How to join the DeFi Pulse Leaderboard

DeFi and the greater crypto ecosystem are experiencing an explosion in 2020. TVL has grown more than 10x since March, new projects with novel distribution models and incentive mechanisms are launched week after week. The yield farming craze has stress-tested all the major DeFi protocols in the past four months, and the industry as a whole is going through a phase of extraordinary growth.

The ecosystem moves at breakneck speed and so we must as well. To get started, we want to clarify how projects can partner with DeFi Pulse to join the DeFi Pulse Leaderboard. 

Here is a step by step guide to the process 

1 – Find out if your project is a good fit on DeFi Pulse.

Please check the following list and find out if this sounds like the project you’re building.

1. Your project is a financial application that uses blockchain infrastructure.
2. The blockchain infrastructure your project is built on is sufficiently decentralized such as Ethereum.
3. Your project locks crypto assets in the protocol’s smart contracts to provide the market with financial products that produce economic activity
4. You have formal audits for your protocol, with a reputable audit firm or sufficient audits from reputable members of the DeFi community.
5. If there are admin keys privileges with your protocol, there is a time lock in place and infinite minting has been disabled.

2 – Once you make sure that your project is a fit on DeFi Pulse, you can go ahead and start the onboarding process to the DeFi Pulse Leaderboard!

Please keep in mind that the onboarding process is split in two different phases and additional diligence/review will be done throughout the application process:

• Submit your project to be featured on the DeFi List.
• Technical integration to DeFi Pulse.

Submit your project to be featured on the DeFi List

1. Your project needs to add a link to DeFi Pulse on its website.
   1. Check out these great examples by Cream.Finance (home page), Akropolis (right hand bar) & Balancer (bottom of the web page). 

      You can download the DeFi Pulse logo here.

2. Submit your project’s details to be featured on the DeFi List.
   
   1. Fill out the DeFi List form here.

3. The DeFi Pulse team will review your project’s application
   1. If accepted, the project will be added to the DeFi Pulse List.

      Please keep in mind that the DeFi Pulse List is updated regularly on a two week cycle.

Once your project is accepted to the DeFi List, it becomes eligible to be added to the DeFi Pulse Leaderboard. Please keep in mind that additional diligence/review will be done before a project can be added to the leaderboard:

4. Once your project is accepted on the DeFi List, a DeFi Pulse team member will get in touch with your team via email, Discord, or Telegram. If your project is ready to begin the process of being added to the DeFi Pulse Leaderboard, the next step will be:
   1. A DeFi Pulse team member will create a partner channel for your project in Concourse’s Discord server and validate your project’s proposed framework to count TVL provided on the DeFi List TypeForm from Step 2, with a member of your team.
5. Your project will be provided with an adapter SDK key, a TypeForm to submit your project’s static content for the project page, and instructions in the Discord partner channel which will allow you to begin work on your project’s adapter. 
   
   1. You can find more information on how to work on the adapter, here: Adapter Github Repo.

6. Once the adapter is ready,  your team will create a pull request for your project’s adapter and contact DFP on the partner channel.
   
7. DeFi Pulse Team will review both the TVL adapter and the provided static content.
   1. The content will be staged for review and monitored for a minimum of 24 hours to ensure that the adapter is working and that the data is accurate.
8. Your team will receive a staging link to check the displayed information.
9. Once cleared, your project is ready to be added to the DeFi Pulse Leaderboard Page! 🎉

Special Notes 

• The requirement to link to DeFi Pulse on the website can be waived in certain situations, for example in cases such as Fair Launches or DAO projects where a community vote is required to change or update the frontend development.

If you have any questions, please come chat with us in our Discord.