Proposal to add stLINK/LINK and ixETH/ETH to the Curve Gauge Controller

Gauge Proposals
#1

Summary:

This is a proposal to add stLINK/LINK and ixETH/ETH - both on Ethereum mainnet - to the Gauge Controller to enable users to assign gauge weight and mint CRV.

References/Useful links:

Protocol Description:

stake.link is a DAO backed by a consortium of leading Web3 infrastructure providers and node operators.

  • stLINK is the first of its kind liquid staking protocol for Chainlink Staking. stLINK is a rebasing token backed 1:1 by LINK in Chainlink’s v0.1 staking contract, allowing users to receive exposure to the returns offered by staking their LINK, frictionlessly unstake (not yet offered by Chainlink’s underlying staking mechanism), and use their staked LINK in other DeFi applications. At this time 100% of traded liquidity for stLINK exists on the ETH Mainnet stLINK/LINK Curve pool, where stLINK has consistently retained a slight premium against LINK.
  • ixETH is a rebasing liquid staking index token backed by a basket of ETH LSDs, at this time rETH and stETH. ixETH offers a blended return of the underlying LSDs, and includes a withdrawal fee that goes back to existing ixETH holders - boosting ixETH returns potentially above the returns offered by any one component LSD. ixETH was launched on April 6th, and at this time 100% of traded liquidity exists on the ETH Mainnet ixETH/ETH Curve pool, where ETH currently has a small premium against it.

Motivation:

Curve is currently the only home for secondary market liquidity for both stLINK and ixETH. The stake.link DAO is currently incentivizing both pools with SDL - the stake.link protocol token - incentives. Since the launch of SDL incentives on both pools, the stLINK/LINK pool’s liquidity has grown by ~45%, ~110,000 tokens in combined stLINK+LINK liquidity to >160,000 tokens in combined stLINK+LINK liquidity. Similarly, the ixETH/ETH pool’s liquidity has grown by >185%, from 26.6 tokens in combined initial ixETH+ETH liquidity to 76 tokens in combined ixETH+ETH liquidity!

CRV incentives will continue to drive both liquidity and trading volume to this pool.

Specifications:

  1. Governance: The stake.link Protocol is governed by Council style governance, inherited/forked from Thales and Synthetix.

    • The 7 governing council members, as identified by holding the SDL council NFT review and vote on stake.link Upgrade Request Proposals (SLURPs). Anyone can propose a SLURP.
    • The stake.link execution multi-sig owns the protocol contracts, actions voted on by the governing council, and executes changes to these contracts.

  2. Oracles: At this time neither stLINK nor ixETH rely on external oracles, in strict terms. stLINK is always backed 1:1 by LINK in the underlying Chainlink Staking contract, and as rewards accrue to that staked LINK, stLINK is rebased to represent that new balance. ixETH is slightly more complex. While stETH entering into ixETH and LINK entering into stLINK benefit from being mintable and redeemable 1:1 to one another, rETH is a wrapped asset and does not natively rebase. In minting ixETH using rETH, RocketPoolLSDIndexAdapter.sol calls the getExchangeRate function from Rocket Pool’s contracts.

  3. Audits: All contracts are audited prior to deployment, previous auditing firms were Sigma Prime and Cyfrin.

  4. Centralization vectors: stLINK rewards depend upon Chainlink’s v0.1 staking contract, which is managed by the Chainlink Foundation. ixETH inherits the risks and dependencies of its constituent assets rETH and stETH.

  5. Market History: neither stLINK nor ixETH have experienced severe volatility. The stLINK/LINK pool was created on December 13th and since creation stLINK has traded at a slight premium to LINK. The ixETH/ETH pool was established <2 weeks ago, and the balance has oscillated back and forth between favoring ixETH and ETH.