[Grant Proposal] Notional Finance

Grants
1

What is your proposal/project that you are requesting a grant for?

This grant would help Notional launch a leveraged vault that would deposit capital into Balancer boosted pools and stake the LP tokens on Aura. For background on leveraged vaults see here: https://blog.notional.finance/introducing-leveraged-vaults/
Notional already has one Balancer / Aura leveraged vault live that has deposited ~$3M into the wstETH/ETH pool on Balancer and has staked the LP tokens on Aura. You can see the UI for this leveraged vault here: Notional Finance - DeFi Fixed Rates

This grant would allow Notional to launch leveraged vaults that put capital into the Aave boosted pool, the upcoming Euler boosted pool, and any other boosted pool that Balancer and Aura launch in the future and then stake the LP tokens on Aura. This grant would pay for the audit of the boosted pool leveraged vault code.

How does the grant aim to provide value to the Balancer and Aura Ecosystems?

This grant would primarily increase TVL for Balancer and Aura and establish a steady source of LP capital by integrating directly with Notional.

Leveraged vaults allow users to borrow from Notional to put capital into yield sources like Balancer and Aura. This integration would directly increase the TVL of Balancer boosted pools and Aura.

What is the requested grant and individual milestone/tranche amounts?

We are requesting $37.5k to cover the cost of the audit. We would propose the full payment at the end.

What are the milestones and the timeline?

The milestone would be the launch of the leveraged vault. We are currently setting up the audit and would expect to have the vault live in January.

Can you quantify the expected value add?

We would launch with an initial capacity of $5M (leading to $5M of initial TVL boost for Balancer and Aura). We would expect to ramp this capacity up per pool and to launch further leveraged vaults like the Euler boosted pool vault as Balancer lists additional boosted pools. So I think the impact over time could be very large.

Is this proposal value for money for the Balancer and Aura Ecosystems?

Yes. This grant is only for the audit expense - all the backend development as well as the frontend development and marketing of the product will be covered by Notional.

Who is the team and what is their experience to successfully deliver the project?

This is the Notional core team. We have a proven track record - we already have one Balancer/Aura leveraged vault live in beta that has put about $3M of TVL into Balancer and Aura at this point.

What information/resources do you need from us?

Nothing more than the grant.

3 Likes
2

This is a co-sponsored grant request that will be shared between Balancer and Aura.

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3

Hey @Contributor - what exactly does the co-sponsorship with Balancer entail? Also is the request for $37.5k of Aura?

4

Hey, brother, if it passes Balancer governance, but doesn’t pass ours, they’ll pay the full amount. If it passes both BAL and ours, we’ll split the grant amount evenly. If it doesn’t pass BAL, but passes on our end, we’ll go back to BAL and the project to discuss the next steps to take under those circumstances. Co-sponsorship primarily refers to the grant amount; any KPIs and following up with the grant will mostly be BAL’s responsibility.

5

I’m curious to review both proposals. Is the Balancer one up yet? I don’t think I saw it on their forum.

Also is the Notional grant request from Aura the $37.5k? or is it $18.75k? And is the request from Notional to be paid that amount in Aura? or in something else?

6

Balancer has a different review process then us–I believe the initial entries aren’t public. However, the above doc is a direct copy-paste of what was submitted to Balancer. It’s not customized for us. 37.5K is the total. I can ping Notional regarding AURA/stables, but I believe they should be fine w/ either.

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7

Hey guys, Teddy from Notional here. We have a slight preference for payment in stables, but AURA would be fine too.

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8

Welcome to the community, brother!

9

This proposal has been moved to the AEF committee for deliberation. The results will be published here in the next few days.

10

This proposal provides a lot of potential value and new TVL opportunities for new vaults and positions within the ecosystem. The cost is relatively small for the potential value inflow and benefit to Aura Finance. Finally, Aura remains very supportive of new participants and their desire for a security audit bodes well for their security focus and the healthy integration of their strategies. This grant request has been APPROVED.