Saddle x Solidex AMA
TL;DR: Saddle hosted an AMA in Discord regarding their proposition to partner with Solidex by providing our ve(3,3) NFT in exchange for convex-like tokens. The partnership was confirmed shortly after this AMA session.
Rachel 0:00
Talking about our partnership talking about the new protocol yeah excited don't forget to get your questions ready
Zim 0:29
Gm
Rachel 0:35
Good morning Zim. How’s everyone in the server today?
Zim 0:48
Guys-put your questions in the Townsquare chat if you have questions for the Solidex folks.
We’ll just wait a sec for- oh Sunil’s already in here. Cool, we will get started in just a sec. Sunil, are you there?
Sunil 1:42
Yep. Gm.
Zim 1:44
All right. Let's get going. So we made a bit of a funny, not sexy goof. But starting from the Solidex team we’ll be answering questions async in the Townsquare chat. He’s missing an intro shortly. So please drop your questions into Townsquare chat. For the AMA, it will be the Saddle folks. And I'll just be asking Sunil and the team about the Solidex partnership. So we'll just kick that off. Sunil, will you share a bit about-maybe give us like a like a run through of, you know, launching and Fantom, ve(3,3). And you know, just the events leading up to the partnership- with the proposed partnership with Solidex.
Sunil 2:41
Yeah, absolutely. So it come to our attention that Andre was running a program to essentially bootstrap his new AMM protocol on Fantom called Solidly. And they were planning to distribute basically ve(3,3) NFTs to the top 20 or 25 projects by TVL, by Snapshot on DefiLlama to basically bootstrap, giving away token governance tokens for the protocol. So we kind of saw this as an exciting opportunity for Saddle to, you know, take the initiative to launch on Fantom.
And this all happened, I want to say on the Friday leading up to the Snapshot, which was on a Sunday. So we quickly hit up our friends at Frax and Synapse to see if there was a way for us to potentially work together. We worked out a pool composition for USDC and Frax. And we would be using Synapse for bridging over TVL and reached out to a bunch of our partners and other friends. And once the Snapshot was taken, we were actually in 21st place, which was just outside of the of the initial 20 protocols that he had announced. But we ended up getting pretty lucky. They ended up bumping the amount of protocols that are eligible to be 25. And so we were able to actually receive be eligible to receive one of these ve(3,3) NFTs.
There are a few projects that we're looking into doing a similar sort of like convex-like layer on top of these NFTs to basically allow all of the recipients to give their ve(3,3), and basically be able to keep up to all of those voting rights, as well as receive additional governance tokens and rights. And in this particular case, for Solidex. And so we consulted with a bunch of the other projects who were interested in, you know, potentially working with Solidex as well.
And Solidex seems to have, you know, a lot of the larger blue chips already on board. And for this sort of thing I really feel like whoever similar to convex, whoever is able to get the largest amount of, you know, these sorts of governance tokens is going to have network effects. And so that's where we ended up with SIP-6, which is currently up for vote and folks had asked for an AMA and so we reached out to the team to see if we'd be able to arrange that and so here we are.
Zim 4:59
Wow, awesome. Yeah, I'm pumped for this, like, convex layer on Fantom. And yeah, the Solidly seems and Solidex seem just, you know, just like really exciting. Are there any differences to call out? You know, I think the comparison is like Solidly to Solidex is like Curve to Convex. Is that, like an apt comparison? And also how, like, how do you imagine this to evolve differently than, you know, what's happening on Mainnet? For example, where Curve just, you know, has, I think, dominance.
Sunil 5:40
From my understanding that, like actual functionality should be like, fairly similar in terms of like, what functionalities, Solidex offers, compared to like something like Convex. Maybe Rachel, are you familiar with some of the more I guess, like technical differences?
Rachel 5:59
Between curve and Saddle? Is that the conversation? Sorry? Your question cut out a little bit.
Sunil 6:06
I think we're wondering about Convex versus Solidex, or maybe … could chime in in the chat.
Rachel 6:13
Originally, I'm not sure of the difference. It was one of my questions.
Zim 6:17
Cool. Well, let's, let's drop that in the Townsquare chat. I think last night, or Bas was about to I think I see him typing. Okay, cool. Well, moving on. For SDL holders, what does that mean? Because, you know we want bags, right? When we up.
Sunil 6:41
Yeah, totally. So the Solidly team had reached out to collect addresses for where to distribute ve(3,3) NFT. We'd given them our community multisig address, we've basically set up the same Gnosis Safe on each of the teams that we've launched, you can find out more information about who the signers are on our documentation website. It's currently like a three of seven multisig. And so the protocol owns all of these assets, right? So whatever benefits and utility comes from ownership of this portion of Solidly will be directly controlled by token holders via governance.
Zim 7:23
Cool, awesome. Let's see if anyone has…So we're going to take some crowd questions shortly. And also, the Solidex team will be answering questions async in the chat. So if anyone in the audience has questions, please. either raise your hand or just drop it in the chat. Wait, one sec. All right. Looks like Emac. I'm gonna invite you up to speak. I don't know if it's working. Let's see, I guess a point of confusion of clarification, for me, what is like, why is ve(3,3), innovative, right? And what are the implications for the rest of the DeFi community?
Sunil 8:21
So, the vote escrowed token model, pioneered by Curve has become very, very popular. And so how that works is people are effectively able to lock up their governance tokens for a period of I think it's between a couple of weeks up to four years. And once you do that, those become untradable. So they're locked to a particular address. But then they also allow you to basically vote on where the permissions for the protocol will go. Inflation.
And so what Andre did with this ve(3,3) model is he took Olympus, who pioneered the three three mechanics, took some aspects of their mechanism design, and basically incorporated it into the (-) model as well. So for example, the inflation and the ve(3,3) model basically goes down relative to how much of the governance token is actually locked to basically in play people who are not locking their tokens up. They're also making the NFT positions tradable. So they'll be able to be like shuffled across accounts.
That's why they're using these like sort of NFTs for this distribution, at least. And there's a couple other differences. I can drop a link to the article that Andre had written that kind of does a very, very good job of explaining all the different terminology as well as they're like three different deviations from the existing standard. I'll drop that in the Townsquare chat.
Zim 9:52
Awesome. Thank you. Let's see. So Solidex seems to have lots of sexy copy. What should we expect- I guess like as a community, what can we do to engage with Solidex? And you know, there any actions or things that we should be aware of? You know, it just says as SDL community members.
Sunil 10:22
Yeah, right now, I would definitely recommend everybody read up on the actual protocol. I can drop another couple of links from their blog. They do a really great job of kind of explaining how Solidex is thinking about bootstrapping their network, as well as a little bit of their background. From the Saddle side, we still have the snapshot vote up. So I'd encourage everyone to, you know, ask any questions that you may have about how this partnership could potentially look. And then please vote on Snapshot. And then, you know, assuming that the Snapshot vote goes, well, we'll go forward. You know, with starting to collaborate with them.
Zim 11:00
Cool, awesome. Yeah, that Snapshot is live. Check it out. Awesome. I think that is it. For now.
Sunil 11:15
Do we really want to go over some of the answers that Bas has been typing in the Townsquare? Chat?
Zim 11:24
Yeah. Let's see. Let's just catch everybody else up on the chat. I'm actually just reading through it now.
Sunil 11:42
Well I can take the first question from WhipJenkins. So they had asked, “if we do indeed partner with Solidex, will we encourage Frax and Synapse to come along with you?”
That'd be awesome. And so I can say that I have actually already introduced both the Frax and Synapse teams to Solidex, and I believe they're-at least planning to do more investigation, I think Synapse actually recently, or is planning to put up a vote as well. So I think there's a good chance, we'll see those protocols come over. This is definitely something like I mentioned before, where there's going to be a lot of network effects. So as more and more protocols basically pile on to Solidex, I'd expect to see, you know, a lot more protocols passing votes in the next few days as we approach the NFT distribution deadline.
Zim 12:34
Awesome. Yes, this is recorded DeFine. Yeah, seems like by Bas and Solidex are quite invested in the Fantom ecosystem.
This is also a question for Rachel, maybe we can share a bit about Saddles plans are for Fantom, and maybe like, you know, could be speculative, but what our hope is for growth in that ecosystem.
Rachel 13:12
Sure, I can talk about that. So as we may know, the Fantom ecosystem is pretty well set up to be like kind of a stablecoin hub. Which as an automated market maker that like specifically caters to pay to value crypto assets. Saddle is uniquely positioned to kind of take market share in that area, as well, as Fantom is known to be popular with institutions, in particular-Western Europe.
And I mean, crypto has become a pretty essential financial tool for those institutions at this time. So there's definitely significant, like liquidity to be to be had in the ecosystem. And I think that Saddle in particular with with our team, I, I don't think it's a secret that I think we have the best team in DeFi-no offense to Solidex or anything like that.
But yeah, I mean, there's definitely something to be said about the speculative future that we're trying to create here at Saddle, as well as making room to innovate and do different things and experiments, even if that means not being successful or being more successful than we anticipate. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, to say, It's okay to get results that you didn't anticipate. I guess. Did that answer the question?
Zim 14:37
Sunil, there's anything you want to add to that?
Sunil 14:42
Yeah, I think we're really starting to see the Fantom ecosystem start to take off and we're really excited to, you know, play a larger role in that . We're really excited to start collaborating with a bunch of other protocols that are looking for, you know, a StableSwap facility. We've also launched a SEMPI program as part of our bounties for bandits grants program and so we're also looking for like other protocols and products. I want to get involved in that. And I think the Fantom ecosystem is an awesome group of folks adapted to.
Zim 15:13
Yeah, totally. Also, the spooky theme is killer. And now with Solidex it will be...spooky and sexy and who doesn't love sexy Halloween? Alright, cool. So, here's a good question that I just want to share…asked, you know, “what is a partnership or will be mutually beneficial about the partnership between Saddle and Solidex?”
And I think this is particularly interesting. So, after Solidex is launched, we'll be able to deposit our ve(3,3) NFTs and earn boosted Solid rewards without having to lock them up. And of course, you also get SEX rewards, which is a native token of Solidex and yeah, sounds like you know, Convex, but sexier. So that is fantastic. We will have a very sexy spooky SDL. Fantastic.
And let's see another quick cool thing to call out it seems like Emac had asked you know what other partners so we've so it looks like Solidex already has: Multichain, Geist, Curve, Ren, Yearn, and veDAO joining officially and I'm sure they will have many more in the pipeline. So cool. Yep. So if you haven't already checked out, check out the Townsquare chat drop your questions and you know we'll answer async.
Sunil 16:54
Just one more question up here. Aboogee had asked what other particular reasons why Yearn and Curve signed up so quickly to Solidex? And so you know, I can't say to definitively but I'm pretty sure it's because all those teams have a very close relationship with Andre. He had actually messaged a few folks, not quite an endorsement, but he said that he had like known the Solidex team, knows that they're like code is very high quality…had kind of spoken to the quality of the project which is like as close of an endorsement as we get out of the Andre. So I think that played like a really big factor and to apply a lot of these protocols have decided to hop on board with Solidex.
Zim 17:40
Yes. The Andre mafia. Excellent. Dude, this is just like, you know, for my own personal curiosity. I mean, Solidly directly competes with Curve, right. And what do you think is going to be that relationship on Fantom moving forward?
Sunil 18:01
That's a really interesting question. I, you know, I think that with how this space is moving forward, and I think there's going to be like a lot of layer ones and layer twos, that are like new ones that are going to be launching in the near future and over the course of the year. So I wouldn't expect like Curve and Solidly to compete on like every single chain. Obviously, I don't know what Andre’s plans are for Multichain horizontally. But I'd expect that you know, they wouldn't be like direct competitors at least in terms of like their target market that they're going after. But again, this is all speculation. Who knows with with Andre he almost certainly is cooking up some very, very awesome stuff.
Zim 18:48
Awesome. Yeah, I had a question, but I forgot anyway. Does anybody in the audience wants to ask or hop on the stage and ask any questions or, you know, make some sexy jokes. Or just sexy not jokes. Gotta love the SEX tokens. That reminds me of SBF 420 million invested from 69 investors. Ser. These are great things with a capital C. Cool. If nobody has questions, I guess we can close with maybe just like when you think the proposal-the Snapshot proposal real quick and Sunil if you want to call out anything that's good to pay attention to or that may not be on there. I know someone in a different setting had asked about what pools will be. There'll be going live with and or maybe that will be will want supported. Yeah, anything to call out on the proposals specifically.
Sunil 20:02
Yeah, absolutely, I'd highly recommend everyone to take a read our partnership... fantastic job. There's also a couple links within there that have also been dropped in the Townsquare chat for where you can read a little bit more about how Solidex is actually approaching their launch. Yeah.
Zim 20:23
All right, fantastic. Well, thanks, everybody for joining. Hope you all had a good time. Stay sexy out there. And, yeah, let's get some: Solidex, Solid, and SEX rewards for everybody. SDL bag holders to the moon. Essentially,
Sunil 20:46
I would also encourage- so Bas is still around in the Townsquare chat. So please, if you have any other questions for the Solidex team, feel free to drop them in there. He's going through them one by one. And so he is obviously going to be the person who is there's the most about how Solidex is thinking about these partnerships and whatnot and what the future holds for them. So I'd encourage you to drop any questions in the Townsquare chat.
Zim 21:10
Awesome. Alrighty everybody. We'll see you in the chat. Great day everybody.
Sunil 21:22
Later.
Saddle Finance: https://saddle.exchange/
Solidex: https://solidexfinance.com/#/home
Saddle Twitter: https://twitter.com/saddlefinance
Solidex Twitter: https://twitter.com/SolidexFantom
Saddle Discord: discord.gg/saddle
Solidex Telegram: https://t.me/SolidexOfficial