[ARFC] Onboard ggAVAX to Aave V3 on Avalanche

Proposal updated to include Risk Parameters from Chaos Labs

[ARFC] Onboard ggAVAX to Aave V3 on Avalanche

Author: ACI ( Aave Chan Initiative)

Date: 2024-04-29


Summary

The current proposal is set to add ggAVAX, a liquid staking AVAX token issued by the Gogopool protocol, to the AAVE V3 Avalanche market.

Motivation

GoGoPool is one of the largest Avalanche DeFi protocols. It is ranked number 6 on the Avalanche C-Chain in terms of TVL chain and currently controls more than 500k AVAX (~$23M at current market prices).

We believe there is currently very large underserved demand for borrowing AVAX against ggAVAX, as ggAVAX is the highest-yielding LST on Avalanche. The APYs currently range between 7% and 8%, which is on the order of 33% more yield than any existing competitors on Avalanche.

Being the highest-yielding LST on Avalanche makes ggAVAX perfect for being a collateral asset, especially for those who seek leveraged exposure to native AVAX yields.

This yield is achieved through a mix of no protocol fees, running validators instead of utilizing delegation mechanisms, and generating MEV yield from positive market interactions (see dashboard for more details: Flipside).

There is currently more than ~80k AVAX in the ggAVAX-AVAX pools across Balancer and Wombat, making it the most liquid Avalanche LST relative to its size.

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Besides the deep on-chain liquidity, ggAVAX allows users to redeem ggAVAX for underlying AVAX at an internal rate and with no fees. These redemptions are instant as long as there is enough AVAX in the ggAVAX smart contract to facilitate them.

GoGoPool is backed by the Avalanche Foundation and industry-leading investors. In 2022, It raised $7.5M in two rounds led by Framework Ventures and Coinfund and with participation from Silverstone Ventures, Fintech Collective, and Avalaunch.

The protocol has been audited by Zellic and Kudelski Security with an additional Code4rena audit contest. It also has an ongoing bug bounty program with Immunefi.

Benefits of listing ggAVAX

Listing of ggAVAX on AAVE would create additional demand for borrowing AVAX (in E-Mode) and other assets. Since ggAVAX generates consistently higher yields than other LSTs, borrowers can tolerate higher interest payments, leading to AVAX utilisation and revenue for the DAO.

Currently, AVAX utilisation sits well below the Optimal Utilisation Rate. More than $30M in borrow demand is required to bring utilisation from 43% to 65%. Listing a new high-yielding LST as collateral will help create this additional borrowing demand, resulting in higher utilisation rates, higher APRs for AVAX lenders and higher income for the AAVE Ecosystem Reserve.

Chain to be deployed/listed

Aave V3 on Avalanche.

Technical Details

With the recent implementation of Price Cap Adapters (CAPO), ggAVAX can be listed using an internal rate oracle without relying only on the AVAX/USD ChainLink price feed. This is the same approach that AAVE currently uses for sAVAX, wstETH, cbETH, weETH and other LSTs (and LRTs)

ggAVAX’s CAPO, however, might require a max growth ratio higher than the 10.1% currently set for sAVAX to account for a generally higher level of yield.

We welcome any questions about ggAVAX architecture and protocol structure and look forward to working on this with the DAO.

Specification

Parameter Value
Isolation Mode No
Borrowable No
Collateral Enabled Yes
Supply Cap (ggAVAX) 70,000
Borrow Cap (ggAVAX) NA
Debt Ceiling NA
LTV 30.00%
LT 40.00%
Liquidation Bonus 10.00%
Liquidation Protocol Fee 10.00%
Variable Base 0.0%
Variable Slope1 NA
Variable Slope2 NA
Uoptimal NA
Reserve Factor NA
Stable Borrowing Disabled
Flashloanable Yes
Siloed Borrowing No
Borrowed in Isolation No
Emode No

Proof of Liquidity (POL) and Deposit Commitments

GoGoPool has earmarked 10k GGP tokens (worth +100K USD at average 90-day prices) for incentivising ggAVAX deposits into AAVE over the first three months of the listing to help bootstrap the market adoption and attract leverage takers.

After the listing is complete, we plan to work tightly with Avalanche ecosystem partners to integrate the market into their products. This can include autocompounding vaults, composite strategies and auto-leverage vaults.

These and other integrations would help drive usage to the ggAVAX market specifically and AAVE in general. Note that we have already had preliminary talks with a number of protocols on this subject.

Useful Links

Website

Github

Flipside

Twitter

Docs

Disclaimer

This proposal is powered by Skywards. The Aave Chan Initiative is not directly affiliated with Avalanche Team or Gogopool Protocol and did not receive compensation for creation this proposal.

Next Steps

  1. Publication of a standard ARFC, collect community & service providers feedback before escalating proposal to ARFC snapshot stage
  2. If the ARFC snapshot outcome is YAE, publish an AIP vote for final confirmation and enforcement of the proposal.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.

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Overview

Given ggAVAX’s technical architecture (detailed below) and current market size, Chaos Labs does not recommend listing ggAVAX on Aave V3 Avalanche at this time. We recommend listing only after the asset has been more battle-tested and has improved market size. However, should the community wish to list the asset, we provide conservative recommendations below.

Note: The following analysis is conducted solely from a market risk viewpoint, excluding centralization and third-party risk considerations. If the community aims to reduce exposure to ggAVAX, adopting more conservative supply and borrow caps should be considered.

Liquidity and Market Cap

ggAVAX is an AVAX liquid staking token offered by GoGoPool. The token represents AVAX staked in a deposit pool, whose funds are provided to node operators who wish to validate for Avalanche’s primary network.

Launched in April 2023, the current supply is 303K ggAVAX, representing a market cap of roughly $12M. Its liquidity is distributed on Uniswap V3, Balancer, Wombat, and Pharoah, with smaller pools available on Trader Joe’s.

Over the past 180 days, its average daily trading volume is $100K.

ggAVAX/USD Volatility

Untitled - 2024-05-03T184424.780

Supply Cap, Borrow Cap, and Liquidation Bonus

While Chaos Labs’ approach to initial supply caps is generally proposed through setting the Supply Cap at 2x the liquidity available under the Liquidation Penalty price impact, given the additional consideration (below), low market cap and limited ggAVAX historical data, we initially recommend a more conservative approach

Untitled - 2024-05-03T184441.452

Based on our observations, the utilization rate for LRTs and LSTs has been low due to additional borrowing costs. We do not recommend making the asset borrowable at this time given the additional risk and limited potential reward, though we will reevaluate as the asset matures.

IR Curve Parameters

We recommend aligning the interest rate parameters with those of similar assets on Avalanche to ensure consistency on Aave v3.

E-mode

We do not currently recommend including ggAVAX in the AVAX-correlated E-mode category.

Additional Considerations

The technical architecture of ggAVAX involves distributing the underlying AVAX representing staked ggAVAX into smaller staking pools of 1000 AVAX each. These pools are matched with a node operator’s 1000 AVAX to collectively meet the minimum requirement on the Avalanche network, akin to Rocketpool on Ethereum. However, these “minipools” can have staking cycles ranging from 15 days to one year, allowing for the redemption of ggAVAX accordingly. This system may lead to extended periods of withdrawal processing delays due to the “withdrawal queue,” especially considering that currently, only 7% of ggAVAX is staked for the minimum 15-day cycle.

Screenshot 2024-05-03 at 12.33.45

Screenshot 2024-05-03 at 12.33.06

Hence, we advise against pricing the asset based solely on its underlying exchange rate, considering the potential for an extended withdrawal queue and the historical volatility of the AVAX asset. In contrast, AVAX liquid staking protocols like sAVAX ensure a 15-day withdrawal period, providing a more predictable and timely redemption process.

Specification

Parameter Value
Isolation Mode No
Borrowable No
Collateral Enabled Yes
Supply Cap (ggAVAX) 70,000
Borrow Cap (ggAVAX) NA
Debt Ceiling NA
LTV 30.00%
LT 40.00%
Liquidation Bonus 10.00%
Liquidation Protocol Fee 10.00%
Variable Base 0.0%
Variable Slope1 NA
Variable Slope2 NA
Uoptimal NA
Reserve Factor NA
Stable Borrowing Disabled
Flashloanable Yes
Siloed Borrowing No
Borrowed in Isolation No
Emode No
3 Likes

The current proposal has been escalated to ARFC Snapshot, including latest feedback from Chaos Labs (Risk Service Provider) regarding Risk Parameters. ARFC has been also updated.

Vote will start tomorrow, we encourage everyone to participate.

1 Like

After Snapshot monitoring, the current ARFC Snapshot ended recently, reaching Quorum but NAY as winning option, with 583K votes.

Therefore, the ARFC Proposal to Onboard ggAVAX to Aave V3 on Avalanche has NOT passed.