SECTION 1: APPLICANT INFORMATION
Applicant Name or Alias: Keelan
Project Name: GoldLink Protocol
Project Description:
GoldLink Protocol is an on-chain leveraged prime broker, providing lenders with transparent returns while allowing borrowers to execute complex leveraged investments on third-party exchanges such as GMX.
The protocol addresses ambiguous counterparty risk for lenders and capital inefficiency for borrowers by offering on-chain high-yield investment strategies with clear constraints acknowledged by both parties. Lenders only have exposure to protocols and strategies they specifically allocate to, and borrowers can effectively run trading strategies as they would in-house, with leverage to amplify their returns. GoldLink is specifically designed to attract institutional investors (Hedge Funds, Liquid Token Funds, etc) as it safely and securely allows these parties to execute sophisticated leveraged positions while maintaining their alpha.
Team Members and Qualifications:
Sam Weinberg (Co-Founder/CEO)
[Sam Weinberg - GoldLink | LinkedIn]
Current Role:
- Partnerships, Business Development, Recruiting, Research, Protocol & Backend
Previous Roles:
- dYdX, Software Engineer | 2019 - 2023
- Built v4 client and price oracle module for v4
- Built majority of the backend for V3, and significant portions of v1 and v2, including all clients.
- Developed smart contracts for V3
- Bloomberg, Software Engineer | 2018 - 2019
- SDE on exchange trade and order management team
Education:
- University of Pennsylvania, MS in Computer and Information Technology
- University of Pennsylvania, BA in Politics, Philosophy & Economics
Keelan Miskell (Co-Founder/CPO)
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/keelanbm/]
Current Role:
- Product, Design, Growth and Operations
Previous Role:
- Pinterest, Product Designer (Growth, User Onboarding, Activation) | 2021 - 2023
- Designed updated onboarding experience for app and mobile web
- Designed New Search experiences (Categorical Search, In-Feed Search Suggestions)
- Luminary, Director of Growth and Product | 2019 - 2021
- Facebook, Marketing Account Manager | 2017 - 2019
Education:
- University of Pennsylvania, BA in Economics
Trevor Judice (Founding Protocol Engineer)
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-judice-92358a204/]
Current Role:
- Lead architect and developer of smart contracts and backend services
- Developed brokered GMX strategy that enables borrowers to farm positive funding rates by entering leveraged, delta-neutral perpetual positions.
Previous Role:
- GFX Labs, Full-Stack Developer (Smart Contracts and Blockchain Analytics) | 2022 - 2023
- Wrote on-chain data scraper for all major DeFi Protocols.
- Developed Unitrade Heart API for a UniV3 pro trading interface.
- Reimplemented the UniV3Pool logic in Golang.
- Rewrote complex fixed-point math and further optimized V3 logic to enhance simulation performance for large pools with millions of swap events.
Education:
- University of Michigan, BS in Computer Science
Project Links:
Website: https://www.goldlink.io/
Github: GoldLink-Protocol · GitHub
Docs: https://docs.goldlink.io/
Dev Docs: Documentation
Audit: goldlink-contracts-v1/audits at main · GoldLink-Protocol/goldlink-contracts-v1 · GitHub
Dune Dashboard: https://dune.com/goldlink_protocol/goldlink-protocol
Twitter: x.com
Discord: GoldLink Protocol
Contact Information:
TG: @keelo32, @samweinberg23
Twitter: @goldlinkfinance
Email: info@goldlink.io
SECTION 2: GRANT INFORMATION
Detail the requested grant size, provide an overview of the budget breakdown, specify the funding and contract addresses, and describe any matching funds if relevant.
Requested Grant Size:
75,000 ARB
Grant Matching:
N/A
Grant Breakdown:
- 100% of funds will be distributed to depositors into the lending pool for our GMX Funding Rate Farming Strategy.
- As we scale the pool from the current $1M TVL cap up to $10M, we will offer a 4-5% bonus on the organic lending APY as an incentive.
- Scaling deposits into the lending pool will allow borrowers to continuously obtain competitive borrow rates, increasing the amount of capital these users deploy directly into GMX.
- As borrow volume catches up to deposits, increased utilization rates will allow us to maintain an organic attractive lender APY further supporting phasing out incentives once the grant is exhausted**
Funding Address:
arb1:0x62dF56DcEaaFEcBbb57D595E8Cf0b90cA437e77d
Funding Address Characteristics:
Gnosis Safe Multisig (2/3)
Distribution Contract Address:
TBD (Will provide airdrop claim contract address in coming weeks ahead of program start date)
Incentivized Contract Addresses:
0xd8dD54dF1A7d2EA022B983756d8a481Eea2a382a
SECTION 3: GRANT OBJECTIVES AND EXECUTION
Clearly outline the project’s primary objectives and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used to measure success. This will help reviewers understand what the project aims to achieve and how progress will be assessed.
Objectives:
- The primary objective of the grant will be to incentivize new lenders and drive retention within our GMX Funding Rate Farming Lending pool.
- We are gradually scaling the pool’s TVL cap and will increase the total incentive distribution as the pool size grows.
- This pool will have a direct effect on the borrowed capital deployed on GMX by:
- Increasing the total capital available to be deployed into the strategy.
- Extending the period of low borrow APR as increased lending deposits will result in lower pool utilization.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Milestone #1: Official Launch (exiting Mainnet Beta)
-
Achieve the next lending pool milestone ($1M)
-
Reach a total of $500K in total borrow volume deployed on GMX
Milestone #2: TVL and Volume Growth
-
Achieve the next lending pool milestone ($2.5M)
-
Reach a total of $1.25M in total borrow volume deployed on GMX
Milestone #3: TVL and Volume Growth
-
Achieve the next lending pool milestone ($5M)
-
Reach a total of $2.5M in total borrow volume deployed on GMX
How will receiving a grant enable you to foster growth or innovation within the GMX ecosystem?:
We plan to use the grant as an incentive to scale deposits into our flagship GMX Funding Rate Farming Strategy, gradually increasing the TVL caps to +$10M which will be directly deployed into GMX by GoldLink borrowers. The strategy allows borrowers to take on delta-neutral short/spot positions on GMX to begin accruing funding fees on the platform.
This strategy benefits the GMX ecosystem by adding additional liquidity to available GMX markets and balancing open interest in these markets. This additional liquidity will drive down volatility in funding rates across GMX markets.
Additionally, we are working to onboard institutions that currently engage in funding rate farming on other platforms, aiming to bring them into the GMX ecosystem.
As we increase the total borrow volume within the strategy, we will make additional GMX Markets available (currently offer BTC, ETH, LINK & ARB) while also exploring additional strategies that are of interest to our users.
Justification for the size of the grant:
The 75,000 ARB will allow us to increase the lending APY in our GMX funding rate farming strategy by approximately 4-5% through an Arb incentive for lenders, which will be spread across the pool as we scale the pool size to +$10M.
Execution Strategy:
- A fixed amount of ARB tokens will be allocated to the GMX Funding Rate Farming lending pool each week.
- Lenders will be allocated a proportional amount of the total weekly sum based on a time-weighted average of their pool balance over the respective week.
- Lenders will be able to claim their ARB incentive through a claim module within the app interface.
- The programming will run for approximately 18 weeks or until the incentive is fully exhausted. (potential variations depend on how quickly we achieve each TVL cap milestone).
- Weekly distributions will range from approx. 950 ARB at $1M TVL cap to 9,500 ARB at $10M TVL cap.
Grant Timeline:
Program Start: Jul 1, 2024
Program End: Oct 31, 2024
Distribution Timeline:
- Program Acceptance: Receive 33% of Total Allocation (25,000 ARB)
- Week 8 (August 18th, 2024): Receive 33% of Total Allocation (25,000 ARB)
- Week 12(September 15, 2024): Receive 33% of Total Allocation (25,000 ARB)
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 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?:
May 24, 2024
Protocol Performance:
Metrics since launch (May 30th, 2024). The project is currently in Beta and we have been pleased with TVL and the initial borrow activity. These stats can be seen within the app or accessed via our dune dashboard: https://dune.com/goldlink_protocol/goldlink-protocol
- TVL: $796.70K
- Volume: $842.23k
- UAW: 22
- Borrow Volume: $70,583.00
We are currently onboarding two institutions as borrowers. One has deposited $200K in collateral in preparation for establishing a loan, while the other is developing an algorithmic trading bot to integrate with GoldLink, utilizing our client interface and API.
Protocol Roadmap:
Current:
Arbitrum Mainnet Beta - $1M TVL cap on Strategy Pool - 3 GMX Markets Available (ETH / BTC / ARB)
Next:
Exit Beta - $2.5M TVL cap on Strategy Pool - 5 GMX Markets Available (ETH / BTC / ARB / SOL / LINK)
Later:
Gradual increase of TVL cap to $10M - Add all GMX Markets with sufficient liquidity to support deployment
Future:
Work with users and community to develop additional strategies.
Audit History (if any):
Core Protocol and Strategy contracts were audited by Halborn in April 2024. Audit reports can be found here: goldlink-contracts-v1/audits at main · GoldLink-Protocol/goldlink-contracts-v1 · GitHub
SECTION 5: Data and Reporting
Provide details on how your team is equipped to provide data and reporting on grant distribution.
Is your team prepared to create Dune Spells and/or Dashboards for your incentive program?:
Yes, we currently have a Dune dashboard tracking relevant metrics (https://dune.com/goldlink_protocol/goldlink-protocol) and can create a similar dashboard specifically for tracking progress against incentive program goals.
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