Thanks for highlighting the range token @0xMaki. I’m part of the UMA team, but also a personal SUSHI token holder since day one so this topic is particularly important to me. Our team put together a proposal for SushiSwap to use a range token to diversify the treasury. UMA has just raised $2.6MM with a group of well known investors and announced it today. It was just meant to be a small experiment to show how this is done, but the demand and interest was extremely high.
Range tokens can help SushiSwap do the following:
Access funds and diversify its treasury without directly selling its native tokens
Borrow funds without liquidation risk using the project token as collateral
Define lock up terms for the investor in a smart contract
Leverage the growth of their protocol to sell tokens at a higher valuation
Customize payouts and easily deploy with UMA financial contract templates
If we as a community believe that $SUSHI is undervalued and can rally over the next 6 months, the range token is the ideal solution for raising funds. A range token acts like convertible debt. It will allow the SushiSwap treasury to effectively borrow funds now and determine a price to sell its tokens at expiry (6 months from now). As with many here, I do not like the idea of selling at steep discount. If we are bullish $SUSHI the range token will enable us to bet on the protocol’s success and allow it to raise funds at a favourable valuation.
I put together a 1 page proposal to show what this range token looks like if SushiSwap raised just over $40mm in this way and what the effective prices it would sell $SUSHI to investors given where settlement is.
I am also sharing a spreadsheet that will allow everybody in this forum to play with the parameters of the range token and experiment with its pricing.
The UMA team will launch a live version of this on Monday so that you can see exactly how this works and also show how easy it can be done.
Please let me and the team know your thoughts on this and we are happy to answer any questions.
Diversifying the treasury portfolio is a good idea I think. Taking 25% and turning it into a mix of stables/ETH/BTC. Not a bad idea.
FYI: Institutions aren’t really taking on much risk if they don’t want to… they can simply borrow corresponding xSUSHI on Aave to lock in the proceeds of the discount regardless of future Sushi price.
Offering to sell OTC at or very close to market price aligns incentives much better. Allows investors to get a large position without moving the price. This also removes the need for complex vesting systems. Allows Sushi to diversify the treasury. Win-win.
If they are sure the price of Sushi will go up, they should be willing to buy at market without slippage. If they aren’t, they will hedge and it’s of no use to Sushi.
But we already voted on the proposal that should cover this (the one with the guy who actively rebalances the funds for 1%/year fee). And it should’ve been processed back when sushi was at $20 and not what may be a bottom for the year.
I can’t help thinking that someone here might have a vested interest to liquidate the treasury to the vulture capital. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a finders fee involved.
Are we really at the stage of the IPO, where insiders get to encash their shares and bid the rest of the bagholders a fairwell?
I just liked the idea of using OTC to diversify the treasury vs. market selling, as it keeps the price more stable. There could also be real benefits in getting strategic hodlers. Future Fund as a large holder I think and they have helped Sushi by purchasing and gifting sushi.com. Which I think was a great move that the community couldn’t get done because it seemed expensive.
But if most of the funds in this round are already holders, I don’t see that much benefit. But obviously, if this comes to a vote… since most of the whales are the funds involved, I’m sure it will pass. It would be nice to get some info on each fund suggested and why they are a strategic investor and not just money.
Disclaimer: I’m not involved with Sushi (except socially with some of the team) and I don’t hold SUSHI (except about 2000 SUSHI farming rewards I haven’t harvested and sold yet).
I’m gonna be the devil’s advocate here but maybe some big funds who already hold SUSHI are not extremely exposed right now so they can’t commit seriously.
Maybe if their holdings grew, they could become more involved in governance/development etc.
I repeat I don’t know if that’s the case because I didn’t “study” this proposal enough to form an opinion.
Hey SushiSquad, and thanks 0xMaki for the proposal, but I have to take the side of most of the replies on here. I believe they are some very balanced and valid responses from the community, which are worth listening to.
Many have already been clear and explicit on the critiques, @RaphaelSignal & @klemperer-the-goat , so I won’t drag them on but rather add on and summarize.
Deal size too big- I’m not sure if this proposal is to keep the vulture capital funds happy or to diversify the treasury, but anything from 25%-50% of the treasury to be given out on 1 raise is really overdoing it. Diversifying the treasury can be done internally by the team (maybe even a new sushi branch) using derivatives, lending, options, etc.
Too many “strategic” investors- over 20 funds getting in on the deal sounds exciting, and makes sushi the new kid on the block (or should I say books) But many of these funds 1.) already have SOME exposure 2.) have the same portfolio companies as each other 3.) won’t add much unique differentiated value, unless they have a plan that they are willing to share. If we want to onboard strategic investors, we have to be strategic on who they are and how they are onboarded.
Discount too steep- If we were in an uptrend, the discount makes a ton of sense. But considering the coordinated attacks, whale dumping, and macro rotations that have happened in the last months, selling at a 25% discount when the price is already 50% below the highs does not seem like a wise decision for Sushi, but a rather a dreamy opportunity for investors.
Overall, I like the idea… but with sushi being the unique bluechip that it is (yes it already is a bluechip and no one can deny it) I think we should take a different approach.
The internal Sushi team should choose 4 institutional investors that they KNOW they want to have onboard, because of past contributions (e.g. Future Fund) or current involvement.
Allow the other 16 investors on the list to compete for a spot on the round. Sushi Team moves fast… Let’s see how fast these funds can move if we give them all 1 week to send a proposal to the Sushi community on their strategy to grow and improve Sushi. This way they are forced to compete for the biggest value-add, leveraging VC level innovation in the process through natural selection. Keep it open source for the community to engage in, but ultimately allow the internal Sushi team to choose. Allowing only 4 fund to participate. this way we keep the participants that have big plans for sushi and will be diamond hands.
This would onboard 8 HIGHLY ENGAGED institutional investors, and bring down the raise to roughly 20M USD, which makes more sense considering the treasury size.
In the spirit of sushi, we should include another 5M USD for a community raise, have the caps at 50,000 to allow for a minimum of 100 individuals to participate. There should also be an application/competition selection process to make sure that each participant is highly engaged and motivated to stick around and help.
The market is already on a fire sale. Its quite convenient that every fund wants a sushi position now that the price is depressed but fundamentals are booming. Therefore only a 10% discount makes sense for Sushi.
IF a raise is to be done, these terms seem in the best interest of Sushi
But, I don’t think Sushi should raise capital right now. It doesn’t seem like we are in grave need of a treasury diversification plan right now, Its revenue should suffice for all operational expenses for the time being.
As Defi regains strong traction in public market valuations, sushi fundamentals continue to increase, and the new protocol upgrade is running smoothly, We can make multiple small raises on the way up, or even just begin to diversify and leverage the treasury internally.
Either raise mindfully, or be patient. Good things are coming.
If we as a community believe that $SUSHI is undervalued and can rally over the next 6 months, the range token is the ideal solution for raising funds.
Hey everyone just wanted to emphasize this. I am also a day one sushi investor and farmer and i’m also involved with the community at UMA. Sushi continues to build at a breakneck pace while other DEXs seem to get all the attention. I personally believe sushi is severely undervalued which is ofc not investment advice (obligatory)
I think that how we implement our treasury is going to have a lot to do with our success here. This is a true community project unlike some others and as a community we are going to have to come together and decide how to best use our treasury. I’d implore anyone who has not checked out Kev’s proposal to have a look,
I like this idea. It makes sense. I can’t see any benefit selling at such a low price. Very nicely put together. I can definitely see this as an upside to really get where we need to be. Can’t wait to hear what others think. Seems like the best viable option. Would really like to check this out Monday as well.
Thanks for sharing Kevin. The Range Token spreadsheet is a great way to see the true impact of how they work and the benefits that they can provide. Does the Sushi team have any questions that we can help to answer?
I believe this way of handling a sale would be more in tune with the general purpose of a strategic round. If the VCs believe they can add value rather than reap the discount they could adjust their positions in a way that makes sense to them and the ranges could be customized to their liking pending DAO approval. It’s also not too far fetched that they would already be equipped to work out a deal in this manner since convertible bonds are common practice in regular finance.
The Range Token is essentially protecting the treasury from a crash below the range low where most investors would dump and take the loss and at the same time rewarding the investors for taking on higher downside risk should price increase. If the Funds, of who I also think 21 is too many, want to add value to the protocol this is a way to incentivize it further and insure sushi’s price from cascading down at the same time. At the end of the day they believe the token is worth more with them being involved so they should be able to take some sort of extra risk if they wish to get a discount, especially one as massive as 25%~.
Sidenote : I would also strongly caution to giving up such a large portion of the protocols token reserves, You are handing a huge chunk of all governance decisions to a very small select group of people, all of whom are probably in touch with one another. What we are doing here is selling around 5-8%~ of the company (off the top of my head).
@0xMaki gave us a really good brief on the forum call. I agree about having more decentralization for the governance by including some experienced and unbiased institutional investors. I also feel this could set a price floor for Sushi in general. Lowkey agree with @GreenEyes about the # of investors. If we are aligning towards the “strategic” part maybe it’s good to vet funds based on what they can offer us on our long-term partnership. I also feel like we should explore the range tokens, it seems to fit perfectly to our use case in this situation, but can understand the pain of dealing with funds in general because of all the workload included.
Yeah, its the range token thing is more of a long term play.
The market is a bit depressed right now, this isnt a great time to be looking to sell off large amounts, a range token allows cash to be raised, but without the risks that there could be a strong rally that would make the sale look v, cheap in hindsight
The fact that Sushi can access their borrowed funds without risk of liquidation is incredible. UMA really makes it simple to get started and offers a lot of support all the way through. $SUSHI is 100% undervalued atm and I’m really excited for later today to be able to see the live version in action. $SUSHI x $UMA
Experienced - yes. Unbiased? Quite the opposite. They already know each other, and once this atrocity goes into core vote, they will make it pass with w/e discount they think they’ll get away with.
Don’t see how. The purchase is of the funds that are not market liquidity. And it will be a net sell pressure, whenever they choose to dump. And there’s no such thing as a ‘floor’, when btc can crash any moment and topple everyone else with it.
Because nothing spells ‘decentralization’ like a bunch of tight-knit vultures obtaining controlling shares of your enterprise.
This is interesting because while I see your point, the flip side is that if we continue to see depressed market conditions for a while it seems like the range bonds also would protect the Sushi treasury from continued decreasing price of the token and the diversification could be a somewhat mitigating/balancing factor.
Given what others have said, my personal opinion is that we should be thoughtful with the amount of the raise (something more in the range of $20-30 million) and make sure the investors have some strategic value to provide that can further overall goals for the protocol, but that this could be beneficial for mitigating potential risks with treasury diversification as well as have strategic benefits if the right investors are chosen.
Based on those two factors, I am in favor of this and can see it as a positive move overall.
To make @kevin’s Range Token proposal more “real” and to illustrate the range token functionality, we created a Sushi Range Token that follows the specs that @kevin proposed. This token is intended to be used as an educational tool, but, if the Sushiswap community is satisfied with the specs, it could theoretically be used as is today to create and issue SUSHI Range Tokens.
Basic specs from Kevin’s post that are present here:
A SUSHI range token pair can be minted with 0.25 SUSHI. This creates 1 long range token (rtSUSHI-0122) and 1 short token (rtSUSHI-0122s).
Under Kevin’s example proposal, each rtSUSHI-0122 would be sold for ~$0.875. The Sushiswap treasury would hold the short range tokens, as these are just tokenized overcollateralization.
In 6 months, on January 31st, the Range Token contract would settle. In the example contract, the settlement value would be based on a 1 hour TWAP of SUSHI/USD before the expiry time. If SUSHI/USD settles within the range of $4-$16, each rtSUSHI-0122 will be worth $1 in SUSHI.
1 HR SUSHI/USD twap settles at $4 → 1 rtSUSHI-0122 is worth 0.25 SUSHI.
Settles at $16 → 1 rtSUSHI-0122 is worth 0.0625 SUSHI.
Outside of the range, rtSUSHI-0122 holders would be exposed to the SUSHI price since the redemption value in SUSHI has a floor and a cap.
SUSHIUSD settlement above the range, at say $18, would mean that each RT would still be worth the floor of 0.0625 SUSHI, or $1.125.
SUSHIUSD settlement below the range, at say $2, would mean that each RT is worth the cap of of 0.25 SUSHI, or $0.5.
This is just an example contract and the design could be adjusted to meet whatever specs are decided on. We could make a new RT backed by xSUSHI, adjust the range, change the unlock date etc.
Seconding this point, the first step to revision, if not providing precision to the proposal, would involve the community and core team defining “strategic” and how this relates to Sushi. This term seems to be used often, but still remains somewhat vague. Would like to see more discussion to provide precision to this term.
Some preliminary thoughts. Personally, strategic partners can be defined in the follow dimensions:
can our partner provide additional resources to supplement technical and legal advisory/execution
can our partner expose us to and has significant reach to new audiences (we should keep in mind DeFi is still very niche)
can our partner integrate our offerings to new partners or portfolio companies
can our partner share long term strategic vision and advisory (strong research focus and departments)
will our partner actively participate in governance and help drive discussions such as these to diversify the voting power effectively
Welcome more discussion to hone in on further details.
Re: the point of “will our partner actively participate in governance and help drive discussions…”
I encourage funds that are selected in and outside of the list posted above to participate in the discussion alongside our community members. Ultimately, being a part of Sushi also means being a part of the Sushi community. Only through engagement will you gain the exposure/visibility to win support from the community.
To add on to the points of what “strategic” means, here are some of my personal thoughts:
Strategic partners need to possess resources both in and outside of the realm of DeFi. To move from 0 to 1 is to capture the niche market (DeFi). However, to progress from 1 to 100 is to capture the bigger market-- those who still hold cash and are in the traditional space.