Surf.Finance 2.0

6 min readApr 13, 2022

Overview

Surf.Finance is a DeFi protocol that launched on Ethereum in October 2020 with the goal of creating sustainable passive income for its community members through an innovative LP token staking contract called the Whirlpool. Multiple dApps were released in the year after launch to provide additional utility to the SURF token. However, none were able to gain traction and the ecosystem was left spread across multiple blockchains causing confusion to new and existing investors alike. Thankfully, Surf.Finance’s community treasury massively benefited from the NFT craze that kicked off in 2021 due to strategic investments into yield-bearing NFTs like CyberKongz and historically significant AI art collections like DeepBlack and Realiti, propelling the project into healthy fundamentals and an exciting opportunity to reinvent itself while keeping the Whirlpool untouched and at the center of the ecosystem.

Our Mission

To be one of the world’s most welcoming and innovative NFT-centric investment DAOs that provides sustainable passive income to our members.

Our Values

We will strive to create the ideal place to surf this world-changing financial wave together. We will foster a community of like-minded individuals passionate about high quality research, the pursuit of financial freedom through sustainable passive income, and good vibes. We believe a rising tide lifts all surfboards.
We will invest with conviction and an expanded time horizon. Treasury investments should primarily consist of historically significant NFTs and yield-bearing bluechip NFTs. We will always prioritize fundamentals and innovation over hype.
We will prioritize security. We will always keep the core components of the ecosystem on Ethereum or a layer 2 chain with the same security guarantees as Ethereum. We will only make substantial modifications or additions to the ecosystem after thoughtful consideration of the security implications of those changes.
We will be pioneers of decentralized governance and yield-distribution systems. In a sea of DAOs, Surf.Finance will standout from the rest due to our willingness and ability to rethink the existing DAO model.

The 2.0 Update

When Surf.Finance launched in 2020, many of today’s top projects didn’t exist and NFT mania was still months away from kicking off. Many lessons were learned in the last two years and by maintaining flexibility during that time we are now able to confidently overhaul the ecosystem and expand our target audience.

Goals

Dramatically simplify the ecosystem without burdening existing holders with a complicated migration process
Increase community engagement and make Surf.Finance one of the most exciting DAOs to be a member of
Begin funneling most of what the treasury yields directly into the ecosystem while compounding the rest
Launch our innovative NFT-based governance system

Ecosystem Tokenomics

The updated Surf.Finance ecosystem consists of a utility token, 2 revolutionary NFTs, 2 innovative staking contracts, and a SURF dividend distribution contract. A key difference from nearly every other crypto project is there are no dev fees in the ecosystem. The treasury’s assets and earnings belong to the DAO, and this includes all NFT secondary sale royalties.

The SURF Token

The SURF token (ERC-20) launched in October 2020 and is the glue of the ecosystem. The entire 10 million supply was fairly distributed during the SURF’s initial farming phase, and over 5% of the supply has already been burned. The token has maintained healthy liquidity on Uniswap since launch due to the effectiveness of our LGE (liquidity generation event) and the Whirlpool staking contract.

SURF can be matched against an equivalent amount of ETH to create SURF/ETH LP tokens that can be staked in the Whirlpool to earn additional SURF passively
SURF can be used to mint Towel membership NFTs

The Surfboard NFTs

The Surfboard NFTs (ERC-721) launched in October 2020 and are one of the first yield-bearing NFTs ever created. With a supply of only 100, the Surfboards are meant for the community’s most passionate and dedicated members. With the 2.0 update, they have some of the most impressive utility of any NFT in existence today.

Surfboard holders have access to the “Board Room”, a private Discord channel that houses governance discussion
Surfboard holders are the only ones that can create governance proposals
Surfboards staked in the Beach will proportionally split 10% of all the SURF dividends that funnel through the Swell

The Towel NFTs

The Towel NFTs (ERC-1155) are new and unlike any existing NFT. The collection has a max supply of 10,000 and an initial supply of around 3,500. The initial supply will be airdropped to existing members of the Surf.Finance ecosystem based on the assets they held during recent snapshots. The remainder of the supply will be slowly minted by SURF holders over time at a fixed rate of 2,000 SURF per Towel, which gets sent to the Swell before being distributed throughout the ecosystem (details on the Swell are later in the article). This unique NFT comes with some revolutionary utility.

Towels are a membership token that provide each holder with access to the Surf.Finance Discord server which will become private except for public FAQ and General channels
Towels are also the voting power of the governance system. 1 Towel = 1 vote.
Towels staked in the Beach will proportionally split 30% of all the SURF dividends that funnel through the Swell

The Whirlpool

The Whirlpool is a staking contract that launched in November 2020 and is designed to provide sustainable passive income and keep SURF’s Uniswap liquidity at a healthy level. Holders can stake SURF/ETH LP tokens in the Whirlpool to earn a proportional cut of all the SURF that gets sent to it.

Whirlpool stakers proportionally split 40% of all the SURF dividends that funnel through the Swell
There is currently a 5% fee when unstaking from the Whirlpool which gets proportionally split between all remaining stakers (this fee can be set to 0–50% and is controlled through governance)

The Beach

The Beach is a new staking contract designed to stabilize the circulating supply of Surfboards and Towels and ensure that only members committed to the ecosystem reap their benefits. Holders can stake their Surfboards and Towels in the Beach to access their full utility.

Surfboards and Towels must be staked in order to receive SURF dividends from the Swell
Surfboards and Towels must be staked in order to provide access to the private Discord channels
Surfboards must be staked in order to create governance proposals
Towels must be staked in order to vote on governance proposals
Unstaking Surfboards or Towels initiates a 24 hour thawing period before they can be released back to your wallet

The Swell

The Swell is a new contract that receives and distributes SURF dividends throughout the ecosystem. The contract will be owned by the DAO and contains variables that allow the community to adjust the distribution of SURF dividends through governance proposals. The Swell is also the receiver of the ETH royalties earned by the Surfboard and Towel NFT collections, which are used to trustlessly buy SURF which then gets distributed.

The Swell receives SURF from:

The SURF token transfer fee (currently 0.20% of every transfer)
The Towel mint fee (2,000 SURF per Towel minted)
The SURF trustlessly bought using any ETH sent to the contract (from our NFT royalties or any future sources)

The Swell distributes SURF to:

40% proportionally split between all SURF-ETH LP tokens staked in the Whirlpool
30% proportionally split between all Towels staked in the Beach
10% proportionally split between all Surfboards staked in the Beach
20% sent the burn address (permanently reducing the supply of SURF)
In the future, the community can submit a governance proposal to distribute up to 15% of the Swell’s SURF dividends to the upcoming ContributorRewards contract which is designed to incentivize ongoing contributions from members of the DAO. The SURF going to the ContributorRewards contract would come from the 20% currently going to the burn address, leaving Whirlpool and Beach stakers unaffected.

What’s Next?

We are thrilled about the impending Surf.Finance 2.0 update and will be sharing more specifics about how the transition will work soon. If you are intrigued by what has been shared here then please come chat with us in our official Surf.Finance community Discord server to learn more!

Website: https://surf.finance (Overhaul in progress)

Our New Dune Dashboard: https://dune.com/surf_finance/dashboard

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/ZduXSdd

Twitter: https://twitter.com/surf_defi