Update This vote concluded on Monday, August 1st, 2022 with 71.47% in favor. In total, approximately 29,300 QUICK from 95 wallets participated in the vote. Of the 29,300 total QUICK, 21,000 QUICK from 74 wallets (~78%) voted in favor. 21 wallets (~22%) with a combined weight of roughly 8,300 QUICK opposed the proposal. We are now working on selling ad spaces to interested parties, and users will soon start seeing banner ads on QuickSwap’s UI.
Last week we introduced a governance discussion about featuring banner ads. Initially, the community opposed our proposition, so we adapted and made some adjustments. After a few days of discussion in our Reddit forum and across all of our social platforms, we feel that the community is in agreement, and we’re ready to move forward with a governance vote. Should we feature banner ads?
TL; DR
- On July 21st, we opened a discussion forum asking our community if QuickSwap should feature banner ads
- The community responded with some harsh criticisms
- As a community-governed DEX, we always consider your perspectives, which is why we adjusted the proposal and continued to discuss it
- We explained that the current bear market conditions have led to radically decreased volume, which has impacted the QuickSwap Foundation
- If implemented, the revenue generated from banner ads would fund the QuickSwap Foundation, which is how we pay for our development, marketing, and operations expenses
- After the revisions were made, QuickSwap’s community expressed strong support for the proposal, which is why we are now introducing a governance vote
- The snapshot for the vote will take place on Wednesday, July 27th
- The vote will begin immediately after the snapshot and will run until Monday, August 1st
- If this vote passes, QuickSwap will immediately begin selling ad space on our UI, and you will likely see banner ads within 1–2 weeks
- Details about the proposal, voting eligibility, and how to participate follow
Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How?
Who?
QuickSwap, duh!
What?
Banner ads are a common means of generating revenue. Popular websites feature banner ads to capitalise on the size of their audience. As we know, dragons are trendy. While other DEXs are not yet featuring banner ads, we believe that if we’re half as successful as we think we could be, others will follow.
Where?
If this vote passes, we will feature banner ads on several pages of our website — shown both on mobile and desktop. These ads will be tastefully constructed to blend in with our UI.
When?
If this vote passes, we will begin selling ad space immediately, and users can expect to start seeing ads appear on our UI within a couple of weeks.
Why?
The primary motivating factor for featuring banner ads is to increase QuickSwap’s revenue so that the foundation can continue to cover the costs of integrations, development, and operations. The foundation has always operated on our share of the DEX’s volume alone; however, the bear market has significantly impacted volume, and we must increase our revenue to be able to sustain our costs moving forward.
A secondary motivating factor for featuring banner ads is to entice projects that want to participate in our liquidity mining rewards and Dragon’s Syrup programs. Giving projects that participate in Dragon’s Syrup another opportunity to co-market provides additional utility for New QUICK.
How?
Guidelines to advertise
As many of our community members pointed out, we want to provide some guidelines that projects wishing to advertise on our platform should meet to qualify. In our revised governance discussion, we asked a series of questions about what should and shouldn’t be allowed. Only Viewphoria responded, so we took his suggestions and expanded upon them with some of our own ideas. Please bear in mind that these guidelines are just that — guidelines. They aren’t hard-and-fast rules, and we may need to make some decisions on a case-by-case basis. The following will be able to advertise on QuickSwap
- Audited tokens
- CEXs that support Polygon withdrawals and deposits
- Lending and borrowing protocols
- All EVM-focused projects
- If/when ad space fills up, Polygon-focused projects will get priority
- IDOs/ILOs
- Products that we believe will appeal to our user base
Projects that are interested in advertising on QuickSwap should reach out to our BD team via Telegram to discuss pricing and for more information.
If QuickSwap’s community votes to feature banner ads on our UI, users must recognise that an ad does not equal an endorsement from QuickSwap. QuickSwap urges users to do their own research and never speculate with funds they can’t afford to lose.
Timeline
The snapshot will take place on Wednesday, July 27th, 2022. The vote will begin immediately after. Eligible QUICK holders will have the opportunity to cast their votes from Wednesday, July 27th — Monday, August 1st.
If this vote passes, QuickSwap will begin selling ad space immediately, and users can expect to start seeing ads within a couple of weeks.
Voting Eligibility
Like all governance decisions, the outcome of this one could significantly impact the future of our DEX. If the vote passes, QuickSwap could gain all of the funds we need to continue expanding our team and developing the products that you love to use. If the vote doesn’t pass, we’ll either have to slow down our development, or we’ll have to ask the community for funds from the treasury to pay for our costs.
As a community-driven protocol, the governance process works best when as many Old QUICK, New QUICK, and dQUICK holders as possible participate in the vote. In order to have a say in the future of our DEX, you must make sure you’re eligible to vote. To be eligible to vote, your QUICK must be held on the Polygon Network in a self-custodial wallet by the time of the snapshot on Wednesday, July 27th.
For the sake of voting, 1000 New QUICK will have the same weight as 1 Old QUICK.
To be clear
You are eligible to vote if you meet any of the following conditions
- You hold Old QUICK in a MetaMask Wallet or another Polygon-enabled wallet to which you control the private keys. Please remember To qualify, your Old QUICK must be held on the Polygon Network and not on Ethereum, BSC, or any other chain.
- You hold New QUICK in a MetaMask Wallet or another Polygon-enabled wallet to which you control the private keys. Please remember To qualify, your New QUICK must be held on the Polygon Network and not on Ethereum, BSC, or any other chain.
- You deposited your Old QUICK into the Dragon’s Lair and are now holding dQUICK in its place while you accumulate more Old QUICK.
- You deposited your New QUICK into a Dragon’s Syrup Pool and are farming other tokens with it.
- You are providing liquidity for select New QUICK pairs on QuickSwap and have staked your LP so you’re earning trading fees and dQUICK rewards. Select pairs include
New QUICK — MATIC
New QUICK — ETH
New QUICK — USDC
You are not eligible to vote if
- You hold Old or New QUICK on a centralised exchange wallet — such as Coinbase, Binance, Crypto.com, etc — to which you do not hold the private keys.
- You hold Old or New QUICK in a self-custodial wallet (like MetaMask), but you keep that QUICK on Ethereum, BSC, or any network other than Polygon.
- You are providing liquidity for a QUICK pair not listed above on QuickSwap or for any QUICK pair on another DEX (To be clear Only the QUICK you are using to LP for pairs not mentioned above will be excluded from the snapshot. If you also hold QUICK that you are not using to LP with, you will be eligible to vote with that).
- You have deposited your QUICK or dQUICK in a vault outside of QuickSwap to lend or borrow.
How to participate in the vote
- Visit https://snapshot.org/#/quickvote.eth after the snapshot on Wednesday, July 27th
- Connect your MetaMask Wallet (or other Polygon-compatible, self-custodial wallet)
- Make sure you’re connected to the Matic Mainnet
- The combined weight of Old QUICK, New QUICK, and dQUICK in your wallet at the time of the snapshot will dictate the weight of your vote
- $QUICK staked in select liquidity pools will also be counted in the weight of your vote
3. Select the open proposal titled, “Should We Feature Banner Ads?”
4. Click on the option you prefer
5. Confirm your selection in your wallet
Which way should I vote?
As we’re sure you can gather, QuickSwap’s team fervently supports this proposal because having the funds to pay for our expenses means that we can continue to deliver the highest quality product possible to you — our community. We believe that the revenue generated from banner ads could more than compensate for the reduced volume our DEX has been experiencing during the bear market.
From our perspective, featuring banner ads and using the revenue that comes from their sales is the most straightforward way of accomplishing our shared goals; however, QuickSwap is a community-owned and governed DEX. We have never made unilateral decisions that could impact you without asking for your approval, and we aren’t about to start now. So how you vote is ultimately up to you. We only ask that you consider the reasons we want to implement the ads and vote your conscience.
We invite you to come and discuss the topic in any of our online forums. At QuickSwap, ensuring that our DEX thrives has always been our top priority, and we know that we can’t do that without the support of valued community members like you. Come let us know what you’re thinking anytime.