Aera Pilot Update
01Summary
This proposal updates the Compound Aera Vault pilot by: (1) integrating Milkman from CoWSwap to improve BAT trading liquidity and enable 10x higher swap volumes; (2) adding cUSDCv3 as an allowed asset so the vault can earn yield on idle USDC and provide liquidity to Compound III; and (3) changing the guardian address for infrastructure hygiene. The pilot's goals and security properties remain unchanged.
- Type
- protocol addition
Key changes
- Add Milkman router integration for BAT trading to access offchain liquidity through CoWSwap solvers, expected to increase daily BAT swap volume from $300-$800 to $2k-$5k at same slippage bounds(high)
- Add cUSDCv3 as allowed asset in registry to enable vault to earn yield on USDC and provide additional liquidity to Compound III ETH comet(high)
- Change guardian address to 0x7587D73Ec14157440c01485555F81F31cF6c549e as part of Gauntlet's internal Guardian infrastructure migration(medium)
- Deploy new hooks module at 0x7A8E7F9490fb927d20835b97578E521c97720f64 to support additional function sighashes for Milkman, BAT, ZRX, cUSDCv3, Comet Rewards, and COMP due to Governor Bravo 10-action limit(medium)
- Add COMP as allowed asset to receive rewards from lending USDC through cUSDCv3(medium)
Notable concerns
- BAT liquidity challenges: only ~$55k of $112k BAT has been sold since pilot inception, with $57k remaining
- Liquidity volume projections for Milkman integration are estimates based on current market conditions which are dynamic and subject to change
- USDC allocation to cUSDCv3 represents <$500k compared to >$50M in other system reserves, limiting practical impact on insolvency coverage
Generated by Kvorum
02Description
Aera Pilot Update
Simple summary
This proposal improves the execution and yield of the Compound Aera Vault pilot:
- Allows the vault to use Milkman from CoWSwap when trading BAT. a. Liquidity conditions have severely deteriorated onchain for BAT since the initiation of this pilot, requiring additional exchange integration with Milkman in order to tap into offchain liquidity
- Adds cUSDCv3 as an allowed asset in the asset registry, enabling the vault to earn yield and provide liquidity to Compound with its USDC
- Changes the guardian address, a hygiene update for the Guardian as Gauntlet migrates some internal Guardian infrastructure
This proposal does not change the goals of the Aera pilot (diversification out of BAT and ZRX, and managing the proceeds in a volatility-targeted vault), it is simply an update to the existing vault to better enable these goals. It similarly does not change any of the security properties of Aera, the vault is still non-custodial and only the Compound DAO can withdraw/pause the vault.
Motivation Milkman After starting the pilot, BAT has been very difficult to sell on-chain. So far the vault has been able to sell roughly $55k of BAT and there is another $57k remaining in the vault.
Since the pilot program began, we have added support in Aera for CoWSwap’s Milkman contract with the goal of increasing the available liquidity for BAT swaps. This integration allows us to dynamically adjust execution price as the market price changes and taps into a network of solvers that are able to fill these orders efficiently and competitively using offchain liquidity.
We expect that this will enable the Aera Vault to swap 10x more BAT at same 100bps slippage bounds (increasing daily volume from $300-$800/day to $2k-$5k/day). Of course, this is just based on current liquidity conditions and existing solvers, and given that market liquidity is dynamic this could change.
cUSDCv3 We have also heard the community’s feedback on including cUSDCv3 as an asset in the vault and allocating the existing USDC in the vault into cUSDCv3. The benefits for the DAO would be as such:
- Provide additional USDC liquidity to the Compound III ETH comet
- Generate yield on an otherwise idle asset in the vault
In the limited scope of the pilot, the actual need for this capital to cover insolvencies is dwarfed by the other reserves in the system (both V2 and V3 have over >$50M in reserves compared to the <$500k USDC in the pilot).
Specification
This proposal will:
- Add new assets:
- COMP, which we'll receive as rewards from lending USDC
- cUSDCv3 Pricer, which prices the vault's lending position
- Accept ownership of new hooks module at address 0x7A8E7F9490fb927d20835b97578E521c97720f64. We need to deploy a new hooks module and have the Governor Bravo timelock accept ownership of it to get around a limitation in Governor Bravo that only 10 actions can be called in a single proposal. Without this workaround, adding the following function sighashes would put this proposal over that limit. This new hooks module already has all the existing hooks, plus the following new sighashes:
- Milkman Router:
requestSell,cancelSell,claim - BAT:
transfer, to move the token into the Milkman swap contract - ZRX:
transfer, to move the token into the Milkman swap contract if needed in the future - cUSDCv3:
supply&withdraw - Comet Rewards:
claim - COMP:
approve&transfer, to move the token into the Milkman swap contract if needed in the future
- Milkman Router:
- Change the guardian to our new guardian address: 0x7587D73Ec14157440c01485555F81F31cF6c549e. (The fee recipient will also change, but this is moot because fees are fixed at 0 for this pilot)
03Mismatch analysis
I compared each of the four decoded actions against the proposal's Simple Summary, Motivation, and Specification sections. Action 0 (setGuardianAndFeeRecipient) matches the described guardian/fee-recipient change to the exact same address quoted in the text. Actions 1 and 2 (addAsset calls on the asset registry) correspond precisely to the Specification's explicit list of two new assets — COMP (address matches the known COMP token address) and the cUSDCv3 Pricer — which reconciles the simpler 'Adds cUSDCv3 as an allowed asset' phrasing in the summary with the more precise 'cUSDCv3 Pricer' language in the Specification; this is legitimate summarization, not a hidden discrepancy. Action 3 (setHooks) matches the described deployment/adoption of a new hooks module at the exact address given in the text, which the proposal explains is needed to add the new Milkman/BAT/ZRX/cUSDCv3/Comet/COMP function permissions without exceeding Governor Bravo's 10-action limit — those granular hook permissions are baked into the already-deployed hooks contract rather than appearing as separate on-chain actions, which is consistent with the proposal's own explanation. All addresses, function targets, and semantics line up with no numeric, target, or magnitude mismatches. No omitted, extra, or misleadingly framed actions were found. Overall the description is an accurate and reasonably complete account of what the calldata executes.
Generated by Kvorum
04Actions
- Target
- 0x3d6e…1d6b
- Value
- 0 wei
- Function
- setGuardianAndFeeRecipient(address,address)
- Arguments
{ "0": "0x7587D73Ec14157440c01485555F81F31cF6c549e", "1": "0x7587D73Ec14157440c01485555F81F31cF6c549e" }- Calldata
- Target
- 0xc725…9d33
- Value
- 0 wei
- Function
- addAsset((address,uint256,bool,address))
- Arguments
{ "0": [ "0xc00e94Cb662C3520282E6f5717214004A7f26888", "86400", false, "0x1B39Ee86Ec5979ba5C322b826B3ECb8C79991699" ] }- Calldata
- Target
- 0xc725…9d33
- Value
- 0 wei
- Function
- addAsset((address,uint256,bool,address))
- Arguments
{ "0": [ "0xEFB8350BA865a21e1FD8c9502Da7072D6930ef02", "0", false, "0xEFB8350BA865a21e1FD8c9502Da7072D6930ef02" ] }- Calldata
- Target
- 0x3d6e…1d6b
- Value
- 0 wei
- Function
- setHooks(address)
- Arguments
{ "0": "0x7A8E7F9490fb927d20835b97578E521c97720f64" }- Calldata
05Tally
Summed from votes
06Voters
| Voter | Choice | % of total | Rationale | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8D0x8d07…a265 | For | 70K | 14.66% | — | 3y ago |
| B90xb933…8dd1 | For | 54.1K | 11.33% | — | 3y ago |
| 680x683a…6c02 | For | 50.1K | 10.48% | — | 3y ago |
| 7A0x7ae1…e585 | For | 50K | 10.47% | — | 3y ago |
| B40xb49f…7948 | For | 50K | 10.47% | — | 3y ago |
| 070x0703…961b | For | 50K | 10.47% | — | 3y ago |
| 130x13bd…8548 | For | 50K | 10.47% | — | 3y ago |
| DC0xdc1f…e432 | For | 50K | 10.47% | — | 3y ago |
| 3F0x3fb1…4c8a | For | 25.6K | 5.35% | — | 3y ago |
| 500x5049…e004 | For | 24.8K | 5.19% | — | 3y ago |
| 580x589c…9a4d | For | 1.4K | 0.28% | — | 3y ago |
| B30xb356…c826 | For | 1.3K | 0.27% | — | 3y ago |
| 660x66cd…65f9 | For | 401.9 | 0.08% | — | 3y ago |
| E40xe459…e666 | For | 3.2 | 0.00% | — | 3y ago |
| 270x2748…ac26 | For | 1 | 0.00% | — | 3y ago |
07Forum
- [Proposal] Aera Compound pilot operational update ↗discourse · high confidence
Arguments for
- Milkman integration with CoWSwap will significantly improve BAT exit liquidity by tapping offchain solvers and enabling 10x higher swap volume at the same slippage bounds.— Aera, pennblockchain
- Adding cUSDCv3 as an allowed asset generates yield on otherwise idle USDC holdings while providing additional liquidity to Compound III ETH comet.— Aera, pennblockchain
- The pilot has performed well over three months, growing from $500k to $796k in value while successfully diversifying out of ZRX entirely.— Aera, pennblockchain
- Updating the guardian address is a necessary hygiene measure as Gauntlet migrates internal infrastructure.— Aera
Arguments against
None surfaced.
Unresolved concerns
- Whether deploying vault USDC into cUSDCv3 creates unacceptable concentration risk if Compound III ETH comet itself becomes insolvent and the capital is needed for DAO reserves.— Aera
Notable participants
- AeraProposer and primary communicator providing technical details, updates, and rationale for the pilot and proposed changes.
- pennblockchainEarly community supporter who endorsed both the BAT liquidity improvement and cUSDCv3 yield generation features.