Introduction
In mid-2024, the Moonbeam Foundation partnered with Gauntlet to develop a data-driven framework for measuring grant impact. This framework evaluates grants based on TVL, DAU, trading volume, fees, and capital efficiency, adjusting for market conditions and protocol growth expectations to provide a fair assessment of grant effectiveness.
Using this methodology, Gauntlet recommended grants to Stellaswap, Moonwell, Prime Protocol, and Beamswap to strengthen Moonbeam’s DeFi ecosystem. Now that the grant period has ended, we’ve evaluated their results using the Gauntlet impact measurement framework.
Market Performance Over the Grant Period
To fairly evaluate grant impact, we adjusted for global DeFi market trends, using 60-day median TVL measurements before and after the grant period.
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60 days before grant start (April 14, 2024): $136.37B TVL
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Grant start date (June 14, 2024): $152.67B TVL (+11.9%)
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Grant end date (December 14, 2024): $204.21B TVL (+49.7% from start)
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60 days after grant end (February 14, 2025): $192.47B TVL (+41.1% from start)
This significant DeFi market growth means that results must be viewed in relative terms, distinguishing between protocol-specific impact and macro trends.
Performance Breakdown by Grant Recipient
Stellaswap – Met Expectations (+0.07 Impact Score)
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TVL Growth: +86% ($6.3M → $11.75M)
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DAU Growth: +132% (80 → 187)
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Trading Volume Growth: +71% ($989K → $1.7M)
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Trading Fees Growth: +83% ($2.5K → $4.7K)
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Market Context: Global DeFi TVL grew +41% in the same period
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Additional Factors: Stellaswap also received a separate DOT ecosystem grant, which provided additional incentives and significantly contributed to their TVL expansion.
Takeaways:
Stellaswap saw solid growth in liquidity and user engagement, reinforcing its role as Moonbeam’s leading DEX. It’s worth noting that the DOT incentive program Stellaswap managed to get from Polkadot was a significant contributor - StellaSwap TVL grew from 3.42M to 13-14M in roughly one month after the program was launched.
Moonwell – Exceeded Expectations (+1.37 Impact Score)
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TVL Change: -83% ($25M → $4.2M)
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Key driver: Delisting of WBTC and outflows to Base
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Capital Efficiency Improvement: +3,813% (0.001 → 0.043)
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Trading Volume Growth: +452% ($31K → $171K)
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Trading Fees Growth: +30% ($972 → $1,266)
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Market Context: Lending activity across DeFi remained flat, yet Moonwell’s engagement increased significantly
Takeaways:
While Moonwell’s TVL decline may seem significant, it was largely due to structural changes—specifically, the delisting of WBTC and capital migration to Base—rather than a failure of the protocol itself - Moonwell’s total TVL across Moonbeam, Base and Optimism now sits at around 120M.
More importantly, the grant significantly improved capital efficiency and trading volume, suggesting that much of the previous TVL on Moonbeam was underutilized liquidity. The remaining TVL is now much more active, supporting higher levels of engagement per dollar of liquidity.
Beamswap – Struggled to Gain Traction (-0.64 Impact Score)
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TVL Change: -30% ($863K → $597K)
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DAU Change: -10% (39 → 35)
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Trading Volume Change: -74% ($350K → $91K)
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Trading Fees Change: -93% ($300 → $20)
Takeaways:
Beamswap’s grant was primarily aimed at developing a perpetuals market, an area that can be challenging to bootstrap without strong initial liquidity and trader incentives. Despite the grant, Beamswap struggled to achieve meaningful user engagement, and trading volumes remained low.
This suggests there is a need for stronger pre-launch validation in the perpetuals market, ensuring that protocols have sufficient traction and user demand before allocating resources to this category.
Prime Protocol – Faced Adoption Challenges (-0.85 Impact Score)
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TVL Change: -70% ($1.8M → $558K)
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Trading Volume Change: -95% ($13.6K → $668)
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Trading Fees Change: -79% ($7 → $2)
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Capital Efficiency Decline: -65% (17 → 6)
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Current TVL: $165K, with minimal activity
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Team Status: Appears to have shifted focus to other priorities
Takeaways:
Prime Protocol’s grant focused on cross-chain interoperability, a key component of Moonbeam’s vision. However, user adoption remained low, and today, TVL has declined to just $165K on Moonbeam, and 1.1M globally. Additionally, it appears that the team has shifted focus to other priorities, making further ecosystem support unlikely.
This suggests that interoperability-focused initiatives should demonstrate strong adoption signals before significant funding is allocated.
Lessons Learned & Takeaways
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DEX & Lending Grants Had Stronger Ecosystem Impact: Stellaswap and Moonwell showed resilience despite external shifts.
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TVL Alone Isn’t Enough: Moonwell’s grant improved capital efficiency & trading activity, even as TVL declined.
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Perps Markets Require Stronger Pre-Grant Validation: Beamswap’s challenges highlight the need for traction-based requirements before funding perpetuals initiatives.
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Cross-Chain Grants Need Clear Adoption Proof: Prime’s decline suggests that funding should be tied to real user demand.
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Market Adjustments Are Critical: The Gauntlet framework’s market corrections helped filter out macro trends from protocol-specific impact.