Application for Optimism Season 9 - Growth Grants

Steer Protocol

@optimist-be17a0ac

750000

0x76352Bfc8544D23Cd55745873dC67E7907F6EFed

Steer Protocol is the orchestration and execution layer for programmable on-chain finance. We help ecosystems, asset issuers, liquidity managers, protocols, and infrastructure partners design, govern, and execute on-chain programs across liquidity, incentives, stability, carry strategies, and policy-controlled execution. Steer supports 55+ DEX integrations across 42 chains, with 50,000+ LPs using Steer-powered liquidity infrastructure. We were one of the first teams to build multi-chain automated liquidity provisioning, supported by off-chain data and compute for adaptive, data-driven strategy execution. Steer works with partners beyond DEXs and LPs, including chains, ecosystem foundations, asset issuers, lending and stablecoin protocols, options and structured product protocols, incentive operators, liquidity managers, market infrastructure providers, and institutional partners. Our production infrastructure includes Smart Pools, Stability Vaults, Carry Trade Vaults, and Smart Rewards. For this grant, Steer is proposing a Liquidity Program designed to grow productive liquidity and fee-generating activity across eligible Optimism priority pairs. The program will use Steer’s automated vault infrastructure, together with Smart Rewards, to direct OP incentives toward measurable on-chain participation. The primary user behavior we are incentivizing is liquidity provision. LPs will be rewarded for depositing into Steer-managed vaults connected to eligible Superchain DEX pools and strategies. These vaults automate liquidity placement, rebalancing, compounding, and strategy execution, reducing the complexity of active LPing while helping improve pool depth, capital efficiency, and liquidity retention. The program is also designed to support trading activity indirectly by improving liquidity depth in targeted pools, reducing slippage, and increasing the likelihood of higher DEX fee generation. Incentives will be distributed based on measurable behavior such as time-weighted liquidity, eligible vault deposits, sustained participation, and retention, rather than short-term passive deposits. All OP incentives requested through this program will be directed toward LP/user participation and liquidity growth, not Steer's internal operations. Website: https://www.steer.finance/ App: https://app.steer.finance/

Steer will incentivize OP Mainnet pools only, limited to Velodrome SlipStream and Uniswap v3. The selected pools are from Optimism’s priority liquidity-pair universe and were chosen based on existing OP Mainnet pool availability, relevance to Optimism’s DEX TVL and DEX fee objectives, Steer vault compatibility, and the ability to transparently measure TVL growth, fee generation, LP participation, OP distributed, and retention. DEX - Velodrome SlipStream, Chain - OP Mainnet, Pool Type - Concentrated Liquidity Token Pair - USDC / WETH, Fee Tier - Dynamic Token Pair - WETH / wstETH, Fee Tier - Dynamic Token Pair - WETH / wstETH, Fee Tier - Dynamic Token Pair - USDC / WBTC, Fee Tier - 0.3% Token Pair - USDT / USDC, Fee Tier - Dynamic DEX - Uniswap, Chain - OP Mainnet, Pool Type - Concentrated Liquidity Token Pair - USDC / WETH, Fee Tier - 0.05% Token Pair - OP / WETH, Fee Tier - 0.05% Token Pair - WETH / wstETH, Fee Tier - 0.05% Token Pair - WETH / WBTC, Fee Tier - 0.05% Token Pair - USDC / WBTC, Fee Tier - 0.3% Token Pair - USDT / USDC, Fee Tier - 0.01% The incentivized user behavior will be liquidity provision into Steer-managed automated vaults connected to these pools. OP rewards will be distributed based on measurable LP behavior, including time-weighted liquidity provision, sustained participation, and retention. The goal is to increase priority-pair TVL on OP Mainnet while supporting deeper liquidity, better execution, and higher fee-generating trading activity in the targeted pools.

Steer selected these pools because the underlying assets have strong lending-market alignment on OP Mainnet. Deeper DEX liquidity in these pairs supports lending-adjacent activity such as collateral swaps, borrow/repay flows, liquidation execution, leverage unwinds, and treasury rebalancing. USDC / WETH Both assets are available on Aave V3 Optimism, Exactly, Compound III, and Morpho Optimism. On Aave and Exactly, both USDC and WETH are usable for collateral and borrowing. On Compound III, USDC and WETH are both supported across base/collateral markets. On Morpho, USDC is used as the loan/borrow asset and WETH is used as collateral in isolated markets. OP / WETH Both assets are available on Aave V3 Optimism, Exactly, and Compound III. On Aave and Exactly, OP and WETH are supported for lending-market activity, with both collateral and borrow use cases available. On Compound III, OP is primarily used as collateral, while WETH is supported across borrow/collateral markets. WETH / wstETH Both assets are available on Aave V3 Optimism, Exactly, Compound III, and Morpho Optimism. On Aave and Exactly, WETH and wstETH are supported for collateral and borrowing. On Compound III, WETH is supported across base/collateral markets, while wstETH is primarily collateral. On Morpho, wstETH and WETH are used as collateral in isolated USDC lending markets. WETH / WBTC Both assets are available on Aave V3 Optimism, Exactly, Compound III, and Morpho Optimism. On Aave and Exactly, both WETH and WBTC are supported for collateral and borrowing. On Compound III, WETH is supported across base/collateral markets, while WBTC is primarily collateral. On Morpho, WETH and WBTC are used as collateral in isolated USDC lending markets. USDC / WBTC Both assets are available on Aave V3 Optimism, Exactly, Compound III, and Morpho Optimism. On Aave and Exactly, USDC and WBTC are supported for collateral and borrowing. On Compound III, USDC is supported across base/collateral markets, while WBTC is primarily collateral. On Morpho, USDC is used as the loan/borrow asset and WBTC is used as collateral. USDT / USDC Both assets are available on Aave V3 Optimism and Compound III. On Aave, both USDT and USDC are supported for collateral and borrowing. On Compound III, USDT and USDC are supported across base/collateral markets. This pair supports stablecoin borrowing, repayment, treasury rotation, and low-slippage stablecoin liquidity. Overall, the selected pairs are aligned with active OP Mainnet lending markets. The goal of the incentive program is to deepen DEX liquidity around assets already used as collateral and/or borrow assets, improving execution quality for lending-related flows while contributing to Optimism’s Season 9 objectives of increasing priority-pair DEX TVL and DEX fee generation.

Steer collected current baseline metrics for the selected OP Mainnet pools using live pool liquidity and trading-volume data. Where exact pool-level 30-day historical volume was not available from the public pool page, we used a transparent 30-day run-rate proxy: current 24h volume × 30. Volume/TVL is calculated as 30-day volume proxy ÷ current pool TVL. USDC/WETH on Velodrome SlipStream, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $1.08M, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $169.20M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 157.1x. USDC/WETH on Uniswap v3, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $464.4K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $10.69M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 23.0x. OP/WETH on Uniswap v3, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $28.8K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $510.8K, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 17.8x. WETH/wstETH on Velodrome SlipStream, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $1.86M, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $14.51M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 7.8x. WETH/wstETH on Uniswap v3, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $31.3K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $60.4K, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 1.9x. WETH/WBTC on Velodrome SlipStream, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $459.8K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $34.20M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 74.4x. WETH/WBTC on Uniswap v3, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $156.4K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $1.07M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 6.8x. USDC/WBTC on Velodrome SlipStream, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $241.5K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $11.67M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 48.3x. USDC/WBTC on Uniswap v3, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $374.0K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $2.68M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 7.2x. USDT/USDC on Velodrome SlipStream, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $347.1K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $39.00M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 112.4x. USDT/USDC on Uniswap v3, OP Mainnet: current TVL is approximately $180.6K, estimated 30-day trading volume is approximately $1.60M, and current Volume/TVL is approximately 8.9x. For measurement, Steer will track baseline TVL, average TVL during the program, ending TVL, LP participation, OP distributed, trading fees generated, and post-incentive liquidity retention for each incentivized pool.

Steer is requesting 750,000 OP for a 6-month OP Mainnet Priority Liquidity Program. Incentives will be distributed to grow productive liquidity in selected Optimism priority-pair pools on Velodrome SlipStream and Uniswap v3, while supporting organic trading activity through deeper liquidity, better execution, and improved pool depth. LPs will receive incentives by depositing into Steer-managed automated vaults connected to eligible OP Mainnet priority-pair pools. Rewards will be distributed through Smart Rewards and based on measurable LP behavior, including time-weighted liquidity, sustained vault participation, pool-level liquidity contribution, and retention after emissions taper. Steer will not directly incentivize trading volume. Trading fees, Volume/TVL, and fee generation will be tracked as outcomes of improved liquidity, not rewarded directly. The 750,000 OP allocation will be used entirely for LP/user-facing incentives. 375,000 OP will be allocated to time-weighted LP incentives to reward LPs for providing liquidity into eligible Steer vaults over time. 187,500 OP will be allocated to performance-routed pool boosts to direct additional emissions toward pools showing stronger TVL growth, fee generation, Volume/TVL, and retention. 150,000 OP will be allocated to retention incentives to reward LPs who keep liquidity deployed after the main reward period begins tapering. 37,500 OP will be allocated to new LP activation to encourage new LP participation with capped rewards for first-time vault depositors. The program will run in three phases. Phase 1: Launch & Activation will run during months 1–2 and will focus on launching vaults, activating Smart Rewards, and bootstrapping initial LP participation. Phase 2: Performance Routing will run during months 3–4 and will focus on reallocating emissions toward pools with stronger TVL growth, fees, and retention. Phase 3: Retention & Taper will run during months 5–6 and will shift rewards toward LPs who maintain liquidity through the end of the program. This design is intended to create sustained liquidity rather than short-term liquidity mining. LPs are not rewarded simply for depositing once; rewards are weighted toward longer participation, useful liquidity, and retention. Pool emissions will be adjusted based on performance signals such as TVL growth, fee generation, Volume/TVL, OP efficiency, LP diversity, and liquidity retention. The design discourages wash trading because traders do not receive incentives and trading volume is not directly rewarded, removing the main incentive to manufacture volume. The design also discourages mercenary liquidity through time-weighted rewards, where short-term deposits receive lower rewards than sustained liquidity; retention incentives, where a dedicated portion of OP is reserved for LPs who remain after emissions begin tapering; performance-routed emissions, where pools with weak retention, poor fee efficiency, or short-term deposit/withdrawal behavior receive lower future emissions; vault-managed liquidity, where LP capital is routed through Steer vaults so liquidity remains actively managed and useful for execution; and pool-level reporting, where Steer will report TVL, OP usage, LP count, fee generation, Volume/TVL, and retention per pool. All OP incentives will be distributed to LP/user participation and liquidity growth. OP will not be used for Steer internal operations, team compensation, or treasury accumulation. The goal is to convert OP incentives into measurable priority-pair TVL growth, higher fee-generating liquidity, and retained LP participation on OP Mainnet.

Steer is not applying through a grants-as-a-service provider. There is no external grant writer, advisor, broker, or third-party success-fee arrangement tied to this application. All OP incentives requested through this program will be directed toward LP/user-facing incentives for the OP Mainnet Priority Liquidity Program. OP will not be used for Steer team compensation or treasury accumulation. Steer will contribute the vault deployment, strategy configuration, Smart Rewards setup, reporting, and program management required to run the campaign. The program will be executed only on OP Mainnet and will focus on selected Optimism priority-pair pools on Velodrome SlipStream and Uniswap v3. Steer will provide transparent reporting throughout the program, including pool-level TVL, OP distributed, LP participation, trading fees generated, volume/TVL where available, incentive efficiency, and post-campaign retention. The intent is to make the program accountable to Optimism’s Season 9 goals: increasing priority-pair DEX TVL and supporting fee-generating liquidity on OP Mainnet.

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