Today, we are proud to launch daodeals.fyi 🎉
daodeals.fyi helps communities navigate key treasury management decisions by arming them with transparent information on past token deals (token sales and loans to market makers).
Why daodeals.fyi?
Inspiration to build this resource came from our own participation in DAO governance. It’s hard to evaluate and negotiate token offers, yet alone pull together data from disparate sources like forums, Snapshot, Discord, and on-chain voting.
Starting with this post earlier this year, we began the process of collecting data in Airtable and sharing metrics. Based off positive feedback, we expanded this into a full site.
Our objective with daodeals.fyi is to create a public good that democratizes access to comprehensive data on past token sales and market makers loan terms. All users are invited to contribute new or missing data to this dataset.
Q2 2023 recap
The rest of this post provides an update on token sales and loans made by DAOs in 2023, using data from daodeals.fyi.
During the first half of 2023, deal volume for token sales and market maker loans made by DAO governance increased >200% to ~$30mm from <$10mm last year.
Token sales: Q2 2023
Threshold DAO and Idle Finance have both approved deals with strategic partners that include performance-driven terms.
According to the Threshold DAO proposal, if all options are exercised by the unnamed buyer who is supporting liquidity via Wormhole, proceeds could be “in excess of $20 million.”
Q2 total sales of $4mm+ were down from $15mm+ observed in Q1, when Synthetix made a single deal worth at least $15mm with DWF Labs.
Market Maker loans: Q2 2023
Cryptex, Barnbridge, and Quickswap approved loans to market making firms.
The Cryptex and Barnbrige deals were each worth ~$1mm at the time of approval. The Quickswap deal allocates “4% of the token’s total supply to bring on professional Institutional Grade Market Makers (MMs)”, worth ~$3mm at the time of its approval.
There is also a pending proposal from DWF Labs on the Sushiswap forum.
Q2 total loan volumes of ~$5mm were down slightly from Q1’s observed $8mm total volume ($6mm from Stargate to GSR + $2mm from Threshold to Sense Capital).
League tables
With the $15mm SNX sale to DWF Labs in Q1 2023, Synthetix has moved to the #2 ranking in terms of top proceeds from DAO governance-led token sales.
On the market maker (MM) side, Wintermute and GSR continue to be the most active firms for DAOs looking to partner with MM firms.
Key insights
While terms on each deal are unique, many deals look similar (with the exception of Q2’s deals from Threshold and Idle Finance).
Token sales made by DAO governance tend to feature ~20% discount to market price, with full vesting occurring over 1-2 years.
Market maker loan terms often include an option for the MM firm to purchase tokens at >25-50% above token price on the date of the agreement, with the median option observed at 50%. The median deal duration is 12 months.
Get involved
If you are excited about daodeals, we invite you to get involved.
To contribute missing or new data, visit daodeals.fyi and hit the ‘Add data +’ button.
To get in touch, email us at gm@wallfacer.io.