A Note on the Future of Swerve
Hey Swervers,
I’ve been a bit radio silent on the development front post-deployment. If it is not obvious by now, I have obligations outside of Swerve that divide my attention.
To this point, I have tried to stay away from throwing too much influence or weight behind specific proposals. However, some of the community have asked that I become more vocal about my vision for the direction of the protocol.
I’d like to first propose how I believe Swerve is currently positioned:
Stablecoin swaps have product-market fit in defi. All things equal, Swerve is able to offer better swap pricing for the most-used stables than the incumbent, Curve. Even with a substantially lower TVL, we can offer attractive swap rates in many conditions.
Despite being a small, month-old project, we have been quietly doing real volume post-rewards cut. We should continue to lean in to our current swaps. The positive economical flywheel can be reignited if we are able to make significant progress on any one of volume, TVL, or APY.
Swerve is displaying strong fundamentals on our singular pool—even after the reward cut—we are one of the top dexes by trading volume, have over $30m in TVL, and strong volume/TVL/price ratios.
Given this stance, I believe initiatives and proposals should be solely focused on increasing volume and making SWRV more attractive to hold.
Pending further input from the community, I see the near-term priorities for moving forward as such:
Complete governance initiatives (quorum reduction, treasury implementation) which provide a baseline for further operations
Bring the fee and admin fee closer to parity in order to bootstrap a (capped) treasury; while distributing excess fees back to SWRV holders
Integrations with top DEX aggregators to showcase best-in-class stable swap pricing and increase volume
Develop novel like-asset pools as they become in-demand, including Seth-Weth and more; in order to increase TVL and volume
Integrations with YFI and other yield aggregators to increase TVL and further improve swap rates
A potential outgrowth on Serum, for which SBF has generously offered development resources
Completing a newer, more intuitive UI, built from the ground up
These features will begin rolling out for on-chain vote as soon as they are ready.
This plan also includes de-prioritizing some of the previously passed proposals such as the DFI.money pool. Additionally, this week I will be open-sourcing the current UI to allow for more rapid, community-driven changes.
In the future, we will begin to look more closely at novel bonding curve and AMM research in order to set the foundation for our own full implementation.
It is natural to want to understand how all of this will get accomplished.
That is why I am drafting a proposal recommending myself as Swerve’s first paid engineer. My goal is to provide initial product vision and development until Swerve has reached a more comfortable state in terms of metrics and contributors.
Lastly, I want to thank the tireless work from volunteers and community members. You all are the heroes of this story. We have had ups and downs this past month but the journey is young. We’ve got this!
With love,
Swerve/John Deere