Aladdin DAO

AladdinDAO is a decentralized network to shift crypto investments from venture capitalists to the wisdom of crowds through collective value discovery. The problem AladdinDAO solves is, in plain English, to battle information asymmetry and help retail investors filter the signal from the noise. With the advent of DeFi, many yield farms popped up, but many died just as quickly, taking user funds with them. AladdinDAO aims to develop a mechanism to help retail investors decide which yield farms to hold.

The protocol is fundamentally a three-sided marketplace: it helps DeFi projects source liquidity by connecting them with yield farmers seeking the most reliable assets. A council curates the best farms and receives ALD tokens as a reward. This council is called the Boule, which is the collective brain of AladdinDAO and is incentivized based on its contribution value, which is calculated once every 14 days.

It consists of an elected batch of DeFi veterans that are voted in by so-called talent hunters. At launch, these talent hunters are initial supporters of AladdinDAO and feature names such as Polychain Capital, Alameda Research and CMS. 80% of the initial Boule members are nominated by talent hunters and 20% by the community. Each talent hunter can propose up to five Boule members. All nominees then go through a decentralized governance process to get appointed.

Other roles feature strategy developers that conduct technical integration of liquidity mining programs to the platform. Boule Plus members are a reserve to Boule members and can be appointed in subsequent periods. The requirements to become a Boule Plus member are to stake a certain amount of ALD, provide a verifiable Twitter handle and pass an AladdinDAO quiz to verify knowledge of the protocol.

Who Are the Founders of AladdinDAO?

AladdinDAO is a DAO and does not have founders as such. It is supported by several prominent names in the crypto and DeFi space, such as Alameda Research, Polychain Capital, Robert Leshner, Kain Warwick and several other funds and influential crypto people. Its initial Boule candidates feature names like DeFiDad, a prominent DeFi Youtuber, and several other DeFi founders and investors.

What Makes AladdinDAO Unique?

AladdinDAO has designed an intricate incentive structure to harness the wisdom of the crowds and develop a decentralized and value-adding network. After the initial selection process, Boule members undergo regular reviews based on their performance. If the TVL in the protocol exceeds the TVL of the previous period, the top five Boule members get promoted to talent hunters. Talent hunters, in turn, earn passive income based on the performance of their nominated council members. If the TVL falls compared to the previous period, the bottom five council members get cut subject to a minimum of 30 permanent council members.

Boule members are incentivized based on a formula that adjusts for absolute profits generated by the protocol, relative profits contributed by their votes, time decay, and weight of vote. Roughly speaking, the more Boule members vote in favor of a proposal, the less weight their vote carries. Boule Members are rewarded for Yes votes to an outperforming pool and No votes to an underperforming pool. This design incentivizes Boule Members to vote responsibly, independently, and with a high conviction level. Rewards are paid out biweekly from the DAO mining.

Any project can apply to be added for yield farming services for a 2,000 ALD fee. More than half of Boule members have to participate in the vote, with a simple majority in favor of the proposal required. If less than half of members vote, 20% more Yes than No votes are required for the proposal to pass. A Boule member can veto and call for a token holder vote if at least 20% of token holders veto the proposal with a simple majority. In this case, the project’s application is rejected.

Boule Plus members can also vote to add or remove pools and receive a share from the 2% option reserve. Although their rewards are significantly lower, Boule Plus members are not penalized for incorrect votes.