Aura Finance - Community Newsletter (August 20th, 2022)
Welcome to the 4th ‘Purple Coin’ newsletter. The Aura Finance community continues to be engaged, passionate and focused on our vision to capture as much of the Balancer vote as possible! Aura is please to announce some truly great news. As we dive into another round of incentives on Hidden Hand, Aura can proudly report it has captured 30% of the total veBAL on the market. This is a huge milestone for Aura to achieve in bear market conditions and in such a short period of time. With 30% of the total veBAL, a number that has consistently been climbing since we started our newsletters, Aura can now lay claim to an extremely influential position within the Balancer ecosystem. Strength builds strength and 30% is only the beginning!
With the next voting round now under way, the number and size of incentives available has reached record heights. Most exciting is the arrival of Optimism incentives along with extensive participation from Badger DAO, CoW swap and DFX. These incentives from close partners and ecosystem participants are exciting for vote lockers as long-term prospects for the protocol continue to expand! The incentives themselves are the clearest indication of the importance of governance in an expanding ecosystem and we as a community continue to be encouraged by the increasing participation of partners and protocols.
Since our last newsletter there has also been a considerable number of new governance proposals. Each of these proposals seek to better align the long-term health of the protocol with the interests of Balancer and Aura users and vote lockers. Aura remains a young DAO and these governance proposals are exciting and innovative and they are certainly something to keep a close eye on. As a vote locker and a member of the DAO, or an interested 3rd party, you have the opportunity to participate in governance and create proposals for the long-term health of Aura Finance. This is the essence of what DAO governance is all about and our community continues to demonstrate remarkable insights and wisdom in the proposals being developed.
Remember, it is the community that builds a DAO, and the community that inspires each other and new partners to get involved. Stay engaged, ask questions and keep up the good work.
Community News
The community continues to spread the word about Aura across a range of platforms and spaces. The Twitter posts below are some of the highlights from the past 2 weeks:
@0xAlunara updated the community from Llama Airforce with the release of an auraBAL pounder! This new pounder auto compounds rewards into more auraBAL much like many other offerings from the ‘union’ such as CRV, FRAX and CVX. This new pounder is extremely interesting and provides another venue for auraBAL holders to place their assets to gain great benefits. https://twitter.com/0xAlunara/status/1559316677485109249
@okra_sfx continues to provide useful updates and community positivity with posts on the auraBAL accumulation plans and the use of AIP in the DAO. https://twitter.com/okra_sfx
@fiege_max gave an update on potential plans to integrate Yearn Finance strategies with stable coins into the bb-A-USD pool on Balancer and potentially leveraging Aura Finance to max rewards. This tweet provided an interesting insight into some possible moves being made by other DAO. https://twitter.com/fiege_max/status/1559192673122131969
@vestafinance Our friends at Vesta finance have been dropping some alpha about their new v2 tokenomics model for Arbitrum with plans to work more closely with Aura currently underway! https://twitter.com/DefiIgnas/status/1555116061112303616
@degeneth8 is super bullish on Aura finance. https://twitter.com/degeneth8
@GilgameshOfJPEG, from Jones DAO appears to be getting interested in Aura Finance with this recent tweet. There might be more plans afoot! https://twitter.com/GilgameshOfJPEG/status/1560705755686354944
@BadgerDAO Our friends over at Badger DAO have recently released a suite of vaults focused on Balancer LPs in Aura, including their graviAURA pool. They have integrated these into their own boost mechanics https://twitter.com/BadgerDAO/status/1558091836111167492
@SmallCapScience remains bullish and is locking more and more Aura tokens in preparation for upcoming gauge incentives. The posts from this fine contributor are consistently excellent and provide updates and analysis that support the Aura presence across Twitter. https://twitter.com/SmallCapScience/status/1560007091787599873
YouTube
YouTube remains the home of longer form content for Aura Finance, especially for news and updates. Some recent Aura community content on YouTube includes:
CRV.Marketcap gave his take on the Aura system and potential benefits of the new Balancer ve system in his video titled: An $AURA of Greatness:dizzy:
Will the so-called Convex of Balancer reshape DeFi? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF8NbGlCFfc
Trantor has provided another update on Aura and the Balancer eco system in a video titled Aura Finance - new players likely to enter the Balancer Wars. This video is created by a contributor to the protocol but reflects his personal opinion and does not necessarily represent the views of the DAO. Look out for the next video on Aura Finance in the coming days! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI8KKRAGFOk
Aura Latest News
AIP 11- Unhealthy Gauge vote Suspension
After considerable discussion between the community members of Balancer DAO, Badger DAO and Aura, Aura Improvement Proposal 11 has been passed to limit Aura voting towards unhealthy pools. Balancer has a wide range of pools eligible to receive boosted rewards but some of these pools can at times receive an unhealthy level of votes, providing outsized emissions relative to their trading fees and long term protocol health. After considerable discussion and work, AIP-11 has passed which limits voting with Aura’s BAL for pools with more than 10% of the total veBAL vote on Balancer. For more details and discussion check out the Snapshot for AIP-11 or Governance Updates channel on discord.
Treasury Diversification
Aura has just completed the 3rd round of limit orders on CoW swap which has so far achieved a USDC capture of nearly $900K USDC from across the 3 rounds. Round 4 commenced on the 19th of August with only 92K Aura tokens remaining available for swap.
Aura Admirers Telegram Group
Aura has recently created the Aura admirers Telegram group for the Whales and DAOs amongst us. If you have over 50K Aura tokens and would like to discuss all things Aura then verify and join at https://telegram.me/collablandbot?start=VFBDI1RFTCNDT01NIy0xMDAxNTUxNzcyOTc2
AuraBAL auto compounding
The team at Llama Airforce have recently completed their AuraBAL auto compounding service on the ‘union’ page. This now means there are 2 options for users to stake their AuraBAL and get auto compounding rewards outside of the Aura.app itself, namely with Badger DAO and Llama Airforce. Both are very interesting offers from our partners that support the long-term health of the Aura ecosystem.
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.
