First REF Liquidity Rewards for Key Pairs

We believe it is time to start the first liquidity rewards cycle with the REF token, targeting 5 pairs initially:

  • REF - NEAR
  • SKYWARD - NEAR
  • wETH - NEAR
  • USDT - NEAR
  • DAI - NEAR

We’re proposing to distribute 1.048% of the total REF supply (1,100,000 REF) over 60 days, starting with boosted rewards for the first two weeks (575,302 REF), then the remaining rewards over 46 days (472,466).

The distributions will be the following for each pair

  • REF - NEAR
    • 21,916 REF per day for the first 14 days
    • 5,479 REF per day for the remaining 46 days
  • SKYWARD - NEAR
    • 5,479 REF per day for the first 14 days
    • 1,369 REF per day for the remaining 46 days
  • wETH - NEAR
    • 5,479 REF per day for the first 14 days
    • 1,369 REF per day for the remaining 46 days
  • USDT - NEAR
    • 5,479 REF per day for the first 14 days
    • 1,369 REF per day for the remaining 46 days
  • DAI - NEAR
    • 2,740 REF per day for the first 14 days
    • 685 REF per day for the remaining 46 days

The rewards will start on August 18, 2021, and run until October 16, 2021. We expect the DAO to decide whether to extend, modify, or discontinue these rewards before that time.

Rationale

The beta farming rewards have yielded impressive results:

$3.0M+ in liquidity for the REF - NEAR pair with just 20k NEAR in rewards over 2 weeks

To keep the liquidity of the REF pair high, and to incentivize other important pairs for the NEAR ecosystem, we believe it is important to immediately expand the rewards program.

We expect to use the initial rewards program as an experiment, which can inform future programs. As new tokens are brought to the NEAR and Ref ecosystems, we will make further proposals, and invite project teams to make their own proposals.

12 Likes

Great start!

What is the process for adding additional Farming Pools?

I believe we need to add the following pairs to the incentivised pairs:

  • WBTC-NEAR
  • META-NEAR
  • USDC-NEAR
  • USDT-DAI-USDC (Stablecoins)

Rationale:

  • BTC is core to any ecosystem and part of most people’s portfolio. Being able to own and transact in BTC within the user-friendly Near ecosystem would be a major win.
  • META would follow a similar pattern as Skyward and REF. We want all the Near native projects to be fully supported. Farming provides a mutually beneficial relationship between both projects.
  • USDC is rapidly becoming the default Digital Dollar in the US. They have been aggressive in expanding to other networks such as Solana and Polygon. I believe we can attract their interest and increase their support and involvement if we are able to attract a significant amount of USDC onto Near.

I’ll be voting in favour of the current proposal, but would like to encourage constant review and improvement. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the additional pairs.

11 Likes

Nice proposal. I also agree that now is a perfect time to incentivize more users using Ref Finance. Below are some of my comments (Mostly be the same as AVB):

1/ No opinion with 5 initials pairs you list below, but I wanna add more options to the list:

  • wBTC - NEAR
  • USDC - USDT - DAI
  • USDC - NEAR

Reason:

  • USDC is growing strongly, just looking at the number of USDT minted on Solana and Polygon recent days. I believe we can attract many more potential users from this strategy.
  • The demand for swapping stablecoin with the lowest slippage amap exists in every blockchain. That’s why we should incentivize since it will help increase user’s experience when swapping stablecoin pools on Ref Finance, maybe even build a separate algorithm for the stablecoin pool (look at how Orca did).
  • The liquidity for wBTC is non-exists in NEAR Ecosystem, which is regrettable as we can’t reach this types of participant → This can attract a lot of BTC fans to join

2/ Should we clarify the goals of this 2 months campaign? Like how much liquidity for each pool is enough. In this way, we can estimate the lowest number of APR → the minimum number that users will satisfy and therefore decide to stay with Ref Finance. It would be good to have a liquidity target for each campaign.

6 Likes