[RFC] - Uniswap Growth Program Trial
Introduction
Purpose
In recent months, we’ve actively engaged dozens of Uniswap stakeholders, gathering diverse perspectives from across the ecosystem. We parlayed these insights into an RFC forum post last month.
Your feedback has helped us pinpoint key areas for improvement, specifically:
- Outbound business development
- Marketing opportunities
- Securing grants and incentives
This updated forum post addresses the areas for improvement that you asked us to focus on.
Authors
AlphaGrowth and our sister company ReservoirDAO are DAO service providers primarily working in the realm of DeFi growth through grants, BD, growth-marketing, and DeFi Operations. Our marquee partner is Compound.Finance, where we run all things growth, business development and marketing for the DAO.
(Co-authors for Uniswap Ecosystem Incentives Initiative section)
Uniswap MetaGov Team: @PGov and @AranaDigital; The team first formed as the UADP to focus on Arbitrum’s governance and ecosystem. After applying and receiving 1M ARB in grants for the Uniswap DAO, it was deployed over 3 months and recently concluded. With this success, the UADP, now MetaGov team, is looking to deploy this framework across other chains. The team consists of long-time community members and delegates who have participated as contributors through multiple working groups and have worked across various committees and grant programs in Uniswap and across DeFi.
How we got here
Over the last few market cycles, we cut our teeth in the world of grants, BD, go-to-market, tokenomics, and ecosystem growth. We’ve helped dozens of projects go multichain. Throughout this process, members of Compound DAO encouraged us to design and implement a comprehensive growth program to address stagnation in the protocol. As of today, we lead growth for Compound.Finance. Some of our wins at Compound include:
- Secured a $10M Deal from Mantle for Compound, where Mantle committed to $10M in liquidity bootstrap and $1M in incentives for Compound Community.
- We also secured verbal commitments from 3 more chains for deals similar to Mantle.
- Securing additional $3M in incentives for Compound users from Arbitrum and Optimism
- Deploying 7 new markets
- Launching 30+ new collateral assets
- Sourcing over $420M in TVL
Here is the most recent quarterly report on our growth program at Compound. For a comprehensive view of AlphaGrowth-led Compound Growth Program, check out this Dune Dashboard 1.
Why we’re here
Both decentralization and regulatory uncertainty have hindered growth in all corners of DeFi. Like many members of the community, we see Uniswap as a pioneer with great influence over the future of the industry and the ability to set positive precedents. Without an organized forward-trajectory of pioneers like Uniswap and Compound, we risk seeing the industry spin its wheels.
Uniswap has done a tremendous job setting the gold standard for trading assets on-chain. The Uniswap product, brand, and community are some of the strongest in DeFi. We are here because we believe that Uniswap will be the liquidity layer of the internet, and we want to help get it and keep it there.
Building on the outstanding efforts of the Uniswap Accountability Committee (UAC) in managing the deployment process, this proposal seeks to address two critical areas that are currently under-resourced: outbound engagement and marketing of deployments, incentives, and integrations that have outsized impact.
What’s the problem?
Currently, there is little outbound business development.
Uniswap Labs is not currently focused on expanding the protocol to new chains, creating an opportunity within the DAO. Additionally, the UAC has done an exceptional job in facilitating the middle of the pipeline (see graphic below). However, to continue scaling Uniswap’s impact and user base, there is a growing need to strengthen the initial and final stages of the business development process.
Uniswap lacks a structured outbound business development strategy, limiting new chains and strategic partnerships. This reliance on inbound interest restricts Uniswap’s growth. Without outbound, valuable opportunities are being missed, and Uniswap risks falling behind competitors who take a more aggressive approach in pursuing partnerships and integrations. The current reactive approach slows expansion into new markets and ecosystems.
Opportunities are lacking coverage; growth is beginning to stagnate.
Uniswap, despite its status as a leading DeFi protocol, risks falling into complacency by relying too heavily on its reputation and existing user base. The assumption that Uniswap will continue to dominate without active outreach and promotion is dangerous. Recent data show a relative downturn in the number of new users interacting with Uniswap:
Teams like Oku are often marketing new deployments and incentives on their own—efforts that could be amplified by the Uniswap ecosystem if a mechanism were in place. At present, the lack of a standardized process for co-marketing initiatives is causing missed opportunities for growth.
Additionally, the Onboarding Package referred to here offers network partners tremendous value. However, many chains are unaware that this opportunity exists. Currently, no outbound team is promoting the Onboarding Package and inviting chains to apply. The latest UAC report mentioned that the current impact of programs like the URGP can also be increased if the DAO were to establish a marketing team:
Uniswap Accountability Committee (UAC): Season 2 Report
The Uniswap Labs and Uniswap Foundation social accounts don’t tend to advertise many of the new opportunities that can be taken advantage of.
We’re leaving incentives on the table.
Although Uniswap is live on over 25 chains, we aren’t currently capitalizing on the numerous incentive programs that are up for grabs. Without a team dedicated to securing and effectively distributing these funds, valuable opportunities for growth and user acquisition are being missed out on. Here are some concrete examples:
- Optimism Grants Council: Potential to secure ~$1 million each year in incentives for Uniswap users
- Scroll: Recently closed applications to a grants program awarding six figures to ecosystem projects
- Chains like Taiko, Mantle, Rootstock, Boba, and Linea offer incentives that Uniswap is eligible for but not is taking full advantage of.
- Other chains have expressed interest in creating one-off grants for incentivizing activity within their ecosystems
- Projects including Circle (USDC) have spoken to us about ways to incentivize utilization, but channels for doing so are currently unclear to them.
These potential incentive partners are listed here based on previous incentive issuance
Why do these problems matter?
Why outbound business development?
Without a dedicated team with an outbound mandate, Uniswap increases the risk of stagnation. The most valuable opportunities come from outbound activities rather than inbound. Relying solely on inbound interest limits the scope of potential partners and opportunities, while outbound efforts allow us to target higher-impact ecosystems and opportunities that align with Uniswap’s long-term goal of expanding the reach of the brand.
With the upcoming v4 launch, there is a massive opportunity to solidify Uniswap’s position as a leader in the DeFi space. By proactively engaging builders, DeFi protocols, blockchains, liquidity providers, and institutional players, we can accelerate the adoption of v4.
Why market new opportunities?
Fundamentally, liquidity incentives reward users for increasing the capital efficiency and stability of the DeFi ecosystem.
Simply put, DeFi users must be aware of opportunities if they are to capitalize on them. If Uniswap launches on a new chain, there needs to be a greater marketing push so that the incentives are effectively utilized. Additionally, without distribution, only power users and insiders will have visibility into these opportunities. Further, ecosystems will be much more willing to offer us incentives if we plan on marketing them to the Uniswap community.
Finally, marketing opportunities (like the Onboarding Package) to chains will make them far more likely to offer Uniswap users reciprocal incentivization.
Why secure incentives?
Econ 101: People respond to incentives. If we don’t secure these incentives for Uniswap users, other more growth-oriented DEXes will. Without this additional firepower, it will be increasingly difficult to retain and grow the Uniswap protocol and user base. Many DEX teams on L2s collaborate directly with core ecosystem teams to secure these incentives. If we don’t run this race, we will continue losing market share.
What solutions do we propose?
Our plan of action includes an outbound business development team, a dedicated marketing team, and a team committed to securing grants and incentives for Uniswap users.
A Dedicated Outbound Business Development Team
To maximize opportunities at the top of the funnel, we will deploy our crypto-native team to spearhead outbound business development for the Uniswap Protocol. The objective is to consistently deliver high-quality opportunities to the UAC and the DAO, streamlining and enhancing the current process.
With this proactive strategy, we will engage new opportunities before our competitors do. This is crucial in sustaining Uniswap’s leadership position in the DeFi space.
Our team will work closely with the UAC, Oku, and others to identify the best opportunities to prioritize the roadmap for future Uniswap deployments. Some of these targets include new chains and integrations like wallets and bridges. Our immediate focus includes targeting the various new EVM chains launching on the horizon, in addition to the abundance of opportunities within the OP Superchain and Arbitrum Orbit. Further, as the Uniswap v4 rollout is iterated upon launch, we will work hand in hand with relevant stakeholders to ensure target chains are aware of v4’s value proposition. This may include DeFi, CeFi, and TradFi.
To further support our DeFi BD team over the years, we’ve built a Telegram-native CRM specifically designed to manage growth efficiently and effectively. We’ll touch more on this later.
A Dedicated Marketing Team
To ensure these new opportunities and incentives are shared far and wide, we propose leveraging our growth-marketing team. As we secure these grants and incentives, our mission is to strategically promote and distribute this alpha across the DeFi space, increasing TVL, volume, and activity on Uniswap.
Based on the success we’ve had running campaigns around the distribution of millions in incentives to Compound users, the primary marketing channel we recommend is Twitter. Promoting engaging content will help mitigate the cold-start problem of building a following. Additionally, ensuring visibility on industry-leading platforms such as CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko will keep Uniswap top-of-mind for ideal audiences. If there are other channels that the DAO would like to see activated, we are more than happy to entertain these options.
Further, we will work with Blockchain Ads, one of our tried and true partners, to facilitate targeted marketing efforts. Together we will leverage on-chain data to reach high-value wallet owners. To maximize engagement, we’ll also leverage Layer3’s interactive quests to gamify onboarding and increase user awareness and retention.
Over the past year, the DAO has approved the deployment of Uni V3 on over a dozen EVMs, but there has never been a DAO-led push to ensure that individuals outside of the DAO are aware of these deployments and the incentives that accompany them. We will act as that bridge between the DAO and the broader DeFi community. Our job is not to make up new stories, but to curate, manage, and amplify the stories that already exist inside the Uniswap ecosystem.
Exploratory Marketing Opportunities
As the DAO marketing team, we will begin building a pipeline of exploratory marketing experiments including, but not limited to, event sponsorships, charitable events, hackathons, university club partnerships, various PR/media outlets, and KOL engagements. After this program trial concludes, we will share the most interesting opportunities with the DAO.
Additionally we will host office hours 1 hour per week for the community to join and pitch their marketing ideas or invite ecosystem partners to make their case for co-marketing their opportunities.
DeFi Optionality Opportunities
As part of our business development strategy, we will work on enhancing UNI utility within DeFi. To broaden DeFi optionality, we will explore listing opportunities across various platforms, including (but not limited to) Bridges, Perpetuals, Money Markets, and AVS/Restaking. As with the exploratory marketing opportunities, we will share the most valuable DeFi Optionality opportunities with the DAO after the trial concludes.
Uniswap Ecosystem Incentives Initiative (UEII)
We will be working together with @PGov and @AranaDigital on the UEII (Initial post here: UEII). Their team first formed as the UADP, focusing on Arbitrum’s governance, applied and received a 1M ARB grant for the Uniswap DAO a few months ago. This grant was deployed over 3 months and recently concluded. With this success, the UADP, now MetaGov team, is looking to deploy this framework across other chains. Together, with our team at AlphaGrowth, we propose leveraging our dedicated team to distribute the most value to Uniswap users and help the Metagov team, focusing on securing grants and incentives for the DAO and Uniswap users.
The initial focus will be on chains where Uniswap is currently deployed, capitalizing first on the lowest-hanging fruit. Depending on the goals of the issuing partners, these grants and incentives can be distributed in several ways: allocated to liquidity providers on specific chains / liquidity pools (e.g., stablecoins, LSTs, LRTs), used to subsidize transaction costs and trading fees, or directed toward other creative initiatives.
When reaching out to prospective chains, the UEII team will leverage our experiences and contributions across these chains as all of us are already involved across different target ecosystems. We’ll utilize existing DAO programs like the Uniswap Onboarding Package to strengthen our claim and pitch, working hand in hand with each chain to secure the maximum incentives possible for the DAO.
Oftentimes these grants require KYC/KYB, which we’ll handle through ReservoirDAO, AlphaGrowth’s sister company DAO LLC in the Marshall Islands. This is how we’ve successfully claimed and distributed incentives for Compound as we’re fully doxed and ready to facilitate the process.
Reporting
To maximize the transparency, efficacy, and attribution of our efforts, we will regularly analyze and report campaign success metrics. Some of these metrics include engagement rates, TVL growth, trading volume, daily/monthly active users, and new wallet interactions.
We will post quarterly progress reports on the forum to ensure the Uniswap community is in the loop and that our efforts are public.
What’s the rationale for these solutions?
Organized, data-driven outbound is the best path forward
Business development is our superpower. In the process of running ecosystem growth and business development for various chains and protocols, we’ve reached all corners of the space. In order to manage and prioritize thousands of conversations and negotiations, our product team built a crypto-native CRM from scratch. Embedded in our custom BD toolkit is the on-chain and off-chain data of over 63,000 protocols. Our CRM lets us search, sort, and qualify opportunities, ensuring that we make data-driven decisions. It also facilitates the organization needed for pipeline management.
Source: AlphaGrowth Platform
The UAC has full access to the Uniswap dashboard on the AlphaGrowth platform. As the DAO expands its growth efforts, we will grant access to any new contributory parties. This will ensure that all are working towards the same goal, and that double dipping does not occur.
If we don’t talk about it, it won’t be heard
As we (and other partners) create valuable opportunities within the Uniswap ecosystem, it’s important that we make DeFi aware of them. Without awareness, there’s little chance of action. It’s crucial to run campaigns that spread the word. Another successful example of this playbook was focused on users transitioning from bridged USDC.e to native USDC. We secured the incentives, incentivized an action, marketed the opportunity, and saw active wallets jump 4.5x over the course of a few months.
We know that people respond to incentives
Our teams have done it several times now. AlphaGrowth has secured around $4M in grants and incentives for Compound users and the MetaGov team has been successful securing ~$1M at the time for Uniswap in the trial run. Additionally, we’ve all helped numerous DeFi projects secure grants from a variety of ecosystems. The teams have been on both sides of the equation; over the past few years, we also helped deploy millions in grants and incentives on behalf of the Optimism, Near, Kava, Compound, and Aurora ecosystems. These incentives onboarded dozens of DeFi protocols, developers, users and several hundred million in TVL. We’ve learned what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t.
As covered, the UEII’s primary rationale behind this strategy is based on each teams’ success and we think combining forces will achieve the most benefits for the DAO. The MetaGov team’s trial run on Arbitrum concluded very successfully and would provide much benefit to be expanded to other platforms. At Compound, AlphaGrowth’s growth and marketing initiatives have secured and deployed nearly $4M in incentives. This resulted in significant TVL growth across multiple chains, including a jump from $51M to $200M million on Arbitrum alone.
Based on the MetaGov’s Arbitrum trial run success and AlphaGrowth’s tried and true methods at Compound and elsewhere, we’re confident that Uniswap users will benefit greatly from this initiative.
What are the high level steps for implementation?
1. Business development operations
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Identifying opportunities. We will first seek out chains that lack any form of Uniswap deployment, and ensure that Uniswap is on the roadmap of all new chains. Additionally, we will bring the opportunity to protocols that are most likely to benefit from leveraging Uniswap v4.
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Prospect ranking. We will sort-rank target prospects based on their on-chain metrics, growth potential, and incentive offerings. This will help prioritize the deployment pipeline.
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Outreach. Once we have prioritized opportunities, we will leverage our existing relationships and reach out to new prospects in order to push these opportunities forward.
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Set up meetings. We will schedule meetings with decision-makers, and bring in members of the UAC and front-end partners (e.g., Oku) to handle deployment negotiations.
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Negotiations. Based on the objective of each chain or protocol, we will help facilitate a win-win scenario for all parties involved.*
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Governance support. If needed, we will provide guidance and help teams navigate through the Uniswap governance process.* This will streamline collaboration and help ensure a seamless deployment process.
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Onboarding facilitation. If applicable, we will assist in facilitating the Onboarding Package for new partners and projects, providing resources, and ensuring smooth integration into the Uniswap ecosystem.*
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Co-marketing. We will pass the baton to our marketing team to develop and implement co-marketing strategies for new deployments. This will include joint promotional efforts with partners to maximize awareness and adoption of each deployment within the new ecosystem.
*The UAC remains responsible for handling negotiations, governance support and onboarding processes. Our role is to assist where needed to ensure smooth operations and maximize coverage.
2. Marketing operations
- Create socials. Establish a dedicated Twitter account (@GrowUniswap already secured). In order to maximize reach, we will whitelist any social accounts for promotion.
- Collaboration. We will work with partner ecosystems and protocols to establish and bring to life any valuable co-marketing opportunities. This will enable cross pollination with relevant communities.
- Content curation & creation. We will manage a content calendar to ensure a consistent stream of engaging content, graphics, and narratives that offer value to both existing and new Uniswap users.
- Push campaigns. To broaden the reach and share lucrative opportunities with the community, we will implement a series of strategic marketing experiments across multiple channels:
- promote content on twitter
- activate targeted Blockchain Ads
- run Layer3 Quests
- push press releases
- engage both web2 and web3 KOLs
- Reporting and attribution. In order to ensure the efficacy and ROI of specific campaigns, we will analyze and report the metrics of these marketing efforts. Through ongoing analysis, we will cut the underperforming campaigns and intensify efforts on the higher converting channels.
3. Uniswap Ecosystem Incentives Initiative (UEII)
This initiative is a collaboration between the MetaGov and AlphaGrowth teams.
- Identifying existing opportunities. We’ve been aggregating grants programs for several years. As mentioned, both teams have been on all sides of the equation, and we now know what is looked for in each applicant. Since we already have our finger on the pulse of these grants programs, identifying these opportunities for Uniswap will be a simple activation. We will submit applications for Uniswap early and often. Additionally, we will engage all Uniswap’s existing blockchain ecosystem partners to explore their appetite for one-off incentive programs. We have already received positive feedback from several of these chains looking to play ball and incentivize liquidity.
- Creating new opportunities. In many cases, blockchain ecosystems have funds specifically set aside to incentivize user engagement, but these opportunities might not always be publicly announced through formal grants programs. To unlock these opportunities, we will leverage our relationships with various ecosystems. We’ll find mutually beneficial ways to incentivize activity on their chains via Uniswap.
- KYC/KYB. Many of these grants require KYC/KYB. AlphaGrowth’s sister company, ReservoirDAO, is a DAO LLC based in the Marshall Islands, that has served this function in the past, such as for Compound. The UEII will utilize ReservoirDAO for this initiative. We are fully doxed and happy to facilitate this process.
- Incentive Distribution. Distribution for new chain deployment packages is currently done by the UAC and will continue to be so. Further grants that we secure through the UEII will be distributed through a variety of partners, depending on what best suits the given grant program. For example, the Arbitrum LTIPP grant from the MetaGov team used Gauntlet as a distribution partner, and we’ve worked with teams such as OpenBlock and Merkl in the past to facilitate similar processes.
Trial Period
Given the long sales cycles associated with business development, marketing, and grant sourcing, we are proposing a 6-month trial period for this program. These initiatives will require time and space to cultivate impactful relationships and attain measurable results. 6 months will provide a reasonable window to build momentum and gather meaningful insights, while still leaving room for any necessary strategic adjustments.
Budget Request
Co-contributors
This post was guided by the opinions of numerous Uniswap delegates, each bringing their own perspectives and expertise. A special thanks to the following delegates* for taking the time to help guide and narrow down the scope of this program:
Cole, 404DAO | Cam, Consensys | Gab, She.256 | Alex, FranklinDAO
Derrick and Tommy, CalBlockchain | Darren, Blockworks Research
Mineso and Mateo, Michigan Blockchain | Renzo and Hugo, ChicagoDAO
Kevin, BlockchainCU | Jordan, Index Coop | Erick, Blockchain Education Network
Ross, a16z | Getty, Oku & GFX Labs | Tnorm and Matt, Gauntlet | Dennison, Tally
Callen, Wintermute | Raffaelo, Arrakis | Doo, StableLab | Krzysztof, L2BEAT
Coltron, Karpatkey | Thanos, Keyrock |
*Disclaimer: The perspectives and expertise shared by the delegates listed above are their own, and their participation in guiding this initial post does not indicate endorsement or support for its content.
What’s next?
We strongly believe that these initiatives will significantly benefit the Uniswap DAO, brand and user experience. Within the next few weeks, we will push this proposal to a Snapshot Vote. We look forward to the community’s feedback and support for this dedicated Uniswap Growth Program Trial.
