The Lodestar December Recap
Good day everyone, and happy new year ! We hope your 2024 is filled with success, and we’re thrilled to have you onboard with us in this DeFi voyage !
Let’s quickly jump in the latest Lodestar developments since beginning December👇
KPIs recap
December witnessed a dynamic performance in our Total Value Locked (TVL), with figures oscillating between $40 and $50 million. Despite this robust activity, we observed a slight downtrend in early January, primarily attributed to the reduction in ARB STIP incentives (for more details, see “Extension of the STIP Program” section).
A significant achievement in December was surpassing the $250,000 revenue mark, a milestone bolstered by the implementation of the LIP-04 proposal in November. The enhanced market utilization following the Arbitrum STIP season played a crucial role, with users actively leveraging their assets to farm with stablecoins.
Another noteworthy highlight is the increase in our unique user count, which crossed the 7000 threshold this month.
Extension of the STIP Program
In a strategic move aligned with the Arbitrum DAO’s decision, we’re excited to announce the extension of our STIP program through March 31st. This decision, resulting from an onchain vote by the Lodestar DAO, underscores our commitment to sustaining our protocol’s growth momentum and alignment to the Arbitrum ecosystem.
View the STIP Extension Proposal
This extension led to an adjustment in our weekly ARB emissions, reducing them from 53,571 to 28,037 ARB tokens. While this change means slightly reduced deposit and borrow incentives, we believe it will help sustain the activity and growth that followed the Arbitrum STIP season for longer.
The revised program, effective from the first week of January, will continue until the end of the STIP program on March 31st. We believe this extension is crucial in strengthening our ecosystem and offering continued opportunities for our users.
Hidden Hand Bribe market live
On December 11th, a pivotal collaboration unfolded as we joined forces with the Redacted Cartel to unveil the Lodestar Hidden Hand Bribe Market.
For the first time, market participant such as liquidity providers or strategy deployers can actively use voting incentives to steer more emissions towards the markets they are using. This not only enhances their potential gains but also significantly contributes to the dynamism and efficiency of our ecosystem.
Dive deep into the mechanics and strategic advantages of a bribe market on a Lodestar in our comprehensive article:
https://blog.lodestarfinance.io/introducing-the-lodestar-hidden-hand-market-a-new-era-️-efa57bde4e41
Frax as a first bribe partner
Marking the start of epoch 18, Frax Finance made a significant move by allocating ARB incentives from their STIP Grant to bribe LODE lockers. This strategic placement aimed to boost incentives directed towards the FRAX Supply markets.
Following this, the Frax market witnessed a remarkable surge in votes within our weekly emission gauge. This not only underscored the efficacy of the gauge mechanism in a lending market context but also tripled the FRAX liquidity available on Lodestar Finance
Yield opportunities
Participants in the Camelot ETH-LODE pool are now eligible for impressive incentives, thanks to Camelot’s allocation of ARB from their STIP programs. By providing liquidity via Gamma, you stand to earn an astounding APR of over 400%, paid in a mix of GRAIL, ARB, and LODE tokens.
Link to the Nitropool: https://app.camelot.exchange/nitro/0x88AAbf8F1D2DF3c46D6aC84621F180408e48364B
Uniswap is also incentivising our ETH-LODE V3 pool through Merkl: Users can deposit liquidity within their custom ranges and earn up to 469% APR paid in ARB tokens.
Link to Uniswap deposit page: https://app.uniswap.org/add/0x82aF49447D8a07e3bd95BD0d56f35241523fBab1/0xF19547f9ED24aA66b03c3a552D181Ae334FBb8DB/3000
Link to the Merkl claim page: https://merkl.angle.money/?times=active%2Cfuture%2C&phrase=lode&chains=
Arbitrum Delegate profile
In the wake of our active participation in the Arbitrum STIP Grant program, we at Lodestar Finance are excited to announce a significant new development: the establishment of the LodestarDAO as an official Arbitrum delegate. This move is a testament to our deepening involvement and commitment within the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Delegate here: https://www.tally.xyz/profile/0xbbdc006358e78af6e6943f277a6e68e0ffd983bb
LIP-05: Forced liquidation of the V0 markets
On November 27th, a critical proposal was introduced on our forums, marking a significant step in the evolution of Lodestar Finance. This proposal centered on sunsetting the V0 versions of our markets, which have been operational yet unincentivized since the advent of our enhanced V1 platform, complete with the staking module.
The rationale behind this proposal was clear: after six months of V1’s successful operation, it was time to phase out the older V0 markets. Despite the seamless transition and our continuous invitations to users to migrate their positions to V1, a notable amount of liquidity remained in the V0 markets. This not only presented challenges for some of our liquidity providers in accessing their funds but also incurred substantial operational costs for the protocol.
This move, while being bold, was a necessary step for Lodestar Finance’s long-term health and efficiency.
wstETH Chainlink price feed incident
On December 3rd, a significant market fluctuation occurred due to large trades in the mainnet Balancer pool, affecting the wstETH price. This led to the liquidation of some over-leveraged positions. We wish to clarify that Lodestar Finance’s systems and the Chainlink oracle functioned as intended, with no code exploits involved.
In response to this event, we are exploring the integration of a secondary oracle with a Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP) model to complement Chainlink’s existing Volume-Weighted Average Price (VWAP). This approach aims to provide a more balanced price feed, especially for on-chain traded assets like wstETH.
Despite the incident stemming from legitimate market movements, we understand the impact on our users. As such, we have decided to return the protocol’s portion of the liquidation fees to the affected wallets. This is in line with our commitment to community welfare and transparency.
Market activities for wstETH resumed with adjusted caps, and we are diligently working to secure an alternative oracle provider, update our code, and proceed with an audit followed by a governance vote.
We reassure our community that there’s no immediate security risk with continuing reliance on Chainlink, and the goal of these enhancements is to smooth out pricing during volatile periods, not due to any vulnerability.
December Community Call
On December 10th, we held our monthly community call in which we deep dived into the bribe market mechanics, the latest improvements to our dApp and the upcoming developments
Thats all for today folks ⛵️ Stay tuned as we will be publishing the 2024 roadmap in the next weeks, and as usual, join our Discord and get involved with the crew: https://discord.gg/8SVDKWbZMN
