Mar 28, 2021
I started a yield aggregator for stablecoins (spoiler alert: it failed).
In early 2021, DeFi seemed like the epicenter of a massive financial renaissance - and yield aggregation was at its core. Aggregators like Yearn, Harvest, Idle were distribution networks, allocating capital into novel DeFi primitives (AMMs, lending protocols) where liquidity provision was profitable.
After my involvement helping launch BadgerDAO, I decided to pursue building a new yield product, this time with a focus on stablecoins and multichain yield.
Over the course of a couple weeks, a group of core contributors were assembled to undertake the development and launch of a new aggregator. ForceDAO began its public beta in March 2021, supporting single asset stablecoin deposits. TVL grew to over $50M by the end of the 4-week public beta.
The project officially launched in early April 2021 but unfortunately suffered from an exploit (governance token related).
The contracts were patched, losses remediated and token relaunched. However, the project never quite recovered after that.
After an year of pivots and exploring different directions we decided to close down the project.
In early 2022, we took the remaining treasury (~$2.2M) and redistributed it to token holders pro rata. Any remaining funds were sent to Gitcoin to fund public goods.
We were the first, if not one of the first projects to "graciously shutdown" and redistribute its treasury to holders. This inspired other projects to do the same over the following months.