Automated Strategy Selection for Vaults

Summary:
Use a small percentage of vault’s funds to test alternative strategies. If the strategies have better returns than the current vault strategy, automatically switch to it.

Abstract:
Allow for a certain % of vault’s funds to be used for testing performance of 2/3 strategies. If a strategy outperforms the current strategy, vault should switch to it. If a strategy underperforms consistently, it should be dropped in favor of a new strategy for testing.

Motivation:
Current strategy selection model is not decentralized and dependent on Andre monitoring and changing vault strategies. Automated strategy selection would allow the community to propose new strategies, test them out, and allow vaults to start using them if they’re profitable.

Specification:
Use x% (to be determined by community) of vault’s funds to test out 2/3 alternative strategies. If a strategy outperforms the current vault strategy for x number of blocks then the vault should switch to it. The worst-performing strategy over the same number of blocks should be dropped and replaced by a new strategy. The community can vote on preferred strategies (can be off-chain for now, but should preferably be moved on-chain), so once the worst-performing strategy is dropped, the vault should then include the top-voted one in its place.

For:
Strategy proposal based on community votes and automated implementation by vaults based on observed performance

Against:
Nothing changes, Andre continues to pick strategies for vaults

2 Likes

I do like the idea of testing a strategy before going live with it.

AFAIK, Andre has been testing all the strategies before release with his own funds ( He said it on the bankless podcast and you can check it easily onchain). Although I understand the proposal, I think you don’t need or want a lot of funds to test the performance of a untested strategy since something could go wrong and lose funds. Users already pay a fee that filled the treasury, money from there should be used to cover this, maybe even pay the salary of “strategists” or present bounties.

I think we need a strategy dao that does all this stuff instead of just andre doing it.