OceanProtocol Non-Custodial Loan Infrastructure

Part 1 - Proposal Submission (*Mandatory)

Name of Project:

OceanProtocol Non-Custodial Loan Infrastructure

Proposal in one sentence:*

A decentralized, non-custodial and trustless protocol that allows users to create overcollateralized debt instruments across Ocean and Ethereum.

Description of the project and what problem is it solving: (You can give more details in “proposal details” section farther down.)

Ocean’s current circulating supply is currently around 613,099,141 OCEAN which accounts for about 43% of the Max supply. The liquidity of ocean protocol is therefore limited. Likewise, many token holders do not have mechanisms to trade the time-value of their holdings. As a consequence, Centralized Lending solutions have emerged to provide liquidity to the market, however, these lending services are centralized entities that can seize or steal funds and are not easily accessible to everyone.

As a solution to this problem, we propose a decentralized, non-custodial and trustless protocol to allow users to create overcollateralized debt instruments across Ocean and Ethereum Protocols. Thus, users will be able to borrow and lend OCEAN using Ethereum tokens as collateral.

To make this a reality, we are moving to design a cross-chain protocol with Hashed Time-Locked Contracts (HTLCs) to enable debt and repayment between parties. We will also adopt an atomic swap functionality that strategically reveals secrets to stand for actions in the loan chain.

Grant Deliverables: (Target deliverables for the funding provided.)

  • Design Uni/UX files and protocol documentation to enable other devs to implement the systems in their respective application environments.
  • Begin the mobile implementation of the Ocean Loans Protocol in a compatible wallet infrastructure.
  • Create Marketing Materials to target crypto enthusiasts and traders to utilize our framework.

Which category best describes your project? Pick one.

  • Build/improve applications or integrations to Ocean
  • Improvements to OceanDAO

What is the final product?

Oceanprotocol.loans will be an API that will allow everyone to build a loan application on OCEAN, making it possible for borrowers and lenders to interact and earn with automated APY’s. With the final product, users will be able to use Ocean token as collateral for borrowing Ethereum based tokens.

We will also push to go B2C as we scale in order to target normal users in a bid to reduce the barriers to entry by making fast, appealing and simple to use interfaces - Making borrowing and lending OCEAN/ETH as easy as sending a text message.

Question on “value add” criteria: which one or more of the criteria will your project focus on? Why do you believe your team will do well on those criteria?

Creating cross-chain interoperability between Ocean and Ethereum will allow market participants to access liquidity between blockchains by enabling loans to occur between different blockchains without intermediaries.

Some of the benefits to the OceanProtocol ecosystem are:

  • Enabling stablecoin/ERC20 tokens access to Ocean holders.
  • Allowing OCEAN holders to exchange the time value of their tokens without selling.
  • Allowing users to Lend and Borrow tokens without intermediaries or giving up custody of their assets.

Some of the risks to the ecosystem if this system is not implemented correctly:

  • OCEAN market volatility due to lack of liquidity.
  • Centralised OCEAN lending services can be hacked or steal the funds of their users.
  • Lack of OCEAN interoperability with other blockchains.

Risks that could make executing this project difficult:

  • Libraries in early development stages.
  • OCEAN specifications / functionality still not implemented
  • Lack of library support for web/mobile environments.

Funding Requested: (Amount of USD your team is requesting - see the available funding levels here)

$3000

Proposal Wallet Address: (must have minimum 500 OCEAN in wallet to be eligible. This wallet is where you will receive the grant amount if selected).

0x279c866dD68a378E105e2755E32535c5F3E6D4EC

Funding details

  • Project lead full name: Steven Petras

  • Email address: stephenpetras93@gmail.com

  • Your country: Sweden

  • Description of grant reason:Development of project prototype.

  • Funding requested (USD): $3,000

  • ETH Wallet address: 0x279c866dD68a378E105e2755E32535c5F3E6D4EC

Have you previously received an OceanDAO Grant? If yes, please specify what round(s) and how much was granted each round.

No

Team Website (if applicable):

oceanprotocol.loans (in progress)

Twitter Handle (if applicable):

@oceanprotocol.loans

Discord Handle (if applicable):

@oceanprotocol.loans

Project lead email:

stephenpetras93@gmail.com

Country of Residence:

Sweden

Part 2 - Team

2.1 Core Team

Name: Steven Petras

Role: FOUNDER & CEO

Background/Experience:

Seasoned Entrepreneur with a robust wealth of knowledge and experience in building and managing several IT firms and other startups including Jetbrain, Mainteny, Revolut. Also equipped with over 6 years of experience as a crypto veteran. And over 13 years of experience with managing third-party loan infrastructures. A diversified portfolio cutting across both national and international entities. Also gifted with an unmatched passion to grow the crypto community through massive awareness campaigns.

Part 3 - Proposal Details (*Recommended)

3.1 Details

Details of the proposal:

Already available solutions to the lending of crypto assets are centralized. The fact that these services are centralized raises some concerns such as the funds may be stolen, and the funds are not always available. Oceanprotocol.loans is our unique solution to this problem. It is a decentralized, non-custodial and trustless protocol that allows users to borrow or lend Ethereum based tokens using ocean tokens as collateral or vice versa using a method known as atomic swap.

3.2 If in Category “Build / improve applications or integration to Ocean”:

App will be live at:

app.oceanprotocol.loans

Is the software open-source?

N

**If open-source, please specify the license. If no, please specify why not open-source. **

The software for oceanprotocol.loans will not be open source pending when the necessary protocols and procedures to protect the system are in place, the team may decide to make the protocols open-source. But at this infant stage of the project, in order to protect the community and its users, The team have decided against making the project open-source.

Project software can be found at:

Nil

3.8 If the project includes community engagement:

Which channels will be used? For how long? E.g. “twitter, for 8 weeks”. Other details?

  • Twitter ( 4 weeks) with a target to grow x3.5 MoM.
  • Facebook (2 Weeks)with a target to grow x5 MoM.
  • Instagram (6 Weeks) with a target to grow x3 MoM.
  • Paid Telegram, Discord and Twitter influencers and Micro influencers to increase rareness within the Ocean Communities and the data ecosystem at large

3.9 Project Deliverables - Roadmap

Any prior work completed thus far? Details?

  • Comprehensive research on non collateralized loans.
  • Assembled the founding team.
  • Hired a UI/UX designer and a full stack to start the initial building block set up for the project.

What is the project roadmap? That is: what are key milestones, and the target date for each milestone. Please make sure that one milestone is about publishing your results, e.g. as a medium blog post.

1st Quarter 2022 (JAN - MAR):

  • Development and testing of project prototype.
  • Media publication of articles explaining relevant project updates, and roadmaps on Medium.
  • Create public awareness for Oceanprotocol.loans through massive media campaigns.
  • Release Technical whitepaper and lightpaper for Oceanprotocol.loans

2nd Quarter 2022 (APR - JUNE):

  • Create a functional dashboard to enable users to monitor their financial assets.
  • Auditing of oceanprotocol.loans by renowned crypto and financial auditors to build public trust of the protocol.
  • Integrate/Connect to the Ocean Protocol Marketplace.

3rd Quarter 2022 (JUL - SEPT):

  • Auditing of oceanprotocol.loans by renowned crypto and financial auditors to build public trust of the loaning institution.
  • Obtaining Certik Certification for embedded smart contracts within the oceanprotocol.loans system.

4th Quarter 2022 (OCT - DEC):

  • Release a mobile application on the App Store and Play Store.
  • ​​Research multi-chain deployment of the Oceanprotocol.loan service
  • Research expansion of the protocol to include tokens outside the scope of ETH.

What are the team’s future plans and intentions? Is there maintenance? Possible extensions to the work?

Our long-term plans to maintain this software and upgrade it over time include:

  • Maintain & update the Web dApp to implement newer oceanprotocol.loan browser-based wallets.
  • Migrate Oceanprotocol.loans protocol from using Payment Channels to the native virtual machine smart contracts once it is released.
  • Create interoperability with other EVM based blockchains.

3.10 Additional Information

Any additional information to add? E.g. custom fields or images? E.g. other grants or fundraising to date?

Hi @Petrasi22,

Thank you for applying for R-13!

Your proposal has been registered into the system and everything looks great!

We have attempted to make your first grant easy to earn (you are registered in the New Entrant Earmark) I would also recommend one (or all) of the following to increase support:

  1. Saying hi to the community in #ocean-dao and sharing your proposal.

  2. Saying hi to members of the #project-guiding WG and sharing your proposal.

  3. Meet with the Evaluators assigned to you by the #project-guiding WG.

  4. Attend a Town Hall or Project-Guiding WG meeting to talk about your project and proposal.

If you need any additional support please let me know

All the best!

-Prakash

Hello @Petrasi22,

Please notice that we are updating the funding process for R13 and there are important things for you to know. We will be deploying an update to the Ocean Website, where you will be able to claim your grant on your own time.
Funding the smart contract may take ~2 days after Voting Ends. There will still be a funding deadline of 2 weeks to claim your grant.
You will need a web3 wallet + Airtable to complete the process. Grant requests via request.finance will be deprecated.

You can find all instructions here: https://github.com/oceanprotocol/oceandao/wiki/Request-Grant-Guidelines
You will have until January 10th to update your proposal with all required fields.

Please let us know if you experience any issues or bugs. You can also submit tickets to Github and ping us inside of ocean-dao-engineering for any help. Thank you!