Block Analitica Grant Proposal: Ajna Analytics UI Upgrade & More

Grant Proposals Accepted
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Block Analitica Grant Proposal: Ajna Analytics UI Upgrade & More

Request

Receiving Address: 0xeaef8FB615A7d5ab6A356dEc0549fD749460e970

AJNA Amount: 1,000,000 (Will update right before we submit on-chain)

Application and Team Information

Applicant Name: BA Labs, Ptd (operating Block Analitica brand)

Email: info@ba-labs.co

About

Block Analitica is a dedicated risk management firm that provides a critical and clear understanding of the fast moving market dynamics in the DeFi ecosystem. We specialize in understanding, interpreting, communicating and presenting on-chain data relating to DeFi protocols and applications. We believe that this approach is crucial to making the right, informed decisions when engaging with these new financial markets and economies.

For over 5 years, Block Analitica has had extensive experience working with several communities in the DeFi ecosystem, including MakerDAO, Compound, Aave, Spark, BadgerDAO, Ajna, and Morhpo. We provide data-driven risk advisory services, research, risk tooling development, and risk dashboards.

Our risk dashboards include:

To learn more about our work, refer to the links below:

Project Information

1. Scope of work

1A: Upgrade current Ajna Analytics UI: https://info.ajna.finance/

  • Miscellaneous improvements:

    • Show bucket prices in pool activity table
    • Show estimated quote token price per AJNA on active auctions
    • Graph of burn profits over time for each pool AJNA/USD (with USD price at the time of burn)

  • User behavior data:

    • “Stickiness” metrics of both lenders and borrowers
    • Cohort analysis
    • Tags per type of user (based on type of leverage, activity, etc.)
    • Risk metrics per user (collateralization levels and trends)

  • Rate trends and prediction:

    • Simulation on rate trends per pool assuming current state
    • Borrow capacity before rate reacts
    • Comparison of pair rate within DeFi (Morpho, Aave, Spark, etc.)

1B: Periodic Ajna Reports and Analyses

2. What problem is being solved?

One of the main goals of the Ajna community is to increase adoption of the Ajna Protocol. At present, the Ajna Analytics UI, developed by Block Analitica, is the main source of detailed data information for the Ajna Protocol. We believe that Block Analitica can help Ajna increase its usage and engagement by providing two key services:

  1. Further develop the Ajna Analytics UI by providing additional information on borrowers and lenders, enabling counterparties to have a better understanding of the risks and general activities of the protocol. This, in turn, should make users more comfortable using the Ajna Protocol, and ultimately increase usage.
  2. Provide relevant analytical content in the form of X (Twitter) threads and newsletter posts, using our Ajna Analytics UI as the main source of data. By regularly explaining the Ajna Protocol and Ajna data trends, more users will become familiarized with the protocol, which may ultimately increase engagement.

3. How will this project be a source of growth or success for Ajna? Please include a step-by-step summary of how you imagine the completed project will affect Ajna.

Current users, and potential future users, should have a good overview and understanding of market dynamics, risks, and protocol dynamics — ensuring a better user experience of the Ajna Protocol. Providing the listed services in section 1A above, will help solve the potential information asymmetry of both current and potential new users. An informative analytics dashboard enables users to acquire a clear understanding of Ajna, which can help them navigate the protocol.

For example, users may want to lend on Ajna, but are unaware of the risks due to Ajna’s technical design differing from other lending protocols, which, as a result, can therefore be seen as more complex. Providing lenders with information of Ajna borrower’s collateralization levels can in such cases make them more comfortable to utilize the protocol and lend at different levels.

Furthermore, posting educational content, protocol analyses, and other informative content, as set out in section 1B above, will provide more context to users and potentially boost interest and engagement.

4. What are the key objectives?

Objective 1: Upgrade the current Ajna Analytics UI

Objective 2: Provide periodic (weekly to biweekly) reports on Ajna protocol activity developments, the state of Ajna markets, educational content, and more.

5. What are the deliverables?

  • Objective 1 deliverables

    • Pool activity table
      • Add bucket prices data
    • Active Auctions Page
      • Add estimated quote token price per AJNA
    • Burn Profits Over Time Graph
      • Add the graph for each pool AJNA/USD
    • “Stickiness” metrics
      • Add metrics about users tenure
    • Cohort analysis
      • Similar to stickiness metrics, but presented through a cohort analysis. See example for a cohort analysis of the Spark Protocol
    • Tags per type of user
      • Type of leverage, activity, etc
    • Collateralization levels metric
    • Trends metrics
      • Types of pools or assets exhibiting high growth
    • Simulation on rate trends per pool assuming current state
      • Based on IRM, what is the expected rate trend, ceteris paribus
    • Borrow capacity before rate reacts
      • Amount needed to borrow before sufficient rate jump occurs
    • Comparison of pair rate within DeFi
      • Add comparative data from other protocols, such as Morhpo, Aave, and Spark

  • Objective 2 deliverables

    • Ajna Content (Weekly or Biweekly)
      • X (Twitter)
        • Threads on Ajna usage trends
        • Threads on rate trends
        • Ajna Educational threads
        • Threads on Ajna migration trends
      • Newsletter
        • Include Ajna data in Block Analitica’s longer format DeFi comparative analysis reports
        • Include Ajna migration data in Block Analitica’s longer format DeFi migration analyses
        • Longer format data driven analyses exclusively covering the Ajna Protocol
        • Longer format educational reports exclusively covering the Ajna Protocol

6. What is the timeline for completing the deliverables?

We are estimating a 4-5 month period for completing the proposed upgrade of the Analytics UI. Periodical market & activity reports will be covered for a period of 6 months.

7. What level of support do you anticipate needing through the duration of the project?

Any feedback on the proposed metrics is welcomed. We will keep the community posted about the progress of development and take all feedback into account.

8. How often will progress reports be published to the forum?

The progress of upgrading the current Ajna Analytics UI (1A), will be released in 2-3 stages based on the scoped work and deliverables described in section 1 and section 5. Each stage will take approximately 1-2 months to complete. After each stage is complete, we will publish a progress report to the forum.

Regarding the periodic Ajna reports and analyses (1B), we will list all published content from X (Twitter) and Substack (if longer format content) in the dashboard upgrade reports.

9. What are the estimated costs associated with the full completion of this project?

$160,000 or 2,000,000 AJNA (priced at $0.08)

$80,000 (Cycle 1) + $80,000 (Cycle 2)

1,000,000 AJNA + adjust for real token price AJNA

10. If applicable, How will the project be maintained after completion of the grant?

The proposed grant payment would cover maintenance for a period of 1 year from the time the dashboard upgrade is completed.

Additional Information

11. How will you handle a delay in your project timeline?

Delays will be publicly reported, but are unlikely due to our experience and good technical understanding of the protocol.

12. How will you handle a scenario where the project can’t be completed due to insufficient funding or other factors?

We believe this is highly unlikely unless the AJNA token price crashes to very low levels once funding is received. In that case we’ll ask for the remaining amount in the next grant cycle when the project should be close to finalized.

13. How will you handle a scenario where the project is completed, but significantly under-budget?

We can reasonably estimate costs associated with this project as we have already delivered the first version of the dashboard. This is why we believe the dollar amount asked for this project is sufficient.

cc: @Delegates All feedback welcome.

2 Likes
2

$160k for an analytics dashboard seems very high, especially at this stage of the protocol. Would prefer to see this kind of money spent on a more user friendly front-end first to accumulate more tvl.

3

Initial Thoughts

I’m voting yes on this.

  1. I really like the scope and roadmap for the dashboard.
  2. The BA team has been rock solid. I can vouch for the timeliness and competence of the team. I am very happy to see this proposal. Users need access to good information about the protocols they use. This is key for Ajna’s long term usability and attractiveness.
  3. I saw the comment from @bigpapa saying that this is a high cost for a data dashboard. In my view the cost is fair, both competitively speaking, and due to the huge UX boost this product produces. As a user, dashboards like this are super important to me. I expect over time the cost will drop because eventually it will just be maintenance costs rather than new features. It’s important to note that there should be a longer term plan for financial sustainability of the data dashboard since AJNA grants may not be forever.

Questions

  1. What would be the standalone costs of 1A and 1B?
  2. What would be the estimated maintenance cost after all key metrics and expanded features are built out? I am trying to get a sense of expected costs in the future to continue having the data dashboard running.
  3. Do you have any ideas for how to make these services self sustainable so they don’t rely on grants for funding in the long term?
4

Thank you for the feedback @Davidutro. Please see our response to your questions below.

  1. The costs of 1A (Upgrade current Ajna Analytics UI) and 1B (Periodic Ajna Reports and Analyses) is split as follows:

  • 1A (Upgrade current Ajna Analytics UI): $65,000 per 3 months. $60,000 covers two FTE developers, and $5,000 covers infrastructure/hardware costs.

  • 1B (Periodic Ajna Reports and Analyses): $15,000 per 3 month covers the cost of 1 FTE analyst from our team.

  1. The required maintenance resources of the dashboard after it is built is 1 junior FTE developer + server costs, which is estimated to be approximately $8,000/month.

  2. Our objective is to keep the dashboard open source. However, server costs always need to be paid. Therefore, without the ability to rely on grants to fund the development and maintenance of the dashboard, the only other way to make it sustainable would likely be to charge for access and use.

1 Like
5

I hope we can find a way to keep with open without requiring payment for access. I will think about what long term solutions could be.

1 Like
6

No brainer for this grant, having bad analytics page is like being blind (cough cough Uniswap). Although in longer term, there must be a way to continue funding this without relying on grants.

1 Like
7

Block Analitica Grant Progress Report

Below, we share our progress from Stage 1 of the Block Analitica Grant Proposal: Ajna Analytics UI Upgrade & More. We provide an update on the work that has been done on the Ajna Analytics UI. We also provide a list of Ajna analyses that we have produced on a bi-weekly basis.

Ajna Analytics UI Update

Deliverables:

  • Added support for Mode Network
  • Added filter on pool positions to filter by closed positions
  • Sending liquidation notifications to discord channel
  • Extended historic data to 24h, 7d, 1m, 3m and All
  • Wallet activity page (with DAU and MAU metrics), e.g: Ajna Info | Block Analitica
  • Show bucket prices in pool activity table
  • Show estimated quote token price per AJNA on active reserve auctions

Ajna Analyses Update

2 Likes