Anthias Labs to Join Moonwell as Risk Partner on Base Markets

Proposals
1

Abstract

Anthias Labs proposes to serve as a risk partner starting with Moonwell’s Base markets, where 90% of Moonwell TVL resides. We are confident that these markets will gain significant value from our expertise as an additional risk manager, and are eager to take on this role for the DAO. More on our team and our approach to risk management is below.

About Anthias Labs

Founded in 2022, Anthias Labs is a boutique on-chain advisory firm focused on DeFi risk management and system design. We protect protocols with mission-critical risk infrastructure and advisory. Anthias’ partners have included Felix Protocol, Arbitrum DAO, Uniswap and more. We have supported these partners with technical research, open source development, and custom monitoring systems. We take an approach to risk management that prioritizes a small handful of clients at a time, with whom we are able to work at great depth, as opposed to overly splitting focus. Risk is an on-the-ball business, so our focus is to dedicate ourselves fully to the partners we work with.

Selected Anthias work includes:

Additionally, if we had served as a risk manager for Moonwell over the past few months, we would have proposed the following risk recommendations for April. We’re sharing this to allow the DAO to assess the quality and thoroughness of our work:

Anthias For Moonwell - April, 2025 - Work Sample

Partnership Scope

As a risk partner for Moonwell’s Base markets, we will be focused on the following:

Core Parameter Risk Recommendations for Moonwell on Base
Scope: Collateral Factors, Reserve Factors, Supply Caps, Borrow Caps, Interest Rate Curve Parameters (Base, Kink, Multiplier, Jump Multiplier)
Delivery Schedule: Every 28 days

Minimum Reserves for Moonwell Base Markets
Scope: Min reserves assessment for the Base markets on Moonwell to balance risk and growth
Delivery Schedule: Every 28 days

Dynamic Risk Recommendations for Moonwell on Base
Scope: Supply Caps, Borrow Caps
Delivery Schedule: Throughout the month as necessary

Risk Recommendations for New Base Assets
Scope: Risk analysis and Core Risk Parameter Recommendations for new asset listing proposals for Base assets proposed to the Moonwell that pass a temperature check
Delivery Schedule: Throughout the month as necessary

Analysis of Ad Hoc Proposals to the Moonwell Governance Forum (Example)
Scope: Analysis of proposals brought to the Moonwell Governance Forum (forum.moonwell.fi). This will include proposals that extend beyond asset listings but can include concepts like increasing governance participation like the post linked above from @Luke. We would also like to work with the DAO to eventually assess other aspects of DAO operations like treasury management.
Delivery Schedule: Throughout the month as necessary

Performance Evaluation

To ensure accountability, the DAO can assess our effectiveness as a risk contributor based on the following performance metrics:

  • Timely risk recommendations: Core parameter and minimum reserve recommendations delivered at the cadence listed above.
  • Long-tail risk coverage: incidents (like with rsETH bug) are reported within 24 hours.
  • New asset listings: asset listing requests that pass a temp check should have risk parameters from our team within 48 hours.

Timeline

We hope to begin this tenure as a risk partner focused on Moonwell’s Base markets and then can expand once we prove value to the DAO. If this temperature check is received well by the DAO we will take steps to becoming the additional risk manager for Moonwell on Base Core Markets.

Budget

Anthias requests $25,000/month to serve as a risk partner for Moonwell’s Base markets. If we expand to further markets, we can adjust this monthly fee, but we want to demonstrate value on Base to start. This payment stream can be cancelled should the DAO vote at any time to end it.

Closing

Thank you to the full Moonwell community and many community members for support in the drafting of this proposal. We look forward to serving the DAO if the DAO will have us! If you have any questions on the proposal or want to discuss further before commenting, feel free to reach out to @OxBroze on Telegram or team@anthias.xyz.

4 Likes
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Moonwell’s Base markets are a critical surface area for the protocol, and I think there’s real value in bringing on a dedicated risk partner with Anthias’ track record. I’ve been impressed with their prior work and appreciate their focus on fewer clients.

The proposed deliverables are clear, and the performance metrics give the DAO a solid accountability framework. $25k/month seems fair for a hands-on advisory relationship, though I’d want to reassess if/when the scope expands beyond Base.

Looking forward to seeing how this partnership strengthens Moonwell’s risk posture!

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Hi, what do we currently pay for risk management? You appear to state this as a done deal, will there be a vote? Lastly, was this a solicited proposal? Thx

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Anthias has a solid track record of managing risk across many multi-billion $ ecosystems, including some of the largest DeFi protocols on Ethereum mainnet like Aave and Uniswap, and has also helped Optimism Foundation with RWA adoption across the Superchain. More recently, they’re doing risk curation for one of the largest Liquity forks on Hyperliquid.

The costs look very competitive with Gauntlet, but I would view their efforts as additive, as they are proposing helping with risk analysis on the Base deployment, while Moonwell still needs to manage risk effectively on OP mainnet, Moonbeam, and Moonriver as well.

In the past, we had 2 risk curators on the Base deployment: Gauntlet and Warden Finance. Since Warden finance merged with Morpho they were no longer able to provide risk management expertise to the Moonwell protocol.

I think it will be a benefit to the protocol to have 2 strong risk managers like Gauntlet and Anthias help with risk analysis. In the almost 2 years since Moonwell launched on Base, we’ve added some of the top collateral assets, including AERO, VIRTUAL, WELL, and MORPHO, as well as the top Bitcoin derivatives such as cbBTC, tBTC, and LBTC, and the top Ethereum derivatives such as cbETH, stETH, rETH, eETH, and rsETH.

Managing risk across so many markets is a challenging job, so I welcome more help in this area.

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This doesn’t look like a done deal to me. They are requesting $25,000 a month from the Moonwell Foundation for this service. For context Moonwell currently pays Gauntlet just over $1m per year, but this is variable depending on TVL and borrow growth. The cost is competitive, however it only covers 1 out of 4 total networks.

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Anthias, my recommendation would be to put this up for a temperature check/snapshot vote next week to gauge community interest. You have my support to augment our risk analysis efforts.

For those on the fence or undecided about this please read their April work product, I found it to be very insightful and explained the “why” about their recommendations, rather than just the recs themselves.

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Helpful context, thx :call_me_hand:

1 Like