AladdinDAO by the A-Team #6

October 6th, 2023

Howdy friends! Well that was a fun September, wasn’t it‽ Just an absolute boat load to talk about, and your buddy Kmets is dying to share all of it with you. I still can’t believe that in 6 short months f(x) Protocol went from being an idea born out of necessity, to being at the heart of defi conversations and partnered with none other than Convex Finance! A month full of beta testing, partnerships, and of course new A-Team members: September was up-only for AladdinDAO…so let’s get cracking!

📈 Protocol Metrics

🏛 Aladdin Month in Review

🤯 Convex & f(x) Protocol: Best Friends!

👯‍♂️ Let’s Get Friendly: Friend Tech + Booster Games!

🧞 A-Team News and Updates: Meet the New Members!

Nothing said in this newsletter is financial advice. Please do your own research and only invest what you’re ready to lose. Good luck in your Defi adventures!

📈 Protocol Metrics

🏛️ Aladdin Month in Review

Big shout out to @stark_sharingan (Discord: SKHolmes) for once again helping curate all the things that happened in AladdinDAO in September! Things like curating the efforts of the DAO are very much appreciated by the core team, the A-Team, and the community at large! This dude has earned your booster votes…don’t forget him during the upcoming Clever/FX rounds!

Let’s dive in:

Here’s volume 4 of the continuing curation series:

And Volume 5:

And Volume 6:

And finally Volume 7…so much stuff this month!

🤯 Convex & f(x) Protocol: Best Friends!

In case you have been living under a rock, (or a deep coma) Convex Finance and f(x) Protocol have formed a brand new partnership! This fantastic partnership took everyone by surprise, from the core team to the community. Let’s talk a little about it so that folks know what happened and what to expect from here on out!

A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away…

As most Aladdin folks know, Convex and Aladdin have been working together for some time now. The first integration of Convex products with Aladdin’s was when Concentrator came online with its Convex based harvesters that fed into the flagship compounder aCRV. Aladdin worked with Convex so that Convex would understand that Concentrator would essentially be acting as a permanent buyer of cvxcrv to autocompound for its vault participants. This relationship continued to grow as Concentrator eventually began to grow it’s Convex-centric offerings to also have a autocompounding cvxFXS/FXS vault: aFXS.

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In the spring of 2022, Aladdin decided to expand to a second Convex-centric protocol with CLever: a protocol to allow vlCVX holders to obtain non-liquidating leverage on their vlCVX holdings. This protocol became an immediate success, obtaining a million vlCVX under management within 6 months of release.

medium.com

CLever then spawned one of Aladdin’s most well received product releases in early 2023: abcCVX! CLever has since become a protocol that is one of the strongest power players in DeFi governance, with each veCLEV having the governance power of 135 vlCVX! WOW!

A New Hope

So as you can see, Aladdin has been closely watched by Convex since the very beginning of the launch of Concentrator. The core teams are in regular communication and have always had a fantastic working relationship. So it makes sense that when Aladdin started to make waves with the testing of f(x) Protocol, Convex was watching very closely.

Convex reached out to Aladdin in early August after successful launch of f(x) on mainnet. Like many DAO’s that suffered through the USDC depeg (and many other stablecoin depegs) in mid-March of this year, Convex was interested in finding stablecoin solutions that were no longer reliant on exogenous centralized entities. Naturally, the conversations flowed towards “what if…” and within about a couple weeks of initial discussions, Aladdin was off and running to ensure that the FXN token launch and ve-tokenomics system of governance would be compatible with Convex adoption as cvxFXN!

Once the partnership had been firmed up, Convex also assisted Aladdin in reviewing contracts and in purchasing seed liquidity for the cvxFXN vault. Within a few weeks it was apparent that f(x) was about to become the third protocol to be absorbed by Convex. I must admit, the Aladdin core team was nearly busting to tell folks! And we had a blast watching folks speculate on the partnership as well!

Rise of the Jedi

From here forward, Convex and f(x) are aligned to make this partnership work for both in a mutually beneficial way. Convex essentially gets a new income stream that is not quite as tightly hooked into the Curve ecosystem as Frax or Prisma, but still highly compatible with their goals as a governance capture protocol. In return, f(x) gets the immediate boost of attention and the value added to the FXN token with the cvxFXN locker. In the future, f(x) may add gauges that will incentivize emissions to the cvxFXN/FXN token pair and other pairs like fETH/ETH and xETH/ETH. Those would also potentially be added to Convex to receive CVX and cvxCRV rewards as well.

It will be exciting to see this partnership develop and flourish! Both teams are thrilled to be working closely together, and the communities seem very happy with outcome. We can’t wait to see how this will put f(x) and Convex into the very center of DeFi throughout the entire Ethereum economy! WAGMI frens!

👯‍♂️ Let’s Get Friendly: Friend Tech + Booster Games!

If you haven’t heard, the A-Team is now on Friend Tech! https://friend.tech/ATeamDefi We are excited to be a part of this wild and innovative cross between social media and defi! We at the A-Team think it adds a new wrinkle to how we can all interact with one another and possibly bring more value to the community members…plus the A-Team is actually generating income now! 🤯

Because of this new and exciting innovation, The A-Team has brainstormed a novel way to take advantage of this overlap and apply it to the initial FXN booster round. We call it “The Booster Games” and here is how it will work:

After each FXN booster round is complete, tokens will be released to boosters. These tokens are vested over 12 months.
However, after the snapshot voting, and prior to the tokens being vested, A-Team will offer to let boosters “volunteer as tribute” (think Hunger Games) by sacrificing a portion of their vesting FXN tokens to all other booster participants.
In return, A-Team will buy the volunteer’s friend.tech keys at a value of 80% of the sacrificed FXN tokens!

Example:

A booster participates in the booster round and comes away with 100 FXN tokens that will vest over 12 months (7 day average price of $12 for a total value of $1200)
Before the tokens start vesting, the Booster decides to “volunteer as tribute” and give up 10% of their booster round rewards (10 FXN tokens) that will go back to the entire pool of FXN community boosters
A-Team will then purchase 80% of the value of those 10 FXN tokens (using 7 day moving price) in the volunteer’s friend.tech keys.
- (10 FXN * $12)*0.80 = $96
A-Team will hold these volunteer’s FT keys in perpetuity.

As FT keys can currently only be bought in whole numbers, there could be a difference between the value of FXN tokens sacrificed vs the amount of FT keys that can be most closely purchased. In this case, the sacrificer will have two choices:

Adjust their sacrificed FXN token amount to match up with a multiple of their current FT key price.
A swap in ETH from the volunteer to the A-Team for the difference in price between the FT Keys being purchased vs. the value of sacrificed FXN tokens. The A-Team will always buy a minimum amount of FT keys that ensures the volunteer will need to send the A-Team a minimal amount of ETH.

Important Notes to keep in mind during The Booster Games:

Volunteering as tribute needs to be publicly tweeted out or announced in the discord. Final approval of volunteers will be chosen by the A-Team.
Volunteers will have 24 hours to make a decision after the initial release of the booster round results.
All FXN tokens sacrificed will be priced at the 7 day moving average marked at the conclusion of the booster round.
A-Team will have a policy of buying and holding the volunteers Friend Tech keys indefinitely. Selling of keys will only be done so with permission from volunteers.

This model is very exciting because it allows for A-Team to unlock immediate liquidity for booster rounds, increase FXN token share for remaining boosters, increasing the value of volunteer’s FT keys, and also increase the value of A-Team FT keys & improving FT trading fee revenue for A-Team! We are hopeful that this will be a fun and novel way to create value for everyone that is part of the f(x) community! MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR!

🧞‍♂️ A-Team News and Updates

Well fortunately for the A-Team, we got our funding renewed for the DAO for another 6 months! Hooray! We are so thankful for everyone who voted to continue to allow us to priovide you all with this content that we enjoy making and delivering. We hope the next months are just as productive…and even more so! And with that, we of course added two new members: MetaCVX and Tao! We thought you might want to learn a bit about each of them, so the we kind enough to sit down for an interview and tell us a little about themselves. Let’s meet the new team members!

Get to Know an A-Team Member - MetaCVX

How long have you been in crypto? Since 2014
What is your professional background? Currently I am dedicating 100% of my time to crypto trading. I am an IT systems administrator and also worked in marketing for a company.
How did you get involved AladdinDAO? As an investor in CVX looking to maximize my profits, I found Clever and with it all the other protocols that surround it.
What do you like best about DeFi and AladdinDAO? Defi is wonderful, owning your own capital without third parties intervening, without any bank involved (I hate them). If you combine that with decentralization... AladdinDAO gave me everything.
What do you find most enjoyable about being in defi? What’s the most challenging aspect? In Defi you are the director of the bank, the boss, you don't have to explain to anyone. Defi with Prifi would be quite a challenge.
Do your normie friends know you work in crypto? What are their thoughts on your occupation? Many don't know that I trade, others ask me about crypto... there is still a long way to go for adoption.
Where do you personally see AladdinDAO and Concentrator/CLever/fx in a year? I like to measure growth not in monetary terms but in community growth, your community is the majority of your clients, make your clients grow capital and AladdinDAO will position itself as one of the most complete DAOs in Defi. I love Clever, I started there. We will see it on the top of the DAOCVX list, as it is my wish, and I owe it a lot.
Any projects outside of the AladdinDAO ecosystem you find interesting or noteworthy? I love RAILGUN, privacy has to be a fundamental pillar in Defi.
What’s your favorite “touch grass” activity you like to do when you are not working on AladdinDAO? I have 3 children, they are my inspiration, spending the little time I have with them I already feel like a winner.
What’re you most looking forward to accomplishing with the A-Team over the next 6 months? I am obsessed with marketing and growth, I want to see AladdinDAO grow as a member of the A-team and I will be proud to achieve it.

Get to Know an A-Team Member - Tao

How long have you been in crypto I commenced my journey in the cryptocurrency space by engaging in Bitcoin mining within the confines of my apartment circa 2014. Subsequently, I actively participated during the fervent Initial Coin Offering (ICO) era and observed the ascent of Binance. My involvement extended to a blockchain hackathon around 2017. However, I temporarily distanced myself from the crypto sphere until 2020. Currently, my undivided attention is dedicated to the world of cryptocurrency.
What is your professional background? I am a software engineer employed with an internet company.
How did you get involved AladdinDAO? My association with AladdinDAO began as a user of CLever. I participated in the ICO of CLEV and transitioned into a dedicated user of all AladdinDAO products, including Concentrator, CLever, and fx. My engagement escalated as I started attending weekly community calls and actively submitting proposals.
What do you like best about DeFi and AladdinDAO? Foremost, the transparency inherent in the DeFi space and AladdinDAO is what I value most.
What do you find most enjoyable about being in defi? What’s the most challenging aspect? I derive immense satisfaction from the rapid pace of innovation within the DeFi sector. Every few months, one can discover captivating and pioneering projects. Nevertheless, the persistent challenge lies in achieving organic and sustained Total Value Locked (TVL) growth over an extended duration.
Do your normie friends know you work in crypto? What are their thoughts on your occupation? A fraction of my acquaintances are privy to my crypto engagement. Their attitudes toward the matter vary, with some exhibiting genuine interest in crypto, while others remain relatively indifferent.
Where do you personally see AladdinDAO and Concentrator/CLever/fx in a year? My prognostication suggests that within the coming year, the TVL of fx will ascend to 500 million, whereas CLever is poised to achieve a TVL of approximately 100 million.
Any projects outside of the AladdinDAO ecosystem you find interesting or noteworthy? In addition to my involvement with AladdinDAO, I have devoted time to exploring diverse ZK Layer2 solutions, one notable example being Scroll.
What’s your favorite “touch grass” activity you like to do when you are not working on AladdinDAO? Outside of my engagements with AladdinDAO, I derive immense joy from spending quality time with my eleven-month-old daughter.
What’re you most looking forward to accomplishing with the A-Team over the next 6 months? Over the forthcoming six months, my primary aspiration is to augment awareness of the genuine value intrinsic to the AladdinDAO ecosystem, enabling more individuals to derive benefit from its innovative DeFi products during their cryptocurrency journey.