Thanks for posting this proposal in governance. Just wanted to mention that since this thread was originally created, that a large portion of the surplus from v2.1 was migrated to v3 which did lower the deficit across many pools. Most of that is tracked in the following post:
and I think this was quite positive for many token LPs in v3. Overall, I think the deficit is trending in the right direction and is at similar levels from back in June (see https://analytics.bancor.network).
When it comes to regaining trust in the project, the recent announcement of Carbon, a quote driven orderbook on chain, in my opinion was was well received by our community but also by those outside. This shows that despite everything that has happened with Bancor v2.1/v3 and the paused of liquidity protection, that this protocol is still innovating in the DeFi space and building new financial products. I personally think that Carbon is a revolutionary AMM (one of its kind) that will find a niche in the market with those looking to perform automated flexible trading strategies. Here are some resources on Carbon if you haven’t had a chance to dig in:
⁃ Whitepaper: carbondefi.xyz/whitepaper
⁃ Litepaper: carbondefi.xyz/litepaper
⁃ Intro blog post: Introducing Carbon | by Carbon | CarbonDeFi | Medium
I think we are on the right path to regain trust in the project. If Carbon is successful and starts generating fees for the protocol, I don’t see many reasons for the DAO to not vote to direct fees towards deficit reduction. The precedent of using the vortex is there with v2.1 and v3 and is something that can also be used for Carbon.