In recent months, we’ve actively engaged dozens of Uniswap stakeholders, gathering diverse perspectives from across the ecosystem. We parlayed these insights into an RFC forum post last month.
Your feedback has helped us pinpoint key areas for improvement, specifically:
This updated forum post addresses the areas for improvement that you asked us to focus on.
AlphaGrowth and our sister company ReservoirDAO are DAO service providers primarily working in the realm of DeFi growth through grants, BD, growth-marketing, and DeFi Operations. Our marquee partner is Compound.Finance, where we run all things growth, business development and marketing for the DAO.
Uniswap MetaGov Team: @PGov and @AranaDigital; The team first formed as the UADP to focus on Arbitrum’s governance and ecosystem. After applying and receiving 1M ARB in grants for the Uniswap DAO, it was deployed over 3 months and recently concluded. With this success, the UADP, now MetaGov team, is looking to deploy this framework across other chains. The team consists of long-time community members and delegates who have participated as contributors through multiple working groups and have worked across various committees and grant programs in Uniswap and across DeFi.
Over the last few market cycles, we cut our teeth in the world of grants, BD, go-to-market, tokenomics, and ecosystem growth. We’ve helped dozens of projects go multichain. Throughout this process, members of Compound DAO encouraged us to design and implement a comprehensive growth program to address stagnation in the protocol. As of today, we lead growth for Compound.Finance. Some of our wins at Compound include:
Here is the most recent quarterly report on our growth program at Compound. For a comprehensive view of AlphaGrowth-led Compound Growth Program, check out this Dune Dashboard 1.
Both decentralization and regulatory uncertainty have hindered growth in all corners of DeFi. Like many members of the community, we see Uniswap as a pioneer with great influence over the future of the industry and the ability to set positive precedents. Without an organized forward-trajectory of pioneers like Uniswap and Compound, we risk seeing the industry spin its wheels.
Uniswap has done a tremendous job setting the gold standard for trading assets on-chain. The Uniswap product, brand, and community are some of the strongest in DeFi. We are here because we believe that Uniswap will be the liquidity layer of the internet, and we want to help get it and keep it there.
Building on the outstanding efforts of the Uniswap Accountability Committee (UAC) in managing the deployment process, this proposal seeks to address two critical areas that are currently under-resourced: outbound engagement and marketing of deployments, incentives, and integrations that have outsized impact.
Uniswap Labs is not currently focused on expanding the protocol to new chains, creating an opportunity within the DAO. Additionally, the UAC has done an exceptional job in facilitating the middle of the pipeline (see graphic below). However, to continue scaling Uniswap’s impact and user base, there is a growing need to strengthen the initial and final stages of the business development process.
Uniswap lacks a structured outbound business development strategy, limiting new chains and strategic partnerships. This reliance on inbound interest restricts Uniswap's growth. Without outbound, valuable opportunities are being missed, and Uniswap risks falling behind competitors who take a more aggressive approach in pursuing partnerships and integrations. The current reactive approach slows expansion into new markets and ecosystems.
Uniswap, despite its status as a leading DeFi protocol, risks falling into complacency by relying too heavily on its reputation and existing user base. The assumption that Uniswap will continue to dominate without active outreach and promotion is dangerous. Recent data show a relative downturn in the number of new users interacting with Uniswap:
Teams like Oku are often marketing new deployments and incentives on their own—efforts that could be amplified by the Uniswap ecosystem if a mechanism were in place. At present, the lack of a standardized process for co-marketing initiatives is causing missed opportunities for growth.
Additionally, the Onboarding Package referred to here offers network partners tremendous value. However, many chains are unaware that this opportunity exists. Currently, no outbound team is promoting the Onboarding Package and inviting chains to apply. The latest UAC report mentioned that the current impact of programs like the URGP can also be increased if the DAO were to establish a marketing team:
Uniswap Accountability Committee (UAC): Season 2 Report
The Uniswap Labs and Uniswap Foundation social accounts don’t tend to advertise many of the new opportunities that can be taken advantage of.
Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs. Without a team dedicated to securing and effectively distributing these funds, valuable opportunities for growth and user acquisition are being missed out on. Here are some concrete examples:
These potential incentive partners are listed here based on previous incentive issuance
Without a dedicated team with an outbound mandate, Uniswap increases the risk of stagnation. The most valuable opportunities come from outbound activities rather than inbound. Relying solely on inbound interest limits the scope of potential partners and opportunities, while outbound efforts allow us to target higher-impact ecosystems and opportunities that align with Uniswap’s long-term goal of expanding the reach of the brand.
With the upcoming v4 launch, there is a massive opportunity to solidify Uniswap’s position as a leader in the DeFi space. By proactively engaging builders, DeFi protocols, blockchains, liquidity providers, and institutional players, we can accelerate the adoption of v4.
Fundamentally, liquidity incentives reward users for increasing the capital efficiency and stability of the DeFi ecosystem.
Simply put, DeFi users must be aware of opportunities if they are to capitalize on them. If Uniswap launches on a new chain, there needs to be a greater marketing push so that the incentives are effectively utilized. Additionally, without distribution, only power users and insiders will have visibility into these opportunities. Further, ecosystems will be much more willing to offer us incentives if we plan on marketing them to the Uniswap community.
Finally, marketing opportunities (like the Onboarding Package) to chains will make them far more likely to offer Uniswap users reciprocal incentivization.
Econ 101: People respond to incentives. If we don’t secure these incentives for Uniswap users, other more growth-oriented DEXes will. Without this additional firepower, it will be increasingly difficult to retain and grow the Uniswap protocol and user base. Many DEX teams on L2s collaborate directly with core ecosystem teams to secure these incentives. If we don’t run this race, we will continue losing market share.
Our plan of action includes an outbound business development team, a dedicated marketing team, and a team committed to securing grants and incentives for Uniswap users.
To maximize opportunities at the top of the funnel, we will deploy our crypto-native team to spearhead outbound business development for the Uniswap Protocol. The objective is to consistently deliver high-quality opportunities to the UAC and the DAO, streamlining and enhancing the current process.
With this proactive strategy, we will engage new opportunities before our competitors do. This is crucial in sustaining Uniswap’s leadership position in the DeFi space.
Our team will work closely with the UAC, Oku, and others to identify the best opportunities to prioritize the roadmap for future Uniswap deployments. Some of these targets include new chains and integrations like wallets and bridges. Our immediate focus includes targeting the various new EVM chains launching on the horizon, in addition to the abundance of opportunities within the OP Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit. Further, as the Uniswap v4 rollout is iterated upon launch, we will work hand in hand with relevant stakeholders to ensure target chains are aware of v4's value proposition. This may include DeFi, CeFi, and TradFi.
To further support our DeFi BD team over the years, we’ve built a Telegram-native CRM specifically designed to manage growth efficiently and effectively. We'll touch more on this later.
To ensure these new opportunities and incentives are shared far and wide, we propose leveraging our growth-marketing team. As we secure these grants and incentives, our mission is to strategically promote and distribute this alpha across the DeFi space, increasing TVL, volume, and activity on Uniswap.
Based on the success we’ve had running campaigns around the distribution of millions in incentives to Compound users, the primary marketing channel we recommend is Twitter. Promoting engaging content will help mitigate the cold-start problem of building a following. Additionally, ensuring visibility on industry-leading platforms such as CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko will keep Uniswap top-of-mind for ideal audiences. If there are other channels that the DAO would like to see activated, we are more than happy to entertain these options.
Further, we will work with Blockchain Ads, one of our tried and true partners, to facilitate targeted marketing efforts. Together we will leverage on-chain data to reach high-value wallet owners. To maximize engagement, we’ll also leverage Layer3’s interactive quests to gamify onboarding and increase user awareness and retention.
Over the past year, the DAO has approved the deployment of Uni V3 on over a dozen EVMs, but there has never been a DAO-led push to ensure that individuals outside of the DAO are aware of these deployments and the incentives that accompany them. We will act as that bridge between the DAO and the broader DeFi community. Our job is not to make up new stories, but to curate, manage, and amplify the stories that already exist inside the Uniswap ecosystem.
Disclaimer: We will never explicitly market yield. Doing so is the quickest way to attract unwanted eyes and have accounts banned. Having run marketing for several DeFi protocols, we’ve learned that in crypto it's effective to market events, not yield.
As the DAO marketing team, we will begin building a pipeline of exploratory marketing experiments including, but not limited to, event sponsorships, charitable events, hackathons, university club partnerships, various PR/media outlets, and KOL engagements. After this program trial concludes, we will share the most interesting opportunities with the DAO.
Additionally we will host office hours 1 hour per week for the community to join and pitch their marketing ideas or invite ecosystem partners to make their case for co-marketing their opportunities.
As part of our business development strategy, we will work on enhancing UNI utility within DeFi. To broaden DeFi optionality, we will explore listing opportunities across various platforms, including (but not limited to) Bridges, Perpetuals, Money Markets, and AVS/Restaking. As with the exploratory marketing opportunities, we will share the most valuable DeFi Optionality opportunities with the DAO after the trial concludes.
We will be working together with @PGov and @AranaDigital on the UEII (Initial post here: UEII). Their team first formed as the UADP, focusing on Arbitrum’s governance, applied and received a 1M ARB grant for the Uniswap DAO a few months ago. This grant was deployed over 3 months and recently concluded. With this success, the UADP, now MetaGov team, is looking to deploy this framework across other chains. Together, with our team at AlphaGrowth, we propose leveraging our dedicated team to distribute the most value to Uniswap users and help the Metagov team, focusing on securing grants and incentives for the DAO and Uniswap users.
The initial focus will be on chains where Uniswap is currently deployed, capitalizing first on the lowest-hanging fruit. Depending on the goals of the issuing partners, these grants and incentives can be distributed in several ways: allocated to liquidity providers on specific chains / liquidity pools (e.g., stablecoins, LSTs, LRTs), used to subsidize transaction costs and trading fees, or directed toward other creative initiatives.
When reaching out to prospective chains, the UEII team will leverage our experiences and contributions across these chains as all of us are already involved across different target ecosystems. We’ll utilize existing DAO programs like the Uniswap Onboarding Package to strengthen our claim and pitch, working hand in hand with each chain to secure the maximum incentives possible for the DAO.
Oftentimes these grants require KYC/KYB, which we’ll handle through ReservoirDAO, AlphaGrowth’s sister company DAO LLC in the Marshall Islands. This is how we’ve successfully claimed and distributed incentives for Compound as we’re fully doxed and ready to facilitate the process.
To maximize the transparency, efficacy, and attribution of our efforts, we will regularly analyze and report campaign success metrics. Some of these metrics include engagement rates, TVL growth, trading volume, daily/monthly active users, and new wallet interactions.
We will post quarterly progress reports on the forum to ensure the Uniswap community is in the loop and that our efforts are public.
Business development is our superpower. In the process of running ecosystem growth and business development for various chains and protocols, we’ve reached all corners of the space. In order to manage and prioritize thousands of conversations and negotiations, our product team built a crypto-native CRM from scratch. Embedded in our custom BD toolkit is the on-chain and off-chain data of over 63,000 protocols. Our CRM lets us search, sort, and qualify opportunities, ensuring that we make data-driven decisions. It also facilitates the organization needed for pipeline management.
Source: AlphaGrowth Platform
The UAC has full access to the Uniswap dashboard on the AlphaGrowth platform. As the DAO expands its growth efforts, we will grant access to any new contributory parties. This will ensure that all are working towards the same goal, and that double dipping does not occur.
As we (and other partners) create valuable opportunities within the Uniswap ecosystem, it’s important that we make DeFi aware of them. Without awareness, there’s little chance of action. It’s crucial to run campaigns that spread the word. Another successful example of this playbook was focused on users transitioning from bridged USDC.e to native USDC. We secured the incentives, incentivized an action, marketed the opportunity, and saw active wallets jump 4.5x over the course of a few months.
Our teams have done it several times now. AlphaGrowth has secured around $4M in grants and incentives for Compound users and the MetaGov team has been successful securing ~$1M at the time for Uniswap in the trial run. Additionally, we’ve all helped numerous DeFi projects secure grants from a variety of ecosystems. The teams have been on both sides of the equation; over the past few years, we also helped deploy millions in grants and incentives on behalf of the Optimism, Near, Kava, Compound, and Aurora ecosystems. These incentives onboarded dozens of DeFi protocols, developers, users and several hundred million in TVL. We’ve learned what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t.
As covered, the UEII’s primary rationale behind this strategy is based on each teams' success and we think combining forces will achieve the most benefits for the DAO. The MetaGov team’s trial run on Arbitrum concluded very successfully and would provide much benefit to be expanded to other platforms. At Compound, AlphaGrowth’s growth and marketing initiatives have secured and deployed nearly $4M in incentives. This resulted in significant TVL growth across multiple chains, including a jump from $51M to $200M million on Arbitrum alone.
Based on the MetaGov’s Arbitrum trial run success and AlphaGrowth’s tried and true methods at Compound and elsewhere, we’re confident that Uniswap users will benefit greatly from this initiative.
Identifying opportunities. We will first seek out chains that lack any form of Uniswap deployment, and ensure that Uniswap is on the roadmap of all new chains. Additionally, we will bring the opportunity to protocols that are most likely to benefit from leveraging Uniswap v4.
Prospect ranking. We will sort-rank target prospects based on their on-chain metrics, growth potential, and incentive offerings. This will help prioritize the deployment pipeline.
Outreach. Once we have prioritized opportunities, we will leverage our existing relationships and reach out to new prospects in order to push these opportunities forward.
Set up meetings. We will schedule meetings with decision-makers, and bring in members of the UAC and front-end partners (e.g., Oku) to handle deployment negotiations.
Negotiations. Based on the objective of each chain or protocol, we will help facilitate a win-win scenario for all parties involved.*
Governance support. If needed, we will provide guidance and help teams navigate through the Uniswap governance process.* This will streamline collaboration and help ensure a seamless deployment process.
Onboarding facilitation. If applicable, we will assist in facilitating the Onboarding Package for new partners and projects, providing resources, and ensuring smooth integration into the Uniswap ecosystem.*
Co-marketing. We will pass the baton to our marketing team to develop and implement co-marketing strategies for new deployments. This will include joint promotional efforts with partners to maximize awareness and adoption of each deployment within the new ecosystem.
*The UAC remains responsible for handling negotiations, governance support and onboarding processes. Our role is to assist where needed to ensure smooth operations and maximize coverage.
This initiative is a collaboration between the MetaGov and AlphaGrowth teams.
Given the long sales cycles associated with business development, marketing, and grant sourcing, we are proposing a 6-month trial period for this program. These initiatives will require time and space to cultivate impactful relationships and attain measurable results. 6 months will provide a reasonable window to build momentum and gather meaningful insights, while still leaving room for any necessary strategic adjustments.
Funds will be sent to the Uniswap Accountability Committee. $420k will be sent to AlphaGrowth. For the UEII, since we do not know exactly how much in grants we can secure for the DAO, a $500k “reserve” has been set side for the UEII success fee. This “reserve” will be held in the separate DAO trusted entity (UAC), and the UAC will NOT send funds for the UEII until grants and incentives have been sourced for the DAO. This should reduce governance overhead from having to vote in funding each time and ALL remaining “reserve” funds after the 6 month trial period will be returned to the DAO.
A forum thread updating the community on each UEII sourced grant and distribution/program specifics will be created and continuously updated.
UNI Price at vote: $7.49
This post was guided by the opinions of numerous Uniswap delegates, each bringing their own perspectives and expertise. A special thanks to the following delegates* for taking the time to help guide and narrow down the scope of this program:
Cole, 404DAO | Cam, Consensys | Gab, She.256 | Alex, FranklinDAO
Derrick and Tommy, CalBlockchain | Darren, Blockworks Research
Mineso and Mateo, Michigan Blockchain | Renzo and Hugo, ChicagoDAO
Kevin, BlockchainCU | Jordan, Index Coop | Erick, Blockchain Education Network
Ross, a16z | Getty, Oku & GFX Labs | Tnorm and Matt, Gauntlet | Dennison, Tally
Callen, Wintermute | Raffaelo, Arrakis | Doo, StableLab | Krzysztof, L2BEAT
Coltron, Karpatkey | Thanos, Keyrock |
*Disclaimer: The perspectives and expertise shared by the delegates listed above are their own, and their participation in guiding this initial post does not indicate endorsement or support for its content.
We strongly believe that these initiatives will significantly benefit the Uniswap DAO, brand and user experience. Within the next few weeks, we will push this proposal to a Snapshot Vote. We look forward to the community’s feedback and support for this dedicated Uniswap Growth Program Trial.
In recent months, we’ve actively engaged dozens of Uniswap stakeholders, gathering diverse perspectives from across the ecosystem. We parlayed these insights into an RFC forum post last month.
Your feedback has helped us pinpoint key areas for improvement, specifically:
This updated forum post addresses the areas for improvement that you asked us to focus on.
AlphaGrowth and our sister company ReservoirDAO are DAO service providers primarily working in the realm of DeFi growth through grants, BD, growth-marketing, and DeFi Operations. Our marquee partner is Compound.Finance, where we run all things growth, business development and marketing for the DAO.
Uniswap MetaGov Team: @PGov and @AranaDigital; The team first formed as the UADP to focus on Arbitrum’s governance and ecosystem. After applying and receiving 1M ARB in grants for the Uniswap DAO, it was deployed over 3 months and recently concluded. With this success, the UADP, now MetaGov team, is looking to deploy this framework across other chains. The team consists of long-time community members and delegates who have participated as contributors through multiple working groups and have worked across various committees and grant programs in Uniswap and across DeFi.
Over the last few market cycles, we cut our teeth in the world of grants, BD, go-to-market, tokenomics, and ecosystem growth. We’ve helped dozens of projects go multichain. Throughout this process, members of Compound DAO encouraged us to design and implement a comprehensive growth program to address stagnation in the protocol. As of today, we lead growth for Compound.Finance. Some of our wins at Compound include:
Here is the most recent quarterly report on our growth program at Compound. For a comprehensive view of AlphaGrowth-led Compound Growth Program, check out this Dune Dashboard 1.
Both decentralization and regulatory uncertainty have hindered growth in all corners of DeFi. Like many members of the community, we see Uniswap as a pioneer with great influence over the future of the industry and the ability to set positive precedents. Without an organized forward-trajectory of pioneers like Uniswap and Compound, we risk seeing the industry spin its wheels.
Uniswap has done a tremendous job setting the gold standard for trading assets on-chain. The Uniswap product, brand, and community are some of the strongest in DeFi. We are here because we believe that Uniswap will be the liquidity layer of the internet, and we want to help get it and keep it there.
Building on the outstanding efforts of the Uniswap Accountability Committee (UAC) in managing the deployment process, this proposal seeks to address two critical areas that are currently under-resourced: outbound engagement and marketing of deployments, incentives, and integrations that have outsized impact.
Uniswap Labs is not currently focused on expanding the protocol to new chains, creating an opportunity within the DAO. Additionally, the UAC has done an exceptional job in facilitating the middle of the pipeline (see graphic below). However, to continue scaling Uniswap’s impact and user base, there is a growing need to strengthen the initial and final stages of the business development process.
Uniswap lacks a structured outbound business development strategy, limiting new chains and strategic partnerships. This reliance on inbound interest restricts Uniswap's growth. Without outbound, valuable opportunities are being missed, and Uniswap risks falling behind competitors who take a more aggressive approach in pursuing partnerships and integrations. The current reactive approach slows expansion into new markets and ecosystems.
Uniswap, despite its status as a leading DeFi protocol, risks falling into complacency by relying too heavily on its reputation and existing user base. The assumption that Uniswap will continue to dominate without active outreach and promotion is dangerous. Recent data show a relative downturn in the number of new users interacting with Uniswap:
Teams like Oku are often marketing new deployments and incentives on their own—efforts that could be amplified by the Uniswap ecosystem if a mechanism were in place. At present, the lack of a standardized process for co-marketing initiatives is causing missed opportunities for growth.
Additionally, the Onboarding Package referred to here offers network partners tremendous value. However, many chains are unaware that this opportunity exists. Currently, no outbound team is promoting the Onboarding Package and inviting chains to apply. The latest UAC report mentioned that the current impact of programs like the URGP can also be increased if the DAO were to establish a marketing team:
Uniswap Accountability Committee (UAC): Season 2 Report
The Uniswap Labs and Uniswap Foundation social accounts don’t tend to advertise many of the new opportunities that can be taken advantage of.
Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs. Without a team dedicated to securing and effectively distributing these funds, valuable opportunities for growth and user acquisition are being missed out on. Here are some concrete examples:
These potential incentive partners are listed here based on previous incentive issuance
Without a dedicated team with an outbound mandate, Uniswap increases the risk of stagnation. The most valuable opportunities come from outbound activities rather than inbound. Relying solely on inbound interest limits the scope of potential partners and opportunities, while outbound efforts allow us to target higher-impact ecosystems and opportunities that align with Uniswap’s long-term goal of expanding the reach of the brand.
With the upcoming v4 launch, there is a massive opportunity to solidify Uniswap’s position as a leader in the DeFi space. By proactively engaging builders, DeFi protocols, blockchains, liquidity providers, and institutional players, we can accelerate the adoption of v4.
Fundamentally, liquidity incentives reward users for increasing the capital efficiency and stability of the DeFi ecosystem.
Simply put, DeFi users must be aware of opportunities if they are to capitalize on them. If Uniswap launches on a new chain, there needs to be a greater marketing push so that the incentives are effectively utilized. Additionally, without distribution, only power users and insiders will have visibility into these opportunities. Further, ecosystems will be much more willing to offer us incentives if we plan on marketing them to the Uniswap community.
Finally, marketing opportunities (like the Onboarding Package) to chains will make them far more likely to offer Uniswap users reciprocal incentivization.
Econ 101: People respond to incentives. If we don’t secure these incentives for Uniswap users, other more growth-oriented DEXes will. Without this additional firepower, it will be increasingly difficult to retain and grow the Uniswap protocol and user base. Many DEX teams on L2s collaborate directly with core ecosystem teams to secure these incentives. If we don’t run this race, we will continue losing market share.
Our plan of action includes an outbound business development team, a dedicated marketing team, and a team committed to securing grants and incentives for Uniswap users.
To maximize opportunities at the top of the funnel, we will deploy our crypto-native team to spearhead outbound business development for the Uniswap Protocol. The objective is to consistently deliver high-quality opportunities to the UAC and the DAO, streamlining and enhancing the current process.
With this proactive strategy, we will engage new opportunities before our competitors do. This is crucial in sustaining Uniswap’s leadership position in the DeFi space.
Our team will work closely with the UAC, Oku, and others to identify the best opportunities to prioritize the roadmap for future Uniswap deployments. Some of these targets include new chains and integrations like wallets and bridges. Our immediate focus includes targeting the various new EVM chains launching on the horizon, in addition to the abundance of opportunities within the OP Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit. Further, as the Uniswap v4 rollout is iterated upon launch, we will work hand in hand with relevant stakeholders to ensure target chains are aware of v4's value proposition. This may include DeFi, CeFi, and TradFi.
To further support our DeFi BD team over the years, we’ve built a Telegram-native CRM specifically designed to manage growth efficiently and effectively. We'll touch more on this later.
To ensure these new opportunities and incentives are shared far and wide, we propose leveraging our growth-marketing team. As we secure these grants and incentives, our mission is to strategically promote and distribute this alpha across the DeFi space, increasing TVL, volume, and activity on Uniswap.
Based on the success we’ve had running campaigns around the distribution of millions in incentives to Compound users, the primary marketing channel we recommend is Twitter. Promoting engaging content will help mitigate the cold-start problem of building a following. Additionally, ensuring visibility on industry-leading platforms such as CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko will keep Uniswap top-of-mind for ideal audiences. If there are other channels that the DAO would like to see activated, we are more than happy to entertain these options.
Further, we will work with Blockchain Ads, one of our tried and true partners, to facilitate targeted marketing efforts. Together we will leverage on-chain data to reach high-value wallet owners. To maximize engagement, we’ll also leverage Layer3’s interactive quests to gamify onboarding and increase user awareness and retention.
Over the past year, the DAO has approved the deployment of Uni V3 on over a dozen EVMs, but there has never been a DAO-led push to ensure that individuals outside of the DAO are aware of these deployments and the incentives that accompany them. We will act as that bridge between the DAO and the broader DeFi community. Our job is not to make up new stories, but to curate, manage, and amplify the stories that already exist inside the Uniswap ecosystem.
Disclaimer: We will never explicitly market yield. Doing so is the quickest way to attract unwanted eyes and have accounts banned. Having run marketing for several DeFi protocols, we’ve learned that in crypto it's effective to market events, not yield.
As the DAO marketing team, we will begin building a pipeline of exploratory marketing experiments including, but not limited to, event sponsorships, charitable events, hackathons, university club partnerships, various PR/media outlets, and KOL engagements. After this program trial concludes, we will share the most interesting opportunities with the DAO.
Additionally we will host office hours 1 hour per week for the community to join and pitch their marketing ideas or invite ecosystem partners to make their case for co-marketing their opportunities.
As part of our business development strategy, we will work on enhancing UNI utility within DeFi. To broaden DeFi optionality, we will explore listing opportunities across various platforms, including (but not limited to) Bridges, Perpetuals, Money Markets, and AVS/Restaking. As with the exploratory marketing opportunities, we will share the most valuable DeFi Optionality opportunities with the DAO after the trial concludes.
We will be working together with @PGov and @AranaDigital on the UEII (Initial post here: UEII). Their team first formed as the UADP, focusing on Arbitrum’s governance, applied and received a 1M ARB grant for the Uniswap DAO a few months ago. This grant was deployed over 3 months and recently concluded. With this success, the UADP, now MetaGov team, is looking to deploy this framework across other chains. Together, with our team at AlphaGrowth, we propose leveraging our dedicated team to distribute the most value to Uniswap users and help the Metagov team, focusing on securing grants and incentives for the DAO and Uniswap users.
The initial focus will be on chains where Uniswap is currently deployed, capitalizing first on the lowest-hanging fruit. Depending on the goals of the issuing partners, these grants and incentives can be distributed in several ways: allocated to liquidity providers on specific chains / liquidity pools (e.g., stablecoins, LSTs, LRTs), used to subsidize transaction costs and trading fees, or directed toward other creative initiatives.
When reaching out to prospective chains, the UEII team will leverage our experiences and contributions across these chains as all of us are already involved across different target ecosystems. We’ll utilize existing DAO programs like the Uniswap Onboarding Package to strengthen our claim and pitch, working hand in hand with each chain to secure the maximum incentives possible for the DAO.
Oftentimes these grants require KYC/KYB, which we’ll handle through ReservoirDAO, AlphaGrowth’s sister company DAO LLC in the Marshall Islands. This is how we’ve successfully claimed and distributed incentives for Compound as we’re fully doxed and ready to facilitate the process.
To maximize the transparency, efficacy, and attribution of our efforts, we will regularly analyze and report campaign success metrics. Some of these metrics include engagement rates, TVL growth, trading volume, daily/monthly active users, and new wallet interactions.
We will post quarterly progress reports on the forum to ensure the Uniswap community is in the loop and that our efforts are public.
Business development is our superpower. In the process of running ecosystem growth and business development for various chains and protocols, we’ve reached all corners of the space. In order to manage and prioritize thousands of conversations and negotiations, our product team built a crypto-native CRM from scratch. Embedded in our custom BD toolkit is the on-chain and off-chain data of over 63,000 protocols. Our CRM lets us search, sort, and qualify opportunities, ensuring that we make data-driven decisions. It also facilitates the organization needed for pipeline management.
Source: AlphaGrowth Platform
The UAC has full access to the Uniswap dashboard on the AlphaGrowth platform. As the DAO expands its growth efforts, we will grant access to any new contributory parties. This will ensure that all are working towards the same goal, and that double dipping does not occur.
As we (and other partners) create valuable opportunities within the Uniswap ecosystem, it’s important that we make DeFi aware of them. Without awareness, there’s little chance of action. It’s crucial to run campaigns that spread the word. Another successful example of this playbook was focused on users transitioning from bridged USDC.e to native USDC. We secured the incentives, incentivized an action, marketed the opportunity, and saw active wallets jump 4.5x over the course of a few months.
Our teams have done it several times now. AlphaGrowth has secured around $4M in grants and incentives for Compound users and the MetaGov team has been successful securing ~$1M at the time for Uniswap in the trial run. Additionally, we’ve all helped numerous DeFi projects secure grants from a variety of ecosystems. The teams have been on both sides of the equation; over the past few years, we also helped deploy millions in grants and incentives on behalf of the Optimism, Near, Kava, Compound, and Aurora ecosystems. These incentives onboarded dozens of DeFi protocols, developers, users and several hundred million in TVL. We’ve learned what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t.
As covered, the UEII’s primary rationale behind this strategy is based on each teams' success and we think combining forces will achieve the most benefits for the DAO. The MetaGov team’s trial run on Arbitrum concluded very successfully and would provide much benefit to be expanded to other platforms. At Compound, AlphaGrowth’s growth and marketing initiatives have secured and deployed nearly $4M in incentives. This resulted in significant TVL growth across multiple chains, including a jump from $51M to $200M million on Arbitrum alone.
Based on the MetaGov’s Arbitrum trial run success and AlphaGrowth’s tried and true methods at Compound and elsewhere, we’re confident that Uniswap users will benefit greatly from this initiative.
Identifying opportunities. We will first seek out chains that lack any form of Uniswap deployment, and ensure that Uniswap is on the roadmap of all new chains. Additionally, we will bring the opportunity to protocols that are most likely to benefit from leveraging Uniswap v4.
Prospect ranking. We will sort-rank target prospects based on their on-chain metrics, growth potential, and incentive offerings. This will help prioritize the deployment pipeline.
Outreach. Once we have prioritized opportunities, we will leverage our existing relationships and reach out to new prospects in order to push these opportunities forward.
Set up meetings. We will schedule meetings with decision-makers, and bring in members of the UAC and front-end partners (e.g., Oku) to handle deployment negotiations.
Negotiations. Based on the objective of each chain or protocol, we will help facilitate a win-win scenario for all parties involved.*
Governance support. If needed, we will provide guidance and help teams navigate through the Uniswap governance process.* This will streamline collaboration and help ensure a seamless deployment process.
Onboarding facilitation. If applicable, we will assist in facilitating the Onboarding Package for new partners and projects, providing resources, and ensuring smooth integration into the Uniswap ecosystem.*
Co-marketing. We will pass the baton to our marketing team to develop and implement co-marketing strategies for new deployments. This will include joint promotional efforts with partners to maximize awareness and adoption of each deployment within the new ecosystem.
*The UAC remains responsible for handling negotiations, governance support and onboarding processes. Our role is to assist where needed to ensure smooth operations and maximize coverage.
This initiative is a collaboration between the MetaGov and AlphaGrowth teams.
Given the long sales cycles associated with business development, marketing, and grant sourcing, we are proposing a 6-month trial period for this program. These initiatives will require time and space to cultivate impactful relationships and attain measurable results. 6 months will provide a reasonable window to build momentum and gather meaningful insights, while still leaving room for any necessary strategic adjustments.
Funds will be sent to the Uniswap Accountability Committee. $420k will be sent to AlphaGrowth. For the UEII, since we do not know exactly how much in grants we can secure for the DAO, a $500k “reserve” has been set side for the UEII success fee. This “reserve” will be held in the separate DAO trusted entity (UAC), and the UAC will NOT send funds for the UEII until grants and incentives have been sourced for the DAO. This should reduce governance overhead from having to vote in funding each time and ALL remaining “reserve” funds after the 6 month trial period will be returned to the DAO.
A forum thread updating the community on each UEII sourced grant and distribution/program specifics will be created and continuously updated.
UNI Price at vote: $7.49
This post was guided by the opinions of numerous Uniswap delegates, each bringing their own perspectives and expertise. A special thanks to the following delegates* for taking the time to help guide and narrow down the scope of this program:
Cole, 404DAO | Cam, Consensys | Gab, She.256 | Alex, FranklinDAO
Derrick and Tommy, CalBlockchain | Darren, Blockworks Research
Mineso and Mateo, Michigan Blockchain | Renzo and Hugo, ChicagoDAO
Kevin, BlockchainCU | Jordan, Index Coop | Erick, Blockchain Education Network
Ross, a16z | Getty, Oku & GFX Labs | Tnorm and Matt, Gauntlet | Dennison, Tally
Callen, Wintermute | Raffaelo, Arrakis | Doo, StableLab | Krzysztof, L2BEAT
Coltron, Karpatkey | Thanos, Keyrock |
*Disclaimer: The perspectives and expertise shared by the delegates listed above are their own, and their participation in guiding this initial post does not indicate endorsement or support for its content.
We strongly believe that these initiatives will significantly benefit the Uniswap DAO, brand and user experience. Within the next few weeks, we will push this proposal to a Snapshot Vote. We look forward to the community’s feedback and support for this dedicated Uniswap Growth Program Trial.
https://gov.uniswap.org/t/rfc-uniswap-growth-program-trial/24703/23
https://gov.uniswap.org/t/rfc-uniswap-growth-program-trial/24703/23
Several discussions with AlphaGrowth team on this. Also talked to GFX Labs. Surprised this hasn't already been addressed, but Uniswap indeed needs an outbound BD team to manage growth of new integrations and negotiate incentives and co-marketing with the chains that support Uniswap and the projects that list their tokens on Uniswap.
AlphaGrowth's work in Compound has been successful, yet the funding is not trivial. No strong opinion; we Abstain.
no doubt Uniswap can do more to capitalise on opportunities given its presence across DeFi. Good proposal addressing clear gap
Several discussions with AlphaGrowth team on this. Also talked to GFX Labs. Surprised this hasn't already been addressed, but Uniswap indeed needs an outbound BD team to manage growth of new integrations and negotiate incentives and co-marketing with the chains that support Uniswap and the projects that list their tokens on Uniswap.
AlphaGrowth's work in Compound has been successful, yet the funding is not trivial. No strong opinion; we Abstain.
no doubt Uniswap can do more to capitalise on opportunities given its presence across DeFi. Good proposal addressing clear gap
Gm, gm! :sparkles:
The results are in for the Uniswap Growth Program Trial on-chain proposal.
See how the community voted and more Uniswap stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1476
Gm, gm! :sparkles:
The results are in for the Uniswap Growth Program Trial on-chain proposal.
See how the community voted and more Uniswap stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1476
I like how this proposal identified the current issues in Uniswap—it’s really spot on.
I’ve mentioned this before in the previous post, [RFC] AlphaGrowth - Growing Uniswap through Incentives, Distribution, and Co-Marketing. While the initiative may or may not succeed, it’s crucial to experiment with ways to strengthen Uniswap’s brand, image, and reach to maintain and attract new users.
I like how this proposal identified the current issues in Uniswap—it’s really spot on.
I’ve mentioned this before in the previous post, [RFC] AlphaGrowth - Growing Uniswap through Incentives, Distribution, and Co-Marketing. While the initiative may or may not succeed, it’s crucial to experiment with ways to strengthen Uniswap’s brand, image, and reach to maintain and attract new users.
This is especially important as competition increases and Uniswap can’t rely on its first-mover advantage indefinitely. With the launch of Uniswap v4, educating users about its features is essential. Since Uniswap v4 functions more like a platform, establishing a partnership incentive program or any marketing initiatives are a solid strategy.
I think the best part of proposal is the 20% take rate for Uniswap Protocol funds generated from other DAOs.
Why doesn't this be a permanent program, for everyone available? So not just this company but available to other delegates like Gauntlet, Oku, me, etc. If you make a proposal that is passed then you will get rewarded from those funds. That way many people can compete to all grow the Uniswap Protocol.
Overall, I support this initiative to ensure we strengthen the Uniswap ecosystem. Also I hope implementing the Growth Program will address many underserved areas currently not covered by Uniswap Labs. For the Growth initiative (especially around the Grants and Marketing initiative)I would be interested regarding Alpha growth's experience with other DAOs and some case studies how this positively impacted the DAO's ecosystem growth / long term token price evolution and more (not entirely sure if it needs more socials / content and campaigns - I personally would probably not put too much focus here).
Instead, I strongly support the requested support on the business development side as this will help Uniswap to coordinate partners and collaborations. Looking at this from the perspective of a player in the ecosystem, I believe closer collaboration and leveraging synergies could be something worth to be tried during the 6 months trial.
We are very excited about supporting and working with AlphaGrowth on the trial of this growth program, which looks to be very beneficial to the Uniswap ecosystem and replicate some of the previous successes that AlphaGrowth have had. Outbound engagement and business development is definitely a crucial area, especially as the release of V4 approaches. AlphaGrowth have clear marketing expertise and so are a perfect partner to Uniswap in marketing of deployments, as well as working on impactful integrations.
I like how this proposal identified the current issues in Uniswap—it’s really spot on.
I’ve mentioned this before in the previous post, [RFC] AlphaGrowth - Growing Uniswap through Incentives, Distribution, and Co-Marketing. While the initiative may or may not succeed, it’s crucial to experiment with ways to strengthen Uniswap’s brand, image, and reach to maintain and attract new users.
I like how this proposal identified the current issues in Uniswap—it’s really spot on.
I’ve mentioned this before in the previous post, [RFC] AlphaGrowth - Growing Uniswap through Incentives, Distribution, and Co-Marketing. While the initiative may or may not succeed, it’s crucial to experiment with ways to strengthen Uniswap’s brand, image, and reach to maintain and attract new users.
This is especially important as competition increases and Uniswap can’t rely on its first-mover advantage indefinitely. With the launch of Uniswap v4, educating users about its features is essential. Since Uniswap v4 functions more like a platform, establishing a partnership incentive program or any marketing initiatives are a solid strategy.
I think the best part of proposal is the 20% take rate for Uniswap Protocol funds generated from other DAOs.
Why doesn't this be a permanent program, for everyone available? So not just this company but available to other delegates like Gauntlet, Oku, me, etc. If you make a proposal that is passed then you will get rewarded from those funds. That way many people can compete to all grow the Uniswap Protocol.
Overall, I support this initiative to ensure we strengthen the Uniswap ecosystem. Also I hope implementing the Growth Program will address many underserved areas currently not covered by Uniswap Labs. For the Growth initiative (especially around the Grants and Marketing initiative)I would be interested regarding Alpha growth's experience with other DAOs and some case studies how this positively impacted the DAO's ecosystem growth / long term token price evolution and more (not entirely sure if it needs more socials / content and campaigns - I personally would probably not put too much focus here).
Instead, I strongly support the requested support on the business development side as this will help Uniswap to coordinate partners and collaborations. Looking at this from the perspective of a player in the ecosystem, I believe closer collaboration and leveraging synergies could be something worth to be tried during the 6 months trial.
We are very excited about supporting and working with AlphaGrowth on the trial of this growth program, which looks to be very beneficial to the Uniswap ecosystem and replicate some of the previous successes that AlphaGrowth have had. Outbound engagement and business development is definitely a crucial area, especially as the release of V4 approaches. AlphaGrowth have clear marketing expertise and so are a perfect partner to Uniswap in marketing of deployments, as well as working on impactful integrations.
Overall, I support this initiative to ensure we strengthen the Uniswap ecosystem. Also I hope implementing the Growth Program will address many underserved areas currently not covered by Uniswap Labs. For the Growth initiative (especially around the Grants and Marketing initiative)I would be interested regarding Alpha growth's experience with other DAOs and some case studies how this positively impacted the DAO's ecosystem growth / long term token price evolution and more (not entirely sure if it needs more socials / content and campaigns - I personally would probably not put too much focus here).
Instead, I strongly support the requested support on the business development side as this will help Uniswap to coordinate partners and collaborations. Looking at this from the perspective of a player in the ecosystem, I believe closer collaboration and leveraging synergies could be something worth to be tried during the 6 months trial.
Overall I think it would be worth to tie some measurable KPIs to the trial period to assess Alpha Growth's support and provide decision guidelines for after the trial period.
As one of the core team members of ChicagoDAO, I am very much looking forward to seeing the development of this growth program with AlphaGrowth. The team's outline of implementation steps and their goals clearly shows their knowledge in the space and the potential for growth through marketing, incentives, and strategic opportunities.
I also want to highlight the crucial reporting transparency, so that we can clearly see the effectiveness and measured outcomes of the program in its trial phase.
I am a BD lead for Boba Network and can speak on behalf of the BD/growth arm of ResevoirDAO/Alpha Growth.
Their team has been super hands on and forthcoming with helping with proposals and the blend of macro/micro view needed to really iron out bottlenecks within ecosystem growth proposals that they have worked with us on. We also have our presence within Oku that we are leveraging quite heavily to grow out Defi ecosystem and this proposal would definitely widen the reach/approach of how Boba can add and mutual benefit alongside Uniswap on the BD front with an additional arm adding this support.
[I am a voter apart of CalBlockchain/Blockchain at Berkeley but my thoughts do not represent those of the organization]
"Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs." essentially sums up the issue. Uniswap is the backbone of most chains, yet we are not taking advantage of incentives and marketing opportunities. This is a great start. Love the breakdown on high level steps for implementation.
[I am a voter apart of CalBlockchain/Blockchain at Berkeley but my thoughts do not represent those of the organization]
"Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs." essentially sums up the issue. Uniswap is the backbone of most chains, yet we are not taking advantage of incentives and marketing opportunities. This is a great start. Love the breakdown on high level steps for implementation.
I also think its important to highlight "Many of these grants require KYC/KYB. AlphaGrowth’s sister company, ReservoirDAO, is a DAO LLC based in the Marshall Islands, that has served this function in the past, such as for Compound. The UEII will utilize ReservoirDAO for this initiative." I think this separation is fine, but it is important for any legal considerations.
6 month trial period is reasonable. Excited to see this launched!
Hey @eek637 based on further consideration, in order to mitigate the risks around marketing, we will implement a formal legal review process for all marketing efforts. This will ensure that any public communications comply with applicable regulations as the landscape continues to evolve. We are fully committed to maintaining the integrity of the Uniswap DAO and protocol.
I do want to flag a concern that I raised to the AlphaGrowth team and the other co-sponsors last month. Marketing the incentives described is not without material risk. In Uniswap Labs’ response to the SEC’s Wells Notice, they make the argument that “LP tokens are not securities”
I've raised the same issue wrt treasury legal structure .... basically, if you position UNI as a hybid token rather than pure governance, it (re)opens a whole can of worms. Now the courts have ruled that algorithmic trading is more a mutually consented arrangement amongst willing participants but marketing LP rewards as an economic incentive opens up other regulatory concerns.
I do want to flag a concern that I raised to the AlphaGrowth team and the other co-sponsors last month. Marketing the incentives described is not without material risk. In Uniswap Labs’ response to the SEC’s Wells Notice, they make the argument that “LP tokens are not securities”
I've raised the same issue wrt treasury legal structure .... basically, if you position UNI as a hybid token rather than pure governance, it (re)opens a whole can of worms. Now the courts have ruled that algorithmic trading is more a mutually consented arrangement amongst willing participants but marketing LP rewards as an economic incentive opens up other regulatory concerns.
One way is to describe marketing incentives as a pull forward (aka advance) of future LP fees, however, this needs to carefully worded because it may then fall into other regulated services (eg advisory).
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this point, yes this is an area of importance and something we are very careful about. We never explicitly market available yield. Doing so is the quickest way to attract unwanted eyes. Having run marketing for several DeFi protocols, we’ve learned that in crypto you market events, not yield. If there is any other specific verbiage that the UF would like us to avoid, we are always open to feedback.
Gm, gm! :sparkles:
The results are in for the Uniswap Growth Program Trial off-chain proposal.
See how the community voted and more Uniswap stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1470
Hey everyone, snapshot vote has passed! Thank you to all for the strong participation and support. Please check out the onchain vote here!
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback @jayyu23 and thank you @cmrn for helping clarify :pray:
AlphaGrowth will be deploying a dedicated team specifically focused on business development and marketing. These tasks require sustained effort and industry expertise, which can be challenging for delegates to handle on an ad-hoc basis, given their other responsibilities. We of course welcome all delegates to contribute to this program in any way shape or form; our doors are always open.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback @jayyu23 and thank you @cmrn for helping clarify :pray:
AlphaGrowth will be deploying a dedicated team specifically focused on business development and marketing. These tasks require sustained effort and industry expertise, which can be challenging for delegates to handle on an ad-hoc basis, given their other responsibilities. We of course welcome all delegates to contribute to this program in any way shape or form; our doors are always open.
Regarding our track record, some of our proudest impact that we mentioned in the above RFC is running growth on behalf of the Compound DAO:
On the marketing front, as we promote initiatives on behalf of the Uniswap DAO, we take a tremendous amount of pride in making sure our messaging is aligned with our partners. Our role is more of an execution partner than a creative shop. We won't be making up new stories; only amplifying the stories that already exist inside of the Uniswap Ecosystem. We'll also be working closely with members of the UAC, ensuring alignment in our messaging. Further, we will provide reports throughout the trial period.
Thanks again for the comments! @jayyu23
Why would that not be sufficient for this BD task?
It comes down to focus. AlphaGrowth is a dedicated team who secures deals, whereas the current delegates as you mention have a lot of their own priorities going on.
Overall, I support this initiative to ensure we strengthen the Uniswap ecosystem. Also I hope implementing the Growth Program will address many underserved areas currently not covered by Uniswap Labs. For the Growth initiative (especially around the Grants and Marketing initiative)I would be interested regarding Alpha growth's experience with other DAOs and some case studies how this positively impacted the DAO's ecosystem growth / long term token price evolution and more (not entirely sure if it needs more socials / content and campaigns - I personally would probably not put too much focus here).
Instead, I strongly support the requested support on the business development side as this will help Uniswap to coordinate partners and collaborations. Looking at this from the perspective of a player in the ecosystem, I believe closer collaboration and leveraging synergies could be something worth to be tried during the 6 months trial.
Overall I think it would be worth to tie some measurable KPIs to the trial period to assess Alpha Growth's support and provide decision guidelines for after the trial period.
As one of the core team members of ChicagoDAO, I am very much looking forward to seeing the development of this growth program with AlphaGrowth. The team's outline of implementation steps and their goals clearly shows their knowledge in the space and the potential for growth through marketing, incentives, and strategic opportunities.
I also want to highlight the crucial reporting transparency, so that we can clearly see the effectiveness and measured outcomes of the program in its trial phase.
I am a BD lead for Boba Network and can speak on behalf of the BD/growth arm of ResevoirDAO/Alpha Growth.
Their team has been super hands on and forthcoming with helping with proposals and the blend of macro/micro view needed to really iron out bottlenecks within ecosystem growth proposals that they have worked with us on. We also have our presence within Oku that we are leveraging quite heavily to grow out Defi ecosystem and this proposal would definitely widen the reach/approach of how Boba can add and mutual benefit alongside Uniswap on the BD front with an additional arm adding this support.
[I am a voter apart of CalBlockchain/Blockchain at Berkeley but my thoughts do not represent those of the organization]
"Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs." essentially sums up the issue. Uniswap is the backbone of most chains, yet we are not taking advantage of incentives and marketing opportunities. This is a great start. Love the breakdown on high level steps for implementation.
[I am a voter apart of CalBlockchain/Blockchain at Berkeley but my thoughts do not represent those of the organization]
"Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs." essentially sums up the issue. Uniswap is the backbone of most chains, yet we are not taking advantage of incentives and marketing opportunities. This is a great start. Love the breakdown on high level steps for implementation.
I also think its important to highlight "Many of these grants require KYC/KYB. AlphaGrowth’s sister company, ReservoirDAO, is a DAO LLC based in the Marshall Islands, that has served this function in the past, such as for Compound. The UEII will utilize ReservoirDAO for this initiative." I think this separation is fine, but it is important for any legal considerations.
6 month trial period is reasonable. Excited to see this launched!
Hey @eek637 based on further consideration, in order to mitigate the risks around marketing, we will implement a formal legal review process for all marketing efforts. This will ensure that any public communications comply with applicable regulations as the landscape continues to evolve. We are fully committed to maintaining the integrity of the Uniswap DAO and protocol.
I do want to flag a concern that I raised to the AlphaGrowth team and the other co-sponsors last month. Marketing the incentives described is not without material risk. In Uniswap Labs’ response to the SEC’s Wells Notice, they make the argument that “LP tokens are not securities”
I've raised the same issue wrt treasury legal structure .... basically, if you position UNI as a hybid token rather than pure governance, it (re)opens a whole can of worms. Now the courts have ruled that algorithmic trading is more a mutually consented arrangement amongst willing participants but marketing LP rewards as an economic incentive opens up other regulatory concerns.
I do want to flag a concern that I raised to the AlphaGrowth team and the other co-sponsors last month. Marketing the incentives described is not without material risk. In Uniswap Labs’ response to the SEC’s Wells Notice, they make the argument that “LP tokens are not securities”
I've raised the same issue wrt treasury legal structure .... basically, if you position UNI as a hybid token rather than pure governance, it (re)opens a whole can of worms. Now the courts have ruled that algorithmic trading is more a mutually consented arrangement amongst willing participants but marketing LP rewards as an economic incentive opens up other regulatory concerns.
One way is to describe marketing incentives as a pull forward (aka advance) of future LP fees, however, this needs to carefully worded because it may then fall into other regulated services (eg advisory).
Thanks @eek637 for bringing up this point, yes this is an area of importance and something we are very careful about. We never explicitly market available yield. Doing so is the quickest way to attract unwanted eyes. Having run marketing for several DeFi protocols, we’ve learned that in crypto you market events, not yield. If there is any other specific verbiage that the UF would like us to avoid, we are always open to feedback.
Gm, gm! :sparkles:
The results are in for the Uniswap Growth Program Trial off-chain proposal.
See how the community voted and more Uniswap stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1470
Hey everyone, snapshot vote has passed! Thank you to all for the strong participation and support. Please check out the onchain vote here!
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback @jayyu23 and thank you @cmrn for helping clarify :pray:
AlphaGrowth will be deploying a dedicated team specifically focused on business development and marketing. These tasks require sustained effort and industry expertise, which can be challenging for delegates to handle on an ad-hoc basis, given their other responsibilities. We of course welcome all delegates to contribute to this program in any way shape or form; our doors are always open.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback @jayyu23 and thank you @cmrn for helping clarify :pray:
AlphaGrowth will be deploying a dedicated team specifically focused on business development and marketing. These tasks require sustained effort and industry expertise, which can be challenging for delegates to handle on an ad-hoc basis, given their other responsibilities. We of course welcome all delegates to contribute to this program in any way shape or form; our doors are always open.
Regarding our track record, some of our proudest impact that we mentioned in the above RFC is running growth on behalf of the Compound DAO:
On the marketing front, as we promote initiatives on behalf of the Uniswap DAO, we take a tremendous amount of pride in making sure our messaging is aligned with our partners. Our role is more of an execution partner than a creative shop. We won't be making up new stories; only amplifying the stories that already exist inside of the Uniswap Ecosystem. We'll also be working closely with members of the UAC, ensuring alignment in our messaging. Further, we will provide reports throughout the trial period.
Thanks again for the comments! @jayyu23
Why would that not be sufficient for this BD task?
It comes down to focus. AlphaGrowth is a dedicated team who secures deals, whereas the current delegates as you mention have a lot of their own priorities going on.
It comes down to focus. AlphaGrowth is a dedicated team who secures deals, whereas the current delegates as you mention have a lot of their own priorities going on.
At this point, AlphaGrowth has secured millions for Compound. Not that they have the power to stop the market from moving on its own, but they definitely support growth across numerous areas (incentives, partnerships, even representation at events where needed).
would these initiatives be marketed as AlphaGrowth initiatives or Uniswap DAO initiatives?
They’d rightfully market them as Uniswap DAO initiatives. You touch on a good point though, regarding using the brand, and I believe they’ve sharpened up quite nicely.
(Not affiliated with AlphaGrowth, I’m in the know)
Hey @SEEDGov thank you for the questions! We have spent months putting together this program and identifying how best to help Uniswap grow. Our team of 15 full-time professionals consists of members with backgrounds in data analytics, private capital markets, business development, computer science, growth marketing, and operations. Our team works across numerous timezones enabling us to provide global support.
We've structured this trial based on similar growth initiatives we've executed with other protocols. Our approach is flexible: adjusting man-hours and resources as necessary to ensure success. In regard to man-hour pricing, at AlphaGrowth, our team members are not paid by the hour. The man-hours will be whatever it takes to make impact over this six-month period.
Hey @SEEDGov thank you for the questions! We have spent months putting together this program and identifying how best to help Uniswap grow. Our team of 15 full-time professionals consists of members with backgrounds in data analytics, private capital markets, business development, computer science, growth marketing, and operations. Our team works across numerous timezones enabling us to provide global support.
We've structured this trial based on similar growth initiatives we've executed with other protocols. Our approach is flexible: adjusting man-hours and resources as necessary to ensure success. In regard to man-hour pricing, at AlphaGrowth, our team members are not paid by the hour. The man-hours will be whatever it takes to make impact over this six-month period.
The proposed budget includes all potential expenses that we may incur. As for marketing, we will experiment with paid advertising campaigns to establish a sustainable marketing budget moving forward.
We will do whatever it takes within our powers to make this program impactful. If you'd like to, we're more than happy to setup a call to dive in further!
Hey @dennisonb great question. The North Star is to get Uniswap paid. The most valuable opportunities lie in the chains that bring the best offer to Uniswap. In order to structure these deals, we will serve the needs of the various chains on behalf of Uniswap. Additionally, chains with volume-based momentum will be on the roadmap.
“Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs.” - really spot on.
I like this plan, feels tangible and makes sense. Could you elaborate on how the team plans to prioritize specific chains or ecosystems for expansion, particularly when multiple high-potential chains are available? This might clarify the roadmap and provide insights into which ecosystems Uniswap could potentially dominate first.
It comes down to focus. AlphaGrowth is a dedicated team who secures deals, whereas the current delegates as you mention have a lot of their own priorities going on.
At this point, AlphaGrowth has secured millions for Compound. Not that they have the power to stop the market from moving on its own, but they definitely support growth across numerous areas (incentives, partnerships, even representation at events where needed).
would these initiatives be marketed as AlphaGrowth initiatives or Uniswap DAO initiatives?
They’d rightfully market them as Uniswap DAO initiatives. You touch on a good point though, regarding using the brand, and I believe they’ve sharpened up quite nicely.
(Not affiliated with AlphaGrowth, I’m in the know)
Hey @SEEDGov thank you for the questions! We have spent months putting together this program and identifying how best to help Uniswap grow. Our team of 15 full-time professionals consists of members with backgrounds in data analytics, private capital markets, business development, computer science, growth marketing, and operations. Our team works across numerous timezones enabling us to provide global support.
We've structured this trial based on similar growth initiatives we've executed with other protocols. Our approach is flexible: adjusting man-hours and resources as necessary to ensure success. In regard to man-hour pricing, at AlphaGrowth, our team members are not paid by the hour. The man-hours will be whatever it takes to make impact over this six-month period.
Hey @SEEDGov thank you for the questions! We have spent months putting together this program and identifying how best to help Uniswap grow. Our team of 15 full-time professionals consists of members with backgrounds in data analytics, private capital markets, business development, computer science, growth marketing, and operations. Our team works across numerous timezones enabling us to provide global support.
We've structured this trial based on similar growth initiatives we've executed with other protocols. Our approach is flexible: adjusting man-hours and resources as necessary to ensure success. In regard to man-hour pricing, at AlphaGrowth, our team members are not paid by the hour. The man-hours will be whatever it takes to make impact over this six-month period.
The proposed budget includes all potential expenses that we may incur. As for marketing, we will experiment with paid advertising campaigns to establish a sustainable marketing budget moving forward.
We will do whatever it takes within our powers to make this program impactful. If you'd like to, we're more than happy to setup a call to dive in further!
Hey @dennisonb great question. The North Star is to get Uniswap paid. The most valuable opportunities lie in the chains that bring the best offer to Uniswap. In order to structure these deals, we will serve the needs of the various chains on behalf of Uniswap. Additionally, chains with volume-based momentum will be on the roadmap.
“Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs.” - really spot on.
I like this plan, feels tangible and makes sense. Could you elaborate on how the team plans to prioritize specific chains or ecosystems for expansion, particularly when multiple high-potential chains are available? This might clarify the roadmap and provide insights into which ecosystems Uniswap could potentially dominate first.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal for the same reasons we voted in favor during temp-check.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal for the same reasons we voted in favor during temp-check.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal.
We believe the problems identified in the proposal are worth addressing, and the proposed growth program is a step in that direction. Business development and marketing haven’t been Uniswap’s strong suit lately, given that Uniswap has been the dominant DEX for quite some time, and there wasn’t a big need for it.
However, with new competitors spawning every day, we should do our best to continue gaining both mind and market share, especially in newer chains where Uniswap has yet to establish itself.
Furthermore, the opportunity cost of not capitalizing on incentives available across the different chains simply because we do not have a dedicated individual or team to go through the process is probably more significant than the sum of this proposal’s cost.
We voted in support of this proposal, you can check our rationale in our delegation thread:
We voted in support of this proposal, you can check our rationale in our delegation thread:
Vote: For
Rationale: In line with our vote on Snapshot, we support this proposal as we consider it positive that Uniswap has a specialised team dedicated to business development, marketing and exploring possibilities for grants and inventions.
We understand that 6 months is a reasonable period of time, after which the DAO will be able to analyse whether or not to continue, and under what conditions, based in the results obtained.
We reaffirm that SEEDGov is at the disposal of @alphagrowth, the Uniswap MetaGov Team (@PGov, @AranaDigital) and the UEII, we are present in different chains such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, ZKsync Gnonis, among others, both in delegation teams and in working groups dedicated to the evaluation of different grant and incentive programs, so we can collaborate in these processes.
Thanks to the AlphaGrowth team for their consensus-driven approach to this proposal. There is no one currently doing the job they’re proposing, and done well, it is possible it might lead to growth in trading volume routed through the Uniswap Protocol’s various deployments.
I do want to flag a concern that I raised to the AlphaGrowth team and the other co-sponsors last month. Marketing the incentives described is not without material risk. In Uniswap Labs’ response to the SEC’s Wells Notice, they make the argument that “LP tokens are not securities” (page 33 of the document, which is actually page 36 of the PDF linked here). Whether you agree with that statement or not, it implies that in the notice Labs received, the SEC argued that they believe LP tokens are securities. Publicly marketing yields that are available on tokens that the SEC believes to be unregistered securities is a material risk that requires serious consideration.
Thank you to the @alphagrowth team for taking feedback from the initial proposal and putting together this trial period. As previously mentioned, Gauntlet has been working alongside AlphaGrowth on Compound and has had a positive experience with their approach and execution in driving growth. Given the scope and terms, Gauntlet supports this proposal.
Thanks for putting out this proposal - super thorough and constructive! Some thoughts, as part of the Stanford Blockchain governance team:
Hi!
In order to be able to analyse the required busdget, we would like to ask you to provide the following clarifications:
Right off the bat, we are extremely pleased with the revision of this proposal and where it stands in its final state here. The quote below outlines what we believe to be the crux of this initiative, particularly looking forward towards how we can drive impact into new protocol developments like Uniswap v4.
Our immediate focus includes targeting the various new EVM chains launching on the horizon, in addition to the abundance of opportunities within the OP Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit. Further, as the Uniswap v4 rollout is iterated upon launch, we will work hand in hand with relevant stakeholders to ensure target chains are aware of v4’s value proposition.
Just voted yes
Had several discussions with AlphaGrowth team on this. Also talked to GFX. Surprised this hasn't already been addressed, but Uniswap indeed needs an outbound BD team to manage growth of new integrations and negotiate incentives and co-marketing with the chains that support Uniswap and the projects that list their tokens on Uniswap.
We voted in support of this proposal, you can see our rationale in our delegation thread:
Vote: In Support
Thank you @alphagrowth @PGov and @AranaDigital for the proposal and the work done to bring this forward - no doubt has Uniswap yet to fully capitalise on incentive and marketing opportunities given its size and integral presence across so many ecosystems. It’s evident that we could be doing more to take advantage of the available resources, so we certainly see untapped potential there, and we think this initiative addresses some of those gaps well.
For this reason, we'll be voting to support the proposal.
The snapshot vote is now live! Please take a moment and review: https://snapshot.org/#/uniswapgovernance.eth/proposal/0xc95ebeb66aad587d768ed7ead88acacabbdd89bffb1bae8b15ce245a881ffab9
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal.
We believe the problems identified in the proposal are worth addressing, and the proposed growth program is a step in that direction. Business development and marketing haven’t been Uniswap’s strong suit lately, given that Uniswap has been the dominant DEX for quite some time, and there wasn’t a big need for it.
However, with new competitors spawning every day, we should do our best to continue gaining both mind and market share, especially in newer chains where Uniswap has yet to establish itself.
Furthermore, the opportunity cost of not capitalizing on incentives available across the different chains simply because we do not have a dedicated individual or team to go through the process is probably more significant than the sum of this proposal’s cost.
We voted in support of this proposal, you can check our rationale in our delegation thread:
We voted in support of this proposal, you can check our rationale in our delegation thread:
Vote: For
Rationale: In line with our vote on Snapshot, we support this proposal as we consider it positive that Uniswap has a specialised team dedicated to business development, marketing and exploring possibilities for grants and inventions.
We understand that 6 months is a reasonable period of time, after which the DAO will be able to analyse whether or not to continue, and under what conditions, based in the results obtained.
We reaffirm that SEEDGov is at the disposal of @alphagrowth, the Uniswap MetaGov Team (@PGov, @AranaDigital) and the UEII, we are present in different chains such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, ZKsync Gnonis, among others, both in delegation teams and in working groups dedicated to the evaluation of different grant and incentive programs, so we can collaborate in these processes.
Thanks to the AlphaGrowth team for their consensus-driven approach to this proposal. There is no one currently doing the job they’re proposing, and done well, it is possible it might lead to growth in trading volume routed through the Uniswap Protocol’s various deployments.
I do want to flag a concern that I raised to the AlphaGrowth team and the other co-sponsors last month. Marketing the incentives described is not without material risk. In Uniswap Labs’ response to the SEC’s Wells Notice, they make the argument that “LP tokens are not securities” (page 33 of the document, which is actually page 36 of the PDF linked here). Whether you agree with that statement or not, it implies that in the notice Labs received, the SEC argued that they believe LP tokens are securities. Publicly marketing yields that are available on tokens that the SEC believes to be unregistered securities is a material risk that requires serious consideration.
Thank you to the @alphagrowth team for taking feedback from the initial proposal and putting together this trial period. As previously mentioned, Gauntlet has been working alongside AlphaGrowth on Compound and has had a positive experience with their approach and execution in driving growth. Given the scope and terms, Gauntlet supports this proposal.
Thanks for putting out this proposal - super thorough and constructive! Some thoughts, as part of the Stanford Blockchain governance team:
Hi!
In order to be able to analyse the required busdget, we would like to ask you to provide the following clarifications:
Right off the bat, we are extremely pleased with the revision of this proposal and where it stands in its final state here. The quote below outlines what we believe to be the crux of this initiative, particularly looking forward towards how we can drive impact into new protocol developments like Uniswap v4.
Our immediate focus includes targeting the various new EVM chains launching on the horizon, in addition to the abundance of opportunities within the OP Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit. Further, as the Uniswap v4 rollout is iterated upon launch, we will work hand in hand with relevant stakeholders to ensure target chains are aware of v4’s value proposition.
Just voted yes
Had several discussions with AlphaGrowth team on this. Also talked to GFX. Surprised this hasn't already been addressed, but Uniswap indeed needs an outbound BD team to manage growth of new integrations and negotiate incentives and co-marketing with the chains that support Uniswap and the projects that list their tokens on Uniswap.
We voted in support of this proposal, you can see our rationale in our delegation thread:
Vote: In Support
Thank you @alphagrowth @PGov and @AranaDigital for the proposal and the work done to bring this forward - no doubt has Uniswap yet to fully capitalise on incentive and marketing opportunities given its size and integral presence across so many ecosystems. It’s evident that we could be doing more to take advantage of the available resources, so we certainly see untapped potential there, and we think this initiative addresses some of those gaps well.
For this reason, we'll be voting to support the proposal.
The snapshot vote is now live! Please take a moment and review: https://snapshot.org/#/uniswapgovernance.eth/proposal/0xc95ebeb66aad587d768ed7ead88acacabbdd89bffb1bae8b15ce245a881ffab9
Hi!
In order to be able to analyse the required busdget, we would like to ask you to provide the following clarifications:
Thank you.
Right off the bat, we are extremely pleased with the revision of this proposal and where it stands in its final state here. The quote below outlines what we believe to be the crux of this initiative, particularly looking forward towards how we can drive impact into new protocol developments like Uniswap v4.
Our immediate focus includes targeting the various new EVM chains launching on the horizon, in addition to the abundance of opportunities within the OP Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit. Further, as the Uniswap v4 rollout is iterated upon launch, we will work hand in hand with relevant stakeholders to ensure target chains are aware of v4’s value proposition.
Up to this point, any ongoing incentives programs fly under the radar, only benefiting the few who are aware. However, we incentives should drive growth, not enrich the few who are knowledgeable. So we need to do a better job of raising awareness of these initiaitives.
We are pleased with the outlined solutions, particularly:
We are in favor and looking forward to this going to a vote.
We voted in support of this proposal, you can see our rationale in our delegation thread:
Vote: In Support
Rationale: We support this initiative because we understand that it can be beneficial for Uniswap to have a dedicated team for Business Development, Marketing and to explore the possibility of obtaining grants and incentives in various chains. We also believe that a 6-month trial program is appropriate in order to evaluate the concrete results obtained and the impact generated, and to decide whether or not to extend the programme, and if so, under the same or different conditions.
SEEDGov is at the disposal of @alphagrowth, the Uniswap MetaGov Team (@PGov, @AranaDigital) and the UEII, we are present in different chains such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, ZKsync Gnonis, among others, both in delegation teams and in working groups dedicated to the evaluation of different grant and incentive programs, so we can collaborate in these processes.
Thank you @alphagrowth @PGov and @AranaDigital for the proposal and the work done to bring this forward - no doubt has Uniswap yet to fully capitalise on incentive and marketing opportunities given its size and integral presence across so many ecosystems. It’s evident that we could be doing more to take advantage of the available resources, so we certainly see untapped potential there, and we think this initiative addresses some of those gaps well.
For this reason, we'll be voting to support the proposal.
While the proposal is strong overall, we do have some minor points to bring up: first, it would have been beneficial to see slightly more details on the plan, specific chains/ecosystems that will be prioritised and so on, to clarify the roadmap and align expectations. 20% success fee seems to be on the higher end tho provides strong alignment, and some further budget breakdown would’ve been good for transparency sake (slightly unclear how relevant the “15 full-time professionals” are given that focus is on lead sourcing and marketing), though we recognise the flexible, sort of ad-hoc work this involves.
That said, the 6-month trial is a good step forward, and we’re optimistic about its potential impact on Uniswap's growth. Thanks again! /@justErik
Agree with this.
See a lot of chains giving grants to and supporting Uniswap v2 and v3 forks, unaware that they could be working with Uniswap itself.
Outbound is needed for chains to be aware of these deployment with/without incentives, while also negotiations for those chains to provide liquidity and incentives.
Hi!
In order to be able to analyse the required busdget, we would like to ask you to provide the following clarifications:
Thank you.
Right off the bat, we are extremely pleased with the revision of this proposal and where it stands in its final state here. The quote below outlines what we believe to be the crux of this initiative, particularly looking forward towards how we can drive impact into new protocol developments like Uniswap v4.
Our immediate focus includes targeting the various new EVM chains launching on the horizon, in addition to the abundance of opportunities within the OP Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit. Further, as the Uniswap v4 rollout is iterated upon launch, we will work hand in hand with relevant stakeholders to ensure target chains are aware of v4’s value proposition.
Up to this point, any ongoing incentives programs fly under the radar, only benefiting the few who are aware. However, we incentives should drive growth, not enrich the few who are knowledgeable. So we need to do a better job of raising awareness of these initiaitives.
We are pleased with the outlined solutions, particularly:
We are in favor and looking forward to this going to a vote.
We voted in support of this proposal, you can see our rationale in our delegation thread:
Vote: In Support
Rationale: We support this initiative because we understand that it can be beneficial for Uniswap to have a dedicated team for Business Development, Marketing and to explore the possibility of obtaining grants and incentives in various chains. We also believe that a 6-month trial program is appropriate in order to evaluate the concrete results obtained and the impact generated, and to decide whether or not to extend the programme, and if so, under the same or different conditions.
SEEDGov is at the disposal of @alphagrowth, the Uniswap MetaGov Team (@PGov, @AranaDigital) and the UEII, we are present in different chains such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, ZKsync Gnonis, among others, both in delegation teams and in working groups dedicated to the evaluation of different grant and incentive programs, so we can collaborate in these processes.
Thank you @alphagrowth @PGov and @AranaDigital for the proposal and the work done to bring this forward - no doubt has Uniswap yet to fully capitalise on incentive and marketing opportunities given its size and integral presence across so many ecosystems. It’s evident that we could be doing more to take advantage of the available resources, so we certainly see untapped potential there, and we think this initiative addresses some of those gaps well.
For this reason, we'll be voting to support the proposal.
While the proposal is strong overall, we do have some minor points to bring up: first, it would have been beneficial to see slightly more details on the plan, specific chains/ecosystems that will be prioritised and so on, to clarify the roadmap and align expectations. 20% success fee seems to be on the higher end tho provides strong alignment, and some further budget breakdown would’ve been good for transparency sake (slightly unclear how relevant the “15 full-time professionals” are given that focus is on lead sourcing and marketing), though we recognise the flexible, sort of ad-hoc work this involves.
That said, the 6-month trial is a good step forward, and we’re optimistic about its potential impact on Uniswap's growth. Thanks again! /@justErik
Agree with this.
See a lot of chains giving grants to and supporting Uniswap v2 and v3 forks, unaware that they could be working with Uniswap itself.
Outbound is needed for chains to be aware of these deployment with/without incentives, while also negotiations for those chains to provide liquidity and incentives.
