A new program -- Spark

Project and Asset Integrations
1

I believe Seamless has the opportunity to thread the needle between being overly difficult for new assets to integrate and being overly lenient to integrate unproven assets.

Below is my proposal for a program called Seamless Spark, which establishes the framework for asset integrations with clarity about the asset’s liquidity, the project/initiator’s commitments, and the community incentives.

The Seamless Spark Asset Integration Program

Seamless Protocol is the home base of Base, where projects can direct liquidity for lending and borrowing.

What is Seamless Spark?

Seamless Spark is the asset integration program for Seamless, the first and largest, decentralized lending and borrowing protocol on Base. The proposal initiator of potential assets should complete the Seamless Spark program in order to ensure a healthy market for lending and borrowing.

Why does Seamless Spark exist?

Seamless Spark strikes the balance of enabling smaller and less liquid projects/assets to integrate. This fosters inclusivity for the Base ecosystem, while also mindfully balancing the inherent risks associated with their integration. Thus, ensuring accessibility without compromising on safety or usability, bridging the gap between overly gate-kept platforms (i.e. Compound and AAVE) and the inclusion of assets seeking greater liquidity options.

How does it work?

All assets in the Seamless Spark program must go through governance voting procedures. However, with the robustness of Seamless Spark, projects can demonstrate legitimacy to the community for easier/fast-tracked decisioning.

The Proposal Initiator interested in the asset integration must submit the proposal below into the Seamless Discourse, where the community can discuss proposals and get questions answered. This begins the remainder of the governance process.

The proposal includes 3 important pieces.

  1. Background Info: The asset must have sufficient liquidity in order to be considered. This information would be considered in setting potential Supply and Borrow cap parameters.
  2. The Community Spark Incentives: To spark the market, the Proposal Initiator should commit assets to incentivize participation in the new markets, both for the suppliers and borrowers. For Proposal Initiators who are looking to expand their user base, assets can also be committed into incentivizing other existing supply/borrow markets.
  3. The Commitment from the Proposal Initiator: As a display of confidence, the Proposal Initiator or project community should seed the supply market with a certain amount of assets. They should also set aside a minimum requirement for paying off bad debt in case of illiquid liquidations.

Seamless Spark Proposal for [ASSET]

Background Info

  1. What is the Project’s official name?
  2. What is the official website link?
  3. What is the symbol of the proposed asset for integration (referred to as “[ASSET]” below).
  4. Base smart contract link on Basescan.
  5. Name the DEX(es) with highest [ASSET] liquidity, and include the size of liquidity of each.

For the Community Spark Incentives

  1. How many [ASSET] will you use to incentivize the [ASSET]-Suppliers? For what length of time?
  2. How many [ASSET] will you use to incentivize the [ASSET]-Borrowers? For what length of time?
  3. Which existing Supply markets will you spark (e.g. ETH, USDbC)? Include the number of tokens & length of time of emissions.
  4. Which existing Borrow markets will you spark (e.g. ETH, USDbC)? Include the number of tokens & length of time of emissions.

Commitment from the Proposal Initiator or Project Community

  1. What is the number of [ASSET] that you/your community will use to initially “spark” the Supply market?
  2. What is the minimum length of time that your [ASSET] will be supplied into the proposed market?
  3. What is the minimum insurance size you will maintain to pay off instances of bad debt (in USDC)?
13 Likes
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I applaud the initiative behind the Seamless Spark program. It seems like a well-thought-out framework to strike the balance between fostering inclusivity and mitigating risk in asset integrations on Seamless.

6 Likes
3

Hi,

That is a great framework for integrating new assets. I’d also like to chime in about oracles. I’m from API3, and we can offer various price feeds according to Seamless parameters.

One of the advantages of API3 is its “push” oracle, which mimics how dApps like AAVE and Compound have safely implemented oracles. Our oracles are aggregated by the API providers themselves, so people know exactly where the data is coming from. Finally, we have Oracle Extractable Value (OEV) launching soon, allowing dApps to keep the lion’s share of liquidation profits, directing profits to the users or the dApp’s own treasury.

A few assets that we can provide Oracle services are:

Cbeth - 2M TVL on Aerodrome - 0x2ae3f1ec7f1f5012cfeab0185bfc7aa3cf0dec22

wstEth- 8.4M TVL on Aerodrome 0xc1cba3fcea344f92d9239c08c0568f6f2f0ee452

Weth/Dai- 1.2M TVL on Aerodrome 0x1b05e4e814b3431a48b8164c41eaC834d9cE2Da6

There are other assets, but hopefully, this can get the ball rolling for a proper discussion. Happy to answer any questions.

Thanks for your time!

4 Likes
4

Hi! Thanks for making this proposal. I tend to support it. Just one question, what do u mean by

The asset must have sufficient liquidity in order to be considered.

It is definitely very important to have enough liquidity but what amount are we going to consider as sufficient ?

3 Likes
5

This Seamless Spark program truly bridges the gap between inclusivity and safety within the Base ecosystem. It’s an innovative approach that not only encourages growth but also showcases a commitment to responsible and sustainable expansion. Kudos to the team for their forward-thinking initiative!

How will Seamless Spark ensure transparency and accountability in assessing the legitimacy and commitment of project initiators seeking asset integration? Are there specific criteria or mechanisms in place to evaluate their proposals effectively?

3 Likes
6

Thanks for the thoughts, this is really cool to learn about. Also curious to hear about oracles on potential assets that go through the Spark program (assets not integrated onto seamless yet)?

1 Like
7

Good point, curious to hear what others have to think but, what we’ve noticed from best practices would be:

  1. Deep on-chain liquidity for liquidators, in some direct proportion to the borrow cap, i.e. $200k +/- 2% onchain liquidity would mean about a $200k borrow cap enabled.

Also, based on the newest community member, Chaos Labs, I believe they can provide some public liquidity analysis as they have done for other assets (check out this one I found on the AAVE boards): [ARC] Add Support for cbETH - #24 by ChaosLabs - New Asset - Aave

8

One of the core advantages of gate-kept platforms is their due diligence; “threading the needle” is fitting for the situation - it is a balancing act between being too lenient and torching the protocol, and being overly strict and miring it.

As a notion I stand behind the idea that there should be an organic/community led token integration process - Spark.

There are a lot of details to iron out and questions to be answered:

  • Define “sufficient liquidity” (richyRNG has given a solid rule of thumb)
  • How would it be ensures that users are sufficiently informed on assets and not just give in to hype for voting? Does it matter if it is hype-led?
  • There is a juxtaposition between “less liquid projects” and “projects with sufficient liquidity”. How is this bridged?

To add to the initiative, I’d think minimum amounts of commitment would be good to have.

Just some thoughts.

Thank 0xDEADBEEF for the idea.

1 Like
9

I’m highly supportive of this framework and the Spark program.

Threading the needle between safety and inclusion is critical and the Spark framework appears to be an excellent approach to balance those two critical objectives.

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This is a great idea - thanks 0xDEADBEEF for starting this important conversation!

This program leans toward having a bias for action, being inclusive in adding assets over needing to be perfect/requiring nearly-impossible bars to be met. The incentives seem to be aligned between the project’s initiator and the protocol’s users, so although the perfect ratio/threshold is not meticulously proven, I’d support moving this forward to the next stage (Snapshot) with decently conservative (but not overly restrictive) parameters.

The first step would be to solidify this Spark program as the accepted standard for integrating assets, then for each asset, I think it’d make sense to go through public evaluation and discourse when the time comes.

Given their experience in advising Aave’s/other protocols’ parameters, I too believe that Chaos Labs is well equipped to make suggestions. Great to have the support of such experts in the community!

1 Like
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As Governance takes shape at Seamless, it is important for there to be a framework and template that other projects can latch onto esp when it comes to listing new assets. This framework makes it accessible and inclusive for projects and helps them take the guess work out of what might be needed in terms of liquidity/incentives etc.

It is a great start and worth putting into motion to get the ball rolling as more markets look to come onto Seamless Protocol

2 Likes
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hey everyone –

Thanks for all the feedback, seems like this has received enough discussion and input to move into a snapshot vote.

We will move to start a snapshot at GMT time with the feedback incorporated for an official community signaling.

(Guz_MassAdopt) – sorry i think i missed your proposal.

Here’s the snapshot link: Snapshot

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Huge fan of this proposal as it sets a foundation for diligent asset onboarding to Seamless.

One slight modification I’d propose is the inclusion of a risk assessment of the asset that’s being onboarded (this is partially covered at a high-level in ‘Background Info’). Perhaps the adding the following to offer a more complete picture of any prospective asset:

  1. Number of Smart Contract Audits (include entities that conducted the audits).
  2. Price Manipulation Risks: Is the asset susceptible to price manipulation?
  3. Past Incidents and Responses: Has the asset been involved in any past security incidents or controversies? How were these handled?
3 Likes
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A good initiative

15

Sorry for the delay; here’s the Snapshot link: Snapshot

2 Likes
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Hi Richy,

stETH is a good low-hanging fruit to get the ball rolling.

I am also interested in DOLA. They are a big partner of Aerodrome with competitive bribes each epoch. They have 9M TVL on Aerodrome, and 16M TVL liquidity (with USDbc). I am quite sure we (API3) can quickly spin up a data feed for DOLA too.

1 Like
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Just saw this message @api3eag , always feel free to reachout to the wider community via tg, discord or here certainly. In terms of DOLA, we’re happy to chat with them, if you are in contact with their project team? There are a few contributors/community members on our side we can spin up a group with to get the convo going if needed

18

Thanks @richyRNG I appreciate the shout back. I went ahead and our team did a test on DOLA, and unfortunately API3 won’t be able to spin up a price feed for DOLA as I first expected.

However, wstETH, which is currently being considered on Seamless- we have a price feed up and running (link attached below).

@kenx3495 and I started a chat on Telegram. Would be great for all of us to be on a chat together and discuss. If you’re interested would you mind if we jump on a group chat for faster comms?

Again, API3 is a “push” oracle, which means that the oracle lives natively on chain (very similar to Chainlink).

Our OEV solution is just about to come out where dApps keep the liquidations and can use them how they see fit. There is no latency or centralized actors as in other oev solutions.

Look forward in keeping the ball rolling!

Cheers

1 Like