Compound <> Gauntlet Year 5 Partnership

[bryancolligan]

After working with Gauntlet directly for 2 years of their 4 years this is an easy No.

4 Main Reasons on Why to NOT HIRE Gauntlet:

1. Economic underperformance: negative net protocol profit after incentives in core markets, antiquated incentive distribution techniques, a fee structure not linked to outcomes.
2. Conflicts of interest: Gauntlet is simultaneously a major Morpho curator and has received sizable MORPHO token grants tied to vault growth directly aligning them with a Compound competitor. (Morpho, Morpho Governance Forum)
3. Operational gaps: no formal SLAs for parameter updates or listings (as confirmed in their own 2024 renewal), slow average forum turnaround, and vendor concentration risk. (comp.xyz)
4. Experiments Vendor Focused Not DAO focused: poor payback on the Morpho-Polygon collaboration vs. public expectations, Aera vaults under perform market beta rates.

A full break down of all the issues is below.

Why to NOT HIRE Gauntlet Crypto in 2025

The renewal of Gauntlet as a risk provider and incentive distributor is coming up and need to make the community aware of key issues. Over the past 18 months, I have worked directly with and engaged Gauntlet privately on multiple occasions to align on profitability targets and parameter changes with Compound’s best interest in mind. TL;DR; Recommendation: Do not rehire Gauntlet under the current model. Instead, run an open RFP with a 90-day dual-track pilot (2 providers) and adopt profit-linke…

Happy to answer any questions on the matter.