Commission Reflexivity Research for Recurring Reporting to aid with Comms

wclementeiii

Author(s): Klint Drici, Head of Business Development - Reflexivity Research, Will Clemente, Co-Founder - Reflexivity Research

Recipient(s): Reflexivity Research

Category: Communications Partnership

Summary
We are proposing that Reflexivity Research creates 4 quarterly financial reports for Synapse. This would serve to better inform the market as well as existing investors on developments, protocol activity, milestones, and the complex technical architecture that the Synapse Labs team has constructed with the newly launched Synchain and Interchain systems.

These reports would be hosted as free public reports on Reflexivity Research’s website, Social Media channels (Twitter), our direct email list, and through our growing distribution partners.

Motivation
Keeping existing and new prospectus protocol users and token stakeholders informed by providing fundamental data and analysis is a crucial part of any crypto project's growth. This function is even more important due to the diverse set of users, developers, and investors, who contribute to the growth of the network through their activity and investments in Synapse.

The digital asset ecosystem is inherently open source but no one wants to parse through troves of data sets, let alone compile the information into digestible reports. There is a need for standardized third-party reporting to enable everyone to analyze protocols and digital assets similar to a traditional centralized company's recurring financial statements. By outsourcing this function to a specialized firm, Synapse can be better equipped to handle market turbulence and retain the support of significant players in the crypto community.

Background
Co-founded in September of 2022, the Reflexivity Research team is composed of crypto native analysts who are passionate about providing independent coverage of the digital asset space. Our goal is to bridge traditional finance into digital assets by taking crypto native research that is packaged in an easily digestible format for traditional financial institutions. We pride ourselves in being a trusted voice in the space and we endeavor to provide clarity and guidance to our partners as they navigate this ever-evolving industry.

Reflexivity Research's core membership, which is subscribed to by HFs/family offices, public company CEOs, etc. includes multiple weekly reports as well as live weekly comprehensive, interactive analyst calls.

In addition, our firm has worked with numerous traditional hedge funds/family offices for bespoke custom reports for their internal use, platforms such as eToro to create recurring research/content to inform their user base, as well as numerous crypto projects for the outsourced financial reporting that we are proposing here.

Specification
Starting with a Q3 overview, we will develop four quarterly reports that will analyze all relevant developments around the project. On the qualitative side these reports will cover all major developments including everything from upgrades, roadmap, and partnerships; while on the quantitative side covering all major metrics from network activity, protocol revenue, etc. While these reports will be constructed as a partial collaborative effort with the Synapse Labs team to ensure accuracy, Reflexivity will ensure all information within these reports meets the highest standards of intellectual honesty and objectivity.

Note: We are open to a different cadence should the community feel that its appropriate

Pricing
The reports are $12,500 /per report bringing the total cost to $50,000 for the full annual engagement. We accept payment in both USD and crypto.

We look forward to hearing your community’s feedback and are eager to continue working with Synapse on their mission to connect the crypto landscape!

EnigmaKyojin

Do you have any examples of existing reports we could look at?

wclementeiii

EnigmaKyojin

Absolutely, feel free to find 15+ example reports on our website: reflexivityresearch.com

Note: We're actually going to be launching a new revamped website in the coming days 🙂

EnigmaKyojin

wclementeiii

Thank you very much kind sir. I am looking forward to taking a look! 🙂

jbrktt

Thanks for the proposal, Will and Team. I think we are all in agreement that enhanced communication regarding Synapse, SIN, etc. is extremely important and crucial to the long-term success of the protocol. I also think what you have outlined is a constructive start to what the DAO should look for going forward. Some questions below related to Reflexivity and the report(s).

Why Synapse? Reflexivity covers a number of notable, large cap protocols (BTC, UNI, AVAX to name a few) how does Synapse fit in with your viewership and why do you think they will care about the DAO/Protocol?
Can you provide some more detailed figures as far as the reach, viewership, and readers of Reflexivity? You (Will) personally have 600k+ Twitter followers but Reflexivity is significantly lower even if you add readers + Twitter subs.
Approximately what percentage of reports are commissioned vs organically covered by your firm? I am only able to see what is shared on your site which may not be a representative sample
Can you share specific precedents as to what we should expect for Synapse?
a) For example, your public repository provides a 20+ page VeChain Overview Report but also a 4 page Uniswap quarterly update
b) Given Synapse has very real financial metrics (for crypto) but also deeply technical innerworkings this is something we as a DAO should closely consider. Any reports that have deep financial and technical analysis would be very helpful here in our consideration
What is the typical time to market for your reports and what do you require from the core team in terms of time, Q&A, etc.? A lot has happened with Synapse in the past few weeks so allowing the team time to communicate broadly, answer relevant questions, and let the proverbial dust settle is also important

wclementeiii

jbrktt

Thanks for the thoughtful response!

1) We try to work with the highest quality names in the industry that have displayed a high degree of integrity, staying power, and are building out interesting applications/infrastructure that will shape the industry -- Synapse absolutely falls under this category. With that being said, given my personal familiarity with Synapse, I am also well aware of the lack of comms for the project, which is why we felt that this type of engagement would be valuable to the protocol and decided to put forth this proposal.

2) Would like to be clear that although I (Will) and our Co-Founder Anthony (Pompliano) have large personal followings, Reflexivity's research content solely utilizes the firm's own distribution channels. Reports will be sent out to our direct email list of 60,000+ readers, tweeted out in condensed format as a thread on Twitter to our >10,000 followers -- which with amplification from a project's native Twitter/distribution has shown to be very effective, as well as hosted natively on our brand new website that will be live in within the next week. In addition, all protocol deep dives (commissioned or not) will be integrated into future distribution partnerships.

3) The reports that are shown on our homepage skew towards the commissioned side, given they are public-facing by nature. Any commissioned reports include disclosures at the bottom of the report. Behind paywall, our team releases 2-3 reports a week including general market updates, macro updates, protocol deep dives, and thematic sector overviews.

4) The reports proposed here would be similar to long-form deep dives that we've published on Avalanche, Fantom, TRON, Qredo, Vechain, etc. that we have listed on the homepage of our website. The 4-page overview of Uni v4 that you are referring to was originally a report that was behind paywall that the team decided to release publicly, given its relevancy as a major development for one of the largest dApps in the ecosystem. We don't commit to page requirements, but will put forth a good-faith effort to cover all relevant information throughout the set time period -- which also means working with the Synapse Labs team throughout the research process. I personally think it makes sense for the first report to have more of an educational angle than a quarterly overview angle.

As mentioned in the original post, while the quarterly overview report engagement is standard for us, we are open to a different theme or cadence for these reports should the community deem appropriate.

5) We have an industry-leading 2-week turnaround time for our research reports, which is advantageous for any new developments or releases. In terms of time commitment from the core Synapse team, it is up to them and how involved they'd like to be -- while the more time they are able to commit the easier the research process is for us. Prior to release, each report will be sent to the team for final approval. Our team will accommodate any requested revisions, assuming they fall within the bounds of maintaining objectivity and full accuracy.

Freud

Great idea! Three questions:

Can you share some insight into how you settled on the cost of $12,500 per report? And would you take payment in Synapse at a future valuation of $2400 per SYN? (sorry for the gallows humor)
Do you have any sense on the conversion rate these reports generate? How often do home offices then buy protocol tokens? Are they buying on the open market?
Would comms include being able to direct interested buyers to speak with Reflexivity analysts directly?

Thanks!

wclementeiii

Freud

Hey Freud, thanks for the questions.

1) This is the standard annual deal that we start most of our clients with. Our pricing is very low relative to market.

2) I think it's worth reframing the question a bit -- when referring to a "conversion rate" it really depends on what a client looking to accomplish, which for most is to drive activity to their respective platform and utilize a third-party firm to help bring market awareness to the project, not necessarily token price appreciation. With that being said, it is quite difficult to draw an exact percentage of the number of users that then go on to independently utilize a decentralized project (in this case the bridge or build on Synchain) after reading a report.

I think "success" for Synapse would be for a greater base of the entire industry to be able to understand what the team has built in an easily digestible format.

3) This would not be part of the engagement. However, we will do our best to make sure all of the information you need to know about Synapse, both positive and negative, is included in the research we publish.

Freud

Thank you, Will!

youareallretarded

This is the most idiotic proposal I've ever seen in my life. I literally made an account here to vote on it. If you think that your reports are worth $12,500 per report, you are insane. $1,250 per report would be a reasonable starting point to bargain. Even then, you need to demonstrate how it is going to add value. At best this should be retroactively funded.