We are proud and excited to release the first part of the Gearbox machine before it all goes live on mainnet: beta test of the interface to Gearbox Protocol. What other pieces are next? A few stages of token distribution and DAO formation, open-sourcing contracts, multisig ceremony, and then deployment - stay tuned ⚙️🧰

Be ready to break it, rekt it, and make us cry! Better now than on mainnet.

Gearbox is not a company. Gearbox is not just a product. Gearbox is a protocol, a DeFi primitive. But before Gearbox is able to evolve into a composable leverage protocol, a chicken-and-egg problem must be solved: getting liquidity providers as well as traders & farmers.

To effectively do that, we believe in creating the most convenient interface for end-users. The flow must make sense, the operations, the approvals - all must be crisp and of the highest quality! But is that the case? Well, who knows…

This is why currently the access is gated, to make sure we don’t expose potentially degraded experience to all users at once. Because if people try once and they don’t like the flow, they will have negative feelings about the brand. Therefore, before the interface is released into the wild, we need to audit-test-audit-test… In fact, we have already been doing exactly that since June. To give you a glimpse of how seriously we approach things: the idea of Gearbox was born in January at the ETH Global hackathon, and ended in its final architectural design by April. By mid-June, it was all coded and done… and since then, we have been rigorously testing the interface and auditing the contracts! All that is coming to fruition, first with the interface going live.

Where do you find a group of DeFi power users who have tested dozens of protocols and got rugged while doing so, yet remain active and try all new things? Look no further, DegenScore team has been building a fantastic product that is also easy to integrate — for exactly such purposes!

DegenScore > 500… and then smaller apes

We are starting off by opening the floodgates for a score of 700 and above, which means only about 300 wallets are able to try it out for now. But don’t worry, this is simply to fix the rough things around the edges. In a few days, it will be open for more degen testers by lowering the entry required score.

Update: score lowered to 500. Update: lowered it to 10 just for the sake of avoiding total spam. Any DeFi user has 10 by doing almost any random DeFi action.

Invite Codes

Meanwhile, we are also slowly dropping a few test codes on Twitter, Discord, fellow founding teams, and developers. We had amazing feedback from Discord members back in July-August when the v0.1 was briefly open, so we will honour that tradition as well. The access will still stay exclusive for now, but don’t worry — you are not missing out on some magic token drop.

There won’t be such an easy way to sybil it, anons! Don’t even try.

Be a lobster and use a secret path!

How to get a code?
Be on Discord but don’t flood please, check the updates on Twitter. There is no unified procedure really to get a code just yet, we will distribute them to those who seek. Please don’t flood Discord though, keep it tidy and cool!

Gearbox docs are now open!

All the info on math, models, governance, and next steps:

Overview - Gearbox Protocol

Generalized Leverage Protocol ⚙ Built with composability in mind <3

Gearbox Protocol

Easter eggs all around

We didn’t go shy by trying to hide some of the information on the next steps in the docs. As such, you can find quite some easter eggs in there. For example, some secret group might soon also get access to testing; credit account mining with governance snapshot; stages to protocol launch, and so on… all is there!

And just to give you a glimpse of what’s inside the application:

How do I become the most honourable tester ser??

Kovan testing with DegenScore & lobsterdao - Gearbox Protocol

Testing the first product with the most degen DeFi users!

Gearbox Protocol

To really test the product, it’s better to have users try all the options in different sessions and explore the app in ways that can only be done with having a larger tester base. So here are some instructions:

1. Start! Go to the faucet. At least get ETH as you’d need it for gas costs.

2. Try to supply or withdraw liquidity on the “Earn” page. Check those transactions in the block explorer.

3. Open your first Credit Account with the collateral of your choice.

4. Try to make some trades, see how the slippage works, see how your health factor changes.

5. Try to change slippage permissions and AMM for execution.

6. Try Wallet Connect feature and execute some trades on native apps.

A few words on the interface and disclaimers
It is important to distinguish between an interface (application) that is operated by a regulated company adhering to applicable regulations — and the protocol — where all the logic is and that is not controlled by anyone. While the company can block its interface and prohibit its use, the protocol is fully in the hands of governance and is not managed by any single person or entity. One of the goals of Gearbox DAO, or any DAO, would be to open-source the UI or even make new versions in order to remove any attack or control vector from the brand overall — and not just the protocol. While the contracts will not be owned by any person or entity, UIs are a different thing.

How can I get involved and contribute?

There are a lot of things to get involved in, ranging from being a third-party liquidator to helping onboard collaterals, to research on risk scoring and building integrations, and so on. The community has just started forming, so we welcome everyone to jump into Discord.

• You can run liquidation bots.
• You can meme like a pro. Send a meme or two that you find relevant to Gearbox, and we’ll figure something out together.
• You want to integrate Gearbox into your application. Developer docs shall become available in a matter of weeks. For now, ask away!
• You want to join some of the core tasks.
• You want to try the beta app: info next week!
• And actually, what do YOU WANT TO DO?

Docs | Twitter | GitHub | Website | Discord