Against all odds, Aura’s bootstrapping was accomplished successfully with the support of our strong community. 1,078 ETH was deposited into our LBP by over 220 participants despite the worst possible market conditions. Check this chart out—it’s of the dollar value of ETH during the past week:

ETH raised will be used to bootstrap protocol-owned AURA/ETH liquidity, security measures (audits, bounties, etc.) for the protocol, and to pay back loans made by the core contributors to bootstrap development thus far. That’s to say, all ETH will be used to turbocharge Aura’s growth!

We have applied for a Balancer gauge for our protocol-owned AURA/ETH liquidity pool. Support for the proposal would be much appreciated (shout out to Aura protocol multisig signer Mike B for the support already) .

Thank you to all participants, our broader community, and partners for all the support prior to and during the duration of the pool.

The LBP marks just the start of the first phase of our bootstrapping process to bring the best-in-class yield and governance efficiency for Balancer stakeholders.

The lockening

So what’s next? ✨ Boosted farming rewards for early participants in Aura!

At 11:46 GMT on June 16, the next phase of launch will commence with auraBAL bootstrapping.

So you don’t forget: Aura is an autonomous, non-custodial platform built to boost the yield and governance power of Balancer users and beyond. Aura’s ability to influence the Balancer ecosystem is directly correlated with the quantity of BAL the protocol can direct. 2% of total AURA supply has been allocated to auraBAL stakers over the next two weeks, starting on the 16th.

This boosted launch farm represents likely one of the largest opportunities to accumulate AURA rapidly that will ever exist. And by making Aura the biggest, or at least one of the biggest, veBAL holders, both auraBAL and vlAURA holders will benefit from boosted yield and other governance incentives.

Obtaining auraBAL will be as simple as depositing and locking [80/20 BAL/ETH Balancer LP token] (link here) or single-sided BAL into Aura via our frontend, which will be updated to support BAL locking when the launch begins.

And don’t blink, rewards will be dripped linearly so the earlier you deposit BAL, the more rewards you will be entitled to.

To incentivize long-term auraBAL liquidity, an auraBAL/[80/20 BAL/ETH BPT LP token] StableSwap pool will also be launched, with 10% of AURA being distributed over four years to those that stake this pool’s LP token. This farm will launch on June 17 at 23:00 GMT, though users can deposit liquidity beforehand to be right on time for rewards to start.

To lock or not to lock AURA?

At 11:52 GMT on June 16, the AURA airdrop merkle proof will be claimable and the frontend will be updated to reflect that the airdrop is live.

As a reminder, the airdrop is being distributed to three distinct groups:

• Stakeholders and contributors to Balancer, inclusive of BAL holders, BAL BPT stakers, and veBAL holders.
• Convex governors (vlCVX holders)
• and LobsterDAO NFT holders, often seen as DeFi “power users”

The airdrop snapshot was taken over two weeks ago. The full eligibility requirements can be found here.

When prompted to claim the airdrop, users will be prompted with two options: 1) lock AURA into vlAURA and receive access to active participant rewards and governance power, 2) withdraw AURA directly to their wallet.

Don’t forget: those that do not lock their AURA airdrop into vlAURA will have to pay a 30% penalty. Those penalties will be collected for redistribution to vlAURA holders to reward their active participation in protocol governance and driving Balancer forward.

Those that do not lock vlAURA will also lose the ability to participate in the first vlAURA Balancer gauge voting period, starting on June 23, which will direct protocol-owned veBAL to Balancer gauges.

Don’t forget to lock your BAL and AURA, anon. And we’re live on CoinGecko as well.

Feel free to join the conversation and take a role in our community via our Twitter and Discord as Aura continues to plow forward in spite of market conditions. Thank you for your continued support.