance, especially for news and updates.
Trantor has completed a December and 2023 update video covering the latest goings on. The video covers market updates, partner protocols and short round up of the Balancer wars.check it out: Aura Finance- December and 2023 updates - YouTube
Keep a keen eye out for videos from Market capping too!
Aura News
Second Merkle Drop
The second Merkle drop of Aura rewards for migrated gauges is now live! This drop represents some of the Aura rewards that were minted but not distributed as a result of the LP migrations that occurred over the past month. To claim your Aura rewards make sure you head over to Aura to claim them. Further details here:
Github:
Contract:
Vote Locking protocols
After such a huge year for Aura finance it is worth checking out some of the protocols who are actively locking their Aura to vote on pools and for governance proposals. A non-exclusive list includes Inverse Finance, Temple DAO, Stargate, Beethoven X, Paladin, Redacted Cartel, Badger DAO, Astrolab Fi, Gnosis DAO and LIDO.
These protocols are focused on the long term health of the Aura flywheel and the Balancer ecosystem, great partners to build with in 2023!
The Staked Ethereum story
If you have been keeping up with the Crypto Twitter narratives over the past few months you will be very familiar with the ongoing developments surrounding staked Ethereum. Importantly you would likely be very familiar with some of the Liquid Staked Derivatives out there such as wstETH and rETH from Lido and Rocket Pool respectively and how important these are as core pools within the Balancer ecosystem. With some of the largest pools on Aura being Staked ETH pools, be on the look out for some upcoming big moves from Aura Finance in this space and how it may impact gauge voting. Make sure you are following Aura Finance and the Aura Intern on Twitter to stay up to date!
The Ohm-ies are coming??
OHM have recently created a forum discussion post to discuss the merits of purchasing up to $1m of Aura tokens over the next 6 months. They are seeking to gain exposure to governance in the Balancer and Aura ecosystem and increase their liquidity positions on Balancer directly. Head on over to their forum to express your support for their entrance to the Aura Wars!
Fraxians
Frax, much like OHM above, have also began discussions about moving their liquidity over to the Balancer ecosystem after their very successful moves in the convex/curve wars in 2021 and 2022. Keep an eye out for more TVL in the FRAX pools and new Frax gauges in the coming weeks and months
Aura Merchandise
Congratulations to our lucky winners in the re-locking contest who will receive an Aura merchandise pack from Aura Finance. The winners have already been contacted and can expect to receive a pack in the mail in the coming days and weeks! These packs were funded using an Aura Ecosystem Fund Grant in 2022.
Aura Delegate Council
The Aura Finance community, the Meditators, would like to welcome Yakitori from Astrolab, to the Aura Delegate Council. This council votes on Aura Improvement Proposals and Balancer proposals within the Aura governance framework. We welcome the inputs from such an esteemed contributor!
DeFi Wars
Remember to track the Aura Wars and the Balancer wars and how they are playing out at the following links:
Aura Wars: Aura Wars
Balancer Wars: Balancer Wars
Meditator NFT
We have had 2 more epic NFT minted…. but still no Legendary. With only 0.5% of the supply being Legendary NFT, who will be the first to mint one of these glorious NFT. Whoever mints the first one will hopefully share what it looks like on twitter and in the discord!
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.