LEAP-48: Messari Protocol Services

Author	Renna Ba
Status	Rejected
Created	2023-02-08

Simple Summary

We propose that Messari provides research and reporting services in the form of recurring quarterly reports.

Abstract

Messari will provide Lyra with four quarterly reports that present and analyze major KPIs and fundamental metrics to inform existing stakeholders and attract new ones while building out the open-source data infrastructure for the community.

These reports would live as free resources on Messari and would be distributed through our newsletter, social channels, and third-party distribution partners, including Bloomberg, S&P Global, and Refinitiv.

Motivation

Quarterly reporting provides the necessary tools to ensure transparency and accountability. The goal of this proposal is to provide Lyra with the level of professional and standardized 10 Q equivalent "protocol level income statement" that aims to address the following needs.

Surfacing on-chain metrics and protocol developments

Crypto has a glaring lack of sufficient long-form research and analytics. While there are various analytics dashboards, blog posts, and messaging channels to distill information, it is still cumbersome to have a strong understanding of the on-chain activity and important protocol-level developments.

This creates a high barrier to making informed decisions as a stakeholder, leading to a misallocation of resources, both time and money, since there are investors, developers, and users that are not acting with the full breadth of knowledge at their disposal.

As we continue in a bear market, it will become increasingly important to surface real usage and developments as industry participants tend to overweight price as their barometer of project success.

Distribution

Over the last few years, the number of projects has increased by an order of magnitude, making it increasingly difficult for any one project to get its message out to the entirety of the crypto world.

Furthermore, mainstream news and research platforms have woefully covered the space meaning that outside of crypto, there are very few "real world" companies aware of what's going on, even if there is potential for them to get meaningfully involved.

Quarterly reporting is a widely recognized best practice to help establish credibility and increase transparency. As Lyra continues its growth and development, it becomes ever more important to have regular analysis of performance in an objective and professional manner.

Specification

4 Quarterly Reports Beginning Q2 that include:

Analysis of Major KPIs and Fundamental Metrics:

Protocol revenue to LPs
Value accrual to token holders
Collateral value on the protocol
Trade volume
Protocol fees
User metrics
Aggregate trader PNL analysis
Flows by asset
KPI performance in relation to governance metrics

Qualitative Analysis:

Breakdown of major developments (governance, key events, and milestones over the prior quarter)
A look at upcoming roadmap initiatives and growth avenues

All analyses are conducted by a team of sector-specific analysts that builds the infrastructure needed to parse through raw data information to be synthesized into digestible formats for qualitative deep dives.

Budget Breakdown

The 4 reports would be $25,000/each paid quarterly.

This goes towards funding:

Research - Our analysts spend several weeks producing each report, along with an extensive internal editing and review process by the broader team.
Data science and engineering - Each report will have its own dedicated data science and engineering team providing all the relevant raw data
Distribution - We distribute the reports across all of Messari's channels along with the third-party partners.

Additional Services

Messari Governor Page Development

Messari's governor team will build the complete profile and tools for Lyra's community to find, follow and participate in the DAO process as Lyra looks to further expand its governance processes.

Rationale

Stakeholders relations are a necessary function of any organization to keep existing participants adequately informed while also attracting new ones through better surfacing of fundamental data.

Hiring in-house to perform these functions would be significantly more expensive while lacking Messari's distribution channels. Messari is able to achieve economies of scale, having done this type of reporting for over 40 projects.

Messari's team of leading researchers and data scientists will work to provide Lyra with fundamental data infrastructure and take it a step beyond with quantitative/qualitative analysis to provide deep dives into the "what, how, and why". While the specifications seen in this proposal may be perceived as a "marketing" engine, it is crucial to note that adequate stakeholder relations serve to ensure accountability and transparency. This goes far beyond creating market awareness to providing Lyra participants with the due diligence of regular insights into project health. An effort that is ever more important as the crypto industry at large faces heightened regulatory scrutiny.

As an industry leader in such standardized reporting, Messari has further professionalized our stakeholders' relations functions through distribution partnerships with S&P Global, Bloomberg, and Refinitiv which combine for over 1 million active users across nearly every major bank, investment firm, financial services company, and large corporate.

We believe it's important to get outside the crypto bubble to make a wider impact on the world. That's why we went through extensive diligence processes to get onto three of the largest research platforms in order to further professionalize what's being built in the space. This enables the vast majority of major funds, banks, financial service companies, and large corporates in the world to better grasp the magnitude of economic activity generated by top protocols. There are trillions of dollars in AUM represented by these players, so even a small percentage of users consuming this information and acting on it can drive meaningful volume to Lyra.

Test Cases

dYdX Euler Morpho