PowerPool (CVP)

Basics

• Founded in:
• Mainnet release:
• Based in:
• From this comparison blog (25-10-2020):

"Powerpool is intended to become a DeFI ecosystem, smart EFT like index ($PI PT), cross chain oracle and lending market. One particular focus is on using the governance rights of the underlying tokens. The index contains YFI LEND SNX COMP MKR UNI WNXM CVP in equal weights (12.5%). PIPT currently contains ~ 0.5 M AUV). From an external vierwpoint the community appears more focused on the governance aspects of fund management that the three above."

Token

Token allocation

• Has been distributed purely through liquidity mining (28-8-2020).

Utility

• From its announcement (8-8-2020):

"The token functions (voting on proposals regarding protocol operation):

1. Listing of new liquidity pools in the PowerPool protocol and allocation of liquidity mining rewards to them
2. Adding and removing collateral types in the protocol
3. Adding new lending logic to the protocol (now we consider fixed-term agreements and some other ones)
4. Upgrade and maintain the source code of the smart contracts

Additionally, CPV has one unique function that wasn’t present in other lending protocols before. It comes down to direct voting using remaining (unclaimed by borrowers) GTs in the PowerPool lending contracts. So, CVP captures value from the possibility to govern the PowerPool protocol itself and from the possibility to decide how pooled GTs will vote."

• From CoinGecko (24-6-2021):

"Holders of the CVP token can participate and vote on changes to PowerPool’s smart contract and operational parameters, in addition to voting collectively in other Ethereum-based protocols."

Tech

• Whitepaper can be found [insert here].
• Code can be viewed here.

Implementations

• Built on: Ethereum

How it works

• From its announcement (8-8-2020):

"The PowerPool is a lending protocol for the governance tokens, such as COMP, BAL, LEND, YFI, BZRX, AKRO, and many others. It is important to note that currently, PowerPool is targeted on the Defi market as the hottest one, but generally is not limited to it and can serve for pooling any other governance tokens in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The PowerPool is based on a simple lending model, close to Compound’s one from the first sight. Every holder of GTs can supply liquidity into a contract and get the interest rate if there is a demand. Any person on the market can borrow GTs placing allowed digital assets as collateral. Currently, we plan to add ETH, wBTC, and DAI as collaterals for borrowing governance tokens. On the other hand, it has certain upgrades, and the particular set of oracles developed to form price feeds of highly-volatile assets such as GTs.

Talking about the economic nature of GTs, they are unique assets in the context of lending/borrowing mechanics. The utility of GTs is not constant in time (comparing, for example, with payment tokens such as stablecoins). Talking strictly, it appears only during voting. Our vision is to introduce a novel type of lending logic, which is not available by default in Compound or any other lending protocols but can be very suitable for GTs. We plan to cover it in the next articles.

The PowerPool offers the following advantages to the end-users and Defi protocols:

1. Influence farming. Users can earn additional GTs from their holdings. As a result, the stake of the user continually grows as the interest rate is paid in the same governance token.
2. Solution for the Voters Apathy. With the yield and LM as incentives, passive token holders will be motivated to pool their GTs in the PowerPool. With demand, these tokens will participate in voting, increasing the overall vote capitalization. With the lack of demand, tokens can participate in the vote even if nobody borrowed them according to PowerPool token holders’ decision.
3. Accumulation of voting power. The voting power, distributed across the thousands of minority token holders is useless. Now it can be concentrated in one place via the PowerPool and become a real force in the governance of protocols."

Oracle Method

• From the website (1-2-2021):

"Oracle Address: 0x019e14DA4538ae1BF0BCd8608ab8595c6c6181FB  

Power Oracle is a decentralized cross-chain price oracle working on Ethereum Main Network and sidechains. Power Oracle uses Uniswap V2 as its primary source of time-weighted average prices (TWAPs) and introduces economic incentives for independent price reporters.

To record prices in a Power Oracle smart contract and receive rewards in CVP tokens or write off deposits, you need to create a Reporter."

• From their blog (1-6-2021):

"PowerOracle is a system responsible for maintaining PowerPool products in a decentralized and permissionless manner. The core element of this system is Power Agent — an agent executing all on-chain smart-contract calls necessary for the operation of PowerPool structured investment products. This agent is selected based on CVP staking and therefore has skin in the game. Contract calls include updating TWAP (Uniswap, Sushiswap) oracle price feeds, execution strategies of dynamic weights changing in AMM pools by calling controlling contracts, strategy contracts, and pool contracts."

Their Projects

YETI

• From Cointelegraph (10-12-2020):

"PowerPool has launched YETI — an index and “meta-governance” token for the Yearn.finance ecosystem. YETI was conceived by Messari’s Ryan Watkins, who published the proposal for a Yearn.finance ecosystem index token to PowerPool’s governance forums on Dec. 4. The meta-governance layer to PowerPool’s index tokens allows YETI holders to participate in governance across the Yearn ecosystem via a single interface, which PowerPool said simplifies the user experience and provides “an opportunity to save gas costs.” YETI token holders can also become liquidity providers for any tokens in the index and earn yields from tokens pooled in the underlying protocol’s yield generating vaults. They also receive proceeds from a 0.2% swap fee from token swaps occurring within the YETI pool."

Governance

Treasury

• From Delphi Digital (1-2021):

"PowerPool’s treasury has earned around ~$130K in fees for its permanent pool, which at the time of writing has grown to ~$175K thanks to the appreciation of its diversified basket of assets. With two new indexes being ready for launch and V2 launch imminent, the growth of PowerPool’s treasury should continue to accelerate."

• From their blog (1-6-2021):

"PowerPool treasury currently has ~$650,000 holdings peaking at $1,150,000 before the market correction. It is mainly composed of 31 ERC20 tokens collected as protocol fees from PowerPool products (entry fee, exit fee, swap fee). Treasury and future fees stream will be used for rewarding CVP stakers."

Roadmap

• Can be found here (8-8-2020).

Audits

• Bug bounty program can be found [insert here].
• From the website (1-2-2021): PowerPool has passed several public security audits.

Usage

• From Delphi Digital (1-2021):

"With $10.8M locked in PowerIndex (PIPT) and $5.1M already locked in Yearn Ecosystem Token Index (YETI), PowerPool has ~$16M locked within its two indices right now. The project isn’t listed on DeFi Pulse yet, but if it was — PowerPool would sit at #35, above popular projects like DODO, Gnosis, and its competitor PieDAO."

• From their blog (1-6-2021):

"Up to date, PowerPool products were used by more than 10,000 unique wallets. PowerPool TVL peaked at ~$30m in 2021 and currently is ~$17.7m."

yEarn and PowerPool relationship

• From The Defiant (4-12-2020):

"[The] PowerPool partnership aims to improve existing areas for Yearn. PowerPool will lead participation in Yearn governance through its meta-governance inter-protocol voting."

Competition

• PieDAO
• From DeFi Weekly (12-12-2020):

"Where I see them deviating from INDEX is that they’re more aggressive in launching indexes and using that voting power more aggressively rather than being an ETF. Maybe a better way to put it is that INDEX is an ETF with some voting power and Powerpool is tokenized aggregated voting power."

Team, Funding, Partnerships, etc.

Team

• Full team can be found [here].
• Anonymous (12-12-2020).

Funding

• Launched with apparently no funding from the outside (12-12-2020).

Partners

• From their blog (1-6-2021):

"Has 'lasting relationships and integrations with great partners such as Yearn, Balancer, 1inch, and Wintermute."