Author
DeFi Dave
Proposal
Authorize $370,000 in base funding (50% FRAX/50% FXS priced at 30 day avg.) and $200,000 in extra incentives over the next 12 months to support Flywheel in our media, education, and outreach efforts for the Frax ecosystem.
Background
Since our inception in June 2022 until now, Flywheel has evolved from a single podcast to a full-fledged subDAO of Frax that specializes in media, education, and culture. The Frax Core Team is unique among its contemporaries as it does not prioritize growth/marketing internally, choosing to invest resources in technological development and research. Flywheel has stepped up to fill this void in a grassroots manner. In a world of mercenaries, Flywheel stands out as a missionary proving ourselves many times over not only of our loyalty but effectiveness in spreading awareness of Frax far and wide. With Fraxtal (Fraxchain) around the corner, Flywheelâs role in Frax will only grow in importance and will give us an opportunity to expand the surface level of our coverage and outreach.
In 2024, our goals are to:
- Transform passive observers into active participants in the Frax Ecosystem.
- Cultivate a vibe for Frax that people can identify with and have positive feelings toward.
- Solidify Flywheel as the educational and cultural backbone of Frax.
In this proposal, we will review
- What we accomplished last year
- How funds will be allocated this year
- Comparisons to efforts by other DAOs
Year in Review
Since applying for our last grant in January 2023, we have greatly expanded our efforts offering multiple Frax-focused weekly content items, community activities, and in real-life events.
Online Content
Looking back on the past year, we are proud to share the following:
- Flywheel is the go-to destination for anyone looking to learn or keep up with anything and everything Frax. Whether itâs having a Frax 101 section on our website dedicated to breaking down how different subprotocols and AMOs work, creating tutorials on how to use the Frax family of products, or being the first to report on developments like Fraxchain, Flywheel has been effective in its mission of disseminating information about Frax throughout DeFi.
- Our coverage of news and updates are found on This Week in Frax which highlights the biggest developments for the protocol on a weekly basis on YouTube, Twitter, and our newsletter. Flywheel now has two bi-weekly programs that supplement our news coverage of Frax including Cryptovestorâs Alpha Corner and Frax Check. Cryptovestorâs Alpha Corner features the die-hard Fraximalist, Cryptovestor, who shares his findings of relevant information of Fraxâs development and shipping in newsletter and video form. Frax Check is one of the longest lasting programs of Flywheel that goes straight to the numbers to share the protocolâs health and performance over a two-week time period.
- One of the most highly praised areas of Flywheel is our clips and shorts from our long-form video content. Distributing them on both YouTube and TikTok, our clips have been able to receive tens of thousands of views.
- Our flagship Flywheel podcast takes deeper dives into the Frax protocol from both the core team internally and analysts/commentators externally as well as builds bridges with key opinion leaders and protocols beyond Frax. Our podcast stands out for going deep into subject matters and has become a growing destination for researchers and market participants of all sizes to stay up to date on Frax, DeFi, and everything in between.
- Driven by natural curiosity, the Flywheel podcast interviews the most interesting developments in DeFi and beyond. In the past, we have had industry-heavyweights such as Kain Warwick and Rune Christiansen, up and coming builders from f(x) protocol and Dolomite, commentators like Ansem and Gwart, as well as many others.
- We continue to host a wide range of Frax-centric interviews whether itâs with alpha leaks with Sam Kazemian, breakdowns of subprotocols with core devs, or hearing out analyst reasonings for their bullishness on Frax with Stacy Muur, Winter Soldier, DeFi Cheetah, and others. Furthermore, we have featured an educational clip of frxETH at the beginning of every episode and a link in the description.
Real-World Outreach
Strikingly in 2023, Flywheel hosted a number of events online and in real life as well as spoke on behalf of Frax on a number of occasions. The purpose of these events was to engage builders and users about Frax beyond the realm of content.
Itâs clear how Flywheel stepped up here, while the core team was heads down shipping, we were on the ground educating and spreading awareness of Frax around the world.
- Acting as a Core Advocate for Frax, DeFi Dave was able to organize six happy hours around the world, speak on behalf of Frax on multiple spaces online and on major occasions in real life, successfully execute Fraxâs first-ever hackathon online, and lead the Frax Educational Incentive Program for the community.
- The Frax Happy Hours were a series of in real life events primarily during conference weeks that offered a space to directly engage with Frax. Flywheel was prolific in this endeavor, hosting happy hours at ETHDenver, ETH Tokyo, Hong Kong, ETH Waterloo, ETHcc (Paris), and Token2049 (Singapore). Along with spreading awareness of Frax, these happy hours were able to bring together people from across the space to connect and learn from each other in a fruitful manner and friendly environment.
- At ETHDenver this past year, Frax Co-Founder set the tone for 2023 with his talk about Stablecoin Maximalism, why the Frax Core team believes in this framework, and how Frax is building in that direction. Flywheel took it upon itself to champion stablecoin maximalism, writing an article explaining the philosophical framework and as a Core Advocate, DeFi Dave participated in a number of speaking engagements on behalf of Frax including at Zuzalu and ETHcc.
- Zuzalu was a two-month temporary city organized by Vitalik himself that brought together great minds across frontier tech. Representing Frax, DeFi Dave was accepted as a guest of the community and organized a panel with QiDAO about stablecoins and hosted a talk about Frax and Stablecoin Maximalism to 25+ people. At ETHcc, one of the highest regarded conferences outside of Devconnect and Devcon, DeFi Dave gave his speech âStablecoin Maximalism: DeFiâs Universal Framework ââ, to a packed audience.
- In addition, DeFi Dave participated in a number of Twitter spaces on behalf of Frax as well as in panels in real life for Stable Summit in Paris and Singapore.
- Collectively attended by thousands of people, DeFi Dave has joined Twitter spaces with the likes of Arbitrum, OKX, Wombat, Dappos, and countless others educating wider audiences in crypto on what Frax is and how Frax works. At Stable Summit, DeFi Dave represented Frax on a panel in Paris, moderated one in Singapore, and moderated another one in the form of a Twitter Space prior to Istanbul.
- Engaging the community, Flywheel was able to lead the FraxBUILD Hackathon and Frax Educational Incentive Program. These initiatives were the first in Frax history that gave builders a clear path to develop in the Frax ecosystem and writers to share their research about Frax in their own words.
- In partnership with Dorahacks, the FraxBUILD hackathon focused on three areas including Product Expansion, Consumer Adoption, and Data Analytics. Engaging participants with workshops and office hours, builders and onlookers alike were able to engage the Frax Core Team in a unique manner with Sam Kazemian even sharing the plans for frxETH v2 along the way. From this hackathon, the Frax ecosystem was given a boost of new projects and platforms including the Fraxlend vault Fraximal (Product Expansion, 1st place), the Sticker protocol which built digital stickers that were backed by frxETH (Consumer Adoption, 1st place), and a numbers of others.
- The Frax Educational Incentive Program was established with the mission of spreading awareness of Frax throughout DeFi and beyond. Since starting in April, writers, threadors, and dashboard creators across the Frax community submitted hundreds of entries and proliferated a wave of content that otherwise would have never existed. The result has been threads that have collectively seen hundreds of thousands of views.
Case Study: How Flywheel Organically Creates Narratives From Scratch
A clear example that perfectly encapsulates the power of Flywheel is our campaign for BAMM. BAMM (or Borrow AMM) has been in the works for some time with plans of it being discussed as early as March 2023. Through research and conversations with members of the core team, Flywheel was able to author an article of how BAMM worked and organically distribute across social media, creating a conversation about the primitive in the process.
There were two parts of this campaign, the initial BAMM thread and DeFi Daveâs screenshot. What both were able to do well is spark a discussion and excite people about the innovation. This was especially true when Michael the founder of Curve quote tweeted Dave. Final numbers of this campaign include the BAMM thread reaching 90k impressions and DeFi Daveâs tweet reaching 193k impressions making the culminating total being over 280k impressions. FXS was trending on CoinGecko and discussions about Frax were rampant on Twitter as well as across social media. Although the concept of a Borrow-AMM is nothing new with multiple projects working on some version of it, what Flywheel was able to accomplish was creating a narrative for it from scratch and attaching Frax as one of the primary drivers of the category.
Our BAMM efforts perfectly illustrate the information distribution pipeline for the Frax ecosystem that we have painstakingly built over the past year and a half. Following this blueprint, we can repeat this result for new primitives & initiatives and put Frax in the position of maximum exposure.
By The Numbers
Growth
Flywheelâs growth has remained consistent over the past year. Since January of 2023, Flywheel has more than doubled our followers on Twitter from 2500 to 5750 and our YouTube subscribers from 1350 to 2800. Twitter has proven to be our most pivotal outlet in terms of distribution, and in the past 10 months alone we have received over 2 million impressions.
Although promising, these platforms are ârentedâ, and beyond distribution, it comes with its own set of limitations. This all changed when we moved off of substack and launched our own website FlywheelDeFi.com. Launched in August of 2023, FlywheelDeFi.com is the first time Flywheel owns the top of the content funnel, allowing us to engage and capture audiences, new and recurring alike, in a sustainable manner. With our website/newsletter along with distribution channels, Flywheel has grown to a collective audience of 10,000 users.
Of this audience, in just four months of our website launch we have added 4k more users in which 2/3rds are entering through new doorways into the brand. A huge signal that the audience is engaged with the new website is that users are on the site on an average of 2:12 with over 10% of people further exploring the site beyond the homepage by clicking on at least one more page on the site. Although the new website has been up for a short amount of time, if there is one thing that the data shows, itâs that Flywheel keeps the audience engaged.
Finances
The Frax DAO has committed $267.2k to Flywheel between February 8th, 2023 to February 8th, 2024. For the first 5 months, the payout was split 80% in FXS/20% in FRAX at a price of $10 per FXS. For the next 7 months after that, the payout was established to be split 50% in FXS/50% in FRAX at a price of a 30-day TWAP of FXS from the previous month. Other activities we have done for Frax include organizing the FraxBUILD Hackathon for $7.5k and organizing and participating in the Frax Educational Incentives which has totaled to date $16,988.50. In total, that puts Fraxâs commitment in 2023 at $291,688.50.
Since inception, Flywheel has not sold any FXS and have been able to accumulate over 24 sfrxETH, 5,030.2263 FPIS, and 3500 pitchFXS. We have been able to do this from receiving outside investment and support from PIF Labs which alleviates a number of core expenses. Our ETH Address can be found here: 0xaab5e297b7113b6c188b5b611ba2724bc1decf6f
Plans for 2024
Last year, how our grants were structured were on a per-task basis. This year, we will list the general responsibilities that Flywheel will be executing on behalf of Frax as well as to keep its own house organized. In order for Flywheel DeFi to still function and operate at the level it does now, then we must be able to fund itself properly. Funding from this grant will be able to support a staff of 6 people which include myself as DeFi Dave (CEO, Core Advocate), Sam McCoulloch, (Executive Producer), Kiet Fong (CFO, Co-Host), Peepo (Media Editor), Carissa Campo (Growth Lead), and Phil Lewy (Content Specialist):
| Item | Description | Grant Coverage Details | Staff | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Education and Awareness | Production of Frax-centric content including This Week in Frax, Frax Check, Cryptovestorâs Alpha Corner, etc. Production of flagship Flywheel podcast and include updated education slots that feature Fraxchain, sFRAX, and sfrxETH. Creation of tutorials, how-to guides, and explainers of Frax and its products. First to break stories about Frax and shape the Frax narrative to the wider public. To be distributed on YouTube, Twitter, Newsletter/Website, etc. | Grant covers 100% of these activities | Sam, Phil, Peepo, Dave, Kiet | $210,000 Base |
| Business Development | Be the first point of contact for prospective projects interested in entering the Frax ecosystem. Onboard protocols and chains onto Fraxtal. Lead marketing endeavors to amplify selected partners. Make intros and manage relevant relationships for the Frax Core Team. Speak on behalf of Frax as a Core Advocate at conferences, on spaces, etc. | Grant covers 100% of these activities | Dave (Core Advocate), Sam | $50,000 Base, $200,000 Extra Incentives at the discretion of Frax Core Team |
| Culture and Events | Organizing activities such as satellite conference events, happy hours, workshops, meetups, etc. Creation of merch and other cultural items. Pursuing unique unorthodox collaborations to bolster Fraxâs brand and image. | Grant covers 100% of these activities. | Dave, Carissa | $105,000 Base |
| Buffer Costs | Costs that cover ongoing and unforeseen expenses including upgrades, subscriptions, contractors, travel, etc. | Grant covers 100% of the costs | Misc. | $5,000 Base |
Education and Awareness as well Business Development are responsibilities covered 100% by the grant. As exemplified in our year in review, we have a long track record of executing in both areas and will continue on that momentum in 2024. Sam, Phil, and Peepo are an iconic trio who have stepped up to make sure that content is curated, published, and distributed in an effective fashion. Sam has been with Flywheel since itâs inception making sure our content machine runs smoothly. Peepo has contributed to Flywheel originally as an artist but has stepped up in a massive way as our media editor, editing long-form podcasts and creating renowned short clips. Phil joined Flywheel as an intern this year and has assisted Sam with posts and social media. Myself and Kiet have been hosting the Flywheel podcast since the beginning and while Kiet publishes is bi-weekly Frax Check, I have stepped up to direct and advise our editor team behind the scenes on direction and strategy.
Last year, I was asked multiple occasions by the Frax team to speak on different spaces and conferences and am proud to call myself a Core Advocate of the ecosystem. In addition, I have helped the Frax team make relevant connections whether it be with potential collaborators, organizers at conferences, power users, educators and creators, and more. Although many of these actions are behind the scenes and go unnoticed, they are vital to the growth of the ecosystem. This year, I will continue fulfilling my duties in these areas and do whatever is asked of me for Frax.
In 2023, what made Flywheel stand out in a big way was the quality of events & activities we had both online and offline as well as how we rebranded ourselves to the wider public. From hackathons to happy hours and everything in between, our outreach efforts bolstered Fraxâs image in an intangibly valuable manner. A lot of my time was directed at organizing and executing events without a hitch and Carissa was instrumental in helping in this regard. Furthermore, Carissa led our website redesign that serves as a vital online organ in capturing and onboarding people into Frax. This year, she will continue delivering in these areas and helping Flywheel grow itâs reach and impact on behalf of Frax.
Additionally, Flywheel was able to begin to diversify itâs revenue streams by pursuing collaborations with Brain DAO, Metronome, and ZUSD to the tune of $60k. As more protocols integrate with the Frax ecosystem whether it be on Fraxtal or with the protocol itself, it will give us the opportunity to partner with more projects looking to invest in education efforts to our Frax-centric and DeFi-savy audience.
EDIT* Instead of receiving funds as FXS set at $6.90 via llamaPay, we are requesting to receive funds on a monthly basis as 50% FRAX/50% FXS with FXS priced at the 30 day avg.
Comparisons and Benchmarks
Compared to other growth and branding departments, Flywheelâs request is modest. In the most recent MakerDAO Growth Core Unit Proposal, the requested budget for their brand team alone was $1,825,380.53 with salaries making up $607,200 of the budget. The remaining expenses for the Brand team included Public Relations Mainstream & Crypto ($700,000), Digital Assets for Comms ($300,000), Professional Services ($150,000), and Travel and Events ($68,180.53). Because Flywheel owns its public relations pipeline, there is no need for that expense. Flywheelâs total budget for 2024 is approximately 1/4th of MakerDAOâs Growth Unitâs.
In November 2023 for devconnect, rAAVE, and ETH Global Istanbul alone, AAVE DAO requested a budget of $550,000.
Motivation
Flywheel is the Education and Culture subDAO of Frax. We will continue to evangelize the ecosystem and build a community that people want to be apart of. Although we have made tremendous progress, we recognize the journey ahead of us is far from complete and we already have our heads down working to make 2024 a landmark year for Frax and Flywheel. As an ecosystem with multiple tokens in CoinGeckoâs Top 100 that together (along with Fraxâs subprotocols) hold a total of nearly $2 billion of value, Frax cannot afford anything less than world-class attention and quality that Flywheel delivers.
Proposal
- For: Approve Flywheel Funding of $370k Base & $200k Extra Incentives for 2024
- Against: Do Nothing
