DeFi Alpha 🧠🧲🎩

BIG UPDATE REGARDING STAKE THE BRIDGE AND AAVE SITUATION! A few days back @AllezLabs and @Yearnfi put up a “Pre-PIP”, a proposal for the proposal, to enable staking of Polygon PoS bridge funds. The Polygon community made their voice heard and was generally against the proposal. I personally spoke to 50+ community members and feel that the pre-proposal in its current form does not address some of the concerns of the community and hence I am also unsupportive of the proposal. Considering many other Polygon community members, this STB pre-proposal looks to be rejected. Voicing loudly opinions against a proposal is a huge success of Polygon Governance. NOW! Let's talk about what Aave leadership did here, but first a few facts: Aave Campaigned Hard for the similar proposition previously When this pre-proposal was first brought into discussion, Aave leadership was super excited about it and lobbied heavily to make sure the bridge funds go to Aave deployment. During the public RFP process on Polygon Governance portal, Aave leadership had multiple meetings and invited Polygon Labs leadership to various dinner meetings and presentations to garner Polygon Labs support to “select Aave” for stake the bridge process. They posted their own pre-PIP, which generated very little conversation in the Polygon community. What Morpho Did Differently Considering what Morpho wanted to bring into the Polygon ecosystem — huge grants to Polygon Defi community as incentives, superior decentralisation and control over contracts for the Polygon community, as well as very simple smart contracts with fewer attack vectors — Morpho got a head start in garnering other community members who were supportive of their vision of STBl. In this version, Aave was still going to receive a large part of the yield for its users on Polygon POS deployment. Aave Attacking Polygon Once there was some traction after Morpho (and others) posted their pre-PIP, Marc Zeller — a vocal delegate in the Aave community —posted a vicious threat proposing to discontinue Aave deployment on Polygon PoS bringing huge hassle to their users, just to make sure that the biggest and fastest-rising competitor to Aave - Morpho — didn’t get the growth boost from STB. The proposal disregards the security measures already in place and feels more like “sour grapes” than a constructive contribution to the dialogue. Ironically, this move would harm the very users it claims to protect by disrupting their access to a stable and thriving DeFi ecosystem. It's hypocritical to claim concern for user security while simultaneously attempting to destabilize an ecosystem that so many depend on. To underscore just how personal this attack was, a prominent Aave leader even went as far as tweeting, "Operation Polygon(e)." This is extremely monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviour from Aave leadership and not at all aligned with the Ethos of Web3. This is a prominent example of a DAO leadership engaging in anti-competitive tactics and bullying other ecosystems to play to their tune. The Polygon community should not be intimidated by monopolistic tactics or aggression and should continue to explore innovative mechanisms to achieve more success. Our commitment is to a thriving, competitive, and truly decentralised DeFi ecosystem that serves the best interests of all users and builders. The Polygon community will continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, standing resolute against any actions that undermine the principles of Web3. We remain open and eager for positive, constructive dialogue with the community, but on equal terms. This goes both as well as with both for Morpho, and Aave or any other Web3 player to ensure a collaborative path forward.