[GRANT REQUEST] OAK Research Grant Proposal

Governance Proposals
1

Abstract
OAK Research is a European pioneer in data, research and comprehensive reports on the crypto ecosystem. Our goal is to work with a multitude of projects across the ecosystem. Our current partners include: Pyth Network, Alephium, Aleph, f(x) protocol, Soul Protocol, Octant and others.

We work closely with various teams, track their progress and update continuously our research and reports on them. Paraswap has undergone many changes and announcements lately with the launch of Portikus and the Miró implementation. This proposal seeks funding to develop and provide specialized reports, data-driven analysis, and actionable intelligence to enhance decision-making, transparency, and community engagement within the DAO ecosystem. By leveraging OAK Research’s expertise, Paraswap can achieve more informed governance, visibility within the decentralized ecosystems, and an empowered community.

Goals & review
Main Goals
Provide comprehensive, data-driven reports and analytics tailored to the Paraswap ecosystem.
Enhance transparency and visibility through research content in both French and English.
Empower the community with accessible and insightful data visualizations and comprehensive analysis.

Content listed in this proposal

  • Protocol overview of Paraswap : focus on the evolution of the protocol since launch and newly implemented changes such as the Mirò update (ex. oakresearch (.) io/en/reports/protocols/pyth-network-complete-overview-decentralized-oracle)
  • Intent-centric report exploring the intent technology and explaining Paraswap’s solution
  • A “Look into” analysis exploring Paraswap fee-sharing implementation and staking analysis (ex. oakresearch (.) io/en/analyses/innovations/fee-switch-game-changer-for-defi)
  • A “Look into” Portikus analysis
  • Implementation of a comprehensive roadmap of the latest updates and evolutions of Paraswap

Means
Requested funding : $10,000 in stablecoins / $ETH
$15,000 in $PSP that will be staked in the Paraswap staking module

OAK Research is committed to stake the $PSP tokens for a period of at least 2 years and take an active role in the protocol governance voting & discussions as well as supporting Paraswap in any way possible.
This mode of payment aligns the core interests of the Paraswap team and OAK Research, decentralizes governance and funds the research mentioned above.

OAK Research’s vision is aligned with the long-term success of Paraswap and its future evolutions by supporting the team by all means necessary.

Implementation Overview
Milestone 1:

  • Partnership announcement on all socials (ex: x.com), Paraswap Protocol Overview on OAK Research
  • Creation of a discussion with Paraswap team to ensure a smooth communication and updates to the protocol

Milestone 2:
Implementation of Paraswap’s timeline and cross-communication around it with Paraswap

Milestone 3:
A “Look into” Portikus analysis

Completion of these 3 milestones: Q1 2025

Milestone 4:
A “Look into” analysis exploring Paraswap fee-sharing implementation and staking analysis

Milestone 5:
Intent-centric report exploring the intent technology and explaining Paraswap’s solution

Completion of these 2 milestones: Q2 2025

Please note that these milestones are interchangeable and can be assessed depending on the vision of Paraswap’s team. Any next milestones will be discussed with the team to ensure a relevant path forward and agree on the next steps to take in this partnership. These will be based on the results of the milestones mentioned above.

OAK Research will provide a report on any reach that has been achieved and any success/failures these milestones have produced.

Grant reception address : 0x986ebFE851C0a188cd10622cc7541a1776c86C65 (oakresearch.eth)

OAK Research is open to discussing this proposal with all the $PSP holders and the Paraswap team and delegates to ensure a complete alignment with the long-term success of the protocol and the long-term vision for this proposal.
OAK Research has been following Paraswap ever since the launch of the protocol. This request takes place after the mention of marketing expenses in the Mirò upgrade posted on the governance forum.

Useful Links
OAK Research platform: oakresearch).)io
OAK Research Twitter: @OAK_Res
EOY Report 2024: www.oakinvest(.)fr/oakresearch-en
Note : all our content is published in both French and English to ensure a broader reach across the crypto industry.

OAK Research Team
Artem Sinyakin - CEO
After managing a media group for 4 years and contributing to the crypto ecosystem for 5 years, Artem is in charge of Strategic Development & Partnerships.

Lilian Aliaga - COO
With 5+ years of experience in the crypto ecosystem, Lilian is in charge of Research and Content published on the platform. Former journalist at Cryptoast, n°1 crypto media outlet in France.

Decrypt - CTO
An experienced developer in the crypto space with previous projects at DefiLlama, Cryptoast, 1inch.

Hasheur (Owen Simonin) - Advisor
Owen is an entrepreneur and the CEO of Meria, one of the largest crypto-native companies and node providers in France. He is also the n°1 French-speaking crypto YouTuber (700K). Owen is part of the board and takes on the role of advisor in the company.

OAK Invest - Design & Social Media management
OAK Invest is a media group co-founded by Artem 4 years ago. With experience on Instagram, OAK Invest manages the designs of the platform and social media strategies for OAK Research.

Additional info
After launching in October, our website has 2-3K daily users on the platform. We collected 40K+ emails. We published 100+ contents across various socials, our platform and other medias that use our website to collect and publish information.

We truly believe that this grant would help OAK Research to continue its developments and implement new features. On the other hand, this would offer a great exposure to Paraswap in both French and International communities by providing something beyond ordinary news, curated by our team of analysts.

Finally, Marketing has never been the main focus of Paraswap. Our goal is to provide this type of partnership to the team building the future of finance.

Note: apologies for posting this on snapshot before going through the governance portal first. It was a mistake on our behalf. The governance proposal on snapshot has now been deleted.

1 Like
2

Hi @ArtemOAK and thank you for this proposal, Erik from Avantgarde Finance here.

Generally speaking, I definitely think Paraswap should publish some content around the roadmap, both teasing upcoming changes and announcing new implementations.

However, I would like to know more about the analytical pieces you suggest.

  1. Am I understanding it right that you’re suggesting 3 written pieces as part of this prop, i.e. on Portikus, fee-sharing/staking, and intents?
  2. What sort of word count are you targeting for these articles?
  3. Will the articles involve any data analysis and/or look to provide some kind of unique insights, or will they mainly be repurposing descriptive, educational content?

Would be great if you could share a few selected pieces you’ve already produced that gives an idea of what to expect here.

Also, could you please elaborate on milestone 2 and what you mean by “implementation of Paraswap’s timeline and cross-communication” - does this simply mean co-marketing/sharing announcements on your X channel?

Checking your website traffic via free analytic tools also gives me quite different numbers, for example:

With X being the main crypto social channel, the 233 followers you have on the English-speaking account will obviously not do anything to move the needle in any meaningful way. While 15k followers on the French account is better, I don’t think it makes sense to specifically target a French audience here, which is also what the majority of the website traffic comes from.

My sense is that the price tag is a bit steep for the type of content that could be produced here, and I’m not sure the co-marketing will be very effective.

My recommendation would be to focus on 3 written pieces in greater detail, paid retroactively per article. Since the price tag depends in large on the scope of the articles, I’d ask you to provide a quote along with the outline of the proposed articles.

To clarify, I am very much for seeing high-quality Paraswap content being produced, just want to make sure the DAO secures competitive deals and minimises spending in areas where ROI is unclear. Thank you!

3 Likes
3

Hello Erik,

Thank you for interacting with this proposal.
Unfortunately as I was a new user on the gov interface I could not include all the relevant links for this proposal.

Am I understanding it right that you’re suggesting 3 written pieces as part of this prop, i.e. on Portikus, fee-sharing/staking, and intents?

This proposal goes a little beyond this written content.
Yes, at first our goal is to publish the 4 pieces mentioned here in S1 2025. (Paraswap Protocol Overview, Look into Portikus, intent-centric research and look into staking/fee sharing)
These four articles will include the full analysis of all subjects mentioned.

Here are a few examples :

“Look into” (the format that will include Portikus and fee sharing) : A Zoom on MegaETH, the blockchain that raised $9.2 million in seconds | OAK Research

The intent article will be a research on the whole sector of intent trading, commissioned by Paraswap. This means that we will also include the analysis of other venues for intent trading (CoW Swap, Essential, NEAR, etc.). The Paraswap solution will be presented at the beginning of this research.

The goal for this research is to reach a broader audience that are interested in this type of trading in general and allow them to discover how Paraswap has contributed to this type of research.

For the protocol overview the example can be found here: Pyth Network (PYTH) : A complete overview of the decentralized oracle | OAK Research

What sort of word count are you targeting for these articles?

For the “look into” articles we aim for the same length as the MegaETH one, it could be a little longer or a little shorter depending on our communications with the team and the docs and information available to us upon publishing.

For the protocol overview you can expect the same length as the Pyth one.

Will the articles involve any data analysis and/or look to provide some kind of unique insights, or will they mainly be repurposing descriptive, educational content?

Depending on the data available to us, we will to the best of our ability include charts, data and metrics relevant to the various articles mentioned above.
If we do not manage to retrieve the various data, we will reach out to the Paraswap team to get some metrics.

If those are not provided, we will focus on education and descriptive analysis.

Also, could you please elaborate on milestone 2 and what you mean by “implementation of Paraswap’s timeline and cross-communication” - does this simply mean co-marketing/sharing announcements on your X channel?

I will put the examples of the timeline implementation in the next response in this thread.
Please note that the timelines are continuously updated to reflect the evolution of various protocols.

Cross-communication also means that we will relay major upgrades of the protocol, update the timeline and support the visibility of Paraswap.

My sense is that the price tag is a bit steep for the type of content that could be produced here, and I’m not sure the co-marketing will be very effective.

The price in USD/ETH mentioned here is for the written content that will be produced on our website (the four articles).
The $PSP mentioned in the proposal is not to be sold, but to be staked as a show of us willing to participate in various governance topics and proposals that could take place on the forum. If we can do this through delegation of the tokens, we can get rid of this part of the proposal.

Our goal is not to produce 4 articles in a one-shot timeframe but rather to take an active role in the Paraswap’s future by providing support in communication when needed and take on an active role within Paraswap’s governance.

Also, as mentioned, since launch we have collected over 40,000 emails and all our content will be distributed through this channel as well once we launch the various newsletters starting in February.

Looking forward to your response, thank you for sharing your POV.

4

Implementation of the timeline example:
Announcement: x.com
Website: Pyth Network (PYTH) Price: $0.30 | Live Chart & Crypto Analysis | OAK Research (just scroll down on the token page and you will see the timeline)

5

Hi!

We have we have a concern regarding the proposal.

What timeline do you propose for receiving the required budget? Since no specifics are provided, should we assume that payment is required in advance before starting the work? We wouldn’t feel comfortable with that arrangement, as the completion of all required tasks would extend until Q2. Therefore, we believe the most logical and reasonable approach in such a case, if the proposal is eventually approved, would be to establish an initial payment followed by staggered payments subject to the fulfillment of the committed deliverables.

1 Like
6

Hello,

Most of our grants/partnerships work in one of two ways:
100% upfront
or
50% upfront
50% once all the milestones are completed

In this case, if you don’t feel comfortable with the 100% approval, we could opt-in for the second solution.

7

Thank you for addressing our questions and concerns @ArtemOAK! Replying below:

Looking at this and the other example provided, I think the price tag is far too steep and not something the DAO should be paying a whole lot. In my view, I would consider this relatively basic descriptive content, which can be done fairly easily with some AI and editing. In my experience there is absolutely no need to be paying 2.5k a piece for this sort of articles.

Why do you think Paraswap should be the one paying for this comparative report? To have any credibility, the report would have to be neutral and objective.

If you’d consider halving the ETH ask and a delegation rather than PSP payment, we’d be more open to support this proposal.

8

Hello Erik, getting back to you on your concerns

In my view, I would consider this relatively basic descriptive content, which can be done fairly easily with some AI and editing. In my experience there is absolutely no need to be paying 2.5k a piece for this sort of articles.

For some of our analyses the data might not be included as, effectively, we don’t have access to data to illustrate various graphs. This happens when the data is closed-source and is not publicly available.

However we try our best to find it to illustrate our articles.
On the other hand, I understand that we could just prompt chatGPT to spit out an analysis, but I think it would be quite offensive for our analysts that put their work into each article and that have to go for hours through various docs to provide the best analysis possible.

OAK Research has always prided itself in in-depth analyses that go beyond description. We also work closely with protocol to insert some “alpha” or upcoming upgrades to ensure our readers get the best content possible. Therefore, this price we set out is something that allows us to fund future developments of the platform with future implementations that would be available to our partners first. (we have not raised any money and only exist thanks to our partnerships/grants).

Why do you think Paraswap should be the one paying for this comparative report? To have any credibility, the report would have to be neutral and objective.

I am sorry if I did not put in in a correct way.
I do not think Paraswap should pay for this research.
However, as this type of content takes several days to produce, goes over various tech implementations that are available on the market and showcases the sponsor’s implementation, we believe it’s a great way to gain more visibility and attract more people.

The content that is paid for is clearly stated in the article and the sponsor does not impact our analysis of what is available on the market. Previously, as a media we have covered various topics such as Oracles (which was sponsored by Pyth) and that went over Chainlink for several pages. We also did one on Ethereum alignment sponsored by Starknet where we included various quotes from the team on the view on Ethereum alignment alignment. The analysis however remained unbiased.

The idea behind this type of content is to reach a broader audience by going over a larger topic rather than focusing on one aspect of the protocol itself. We believe it also shows the willingness of the protocol to sponsor this type of research and fund a ‘public good’ in a way.

However if the consensus here is not comfortable with this type of research we could instead focus on only the various aspects of Paraswap.
Let me know what you think.

If you’d consider halving the ETH ask and a delegation rather than PSP payment, we’d be more open to support this proposal.

Let’s aim for the delegation then. I think it’s better this way and better shows our intentions of taking part in the Paraswap governance.

9

Thanks for your proposal!

While having new content produced about the protocol is always interesting, and based in the previous interactions with other delegates, I believe it makes sense to have new material aligned with PIP-56.

Building upon the comment above in PIP-56 discussion, what would be the ROI here? Besides your own usual distribution channels (website, X account, etc), will this content being distributed somewhere else?

Thanks in advance!

10

Appreciate the thorough response @ArtemOAK!

Just to clarify, in no way was I suggesting that OAK analysts does not put real work and effort into their articles, merely that with the introduction of advanced AI tools, purely descriptive content has fallen in value due to how easy it is to now produce. And so, I do not question the quality of your content, I just don’t think the pricing is in line with industry standards.

As @jameskbh pointed out, some content surrounding the new Paraswap roadmap would be good, and something we’d support if the price per article is reasonable.

Regarding the delegation, I would seek @SEEDGov’s advice here, as I am not sure if the Delegate Program Trial can accept late applications?

11

Hello James,

If our content is something that you might be interested in amplifying, we could go for Twitter spaces or physical versions of paraswap protocol overview that you guys would be able to distribute during events or something similar.

However, it is not something that we have envisioned for this grant request. We are, however, open to suggestions of any kind if you would like to go further and imagine something else to implement.

12

Hello Erik,

To be completely transparent with you, when we launched in October and when the platform was not live yet, we offered a 50% discount for the projects supporting us and believing in our vision without even seeing the product go live. This showed our commitment towards our early partners and allowed us to secure initial funding of the platform. (we have not raised any money for the launch and the development of the platform, it was financed through the partnerships we have signed with various projects).

In this manner, we would be willing to show our commitment for this proposal and bring the price down by 25%. As we are currently working on the implementation of the V2 of the platform that will offer way more features, more data and new categories of research, we would love to have you onboard and would take a step towards an agreement with you.

If this is something that seems reasonable to you, then we can proceed and therefore bring the total price to $7.5K for all the content mentioned in our previous proposal.

Regarding the delegation, @SEEDGov if there is anything needed on our behalf, we would love to proceed on this matter as well.