[OPEN GRANT APPLICATION] GMLP by Trove Protocol

Grants
1

SECTION 1: APPLICANT INFORMATION

Applicant Name or Alias: Odysseus

Project Name: GMLP by Trove Protocol

Project Description: GMLP is the first tokenized vault that is already live for GMX v2.

Team Members and Qualifications:

Arthur: Smart Contract Developer

Beachball: Art

Great Ape: Developer

Hisoka: Smart Contract and Frontend Developer

Maginoodle: Partnership

Nassau: Community

Odysseus: Strategy

Poetry Shell: Frontend Developer

PNP: Community

Project Links:

https://x.com/nitrocartel
https://nitrocartel.finance

Contact Information:

TG: @nitronassau

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nitrocartel

Email: nitrocartel.arbitrum@gmail.com

SECTION 2: GRANT INFORMATION

Requested Grant Size: 250,000 ARB that will be 100% spent on growing GMLP

Grant Matching: 500,000 TROVE

Grant Breakdown:

150000 ARB (GMLP staking)

50000 ARB (GMLP/ETH on Trader Joe)

50000 ARB (GMLP/USDC on Trader Joe)

Funding Address: 0x72f9b18f1091b1F8A0981Afe44aD0123Ae32524A (On Arbitrum)

Funding Address Characteristics: 3/6 Multisig with 4 external members

Distribution Contract Address: 0x3445CDda432EEe0189dC97F7a59e67b26800287b

Incentivised Contract Addresses:

GMLP: 0xc16cE97d04DE6C5E0391E308Dbc17A397183067b

GMLP/ETH: 0x9C300822CA081Df9483c6b039A654e3C5952925a

GMLP/USDC: 0xD0de200a2Bf24f60e36B311c679Df63029738cad

SECTION 3: GRANT OBJECTIVES AND EXECUTION

Objectives: Grow GMLP liquidity and TVL, to enable easier access to providing liquidity for GM pools, and allow DeFi composability and capital efficiency of liquidity providers of GMX v2.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

  • Total volume locked
  • Holder count of GMLP
  • Total liquidity
  • APY from swap fees

How will receiving a grant enable you to foster growth or innovation within the GMX ecosystem?:

Receiving a grant will allow us to enable a reflexive flywheel for GM TVL, as the higher yield for GMLP pairs incentivizes larger GMLP deposits and higher liquidity, which leads to easier access to GMLP and further GM TVL growth, making GMX a more competitive platform for large sized trades, which leads to higher volume and higher fees for GMLP holders.

Justification for the size of the grant:

100% of the grant is used to incentivize users of GMLP. GMLP product is already and has achieved decent traction (more than $900k TVL). 100% of the incentives will be used to directly grow Arbitrum, GMX and GMLP TVL, which improves GMX as a trading platform.

All of the GMLP development and audit cost have already been paid by the Nitro Cartel team.

Execution Strategy:

The 150,000 ARB allocated to GMLP staking will be distributed linearly on the staking page of GMLP.

The 50,000 ARB allocated to the GMLP/ETH and GMLP/USDC pools respectively will be distributed to stakers of the Trader Joe v1 GMLP/ETH and GMLP/USDC LP token.

To minimize potential risks, we will use a deposit limit per block to prevent price manipulation, and we will use battle tested smart contracts for the ARB distribution.

Grant Timeline:

The ARB will be distributed in a 3 month timeline linearly.

Fund Streaming: [Do you accept the funding of your grant streamed linearly for the duration of your grant proposal, and that the multisig holds the power to halt your streamed grant at their discretion at any time?] Yes

SECTION 4: PROTOCOL DETAILS

Provide details about the protocol requirements relevant to the grant. This information ensures that the applicant is aligned with the technical specifications and commitments of the grant.

What date did you build on GMX?:

ALP, our Arbitrove Blue Chip Index Token, has featured GMX as the biggest Arbitrum Ecosystem Protocol holding since the very beginning on June 8th, 2023.

GMLP is officially launched on October 21st, 2023.

Protocol Performance: We have achieved $1,480,000 TVL across ALP and GMLP. Out of our protocol TVL, more than 70% is either providing liquidity to GMX v2, or directly holding the $GMX token.

Protocol Roadmap: [Describe relevant roadmap details for your protocol or relevant products to your grant application.]

Audit History (if any):

SECTION 5: Data and Reporting

Provide details on how your team is equipped to provide data and reporting on the grant distribution.

We will provide thorough reporting on GMLP metrics, including TVL, holder count, APY, liquidity

Is your team prepared to create Dune Spells and/or Dashboards for your incentive program?: Yes

Does your team agree to provide bi-weekly program updates on the GMX Forum thread?: Yes

Does your team acknowledge that failure to comply with any of the above requests can result in the halting of the program’s funding stream?: Yes

Please note: Labs and the Grants Committee retain the right to approve, disapprove, or subsequently disqualify any grant from the programs they are administering at their sole discretion.

1 Like
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As a long term investor/community member in both GMX & Nitro Cartel, I would recommend GMX DECLINE the grant request at this time.

Reasoning:

While the grant appears appropriate for GMX’s goals, it would be inappropriate at this time to reward Nitro given their outstanding broken promises & poor track record.

Simplifying for brevity, Nitro’s original funding came from the sale of “Passport” NFTs which were promised governance tokens for Arbitrove (the sub-protocol which created GMLP and will receive this funding). The tokens were in the form of esTROVE (Escrowed TROVE) and would have a 6 months cliff before they could be linearly vested over a year into TROVE (the governance token of Arbitrove). As expected, investors were assured that they could claim their tokens daily over the 12 month vesting period.

However, when the vesting program was launched (Late September 2023), the team had unilaterally elected to do away with the ability to claim vested tokens but instead stated that investors could only claim their vested TROVE after the full 12 month period (changing a 6 month cliff into an 18 month cliff). If investors wanted to receive their vested tokens sooner, they instead were forced to Unvest (ending the vesting process on the unvested share). Should they then resubmit for vesting, they would not only need to wait a new full 12 months, but they’d also see a large % of their tokens burned – currently almost 9% (and scaling by 8 percentage points per month – e.g. vesting 5 months from now would see 50%(!) of their tokens burned).

This was never agreed to and has caused significant harm as one user saw nearly $6,000 burned just to claim $2,000 of tokens. When asked why this was put in place, the moderator replied “And maybe hadn’t the passport holders [been bashing] the core team up and down with negative comments [there] wouldn’t have a penalty be in place by now with the current vesting program!”. It appears they recognize this was an unacceptable change but implemented it to intentionally harm investors.

Additionally, TROVE was promised to be the governance token of Arbitrove, however, no governance system has been set up. The team have continually & unilaterally made decisions that had been promised to the community and no timeline has been given for implementation of governance.

Suggestion:

I believe grants should not only be used to further GMX’s goals but to also improve the broader ecosystem. For that reason, I think GMX should request the below from the Nitro team with the understanding that once the below are completed, the grant application can be re-submitted for review & potential approval.

  1. Nitro team to implement the promised vesting system whereby users can claim their tokens daily without resetting the vesting clock and with no penalty/burning.
  2. Nitro team to commit to a concrete timeline by which core protocol decisions (fee levels, revenue usage, treasury, new products, etc.) will be under governance control & a governance system built (deadline by no later than mid-January).
  3. Organic support from long term Nitro community members (unaffiliated with the team) that shows material change has been made.
  4. The promise not to retaliate against investors/community members in the future regarding feedback or concerns those parties have.

This will not only prove that the team are non-malicious & committed to honoring governance but also multiply the power the of the grant by bolstering positivity in the community (with gives the grant a further impact).

3

Thanks for your comment.

The team has been hard at work to deliver useful products for the broader Arbitrum ecosystem, with GMLP being our most successful thus far, thanks to the community’s support and trust for GMX.

To give the GMX community some context, the “Passport” NFT is minted at 0.4 ETH less than a year ago to launch a community for Nitro Cartel. The holders are currently up more than 15x purely from the TROVE airdrop in less than 12 months.

The vesting schedule is designed to align incentives of Passport holders with liquid TROVE holders. Since the vesting has begun, the team has successfully launched GMLP, started burning TROVE tokens, and are working on other initiatives to create value to TROVE, Arbitrum and the broader crypto ecosystem.

The grant application aims to drive more value to first and foremost GMX ecosystem, and the success of this grant application should also be a strong foundation for GMLP and the Trove Protocol, which is to the benefit of community members such as InternOfTheYear.

Close to 1% of GMX v2 liquidity is provided via GMLP, and we look forward to the growth of GMX and GMLP together!

1 Like
4

Thank you for submitting your application to the GMX DAO Grants. We will review your application and get back to you.

5

Longstanding member of the GMX and Arbitrum community here. I strongly believe this grant request would be beneficial for GMX.

Before I get into the reasons for why I’m advocating for this grant, I think it’s important that we separate the issues addressed from the actual grant request.

The concerns about Nitro Cartel’s past actions are separate from the potential benefits of this specific grant. The grant’s purpose is to grow GMLP liquidity and TVL, which directly supports the GMX v2 ecosystem, irrespective of past issues with Nitro Cartel.

GMLP offers a streamlined, user-friendly means for DeFi participants to engage with GMX v2 pools. The grant will significantly enhance this capability, contributing to a more liquid and robust GMX v2 platform by increasing the surface area through which liquidity can be provided.

This grant represents an opportunity to increase total liquidity, diversify the user base, and improve capital efficiency.

Nitro Cartel should continue to work with passport holders to resolve any outstanding concerns, but the focus on this discussion should be on how we can build a stronger, more efficient GMX ecosystem.

I want to be clear - by supporting this grant, I’m not advocating against passport holders’ concerns, but rather prioritize the broader benefits for GMX v2. As I see it, the proposed use of the grant is highly efficient – it’s targeted directly at enhancing GMLP’s utility and its contribution to GMX v2’s liquidity. Not everyone will want to provide liquidity to individual GM pools, and GMLP provides an avenue for users to engage in a managed service that mirrors more closely traditional and familiar investment vehicles (index funds).

As a community, our goal should be to foster growth and innovation within the GMX ecosystem, and approving this grant is a step in that direction. We can address past issues concurrently, but let’s not allow them to hinder a promising opportunity to land grab.

1 Like
6

I firmly believe that granting this request to Nitro Cartel makes sense for the GMX ecosystem. The response from Intern raises some valid points, however it does so without consideration for valuable context.

The Nitro team has had to battle market conditions that have been exceptionally volatile. Moreover, these challenging conditions have been compounded by the rapid evolution in the GMX ecosystem (for the better). Nitro made the decision to modify vesting programs to make the governance architecture viable for the GMLP pivot.

If the team opted not to modify these schedules, it is unlikely that the token and governance model would be ready for the move to the current GMLP offerings. The issues raised in previous comments are primarily related to governance actions. In practice, the Nitro team has been making the changes necessary to support these requests while simultaneously preparing GMLP for broad success.

A grant here will undoubtedly lead to better outcomes for GMX.

1 Like
7

This is a disingenuous comment – the issue raised is that the airdrop receivers cannot sell and thus it’s completely inaccurate to say they’re “up more than 15x”. Not only are they up nothing, many purchased for 4-7 ETH on the secondary market (well above you’re 0.4 ETH suggestion).

Nevertheless, the issue at hand is the failure to uphold the representations made to purchasers and thus the inappropriateness of taking the representations made here until prior matters are addressed. This cannot be refuted despite absurd suggestions by others that “market conditions” dictated a need to unilaterally lock tokens despite that having no impact on the GMLP rollout.

Even in your last sentence you give half truths: “Close to 1% of GMX v2 liquidity is provided via GMLP” – what you fail to mention is that more than 80%(!) of the GMLP supply is owned by the treasury and thus the organic demand for GMLP is less than the size of the grant requested.

8

EDIT:

We will like to edit our application to the following:

Requested Grant Size: 100,000 ARB that will be 100% spent on growing GMLP

Grant Breakdown:

100000 ARB (GMLP staking)

Other details are unchanged.

1 Like
9

I have been following Cartel for over a year now, and during this time the team has shown itself to be committed to the development of the Arbitrum and GMX ecosystem. There were difficult periods and a very unstable market around, but the Cartel continues to build no matter what, working on mistakes and improving the quality of products - this is very encouraging. I believe that support in the form of a grant will help strengthen both the GMX community and the entire Arbitrum community.

10

Hello Trove Team,

We want to thank you for applying to the GMX grants program. The window for applications has recently closed. In the interest of clarity, and to ensure continued lines of collaboration, we want to notify that your grant did not muster full support from the community to move on to approval. Such developments tied only to the STIP grant program are not the end of GMX working with you all. We understand that the opportunity presented by the grants program might have left you in the middle of some developments - we are more than happy to find other ways outside the grants program to see these developments through to a productive end, or to adjust scope accordingly in the interest of such ends.

11

You were right. They’ve finally rugged the community https://nitrocartel.finance/

12

Very disappointing. Thanks for sharing that info.

1 Like