[Withdrawn] Sushi Phantom Troupe - Strategic Raise

Sushinomics
23

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.

1 Like
24

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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

9 Likes
25

as for the range tokens, I believe its a brilliant idea and in Sushi’s best interest… (if theres is going to be a raise no matter what)

It would just be a finding out if they would still be interested in doing a raise of that kind.

7 Likes
26

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,

11 Likes
27

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.

5 Likes
28

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?

6 Likes
29

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).

8 Likes
30

@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.

2 Likes
31

The Range token proposal looks like an awesome idea to onboard institutional investors.

5 Likes
32

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

4 Likes
33

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

3 Likes
34

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.

1 Like
35

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.

2 Likes
36

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.

12 Likes
37

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.

11 Likes
38

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:

  1. 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.

Further comments/ideas/suggestions are welcomed.

8 Likes
39

Ever since I learned about UMA’s range tokens, I was immediately intrigued since it’s probably the safest way to invest in something you truly believe in long term. The world of crypto is volatile AF, but this could mitigate your investment to be a more sensible and less scary than any other way to invest.

I really like UMA for their creative solutions in the DeFi world. Their LSP tokens are just so versatile yet easy to understand (a lot easier than doing complicated options trading IMO). So, because of their unbelievable potential and growth, I invested a big percentage of my portfolio in UMA tokens and decided to support their team and learn from them as much as I can. And I’ve found them to be a really competent and fun team to be around with. If you guys are interested, feel free to join too. They’re an extremely welcoming and helpful bunch.

I truly believe Sushi is in good hands by partnering with UMA for these range tokens.

5 Likes
40

Exactly, the emphasis of the keyword “strategic” sounds a bit hazy! If they can even checklist a few points here, that’d be great! Especially legal parts and offerings to portfolio companies.

41

I don’t know if I totally agree with this. If our goal is to have a wide network to pull from and a group of advisors with diverse operating expertise, then we have to go larger. Having strong funds with a lot of experience doesn’t directly equate to them being supervillains either. This is why we have to “vet”.

This is why we set a proper vesting schedule. Normally when major funds are invested they would never set let the price go beyond a particular floor. If it does, I think they buy more and try to keep a lower avg. entry price. If we can create a proper vesting schedule, I don’t think we have to worry about this generally imo. This also creates a strong case of validation in the general public. The investors in this list are pretty alpha with good track records. If they are willing to invest at this rate, it creates a lot of validation for the project. Of course, every other altcoin is dependent on BTC price, but that doesn’t make any strong argument on why it shouldn’t set a price floor.

2 Likes
43

If this is even close to being a consideration than the strategic benefits need to be explicitly defined and detailed with measurable metrics to define whether they have been successful after the fact.

Strategic benefits so far seems to be used as a buzz word aimed at justifying following a system that carries over from TradFi.

How specifically would these strategic benefits play out?

What exactly ( we need a defined list) these benefits are (if they exist)?

How do we define measurables to verify if these benefits have been provided and to what extent?

What mechanisms are put in place to ensure the VC’s follow up regarding their responsibility to add strategic benefits to Sushi?

Are there any courses of recall if (and most likely when) the VC’s are shown to not be providing these benefits?

If the Sushi team does not need money and we are already positioned as a top protocol with increasingly growing metrics in all regards, why would we sell anything at a discount, especially to a demographic that is historically predatory?

I could keep going, but if none of this is laid out and defined, this is little more than a donation to VC’s @0xMaki @0x_chu .

4 Likes