Staking Baskets Platform - Incentivizing Cardano’s Decentralization

[GENERAL] Name and Surname of Main Applicant

Peyton Winget

[GENERAL] Email address of Main Applicant

peyton@atriumlab.io

Additional Applicants

Ben Darvill

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

4

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

Yes

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.” in this field.

The Staking basket contract is being developed by MLabs. After 8 months of work, MLabs has recently completed development on the staking baskets smart contract. This contract will still need to undergo testing and auditing before it is released.

In the case any of our dependencies cause delays, we have built relationships with other companies that can audit and write smart contracts.

For our frontend/backend integration of this platform, we depend on no third-party organizations.

[GENERAL] Will your project outputs be fully Open Source?

No

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.” in this field.

The Application itself is proprietary. However, all Smart Contracts will be open-sourced and available for all to use.

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

dApp

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Staking Baskets are a groundbreaking new innovation and schematic for furthering decentralisation on the Cardano blockchain. Created by Atrium Lab, and developed by MLabs, a renowned specialist in Haskell and Rust, Staking Baskets are a smart contract system that allows users to deposit their ADA and delegate to a large number of Stake pools in a user-friendly way. Users will eventually be able to create their own Staking Baskets with their own list of stakepools, following the successful funding of a separate proposal.

For depositing the ADA, users will receive basket tokens that can be used to withdraw their initial ADA deposit + their rewards. These basket tokens are liquid and can be sent to other wallets. They can also be swapped on a DEX, given that there’s a liquidity pool. Diffusion our first basket has been built and is now in the later stages of testing and integrating within our front end.

This proposal will see the development of a front end that enables easy staking to baskets, this will make the Staking Basket process accessible to a wider community. Built into Âtrium, this platform will allow users to deposit and withdraw to wide range of Staking Baskets contracts that are created, both by Âtrium and by future basket creators. As third parties create more Staking Baskets, this platform will be populated with different opportunities to support decentralization, charity, and smaller stake pools. In short, this platform will be a hub for the promotion of all staking baskets as the ecosystem grows.

This proposal will also lead to the development of a Staking Basket dashboard that allows users to see how much ADA they’ve deposited, how much rewards they’ve earned in ADA + Cardano Native Tokens, and how many epochs they’ve staked. They will also be able to visualize the number of pools they are staked to, encouraging them in an attempt to further decentralize the Cardano network.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

We’ve designed and are currently building a simple user interface that will enable both new and seasoned Cardano users to spread their delegation across a wide selection of pools, strengthening the network and diversifying stake. By spreading your delegation across multiple pools, you can diversify your staking portfolio and encourage network decentralization.

This platform will serve as the front-end/back-end infrastructure for all Staking Basket creators. Users will be able to come to this platform to deposit/withdraw their rewards from any Staking Basket created by any party.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

The platform will be live and accessible to the public, ready to begin depositing/withdrawing to Staking Baskets on Cardano’s mainnet. Staking Basket data visualization and dashboard will also be operational.

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

The outputs from this proposal will see a functioning user interface on Âtrium that provides an easy way for users to interact with the Staking Baskets smart contract, depositing and withdrawing ada whilst receiving token rewards.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Our team has significant experience in all the areas needed to complete Staking Baskets. MLabs, are one of the most well respected development firms operating in the Cardano ecosystem, and have developed smart contracts for IOG, Sundae Labs, Singularity Net, Liquid Finance, and many more companies/projects.

Our core team consists of multiple decades of front end, back end and full-stack experience, security experts and award winning designers with experience working for some of the largest most recognized brands in the world. Our founder Peyton, is the operator behind Bloom, one of the largest stake pools in the ecosystem responsible for minting the 8th block on the Cardano blockchain. All team members are Cardano community natives, with a love for the community and a united vision in building products that serve the ecosystem.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

Our main goal for this project is to create a new Staking Ecosystem on Cardano. An ecosystem that allows users to be rewarded more for supporting decentralisation. This ecosystem will also allow any entity to create their own Staking Basket with their own reward incentive. 

We’ve validated that this approach is feasible by writing the smart contracts and testing it on Cardano’s preview network. We’ve also shared this idea with the community at a Cardano event we hosted and livestreamed in Austin Texas. Since the livestream we’ve had hundreds of supporters championing the idea of Staking Baskets.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Production began on this project 2 month ago, milestone 1 will be completed before the funding round begins.

Milestone 1 (month 1): 

• Staking Basket platform front-end design.

Milestone 2 (month 2): 

• Staking Basket platform front-end interface.
• Staking Basket platform back-end integration.

Milestone 3 (month 3): 

• Staking Basket platform testnet release.

Milestone 4 (month 4): 

• Staking Basket platform mainnet release.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Staking Basket on-chain MVP - Completed

• The deliverables from this completed milestone are working smart-contracts on the Cardano’s preview network and a front-end that allows deposits, withdraws, and basket owners to remove or add new stake pools.

Staking Basket Internal Preview Test - Completed

• The Staking Basket internal preview test allowed us to test the user experience for depositing ADA into baskets, withdrawing rewards, adding more stakepool UTXOs, adjust fees, and more features.

Staking Basket Rewards - Completed

• This milestone allows basket creators to pay out Cardano Native Token rewards to users that deposit ADA into the basket.

Staking Basket Public Preview Test - In-progress

• We’ve gathered a solid group of users with different technical backgrounds to test all Staking Basket features on the preview network. On this milestone users are interacting with Staking Baskets through the Atrium front-end.

Staking Basket audit  - In-progress

• The Staking Basket smart-contracts are undergoing a formal audit to verify the security for users. This milestone on completion will verify that the code was written without vulnerabilities.

Staking Basket front-end design - In-progress

• The Staking Basket’s need an easy to use front-end design that guides users through their first Staking Basket deposit. This interface has already been designed and reviewed.

Staking Basket front-end interface - In-progress

• The front-end interface that was designed by our designer needed to be integrated into the main application to allow users to see Basket blockchain data, and click buttons to deposit and withdraw.

Staking Basket back-end integration - In-progress

• The front-end interface needs to be able to talk to the blockchain to gather Basket data, and enable deposits/withdraws. We have developed all of the endpoints that we need to pull in the data, we just need to finish the last few pieces of integration and test.

Staking Basket Mainnet Release - In-progress

• In our final milestone we will release our Staking Baskets to Cardano’s mainnet. Users will be able to deposit ADA into Staking Baskets, earn rewards, and decentralise Cardano.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

We’ve split the Staking Basket ecosystem into multiple proposals to better meet the requirements of each challenge. For this proposal focused on the platform we anticipate:

Platform UI/UX Design: $20k

• Staking Baskets data dashboard, deposit/withdraw window, decentralization slider, and Staking Basket list.

Platform Front-end: $35k

• Staking Baskets data dashboard w/ backend integration, deposit/withdraw window, and Staking Basket list.

Platform Back-end $35k

• Staking Baskets data dashboard integration with front-end, deposit/withdrawal transaction creation/submission, and pull in Staking Basket list from Cardano blockchain.

Smart contract Integration - $10k

• Staking Basket data on total deposits, total number of pool delegations, and total rewards. Transaction creation for staking Basket deposit/reward withdrawal. Transaction creation for Basket operator's rebalancing for new pools/deposits.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

Project Catalyst often takes risks with projects that haven’t started development, or haven’t shipped products to Cardano in their past.

Staking Baskets MVP has been completed and the full release is close to being shipped to mainnet by a team that has shipped multiple real products to Cardano. 

We hope this will lead to a Staking Ecosystem that brings millions of ADA in delegation to smaller pools to support Cardano’s decentralization.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept