Contributing an important addition to DAO tooling, as proof-of-stake chains become the norm
Geode Finance, a novel liquid staking infrastructure provider for DAOs, has successfully deployed on Avalanche Mainnet, partnering with Yield Yak to launch their own liquid staking solution and token, yyAVAX. With Geode’s infrastructure, DAOs can unlock new revenue streams and capture the full value of PoS networks, while providing their members with new financial incentives. Geode is gearing up to deploy on Ethereum in early 2023, a burgeoning chain for DAO activity, to unlock new yield opportunities at scale.
According to the World Economic Forum the number of people around the world working in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations grew in 2021 from 13,000 to 1.7 million and there are over $9.7 billion invested in DAOs globally. There are a multitude of DAO verticals such as DeFi protocol DAOs like Uniswap and Aave, member-directed venture capital funds, social DAOs like BAYC, grant and charity DAOs like Gitcoin and many more untapped opportunities. With the avenue of this new global phenomenon, there is a need for business tools specifically geared towards this market.
Liquid Staking Enhances The DeFi Experience
With Proof-of-stake chains, validators can secure and validate the network earning rewards in native tokens (i.e. ETH or AVAX) by locking up a fixed amount of tokens for a period of time. There are therefore over 236M AVAX and 12,9M ETH locked in validators that cannot be used for any other purpose, and cannot be unlocked prematurely no matter what market conditions arise. As a result, many would-be investors may shy away from staking as an investment strategy and lean toward other income opportunities which are more flexible.
Liquid staking solutions such as Lido have captured billions of dollars in TVL due to their ability to offer access to staking rewards by allowing investors of any size to participate. By creating a token that represents Ether staked (stETH), they can create a market that allows people to easily enter or exit their position, removing the inflexibility of staking. In addition to this, users can leverage their stETH by depositing it in various DeFi applications like lending, borrowing and liquidity pools to earn even more yield.
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Liquid Staking-As-A-Service For DAOs
Despite the growing popularity of such liquid staking solutions for consumers, there are no B2B2C liquid staking products tailor-made for DAOs. DAOs are currently limited in both their ability to activate their treasuries worth over $9.7B in aggregate, and can find it difficult to provide their users with sustainable yields.
“Liquid staking has proven its value by becoming a multi-billion dollar market and we’re excited to be able to help DAOs to offer staking yields to their users, while promoting stronger network security for PoS Networks,” said Simon Furlong, Co-Founder of Geode Finance.
Geode Finance provides the ultimate infrastructure solution for DAOs to take advantage of liquid staking under their own governance terms. Organizations can spin off their staking solution with very low effort and capture additional revenue in multiple ways:
- Integrate staking yields into their own products like DeFi trading platforms, NFT marketplaces, investment DAOs and more
- Activate parts of their existing treasuries to allocate toward liquid staking initiatives and earn passive income
- Unlock additional revenue by charging staking-as-a-service fees, currently ~10% of staking yields.
- Capture additional members by providing desirable liquid staking benefits within their own product, without members having to look elsewhere for the same opportunity
- Benefit from Geode’s advanced infrastructure to optimize yield even in periods of high volatility
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In addition, DeFi-savvy DAOs like Yield Yak, can take it a step further and create composable integrations within the wider DeFi ecosystem to increase the use cases for their staking derivative, driving further adoption and fee revenue.
“Geode have been outstanding partners to Yield Yak and we’re thrilled to be part of Geode’s trustless liquid staking universe. The Geode team have been incredibly responsive and have been laser focused on delivering a high-quality liquid staking infrastructure to YIeld Yak and yyAVAX users,” said Dylan Coady, marketing lead at Yield Yak.
