TL;DR:
- eBTC, Legacy Vaults, and remBadger UIs are being deprecated after June 30th.
- This comes as part of the transition away from using the Swiss Association towards a leaner structure with more focus on new product development.
- We encourage users who prefer interacting with smart contracts through badger.com and eBTC.finance UIs to withdraw their positions before June 30th.
- After June 30th, users will still be able to access their funds by interacting with smart contracts directly or via explorers like Etherscan. A manual will be provided, and support will be available through badger.com.
- For questions and feedback, please join #rff-transition on discord.
Sunsetting eBTC and the Next Phase for BadgerDAO
After careful consideration, the BadgerDAO Treasury Council has decided to sunset eBTC development and minimize its maintenance overhead.
While eBTC delivered some of the highest DeFi-native yields for BTC, it has not achieved product-market fit. TVL has remained low and the product has not proven to be a sustainable source of revenue for the DAO.
For these reasons, the Treasury Council has decided to minimize further investment in eBTC and put it into a deprecated state (TCD 88).
The Treasury Council appreciates the work of all contributors who brought eBTC to life and delivered a secure BTC pegged product with industry leading yields. These efforts have laid a strong foundation for future innovation within the DAO.
Simplifying Operations and Ending the Association Relationship
In connection with this shift, the Treasury Council has made the decision to end its funding of the Badger Association, the Swiss-based service provider, effective June 30, 2025.
The Association supports DAO operations across core platforms including:
- badger.com (including legacy.badger.com and sunset.badger.com)
- ebtc.finance
- forum.badger.finance
The Swiss Association structure, which entailed high overhead, is no longer appropriate for the DAO’s evolving needs.
The Treasury Council has determined that it is fiscally responsible to abstain from renewing the Swiss Association funding beyond June 30th and switch to a leaner operating structure (TCD 85).
This structure will allow us to shift spending towards increasing the development capacity while decreasing the overall budget.
The Treasury Council is working with the Association to ensure a smooth and orderly transition, including retaining key contributors and other service providers who were previously contracted through the Association.
This change opens the door to a leaner, more decentralized structure that strengthens collaboration, transparency, and contributor alignment across the DAO.
Deprecating eBTC and Legacy Vaults UIs after June 30th.
By the end of our engagement with Association, we expect it to return the DAO’s assets, like domains, back to the DAO.
However, reestablishing the UI access to smart contracts that were created by DAO contributors in the past is problematic.
It introduces risk and requires significant effort from the tech team, along with increased overhead related to security monitoring. And even then, service disruptions would be inevitable, as it would take time to set everything up properly.
At the same time, there is no tangible upside for the DAO in keeping these UIs up & running indefinitely.
The vaults products were deprecated back in 2022, the remBadger distributions have concluded, and there are currently only 18 users with active CDPs in the eBTC protocol.
So, while this development can cause inconvenience to users who will interact with the contracts after June 30th, sacrificing a significant portion of the budget and developer bandwidth to keep these UIs up doesn’t seem like a choice that serves the best interests of the DAO.
With that in mind, we would like to encourage all eBTC, remBadger, and Legacy Vault users who prefer using official UIs to interact with smart contracts to withdraw their positions before June 30th.
After that, the vital eBTC infrastructure, like oracles, will still be supported until further notice, but access through badger.com and eBTC.finance UIs will be discontinued.
To ensure minimal disruption to users while considering the limitation of not having a UI active after June 30th, the following steps are taken:
- The Treasury Council has committed to provide enough liquidity for eBTC so that users can withdraw their positions as close to peg.
- An extensive manual about how to withdraw eBTC, remBadger, and legacy vault positions will be provided in the docs and shared via communication channels.
- There will be ongoing support through badger.com to help users navigate the withdrawals.
As always, Badger products are onchain, and users keep custody of their funds, so these funds will remain accessible to them.
Looking Ahead
The Treasury Council is working with and supporting a team of developers focused on building a new product direction that leverages Badger DAO’s core strengths while aligning with today’s DeFi landscape.
This transition represents a thoughtful progression - one that reduces complexity and strengthens collaboration across the DAO.
The Treasury Council thanks the Swiss Association for its service and partnership, and remains focused on supporting a resilient and future-focused DAO.
If you have questions or feedback related to the transition, please join the #rff-transition on Discord.