Index Coop - January 2023 Automated Products Risk Report

Title: Automated Products Risk Report January 2023
Author: @sidhemraj
Reviewed: @afromac

Yield Products

icETH

Performance

During January, icETH outperformed ETH by 0.56%. This was a slower growth rate compared to that seen in November and December, due to higher borrowing costs on the Aave V2 ETH market. This change was mainly driven by stETH yield remaining near 5% for much of the month, as well as stETH trading being close to the 1:1 conversion rate (known as “the peg”).

Figure 1: icETH value vs USDC & ETH

Supply Cap

The Supply Cap parameter is a global limit on the total units of icETH that can be created. To ensure the product can safely de-lever in all market conditions, the Index Coop product team determines and gradually expands this limit on units over time. Currently, there are 10.3K units of icETH in circulation, which is equivalent to ~69% utilization of the max Supply Cap. Another 4,000 units ($6.8M USD at today’s prices) can be minted before the Supply Cap needs to be raised. In January, 400 units were redeemed, representing a 3.7% drop month-on-month.

Parameter updates

No parameter updates were made in January, but we anticipate executing an update to the Supply Cap in the coming months. The current circulating supply of icETH is approximately 69% of the Supply Cap. The Index Coop aims to review and increase the Supply Cap once the circulating supply approaches approximately 80%.

Figure 2: icETH Unit Supply & Supply Cap

Rebalances

No rebalances were triggered by icETH’s Aave Leverage Strategy Contract.

Underlying Liquidity

The stETH:ETH price has remained comparatively stable since the merge. In January, the stETH:ETH price ranged from 0.98 to 1.01, with a standard deviation of 0.0018. Notably, liquidity on the Curve stETH:ETH pool increased by over 50%, reaching almost $1.5B, thus stabilizing the stETH:ETH exchange rate. As this is the primary pool used to rebalance the product, Index Coop will monitor liquidity closely.

Figure 3: stETH:ETH price

Aave markets rely on ChainLink price feed aggregators to function securely, so monitoring Chainlink’s stETH:ETH Price feed helps inform product parameter updates, such as leverage ratio bounds. Higher volatility in the stETH:ETH price feed increases the likelihood of triggering a rebalance on icETH, should the leverage ratio fall outside of the acceptable bounds.

DEX liquidity

All icETH DEX trades in January were below $60K, with an average price impact of 25 basis points or less for trades of this size. From another perspective, the average trade size on the Uniswap Pool during January was 9 icETH units, with an average price impact of 0.25% at this trade size.

Figure 4 shows the relationship between trade sizes and price impact on the pool. The blue dots above the line represent price impact for trades to buy icETH, while the dots below the line represent trades to sell icETH back to the pool.

Figure 4: Price Impact on the icETH:ETH Uni V3 Pool

The NAV vs DEX premium

Figure 5 compares the icETH DEX price with the Net Asset Value (NAV) in terms of ETH. The icETH price on the Uniswap V3 pool has been closely tracking NAV; the highest percentage premium during January was 0.69%, and the average premium (including swap fee) was 0.12%.

Figure 5: icETH Net Asset Value vs DEX Price

The histogram in Figure 6 shows a distribution for the amount of time that the icETH price traded at various Premium/Discount intervals. A positive number indicates a premium over Net Asset Value (NAV), while a negative number indicates a discount.

Figure 6: icETH time spent at a premium or discount to Net Asset Value

Aave Params

WETH Market parameters, proposed changes & forum discussion
The Aave community is planning to accelerate V3 adoption by halting new listings, and the Aave V3 market was successfully deployed on Ethereum Mainnet in January. Approximately $128M worth of ETH and $118M worth of wstETH have been migrated from Aave V2 and other parts of the ecosystem. As icETH borrows from the Aave V2 ETH market, this could have a major impact on icETH. Therefore, we will closely monitor the developments in order to support the product.

Borrow Rates Over time
ETH borrowing rates on Aave V2 ETH market dropped well below 4% for most of January and February, as utilization on the Aave V2 ETH market fell below 50% as well.

Figure 7: Aave V2 ETH Market Borrow Rate

Figure 7A: Aave V2 ETH Market Utilization

Migration to Aave V3

Index Coop is actively researching steps to upgrade or replace icETH using Aave v3 as the underlying borrowing protocol.

Leveraged Products

ETH2x-FLI

Performance

Since the beginning of January, ETH price has risen by almost 40%, while the price of ETH2x-FLI grew by ~96% over the same period. The below chart shows the performance of both assets.

Figure 8: ETH2x-FLI and ETH Price

Illustrative Benchmarking:

We can compare the performance of ETH2x-FLI to that of a simple 2x Leveraged ETH position, which experiences no volatility drift. The tracking error, illustrated in Figure 9, is the percentage difference in price rises and falls between the two positions. As a result of this divergence between actual and idealized performance, the price of ETH2x-FLI underperformed a perfect 2x ETH position by -4.1% over a 30 day period.

Figure 9: ETH2x-FLI 30 day performance comparison to a simple 2X ETH position

Similarly, please find the linked 60 day and 90 day performance comparisons in which an ETH2x-FLI position also underperformed a simple 2xETH position by 8.1% in the 60 day period and 8.65% over a 90 day period.

Parameter Updates
No parameter updates were made during this period, and ETH2x-FLI continues to solely rely on the UniV3 ETH:USDC pool to rebalance daily.

Supply Cap

The Supply Cap parameter is a global limit on the total units of ETH2x-FLI that can be created. To ensure the product can successfully de-lever in all market conditions, the Index Coop product team determines and gradually expands this limit on units over time. Currently, there are 1.44M units of ETH2x-FLI in circulation, which is equivalent to 58% utilization of the max Supply Cap. A further 550,000 units ($5.5M at today’s prices) of ETH2x-FLI can be minted before the Supply Cap needs to be raised. Since the beginning of January, 200,000 units have been redeemed, representing a ~15% decline month on month.

Figure 10: ETH2x-FLI Unit Supply & Supply Cap

Rebalances

Currently, ETH2x-FLI uses the UniV3 ETH-USDC 0.05% fee pool as the sole source of liquidity for rebalancing; Sushi and UniV2 have been removed as DEXs. This change provides an additional benefit to product holders in the form of greatly improved capital efficiency on UniV3.

The average Price Impact (PI + Swap Fee) for rebalancing is now less than 0.1%.

Figure 12 shows the price impact at various rebalance sizes for ETH2x-FLI. Since the beginning of January, when ETH prices began to steadily rise, all rebalance trades have been less than $250K, with an average Price Impact of approximately 0.1%.

Figure 12: ETH2x-FLI rebalances & price impact on Uniswap V3

Notable Events

ETH2x-FLI was rebalanced three times on January 14th due to a 10% increase in ETH price within a few hours.

Underlying Liquidity

UniV3 was the only DEX utilized for ETH2x-FLI rebalancing following a parameter update in November. We will be monitoring the liquidity on Sushi, UniV2, and the UniV3-0.3% Fee pool as a backup for rebalancing.

Figure 14: Sushiswap ETH-USDC pool Liquidity

Figure 15: Uniswap V2 ETH-USDC pool Liquidity

Figure 16: Uniswap V3 ETH:USDC Liquidity

NAV vs DEX premium
The ETH2x-FLI price on DEXs has accurately tracked the Net Asset Value since January for the large majority of the period. The NAV vs DEX premium has hovered between -4% to 4% for most of the month, with an average premium of approximately 0.75%.

Figure 17: ETH2x-FLI Net Asset Value vs DEX Price

Product Liquidity

The Uniswap V3 ETH2x-FLI:ETH 30bps pool is the dominant liquidity pool for the product, capturing over 90% of the ETH2x-FLI trade volume. On trades up to $10,000, the Price Impact incurred was less than 1%. ETH2x-FLI buy trades had a positive price impact, indicating that a premium was paid over NAV, while sell trades had a negative price impact, indicating that ETH2x-FLI was sold at a discount to the market price.

Figure 18: ETH2x-FLI Uni V3 Trades & Price Impact

Compound market Parameters
ETH2x-FLI borrows from the USDC market on Compound V2, so any changes to the protocol’s parameters affect the product’s performance. No major changes were made to the Compound V2 USDC market during the given period.

BTC2x-FLI

Performance

The price of BTC2x-FLI has increased by 96% in dollar terms in January.

Figure 20: BTC2x-FLI Price Performance during January 2022

Base Asset Terms

The price of BTC has increased by approximately 40% since the start of January, and the BTC2x-FLI NAV has risen by 96%.

Figure 21: BTC2x-FLI vs BTC Price

Illustrative Benchmarking:

Figure 22 compares the performance of BTC2x-FLI to that of a simple 2x BTC leveraged position, which does not experience any NAV deviation or volatility drift.

Figure 22: BTC2x-FLI 30 day performance comparison to a simple 2x BTC position

In this comparison, the price of BTC2x-FLI underperformed a simple 2xBTC leveraged position by 0.5% over a 30-day period, by 5% over a 60-day period, and by 6% over a 90-day period. Please find the linked 60 day and 90 day performance comparisons.

Parameter updates

No Parameter updates were made during this period.

Rebalances

The majority of BTC2x-FLI rebalance trades were executed through the UniswapV3 BTC:USDC 0.30% pool. All rebalances had a price impact of less than 0.4%, including LP fees. Rebalances to leverage up had a positive price impact, as BTC was bought at a premium to market price, while rebalances to leverage down had a negative price impact, as BTC was sold at a discount.

Figure 23: BTC2x-FLI rebalance transactions and price impact

Notable Events

BTC2x-FLI was rebalanced multiple times on January 14th and 21st due to a rapid increase of over 10% in the BTC price, which caused the Leverage Ratio to drop below the lower bound of the acceptable leverage ratio range.

Underlying Liquidity

The TVL/Dollar value of liquidity in Sushi and UniV2 pools has been largely stable throughout January, and we will be monitoring these pools as a backup source of liquidity.

Figure 25: Sushiswap WBTC:WETH pool liquidity

Figure 26: Uniswap V2 WBTC:WETH pool liquidity

The liquidity of the WBTC:WETH UniV3 0.3% fee pool has been sufficient for the safe operation of the product, with ample depth around a wide range of prices.

Figure 27: Uniswap V3 WBTC:WETH pool liquidity

Supply Cap

The Supply Cap parameter is a global limit on the total units of BTC2x-FLI that can be created. By determining and gradually expanding this limit, the Index Coop product team can safely increase the maximum number of units over time and ensure the product can de-lever successfully in all market conditions.

Currently, there are 295,000 units of BTC2x-FLI in circulation, which is equivalent to 29.5% utilization of the max Supply Cap. A further 500,000 units ($2.9M at today’s prices) of BTC2x-FLI can be minted before the Supply Cap needs to be raised. BTC2x-FLI Supply has dropped by around 20% since the start of January.

Figure 28: BTC2x-FLI Unit Supply and Supply Cap

NAV vs DEX Premium

2x-FLI chart in Figure 29 visualizes these indicators by the hour instead of the minute.

The price of BTC2x-FLI on DEXs deviates from its NAV significantly more often than ETH2x-FLI, with a couple of extreme deviations of -10.49% and 7.13%. The Average Premium/Disc for BTC2x-FLI is 1.9%. This NAV deviation is caused by lower trade volume and DEX liquidity, making it less economical for arbitrage bots to trade. This lower liquidity and trade volume also makes it difficult to interpret Price vs NAV visualizations at shorter time intervals. The BTC2x-FLI chart in Figure 29 visualizes these indicators by the hour instead of the minute.

Figure 29: BTC2x-FLI Net Asset Value vs DEX Price

Product Liquidity

Due to the low liquidity for BTC2x-FLI on DEXs, we recommend flash-minting BTC2x-FLI via the Index-Coop App.

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Thanks for the continual updates :+1:

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