[PROPOSAL] Rebrand and Relaunch #63
Description
This proposal seeks DAO approval to close down SaberDAO and its DEX and move into a new project called -Toolbox-, a DAO whose goal is to support and service builders on Solana the development tools and resources to start, or improve their projects and ideas. Toolbox will initially update, maintain and manage all public goods open source tools that were created in the past by SaberDAO contributors, and create an easily accessible directory where these tools are readily available to the Solana developer community.
Background
The Saber name remains associated with certain events that are linked to a previous phase and to the Saber founders, who ceased managing the Saber DAO project a considerable time ago. During the so-called DAO revival phase, many potential partnerships, and collaborations within the web3 ecosystem did not fall through, as very few individuals are willing to publicly endorse the brand, even though these people or teams have been very supportive of the cause.
Furthermore, SaberDAO is more than just the stable swap DEX which most people associate with the brand. There is a vast ecosystem and tool set, that is being used still to this date by plenty of Solana teams, whom are some of the biggest protocols on Solana such as Jupiter (forked Tribeca, Meteora stable swaps is a forked version of the Saber stable swap DEX codebase). These are just a couple of examples out of many out there that have successfully used SaberDAOs open source coding tools to the benefit and betterment of the broader Solana DeFi ecosystem.
Under the SaberDAO umbrella, there are several projects and tools that deserves attention:
- The stableswap DEX
- Quarry: a permissionless staking platform where one can reward staking of any SPL token with any number of any SPL tokens
- Tribeca: a governance platform that can be compared to Realms
- Goki: a multisig platform that can be compared to Squads
- LP Finance: a CDP stablecoin minted from LP positions and other tokens
… and an additional ~15 tools, most of which are listed here: https://github.com/saberdao/
Having only the stable DEX is a missed opportunity, but creating a competitor to for example Squads and Realms at the same time is too big for any one team.
Making all of these OS tools readily available, and up to date, ought to help the Solana ecosystem propel. As with any L1 community, success relies on a positive developer environment, and utilizing the tools available to the community in a meaningful way by maintaining- and expanding the “box of tools” for Solana developers is a net positive to the DAO and the whole Solana ecosystem.
So far, we now know that there is a big amount of great Solana developer tools and resources available under the SaberDAO umbrella. But how does this benefit the SaberDAO governance token holders? More about that further down in the proposal, but first let us explain more about what Toolbox would really be.
What is Toolbox?
Toolbox will be a DAO that aims to help Solana developers AKA builders build open source stuff on Solana, with extra support around the tools and projects in the… Toolbox. It is essentially a restart under a new name, with some more focus on the broader tool set.
Toolbox wants to enable Solana builders. Not only with the above mentioned tools, but with developer support, continuous updates and audits on the infrastructure it manages and events to help stimulate the Solana developer environment...
Think hackathons, real life events, etc. The contributor team is incredibly excited to start working on this, and getting the amazing infrastructure in the hands of more people.
Toolbox aims to become a hub for Solana developers, and foster developer onboarding- and fascinating opportunities. Positioning our efforts in this direction will shine back on the DAO in various positive ways.
The founding contributors are me c2 , who started the SaberDAO revival, and rockooor , who is the tech lead, supported by rar3 , Stush and Emmanuel .
How is Toolbox funded?
Toolbox will inherit all SaberDAO assets and put the funds in yield.
SaberDAO from a legal point of view is a company established under the laws of Marshall Island (SaberDAO LLC). As the SaberDAO project cycle, in our opinion, has arrived to its end, likewise the SaberDAO LLC should be dissolved. Under Marshall Island corporate laws, when a no-profit LLC is dissolved its assets must be ultimately given to another entity which pursues some common good. In this sense Toolbox will be a newly-created, no-profit, Marshall Islands LLC funded by the assets transferred by SaberDAO LLC upon the dissolution of this latter company. The newly-created Marshall Islands LLC will pursue the common good for the Solana ecosystem described in this document.
What happens after this proposal?
If the proposal passes, SaberDAO will close down its DEX and stop allowing locking new SBR to veSBR on the Tribeca frontend. After a three month withdrawal window, it will not anymore be possible to withdraw any unclaimed liquidity left in the DEX which will then be acquired to the SaberDAO treasury which, as more thoroughly explained below, will be donated to a new no-profit LLC following the dissolution of SaberDAO LLC. Of course, announcements and notifications will be given to notify people to withdraw their liquidity.
There are several reasons for closing the DEX instead of leaving it unmaintained. For example, before the SaberDAO revival, the DEX had millions in stablecoin liquidity while the swap fee was only 0.001%. This meant that all stablecoin volume went through these pools, but provided nearly no value (fees) to any liquidity provider on Saber, and diminished fees on USDC-USDT pools in the Solana DeFi ecosystem…
As the DEX was taking in all this volume, all other liquidity sources on Solana also had to lower their fees to unsustainably low numbers. It’s important this doesn’t happen again. The DEX could also be potentially a target for governance attacks via Tribeca since the veSBR still governs the stable swap protocol (DEX). There are also security risks in relation to potential exploits in the future (since no one is going to manage the DEX) as one does not know what sort of Solana blockchain updates are to come moving forward.
Afterwards, SaberDAO will close down and a new DAO Marshall Island LLC, called Toolbox, as said above a no-profit LLC, as it is a no-profit LLC, will be spun up. All SaberDAO assets will be donated to Toolbox and the new DAO will be set up (website, socials, revenue sharing system, migration, etc).
From then on, we hope everyone joins in the new mission to enable builders to create value on Solana through Toolbox public goods and other developer ecosystem support initiatives!
Active participants in governance who stake the $TBOX token receive protocol rewards generated by DAO activities as an incentive for participation.
This yield will be enough for the project to be sustainably self-funded.
This includes core contributors, audits and ongoing upgrades and developments of all Toolbox projects, as well as hackathon prizes and any other funding Toolbox requires.
The Toolbox DAO will also operate a validator, which will have a better time receiving stake from the various ecosystem aligned stake pools that support efforts to improve the Solana network, including the [developer] community. The validator will be able to also support various initiatives Toolbox takes, and give the DAO abilities to participate on the infrastructure side of the blockchain.
This direction makes the DAO a positive force on the ecosystem while at the same time having the ability to create meaningful DeFi protocols with no friction points in terms of composability, and with the validator being even more involved on the infrastructure side of the Solana blockchain.
How do I participate?
Toolbox will have a new token using the same governance system (Tribeca). There will be a migration 1:1 for both liquid SBR and locked veSBR (1 liquid SBR = 1 liquid $TBOX and 1 locked veSBR = 1 locked veTBOX with the same lock period). This migration window will be open for 6 months, giving everyone enough time to join. Participation in the migration is optional. Tokenholders who do not bridge will retain their existing tokens but will not participate in Toolbox governance or rewards.
The Toolbox token will have the same 10 billion supply and minted out completely with the following tokenomics (subject to change):
- 32.5% SaberDAO migration
- 30% Current and future contributors
- 30% DAO
- 7.5% liquidity fund
Any unclaimed $TBOX after the migration window will go to the DAO and liquidity fund. The 32.5% SaberDAO migration bucket reflects the same minted supply of SBR (roughly 3.2 billion out of 10 billion SBR is in circulation or locked), meaning the total supply for SBR and TBOX is the same and there is no dilution compared to the full tokenomics.
The current and future contributors allocations will be 5 years locked. The DAO Operational contributors/team need to receive a real team allocation, but also be able to attract talent to the DAO in the future as well. With this allocation, Toolbox is future proof in incentive alignment with top talent on Solana and crypto as a whole.
The 30% DAO allocation is also locked for at least 5 years to fund ongoing costs of upgrading the contracts, continuous re-audits, formal verification, and other expenses such as hosting through yield.
Ultimately, all yield should go to the token, and having this setup Toolbox makes sure that the revenue is fairly, transparently distributed. No more splitting revenue to operations and tokens, all to the token is the way - which leads us to be able to reach in a few years time a fully Autonomous level of the DAO.
The Liquidity fund is earmarked for various incentive campaigns across the Toolbox umbrella, and to provide liquidity for $TBOX markets.
How do I NOT participate?
This is a DAO proposal, so if for any reason you do not agree, you are free to vote against. Additionally, the veSBR redemption withdrawal window, proposed in the Chapter 3 proposal, will open immediately after this proposal is concluded (regardless of the outcome), so you are free to redeem USDC from your locked veSBR which will opt you out of any future migration.