Summary
Bond Protocol had a successful Q1 2023, where we laid the foundation to expand our product offerings for bonding-as-a-service. We built on the momentum of our Arbitrum launch in December, while making strides to engage the community. We expect Arbitrum to continue being a rich source of DeFi activity in the near term, with catalysts from the $ARB token launch attracting new protocols with liquidity and strategic asset needs.
TBV Growth
Our growth in Q1 was driven by the continued performance of RBS, increased activity from bond issuers, and onboarding new protocols. The efficacy of RBS highlights our mutual synergies and the importance of integrated bond solutions at the contract level.
Zooming in to other protocols, it is significant to note that Arbitrum TBV overtook Ethereum in February:
Challenges
One of our biggest challenges during the quarter was the loss of our Marketing lead in January. This created a gap in marketing efforts, resulting in a decline in our social media channels and additional strain on team resources.
Another challenge we continue to face is improving our analytics capabilities. As we continue to expand, it has become increasingly important to have robust analytics to monitor bond markets. However, our existing analytics tools are not scalable and we must tap additional resources. For example, we recently created a bounty program on Dework (expect more bounties in the future).
Community Ask: Help us build better analytics tools for bond markets
Looking Ahead
In Q1 we solidified the base for permissionless bond markets and established our cross-chain presence on Arbitrum. In Q2, we plan to expand on this base and deploy Bond Protocol to at least 3 additional EVM-compatible chains. After concentrated outreach on several chains, we decided to adopt a land-and-expand strategy for near-term launches.
Community Ask: Refer protocols on Optimism, Polygon, and other EVM-compatible chains
We also made targeted improvements to the dApp after collecting user feedback. Specifically, the bond deployment interface will be prioritized to improve UX and integrate new auction contracts. This should result in a seamless onboarding experience and a more intuitive market configuration.
Finally, we developed new products that we are preparing to launch soon™. Specifically, we just audited four new auction types via code contest on Sherlock. One of these in particular stands out for Olympus - the Batch Auction wrapper contract - which will allow all-in-one deployment of Fixed-Expiry bonds and a Gnosis Auction. We also improved the Gnosis Auction UI to ease pain points we observed in the Tantalus bond auctions.
Closing Thoughts
Looking forward, we are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for Bond Protocol. We have set ambitious goals for TBV growth, chain expansion, and product development. We are confident in our ability to achieve these goals based on the strong foundation that we built in Q1. We remain committed to supporting OlympusDAO and expanding bonding-as-a-service throughout DeFi.
