Upgrade the marketing site and Stats page

Proposal Discussion WIP: DFP
#1

Balanced has grown up a lot in the 18 months since it launched. The app, smart contracts, and token economics have all changed significantly, and we have a much clearer understanding of the Balanced Dollar stablecoin and how people use the product.

Yet the Balanced website does an average job of communicating this. We’ve kept the content up to date and added pages like balanced.network/stablecoin, but it’s essentially the same site we launched with. Now that Balanced is about to have all the core features in place, the website would benefit from a more comprehensive update.

Periodic website redesigns are a waste of money, so we plan to structure the content in a way that’s long-lasting and requires minimal maintenance. It should be the last website Balanced needs.

Funding request

US$45,226 to cover extensive updates to:

We’ll also produce a series of marketing assets to facilitate the community’s word-of-mouth marketing efforts.

We’re requesting the total IUSDC and USDS held in the DAO Fund to simplify Balanced’s holdings:

  • 30,392 IUSDC
  • 14,834 USDS

We expect this work to take around 4 months, and will share updates with the community as we progress.

What about the worker tokens?

Today, our share of the worker tokens (24.69%) paid out $43 worth of BALN. Assuming the price and distribution were to remain constant, that’s equivalent to $1,290 a month — enough to pay 17% of what it costs for our front-end developer to work on Balanced full time. For the last 6 months we’ve used funds from other sources to pay for Balanced development work, and supported Balanced’s design and content needs for free to keep the project going.

This proposal will help us keep the lights on, so the amount and scope are small to increase the odds of it passing. If you’d prefer an alternative arrangement, a time-based approach (i.e. “Fund PARROT9 to work on Balanced for 6 months”) would allow us to take on additional work, like improve & open-source the docs, continue to enhance the app (think: full-width wallet on the Home page, display price charts for every swap, etc.), and step up the content marketing on Twitter and the blog. But we understand there may be hesitation to spend the DAO’s resources on this, so we’re open to suggestions that would incentivise work on Balanced to continue in a sustainable manner.

2 Likes
Increasing DAO share of fees for more POL
DFP5: Upgrade the marketing website and Stats page
#2

As another core contributor to balanced I understand where you guys are coming from and certainly want to see you continue working on the DAO. I generally support the proposal, but want to clarify one thing.

One of the most important tasks given all the recent upgrades is docs.balanced.network. Is docs.balanced.network update included in this? I wasn’t quite sure because I didn’t see it in this list, but later saw it mentioned

1 Like
#3

There’s a lot of overlap between the docs and balanced.network/how, so docs.balanced.network will also be updated to ensure the content is consistent. However, we’ve kept the user-facing docs up to date with the core product features, so only the white paper requires significant attention. We’ll work with other contributors to get this up to date, but planned to take care of it regardless of funding so it didn’t seem worthwhlie to include in this proposal.

Additional improvements to and open-sourcing of the docs are outside the scope of this proposal, but would include a focus on technical documentation to make it easier for developers to build apps and tools with Balanced.

1 Like
#4

Propasal sounds good to me in general. But will this also cover cost of updates needed to the balanced app during these 4 months. Or is the plan to pause that as much as possible until the integration of btp features?

3 Likes
#5

I have to be honest… at first I thought this was quite steep for a “website”.

But then I gave it some more thought, and realized how wrong I was.

As an SBO myself I have gone through the process of sourcing websites several times. and for a simple website, quality starts around 10k. And for that you’d have to be very lucky the contractor manages to grasp the vision behind the project.

The proposed project is way more than just a “website”. It’s the entire customer facing part of Balanced. And we are soooo incredibly happy to have a team that consistently brings absolutely awesome work. And completely grasps the product.

Just thinking about it… Parrot9 is a very important selling point for all of Icon’s defi scene. And i think we are very lucky they are willing to do the project for as little as 45k.

In short, I would vote yes if quote amount was 2 times wat it is now! Keep up the awesome work Parrot9!

3 Likes
#6

true, indeed balanced platform need one year to make the revenue back assume daily earn merely 150 dollar. The platform not earn that much to cover the upgrade. Hold until platform got better revenue to upgrade. Now pause first

#7

Broadly speaking, I think the proposal is reasonable. Redesigning the Balanced site is not something that any random contractor can do because it requires a lot of domain-specific knowledge.

The only suggestion I have is to split it up into two phases because the $44,000 price tag may be hard for some to swallow. Instead, maybe do updates for two pages for $22,000, show people the different and end result, and then ask for the remaining $22,000 afterward.

Also regarding the total amount, you mention “total IUSDC and USDS held in the DAO Fund” and then list specific numbers. So will you be requesting those specific amounts or all IUSDC/USDS in the DAO fund at the time of the proposal. Those numbers may change between now and proposal time, so please specify. IMO, it would be even better to just give a price quote directly.

Is there a reason you’re not taking bnUSD? I’d rather see contributors take bnUSD to demonstrate its utility, and I wouldn’t mind seeing that IUSDC/USDS in the DAO Fund deployed into the stability fund.

2 Likes
#8

As a Staker, I want to make a few things clear.

Balanced Stakers have been hit hard, we bought our BALN and just like every other crypto we are in the red.

Workers receive BALN, don’t you guys receive all of our votes in ICX as well? That is two income sources right there. Draining 45k at this time or asking for 6 months of additional funding seems like it’s a little much.

I’m not against this but want to be very careful going down a road of supporting teams that already gets two income sources. If BALN goes to a dollar again you will be very well off, that should be the objective.

Love your work by the way, just confused as you have 2 income sources right now. I need further evidence these two income sources aren’t meant to pay for a 4 page website upgrade, does not seem like full time work.

Also 45k is most people’s yearly salary.

2 Likes
#9

Also, I am requesting a little more transparency from the Balance workers in general, not just Parrot 9.

  1. Who are the current Balanced Workers, percentage of worker tokens?

  2. It seems at current price the BALN payout is around $5000 a month with current prices that the workers split. This does not include the extra ICX delegation BALN stakers automatically provide mentioned below.

  3. OMM stakers get the additional benefit of voting with their OMM to receive massive additional benefits. Currently, BALN supporters have decided to allow the BALN Workers receive our $ICX delegation. I would like to know how much of a benefit it is for the workers in terms of ICX received each month based on the automatic delegation of our votes.

Once I receive clarity on the above, I can make a decision on additional funding. As of right now it is unclear.

This, by no way, diminishes the amount of respect I have for Balanced workers, but wanted to reiterate BALN Stakers are already “bending” not voting to delegate their share of votes to a PREP of their choice.

I think the current website and stats page looks pretty good. What is an example of how this will improve our look. It looks as good as any other DAO I have seen.

Appreciate any responses:)

3 Likes
#10

So you’re saying they should dump BALN just to get paid. And then have no more vested interest?

Like its all well and good to say ‘if BALN goes to dollar’ but frankly I would never work for Balanced at this rate, why would I suffer ‘startup’ conditions without the payout.

In a startup you can’t sell your equity, so you still need real pay to keep the lights on. Additionally if people were expected to sell their startup equity while it was extremely low value, they would again just leave.

I honestly can’t believe of all the things people are worried about, people are worried about spending on the only thing that matters, developing the platform. Even if we were being scalped (and I’m not saying this is the case) lets be real, please show me the tons of people lining up to work on Balanced.

Also 45k is most people’s yearly salary

Wait what, in what world can you get… either devs or UX or marketing or graphics design for 45k/y.

EDIT: napkin math says we spend 3300 BALN (380 bnUSD atm) a day on liquidity incentives, thats 11k/m. This is not an argument to cease them, merely that literally just is lost money if it doesn’t earn more than that in fees. 1 month of liquidity expenses for 1 month of work from a known vendor, it sounds quite alright.

EDIT2: @BALNSupporter the initial posts lists Parrots share of the Worker Tokens.

2 Likes
#11

I have simply asked questions as they already have streams of funding. Through Balanced and OMM. You can vote with your BALN and have your own opinions without overreacting to my questions.

I can’t make a decision unless I have more information, but again, im just one person, just need more info before I vote yes.

1 Like
#12

Isnt this just “improving” something we already have? And i dont think anyone wants wbaln holders to constantly market dump their baln but im sure there was lots of selling over the course of the first year which equals to A LOT of funds for development

1 Like
#13

Im all for development of new features and products. Just not a fan of spending on “improvements” of an already AMAZING website thanks to parrot9. We need new users and those will only come in a bull market. Stats page updates technically dont matter if nobody is looking at them

3 Likes
#14

After further research Parrott9 is receiving 14,000,000 votes, mainly from the BALN Stakers which automatically votes for a few teams. Only thing is they have only Bonded enough ICX to get half of their 3 thousand monthly reward, this is in addition to 1400 of BALN as a workers token. This is what the workers tokens and ICX delegation should be used for, to upgrade the website. Also there is workers tokens coming in from OMM, I don’t buy the keys keep the lights on message. Plenty of funding is already there, they just need to actually add more ICX to their bond.

We like you Parrott but you need to take advantage of your ICX delegation by bonding the needed amount.

Again, Parrott is amazing but already is at around 50k a year for part time website work.

1 Like
#15

Also moving forward we need to have transparency on workers tokens and icx voted delegation so we can understand the full funding picture.

Or if other workers of BALN aren’t even Bonding the ICX required the BALN Stakers should vote to be able to Vote for a PREP of their choice to receive extra benefits. BALN Stakers that have held have been hit the hardest, we need to step up transparency of allotted funds through all streams.

I’m not saying that we should change and be able to vote for a PREP of our choice if the workers are grateful for the ICX delegation and will work harder because of the delegation. We ran into our first dilemma of a worker asking for more, when we need the full picture of rewards they are receiving, or BALN stakers should vote to be able to vote for a PREP like OMM.

1 Like
#16

Also, when Parrott mentioned the extra 45k would be the last website upgrade Balanced would “ever” need concerns me? Technology is constantly changing, seems like a unique thing to say, sorry for all the posts, I will limit them from here on this subject as I don’t want to be overbearing with the amount of posts I made. Just great discussion, I greatly appreciate Balanced, the workers, ICX community.

1 Like
#17

After live voting has been implemented, the only noteworthy changes in the pipeline are to support arbitrary contract calls for governance proposals, and updates to the Stats page. Arbitrary contract calls will be addressed because bBALN holders won’t be able to submit proposals through the UI without it, and work on the Stats page is covered in this proposal.

However, unless we reposition this proposal to cover all our work on Balanced for a specific time period, no other updates to the app will be included, only bug fixes, until we secure more funding to work on BTP features.

1 Like
#18

The problem with splitting the proposal up into 2 parts is that some community members don’t agree a website upgrade is required at all. If we split it into two parts, some information will be up to date and the rest won’t be, and we’ll be reliant on the community to approve the second round, which I’m sure many would be less inclined to do.

We also tend to work laterally rather than on a single page at a time. You could argue that the landing page is a standalone update, but it will include sections that link off to the How page and Stablecoin page, in particular, which would lack the content updates necessary for a coherent funnel between pages. In order to make it work well, we would already need to do most of the content work in the background.

All IUSDC and USDS is converted into BALN before being added to Balanced’s holdings, so the amount specified in the proposal has been stable since 19 Nov 2021. bnUSD is also our preference, but we wanted to simplify Balanced’s holdings, so the plan is to take all the IUSDC and USDS, use the Stability Fund to convert it to bnUSD, then hold it in Omm until it’s time to spend it.

Someone in Discord also suggested to take all the other small balance assets (OMM, IUSDT, CFT, METX), and convert them to BALN to increase buying pressure. As it only amounts to an extra ~$780, we’ll likely also propose this and lock it up for at least 6 months.

1 Like
#19

Fair questions. Considering how recklessly many DAOs spend their funds, we appreciate your prudence. Blockchain is all about transparency, so we’re happy to lay out the numbers for you.

ICON has been our sole focus, for which we have 3 sources of income: validator rewards, BALN worker rewards, and OMM worker rewards.

These rewards are expected to cover all user-facing work for Balanced and Omm, including product design, QA, website updates, documentation, marketing, and hosting costs, as well as frontend development on Balanced. Our work in the ecosystem is interconnected, so we also do peripheral work to solve problems we’ve identified, like an onboarding funnel (whyicx.com) to help more people get started with ICON and our products. We are not paid extra to do this.

We’re one of 6 teams Balanced delegates ICX to, and one of the 4 defaults on Omm, which gives us just over 14M total votes.

Everything we’ve earned in the ICON ecosystem over the last 3 years has been invested into our bond, which has since dropped 80% in $ value and allows us to earn 60% of our potential rewards. For that position, we earn 340 ICX per day, currently worth 58 USD or $21,170 per year. Our node on AWS cost $793 last month, so deduct $9,516 for a net return of $11,654.

As discussed earlier, our share of Balanced worker tokens pays out $43 a day at current prices. The amount of BALN received drops daily, but assuming a steady rate and price, that’s $15,695 per year.

We hold 15% of the Omm worker tokens, which pay out 13,500 OMM per day (currently worth $136). Ignoring the inflation decrease in August, at current rates we could expect to receive $49,640 over the next year.

11,654 + 15,695 + 49,640 = $76,989 per year

We’re currently attempting to split that between 4 people and a business, meanwhile every single one of us could walk into a Web2 job with a $120k+ starting rate.

We love working in the ICON ecosystem, but our position is not sustainable.

2 Likes
#20

Much appreciated. :blush:

The design will be updated, but it’s not so much about the look as it is about the content. As we like to say: content is Batman, everything else is Robin.

When we launched Balanced, the main focus was how you could use it to earn rewards. That’s ultimately all anyone wanted to do, so why beat around the bush? Many features we have now didn’t exist then, and the Balanced Dollar stablecoin model was still experimental. Even balanced.network/stablecoin, which was released earlier this year, has to be changed because the Stability Fund is now the primary stability mechanism for bnUSD.

Most of the details have been adjusted many times, but the changes are now substantial enough to rethink the entire page structure, and make sure it’s flexible enough to support future changes.

After the landing page hero (the intro content on a marketing site), the page will be split into 3 sections to provide more details about Balanced’s core offering:

  • Loans / The Balanced Dollar stablecoin
  • Trading / The decentralised exchange
  • Governance / The DAO

Balanced’s multi-chain aspirations will be weaved throughout.

We had also planned to feature the DAO Fund, feature projects Balanced has funded (i.e. Foligator), encourage teams to build on top of Balanced, and begin formalising the process for funding requests and progress updates, but that’s dependent on the community’s appetite for spending in general.

As for the Stats page, this repository lists most of the updates and enhancements we’d like to tackle.