Ironclad: Scaling Governance Participation and Maximizing OP Rewards

What is IronClad?

Ironclad Finance is a decentralized non-custodial liquidity market protocol where users can participate as depositors or borrowers. Depositors provide liquidity to the market to earn a passive income, while borrowers are able to borrow in an overcollateralized (perpetually) or undercollateralized (one-block liquidity) fashion.

The Challenge

Mode’s governance system gives MODE holders the power to decide where OP incentives are distributed across the ecosystem. For Ironclad, securing these votes meant gaining a share of these rewards, which could be reinvested to drive growth.

However, getting MODE holders to vote isn’t automatic, protocols in Mode actively compete for votes by offering incentives. To succeed, Ironclad needed to:

• Motivate MODE holders to vote for them instead of other projects.
• Distribute rewards transparently to ensure trust and participation.
• Manage the process efficiently, avoiding unnecessary complexity.

Manually handling this system would have been inefficient, so Ironclad required an automated, scalable solution to optimize incentive distribution.

The Solution

1. Conversion Events

To attract votes and secure incentives, Ironclad rewarded users for:

• Allocating their MODE votes to Ironclad during governance epochs, increasing their share of OP incentives.

2. Payout Rules

Ironclad distributed rewards pro rata, meaning users earned a share of the reward pool based on how much voting power they allocated.

• At the end of each voting epoch, a snapshot was taken to capture the final votes.
• The total rewards were then split proportionally among voters, depending on how much MODE they had allocated to Ironclad.
• This ensured a fair system where users were rewarded based on their actual contribution.

3. Incentives Hub

Ironclad needed an efficient way to track votes and distribute rewards. With Fuul, they were able to:

• Automate tracking of votes and participant rewards.
• Ensure transparency, so users knew exactly how much they earned.
• Quickly launch a dedicated landing page using Fuul’s no-code system, making it easy for users to check program details, participate, and claim rewards—all without needing additional development resources.

This setup allowed Ironclad to focus on governance participation while ensuring a seamless experience for voters.

The Results

Ironclad’s vote incentive program delivered strong results throughout the season:

• Across 6 voting epochs, they consistently ranked in the top 3, securing a strong position in Mode’s governance.
• For every 1 token they put into incentives, they received 2.5x in OP rewards, making their budget work efficiently.
• This strategy helped them maximize returns while strengthening their influence in the ecosystem.

ConclusionIronclad turned governance incentives into a smart growth strategy. By offering well-structured rewards and using Fuul to manage the process smoothly, they kept participation high and secured valuable OP incentives.This case shows how well-designed incentives can drive engagement and amplify results without extra complexity—a key lesson for any project looking to scale governance participation.