| SIP | Title | Author | Status | Track | Created |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0014 |
Strategic Investment |
Anthony Pompliano |
Approved |
Treasury |
2021-03-22 |
A syndicate of strategic partners, led by Anthony Pompliano (Pomp) proposes to acquire 1.5m SOV and to join the Sovryn community. The syndicate proposes to provide capital to the Sovryn treasury, run SovrynBTC nodes, and provide broad strategic assistance to grow the Sovryn ecosystem.
I have been writing and tweeting about the idea of decentralized finance on top of bitcoin for years. I have noticed that while bitcoin is decentralized money, most of its existing infrastructure is centralized. In comparison, Ethereum and other smart contract platforms have decentralized infrastructure, yet their core assets are not based on sound money principles.
Due to this analysis, I have always believed that the bitcoin industry would eventually have to bring decentralized sound money and decentralized infrastructure together. While some people want to bring bitcoin to Ethereum via tBTC or WBTC, I have been a big believer that decentralized infrastructure will get built on top of, and around, bitcoin.
After evaluating many of the projects in the space, I am excited about the prospects of Sovryn and believe that the team and community has a high probability to build one of the core decentralized infrastructure stacks to ensure that bitcoin remains decentralized, sovereign, and aligned with the original bitcoin ethos.
I, and the rest of the syndicate, want to help make this goal a reality. Beyond capital, we hope to contribute a diverse range of expertise and resources to the Sovryn mission.
Simply, bitcoin is too important to the world. There must be decentralized financial applications and services built to empower users with the full promise of the digital currency. We must build this together.
- Requested Allocation: 1,500,000 SOV
- Price per SOV: 12,000 Satoshi
- Total investment: 180 BTC
- Lock-up: 16 month linear vesting with a 3 month cliff
- Closing Date: March 26, 2021
One of Sovryn’s biggest needs right now is BTC liquidity. This problem will be at least partially solved by SovrynBTC, a collateralized two-way bitcoin peg that is currently under development. The SOV acquired by the syndicate will be bonded as collateral for the SovrynBTC bitcoin peg, subject to the vesting period. This will ensure that users can peg their bitcoin for use within the Sovryn protocol.
Rapid growth of the kind Sovryn is experiencing brings with it many challenges as well as opportunities. There is a need to scale the team and organization, grow the marketing and user base, introduce new products all while maintaining focus. The syndicate includes many successful entrepreneurs who have experience managing exactly these challenges and can help the community and team navigate these challenges.
The syndicate will contribute to maintaining the decentralization of the Sovryn protocol by running nodes and participating in multisig schemes when required.
The syndicate includes several leading cryptocurrency exchanges, who wish to list SOV and other tokens related to the Sovryn ecosystem. In doing so they can help introduce their users to Sovryn and help provide liquidity, trading venues, and price feeds that can be consumed by oracles integrated with the Sovryn platform.
Bitcoin miners provide security to the Sovryn protocol. As part of the syndicate miners and mining pools will help maintain a close relationship and understanding between the bitcoin mining community and the Sovryn developer community.
The syndicate investment will provide additional capital for the Sovryn treasury to support the growth of the ecosystem. In addition to this capital, many of the syndicate participants will seek to provide support liquidity and arbitrage to maintain deep markets and robust pricing in the Sovryn platform.
The participation of the syndicate will help cement Sovryn's position as the "blue-chip" operating system for bitcoin DeFi and the financial OS of the future.
The syndicate members have between them a broad network of strategically important companies, organizations, and institutions. Additionally, their collective audiences number in the many millions. This network and audience will be exposed to Sovryn, helping to accelerate awareness and adoption of the protocol.
As a community-driven and open source project, Sovryn must gain the trust of users of all types - from individuals to other DeFi projects to institutions. The high profile reputations of the syndicate members will help assure users and partners that the Sovryn protocol can be trusted. Syndicate members will be actively engaged in the project and help monitor its activity and development, acting as eyes and ears for the wider community.
The syndicate is led by Anthony Pompliano, better known as Pomp. He has built a portfolio valued at more than $500 million across the crypto industry and also runs the largest content platform in the space. Pomp not only brings years of experience as an operator, but he has a track record of investing early in many of the largest, most successful companies and products in crypto.
Pomp’s unique combination of capital and content brings legitimacy, stability, and attention to the Sovryn project. He is able to decrease user acquisition costs, drive mainstream awareness, and help recruit strategic investors or community contributors.
Other organizations and people in the syndicate include some of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, market makers, investors, and research entities. Each of the participants in the syndicate are nominated by Pomp and vetted by Sovryn’s core team. They bring unique expertise that has strategic value to Sovryn and the community.
- The syndicate, led by Anthony Pompliano, will purchase 1,500,000 SOV from the Programmatic Sale pool at a price of 12,000 sats per SOV, for a total of 180 BTC.
- The sale will close on March 26, 2021.
- The BTC used to purchase the SOV will be received and secured by the SIP-0001 bitcoin multisig.
- The SOV will be deposited into an irrevocable vesting smart contract designating the syndicate’s RSK address as the recipient. The SOV will vest over 16 months with a 3 month cliff.
- Transfer 1,500,000 SOV from the GovernorVaultOwner contract (0x05f4f068DF59a5aA7911f57cE4f41ebFBcB8E247) to the Exchequer Multisig (0x924f5ad34698Fd20c90Fe5D5A8A0abd3b42dc711), to allow for the transfer of SOV to participating investors in the strategic round.