If you’re an avid PUBLISH0X user you couldn’t possibly miss Harvest Finance and its $FARM token (being the current token sponsor).
But if you have missed it, let me fill you in with a quick TL;DR:
Harvest Finance is a yield aggregator platform that automatically puts your idle crypto assets to work in the highest producing yield-farming opportunities.
While that’s the gist of what Harvest does, few know that it's way more than just a platform for farming.
Welcome to Harvest Finance VC
A little-known Harvest Finance Discord channel called “The Council of 69” is where real farmer chads discuss investment opportunities that the Harvest Cooperative (a collective of humble yield-farmers) can make to foster the Harvest Finance treasury and expand/influence opportunities.
The Council of 69 was established pretty much since Harvest’s inception (September 2020) and is open for anyone to join. The group includes chads and humble farmers from around the world who pool their ideas together to source early-stage investments that Harvest can invest in.
Here’s how it works:
- Talented chads suggest strategic deals in the #Council-of-69 Discord channel
- Team Chads create a snapshot proposal to gather votes to move the deal forward
- The Harvest Council of 69 performs due diligence and makes a decision
- Chad helps to close the deal with the selected project
- Harvest treasury funds the investment
- On a liquidity event, 10% of the gains are rewarded to the chad who brought in and closed the deal
- 90% of gains are going back to the treasury and then it's used to foster platform's growth
The types of investments The Harvest Council of 69 is looking to make include:
- Pre-liquidity-event tokens that can go up 10x.
- Tokens that have a very strong alignment with Harvest post-liquidity events.
- Complementary projects that will greatly benefit $FARM holders and improve Harvest farming technology.
So far, two deals from The Council of 69 have been closed and a third is coming up next:
- Perpetual Protocol (PERP) - Source
- Benchmark Protocol (MARK) - Source
- (Soon): APWine (APW) - Source
Details on Harvest's VC Investments
1. Perpetual Protocol (PERP)
On October 6, 2020, $FARM holders were given the opportunity to vote on the first strategic investment for the Harvest Council of 69:
The Harvest Cooperative voted to invest in Perpetual Protocol’s $PERP token with the approval of 67.25% of voters voting yes, enabling the Harvest Treasury to fund the investment on behalf of the cooperative:
Harvest Finance Voting SnapShot Page (source)
What is Perpetual Protocol?
Perpetual Protocol is a perpetual futures product that uses a virtual Automated Market Maker (vAMM) to power its trading engine. Perpetual’s vAMM provides lots of liquidity and very low slippage for traders, unlike existing AMMs like Uniswap, Balancer, etc.
The Deal:
- Harvest Treasury invests 50K USDC for PERP tokens at a 50% discount on the market price
- PERP tokens will be vested over a period of 6 months
- Harvest will implement at least one strategy and make it live
Was it a good investment?
Perpetual Protocol (PERP) Price History (Source)
Yes, yes it was. The $PERP token is up 290% since launch and Harvest got their tokens for 50% cheaper than the launch price. Therefore, the Harvest treasury is growing massively from this investment which will benefit all $FARM token holders and humble farmers.
Moreover, the chad who brought in the Perp.Fi deal to The Council of 69 is being paid a total of $50K USD in rewards due to the Perp.Fi deal going so well:
2. Benchmark (MARK)
On November 10, 2020, the Harvest Cooperative voted to invest in Benchmarks $BENCH token with the approval of 59.76% of voters voting yes, enabling the Harvest Treasury to fund the investment on behalf of the cooperative:
Harvest Finance Voting SnapShot Page (Source)
What is Benchmark (MARK)?
Benchmark enables the tokenizing and trading of yield-bearing assets. Its software will allow farmers to split fAssets into yield-bearing and non-yield bearing components. It’s powered by an AMM that caters to tokens with time-decay, allowing for a new type of DeFi derivative.
That said, Harvest was particularly interested in Benchmark because of its potential for humble Harvest farmers to split their fAssets on the Benchmark platform into an ownership token and a future yield token.
The Deal:
- Harvest Treasury invests 50K USDC for MARK tokens at seed price.
- Acquired tokens will be vested for a period of 1 year after the Benchmark liquidity bootstrapping event, released quarterly.
- Benchmark will provide liquidity mining rewards to Harvest users who deposit fAssets onto their platform.
Was it a Good Investment?
Benchmark (MARK) Price History (Source)
The $MARK token suffered a massive sell-off when it first launched to market in December 2020 but has since rebounded and recovered most of the losses. Harvest’s invested $MARK tokens are in a 1-year vesting period with tokens released quarterly.
Therefore, the Benchmark (MARK) investment is still playing out but it’s poised to perform well over the coming year.
3. APWine (APW)
On February 2, 2021, a member of the APWine team entered the #Council-of-69 Discord channel and stated that they’re looking to raise a seed round to cover the development, legal, and audit costs of the project for the coming year:
ScreenCapture from #Council-of-69 Discord channel
What is APWine (APW)?
APWine is the first protocol for yield tokenization. It allows users to trade unrealized yield, effectively allowing farmers to hedge their risk by selling their future yield and allowing traders to speculate on the variations of APY by trading it on the APWine exchange.
Will Harvest Invest?
Yes, I think so. It looks like Harvest wants to invest in APWine’s $APW token in a new seed round for $50K. Shortly after APWine posted in the #Council-of-69 Discord channel, Harvest Chad, ‘Bread for the People’ replied saying they are interested in investing $50K:
ScreenCapture from #Council-of-69 Discord channel
However, before any investments are made, the Harvest Cooperative needs to vote on whether or not the Harvest Treasury should make the investment. Personally, I’ll be voting for this investment as APWine looks like a great project.
Anyone Can Become a Part of Harvest VC Fund
Guess what? You can become a VC with Harvest Finance!
I’m not even kidding.
Anyone can join Harvest Finance’s Discord and navigate to the #Council-of-69 Discord channel to become a part of Harvest’s VC fund.
Once you’re on there, all you need to do is be an active Harvest Finance member and do the legwork of research to become a chad VC and earn 10% of the profits if your investment deal goes through.
Just look at this chad again whose earning $50K in rewards from his Perp.Fi deal that went through:
Moreover, take note that Harvest is not your regular VC for a couple of main reasons:
- Harvest does not show up on either the Perpetual Protocol or Benchmark websites as a VC/Investor/Backed by/etc.
- The investment funds come from Harvest's treasury and once the investment is sold, 10% of the profits go to the chad that suggested the deal, and the rest goes back to the Harvest treasury to foster Harvet's growth and benefit $FARM holders.
