Summary
90-day beta test of FIRM Affiliate program aimed at bringing new borrowers to FiRM.
Background
Made popular initially by Amazon, affiliate programs are common today across CEX and certain DEX protocols, and have seen some usage by DeFi protocols including Aave. As a pay-per-performance user acquisition model, an Affiliate program represents a cost-effective way to grow FiRM TVL that rewards Affiliates according to the quality/size of their referrals and is more cost effective for the DAO than conventional PPC or other online user acquisition tools.
The DAO has searched previously for ways to implement Affiliate programs on a permissionless basis but the ability to “game” a program through self-dealing (i.e., registering yourself as an Affiliate to receive discounted DBR) has been a blocker. An alternative approach using a whitelist that limits participation to influencers and businesses that meet certain eligibility criteria presents a new approach worthy of an experiment.
Criteria
For FiRM, a top program design goal is to minimize the risk of gaming whereby a prospective borrower registers as an Affiliate in order to benefit from an Affiliate reward (i.e., commission), which functions as a discount. Instead, we can filter Affiliate applicants based on their social media and other verifiable reach, specifically:
- Individual
‣ Social media influencer with 5,000+ followers or subscribers on one or more social media platforms (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram)
- Crypto Communities
‣ Financial leaders or opinion leaders with a community of 500+ members on one or more community groups (Telegram, Facebook, Discord, WeChat, Reddit)
- Business/Organization
‣ User base of 2,000+
‣ Market analysis platform with 5,000+ daily visits
‣ Industry Media Platform
‣ Crypto Fund
‣ DEX, Yield Aggregator, or Similar Platform
How It Works
- Prospective Affiliates submit an application by filling out a Google form. The Growth Working Group evaluates each to validate participation criteria.
- Approved (whitelisted) applicants receive a dedicated Affiliate URL that can be shared with their audience/community.
- Affiliates promote FiRM via the dedicated Affiliate URL
- When a new borrower uses the dedicated Affiliate URL, the borrower signs a message confirming the referral from an Affiliate’s address and borrows DOLA on FiRM. The Affiliate receives a monthly reward payment from the DAO equal to 10% of the DBR spent by their referred borrowers during the prior month.
- Payments are sent to the Affiliate wallet address monthly. Affiliates are eligible for reward payments for each borrower they bring to FiRM for up to 12 consecutive months. For the sake of clarity, the DAO will pay an Affiliate reward for a 12 month DOLA loan from a single borrower, but for a 13 month DOLA loan, the Affiliate payments for that borrower would end after the 12th month. The maximum monthly payout to any single Affiliate during the beta test period is 200,000 DBR.
- Affiliates reward activity is viewable via an Affiliate dashboard and a dedicated Discord channel will be available to Affiliates for support.
Other
- 90-day beta test runs from August 15 thru November 15th. Program may be extended by governance.
- Referrals made via sybil attacks or other prohibited means may be denied payment
- Open to approved participants only. Governance reserves the right to make changes to the program at any time
- The program is designed to require little or no ongoing support apart from reviewing applications and processing monthly payments to Affiliates.
Budget Request
For purposes of testing this program, GWG requests an initial authorization of 250,000 DBR to support payments to Affiliates for loans initiated during the beta test period. As the program matures and Affiliate-generated loan volume increases, follow-on authorization requests to grow and sustain the program will be necessary.
On-Chain Actions
Increase GWG DBR Authorization by 250,000 DBR