[Updated] Concave Transparency Report
Hey frens!
How are our miners doing today?
Did you know that it’s been almost six months since we launched our protocol? Time sure flies when you’re having fun!
In an effort to increase transparency between us (yes, even more than before!), we would like to open up the curtains to the management of our treasury, and display some of our reports… whilst squashing some FUD bugs along the way!
We took a dive into our numbers along with introducing our new Transparency Dashboard. We realized some numbers may be reflected differently now from what you were seeing before the update.
Do not fret!
We got to work immediately in a bid to clear up some muddy water before it began to flood.
We compiled some answers to questions that might have arisen for you as a result of these changes, to bring us all onto the same page and to usher harmony into the cave.
Disclaimer: The numbers are constantly changing due to volatile market conditions. Please refer to the most updated data in our Transparency Dashboard here.
Show Me The Money
The image above represents our Initial Treasury, split into two - the Seed Round (in green) and Whitelist Round (in blue).
It is no surprise to anyone that we have raised a total of $14,873,299 since our protocol launch (from our Seed Round & Whitelist Round).
What does this all mean?
We’ve taken the liberty to break the figures down for your convenience:
Seed Round:
- Total Amount: $6,280,347
- From: Meme Fund and Angel Investors
- Purpose: Funding for Operational Costs for 2 years (2-year runway)
Whitelist Round:
- Amount: $8,592,952
- From: Our Community / Public
- Purpose: To run our Treasury Flywheel and generate revenue for the protocol
Basically, to sum it all up in a single representative formula,
Initial Treasury = Seed Round ($6,280,347)
+ Whitelist Round ($8,592,952)
= $14,873,299
Numbers Don’t Lie!
Status of the Concave Treasury (Funds from Seed Round)
In a blog post from waaaay back in February 2022, we’ve indicated our anticipated monthly operation cost to fall between ~$250k - $300k.
The Seed Round amount of $6,280,347 is meant to fund our operations for an expected timeline of 2 years, in other words, the Seed Round allowed for a 2-year operational runway.
To date, our average monthly expenditure per month is $255,807 leaving us snuggly in the two-year range. This is also not factoring in the money coming from MaaS, stable farming, etc. which all help to extend our runway.
How did we get to the current Concave Treasury amount of $5,106,326?
Here’s the math:
Concave Treasury
= Seed round
- YTD operational costs
- Losses from UST
+ YTD harvested rewards
+ MaaS|EaaS
= $5,106,326
Outflow:
[Operational Costs]
This figure mainly consists of compensation to our contributors who have worked tirelessly over the 8-month period since our launch, in a continuous effort to develop the protocol and innovate new and improved products for the community.
This is demonstrated on the Treasury Dashboard above (in purple).
[Absorbing losses from UST]
*The losses from UST will be absorbed by Concave Treasury (Seed Round).
True to our word (as referenced above), we parked our treasury in a diversified array of stablecoins. These were used to generate yield and further extend the runway for all Co-Op Builders.
Alas, we entered the “UST+ 3 Curve pool” farm and one of the coins happened to be UST. I think we all know how the story plays out from here.
On the flip side, one of our policy chads had anticipated the complete collapse of the Terra Luna ecosystem and alarmed the Co-Op - the funds were converted out of UST at the first sign of danger, well before our bag was completely nuked with the rest of the market.
Things could have been so so so much worse.
Our decision to switch at the time was met with some criticism but ultimately, we are very happy that the majority of funds were able to be salvaged, with only a fraction sacrificed to Mr. Kwon.
FUD #1: Concave Policy doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Concave: Well then…
Concave : FUD
1 0
Inflow:
[Harvested LP Rewards (Ongoing)]
As mentioned in our Community Proposal - 05, our treasury funds were immediately allocated to stable farming. This generated a healthy inflow in the form of harvested LP rewards.
[MaaS / EaaS]
We've merged our Marketing and Community team around 3 months ago, and with that, we've spun out MaaS (Marketing-as-a-Service) as mentioned in our blog post here. This has generated some healthy revenue to our team.
Not forgetting EaaS (Engineering-as-a-Service) from our chads in Engineering team helping out various protocols with their tech.
All in all, these has helped in extending our operational runway!
FUD #2: Concave is using funds from the Whitelist Round to pay Contributors
Concave: Not at all.
Refer to the information above.
As we’ve demonstrated, we maintain a clear separation between our Seed Round (Operational Funds) and our Whitelist Round (Community Investments).
No funds from the Whitelist Round have been used to compensate contributors in the cave. So snuff out your torches, hang up your pitchforks, you may now rest easy.
Concave : FUD
2 0
Status of CO-OP Treasury (Funds from Whitelist Round)
Our initial funds from the Whitelist Round amounted to $8,592,952.
Now let's chart our journey from that to the current CO-OP Treasury of $7,909,367.
-[Price fluctuation of CNV due to LP]
At the start of the protocol, Concave allocated a total of $2.4M in value to bootstrap liquidity for CNV-DAI in our exchange.
However, this exposure made it vulnerable to the overall bearish crypto market and the downturn in price - we were not invulnerable to the slaughter of the bear, and this exposure led to a dip in price.
Vice versa - it would be good to know - this also means that when the market turns bullish (and we all know it will!) and CNV price increases again, the amount of the Liquidity Pool will also increase!
-[Fluctuation of INV price]
Just a few weeks ago, we purchased $284k worth of INV using DOLA - as our means of solidifying our commitment to Inverse Finance. You can find out more information here. The fluctuation of INV price contributed slightly to the reduction in CO-OP Treasury.
The current INV tokens are staked and are earning interest - and we are quite bullish on the Inverse team. We are confident that accumulating these tokens will generate massive value in the future.
Active Treasury Management
CTA Strategy
We have been experimenting with our CTA strategy with a test amount from the CO-OP treasury (Whitelist Fund), and it is currently producing 10-14% monthly returns.
Seed Investments
One thing worth keeping in mind is that our Co-Op is made up of well-respected builders and policy chads who are well-connected to their own networks of builders.
This provides the Concave community access to projects in advance (some of which you have definitely heard of) before even the VCs get wind of them.
It goes without saying that, despite the downswing in the market, we have been consistently hard at work behind the scenes, setting up partnerships and seed investment deals across the Web3 and DeFi ecosystem.
As frustrating as it is, and as much as we’d like to, due to the nature of the business, we aren’t at a stage where we can announce exactly what these investments are.
But rest assured, our Concave Community would be the first to hear should any announcements be in the line-up aaaaannnndddd announcements are going to be made soon (™).
You heard it here first!
For the time being, we’ll be able to reveal the categories and the amount invested:
So far, we’ve made a total of 10 investments:
- 5 in DeFi
- 3 in GameFi
- 1 in FinTech
- 1 in Data Markets
FUD #3: Concave doesn’t do anything interesting with their “active treasury management”.
Concave: Take a look. And this is just one part of our active treasury management.
Concave : FUD
3 0
FUDDERS, YOU’RE OUT!
Strike 1
Strike 2
Strike 3
…oh, what’s that?
What Are We Doing Next?
[Concave Treasury (Seed Round)]
To start things off, over the past couple of months, we have been experimenting with nominal amounts of our operational funds (from the Seed Round) in various investment strategies and the results have been satisfactory.
The time is now ripe for Concave to delve into more aggressive deployment in our investments, generating more revenue for the protocol.
This will involve large sum movements, so don’t be surprised.
[CO-OP Treasury (Whitelist Round)]
The current market condition has opened up several other possibilities for us as the tokens we've set our eyes on (e.g., CRV, CVX etc) are now relatively cheap compared to the past several months. We are looking to accumulate these coins to position ourselves better to take advantage when the market turns bullish.
You have been notified!
Transparency Going Forward
Decentralization and transparency remain one of the core tenets of Concave.
We strive to maintain clear and honest communication within the cave and value speaking the truth at all times.
These most certainly apply to the transparency of our treasury as well. We intend to keep our word and are constantly working to find ways to improve communication and create peace of mind for all our miners.
Moving forward, we aim to release more Transparency Reports like this so you’ll have an idea about what we’re doing behind the scenes!
Why Separation of Treasury (Concave Treasury & CO-OP Treasury)?
- This is so that we clearly show that the operation costs is only being deducted from Concave Treasury (Seed Round) - we are not using CO-OP Treasury (Whitelist Round) to fund our operating costs.
- Moving forward, the harvested LP rewards will be attributed to the CO-OP Treasury (Whitelist Round). This will be shown in the newly built CO-OP Treasury tab (in our Transparency Dashboard) and is incredibly bullish news .
- We will be deploying Concave Treasury (Seed round) funds for more aggressive investment strategies to generate revenue and become self-sufficient. The excess rewards post allocation will directly increase our book value.
Until then, mine on!
