Maya Protocol - Supercharge Cardano with decentralized native cross-chain swaps

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Maestro Team

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Incorporated)

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

6

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

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

Upgrade Maya Protocol to integrate Cardano and unlock permissionless cross-chain swaps. Trade native BTC, ETH, USDC, and other EVM tokens FROM Cardano. No KYC, No wrapped assets.

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

No

[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.”

No Dependencies

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

Maya Protocol is already fully open source. All work that will be done to integrate Cardano will also be open source. Everyone is free to contribute to the Maya Protocol code and fork it.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

Maya Protocol is a decentralised and permissonless cross-chain liquidity protocol, launched in March 2023. Maya Protocol allows users to swap between unwrapped, native assets. Maya is a friendly fork of THORChain. It means that Maya is backwards compatible with THORChain and shares most of its code. Maya has some new features such as Liquidity nodes, an upcoming smart contract chain (Aztec) and support for different chains. Read more about Maya here: https://docs.mayaprotocol.com/

Supported Chains

At the moment, Maya Protocol supports native Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH, USDT, USDC & wstETH), THORChain (RUNE), Dash (DASH) and Kujira (KUJI & USK). In the following weeks, it will also support Arbitrum, and after that, Cardano integration will follow. More chains will follow later on…

Then there is the concept of dex aggregation. Support for DEX aggregation will make it possible to leverage the liquidity of other DEX’s and AMMs. For example, Uniswap, 1inch, Fin & eventually any Cardano DEX. In practice, this means that a user can swap from $BTC to all tokens on Uniswap or on Cardano, in one single swap transaction.

The THORChain integration opens up doors for THORChain dex aggregation. Users will be able to swap from assets supported by Maya Protocol to assets supported by THORChain and vice versa in one single swap. THORChain currently supports: Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Binance Beacon Chain (BNB), Avalanche (AVAX), Cosmos (ATOM), and Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Users will be able to swap from any Cardano Native Asset to any asset on Avalanche for instance. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEqHk12eHUA&t=97s

Cardano

Why integrate Cardano? Although Cardano is a large and growing eco blockchain, its DeFi ecosystem is still very isolated from most other blockchains. By bringing native cross-chain swaps between ADA and large market cap tokens like BTC, ETH, and USDC, Maya Protocol will unlock interoperability to many other blockchains and make ADA much more accessible and tradable in a decentralised way. Furthermore, Dex aggregation will enable any Cardano native asset to be traded from DEXes integrated with Maya or THORChain, leading to an injection of new capital from other chains.

Maya Protocol is permissionless backend, therefore any frontend DEX can integrate Maya’s cross-chain swaps, and even earn money with it by charging affiliate (frontend) fees. Maya Protocol’s cross-chain swaps are already available in the following DEX/Wallet interfaces: THORWallet, Rango Exchange, El Dorado, THORSwap, Shapeshift, and more. As a result, users will be able to swap to any Cardano asset from these respective interfaces. 

Liquidity

Liquidity is one of the most important parts of the protocol. More liquidity means deeper pools. Deeper pools result in less slippage and thus lower fees and greater output. Liquidity can be provided by pairing $ADA with $CACAO (symmetrical deposit). In exchange, the liquidity provider will earn liquidity fees. It’s also possible to provide $ADA asymmetrically (half of the provided asset will automatically be swapped to the other side). Then there are Savers. Savers are similar to staking, but allows users to single-side LP their $ADA with no exposure to $CACAO. The yield on Savers is lower than for dual LP’s. Down the line of pooled $ADA will be staked, and staking rewards redistributed to liquidity providers, offering further incentives to provide ADA liquidity.

Cardano Integration

For this integration the Maya Team will partner with Maestro and one reputable development company (e.g. Anastasia Labs, Mlabs, BlinkLabs) for their Cardano expertise. As one of the leading infrastructure providers on Cardano, Maestro has a proven track record in deploying and managing core Cardano infrastructure services reliably at scale. In order to integrate Cardano into Maya Protocol the Go implementation of TSS, Bitfrösts, Vaults & Churns must be upgraded to support EdDSA compatibility.

If you like to read more about Maya Protocol, check out their docs and website:

https://www.mayaprotocol.com/

https://docs.mayaprotocol.com/

Socials:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Maya_Protocol

Discord: https://discord.gg/qXDVjm3xtC 

Telegram: https://t.me/MayaProtocolOfficial

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community.

The Cardano integration into Maya Protocol will bring several positive benefits to Cardano: 

• Fully Open Source - Everyone is free to contribute to the Maya Protocol or fork it
• Native Cross-chain Swap - Swap natively between BTC, ETH, USDC, USDT, RUNE, DASH, KUJI, BCH, LTC, DOGE, BNB, AVAX, ATOM, BSC, and more.
• Secure Protocol - battle-tested codebase with billions of dollars traded across THORChain and Maya Protocol
• Secure Native asset trading - no wrapped assets, trade native L1 assets
• No KYC - CEX trading experience but with no KYC, 
• High LP yield - LP rewards tend to be larger compared to regular DEXs
• Single sided yield - Saver rewards allow users to earn yield without impermanent loss
• New capital influx - Potentially bringing 100s Millions in liquidity into Cardano
• DEX aggregation - Swap any ERC20 token from ADA and vice versa.

The following KPI’s will be visible on the Maya block explorer:

• Number of swaps involving $ADA
• Volume of swaps involving $ADA
• Swaps to $ADA
• Number of unique users swapping to $ADA
• $ADA provided in liquidity pools
• Number or LP’ers in the ADA pool

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

Maya Protocol core team

The Maya Protocol has been working since 2021 on successfully forking THORChain. Although the codebase is very complex, the team still managed to complete it and launch Maya Protocol in March of this year. Since then, the Maya team has been working on adding new features such as a Liquidity Auction, Liquidity Nodes, a dual token system and new chain integrations (Dash and Kujira blockchain).

https://www.mayaprotocol.com/

Maestro

Maestro is one of the leading infrastructure providers on Cardano, and has a proven track record in deploying and managing core Cardano infrastructure services reliably at scale. Their Dapp Development Platform offers the most complete Web3 stack for Cardano with services such as: Blockchain APIs, Transaction manager, Turbo transactions, Market data feed, Plug-and-play contracts, and Wallet manager.

https://www.gomaestro.org/

[Project Milestones] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Modify Maya’s Go implementation of TSS, Bitfrösts, Vaults & Churns to be EdDSA compatible. 

Maya Protocol (and THORChain) has so far only integrated ECDSA chains. Refactors need to be done in order to comply with all requirements to sign EdDSA signatures in Maya’s TSS code and all relevant files.

Acceptance criteria: Successfully merged the EdDSA changes into the MAYANode code.

 

Implementation of the Bitfröst service for Cardano. 

Bitfröst is a service that wraps around each chain and watches vault addresses for inbound transactions. Each observed transaction is then processed into a Maya witness transaction. Once a super-majority of nodes reach consensus, the transaction state is finalized.

Acceptance criteria: Successfully merged the Cardano Bitfröst in the MAYANode code.

Full audit of code modified for the Cardano integration.

Acceptance criteria: Successfully undergo an audit, and address all errors/bugs/improvements if needed.

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Maestro Labs team:

Product Manager

• Marvin Bertin Co-founder and CEO at Maestro
• Responsible for product management, coordination between teams and delivery

Developers:

• Varderes Barsegyan: Co-founder and CTO at Maestro
• Responsible for deploying Cardano fullnode into Maya’s Kubernetes cluster
• Responsible for overseeing technical milestones and managing devOps a Maya node with first ADA bonded liquidity

Maya Protocol team:

The Maya Protocol team is anonymous and uses aliases.

Business development:

• Aaluxx Myth: Co-Founder and Strategic Lead.
• Responsible for Partnerships.
• GiMa: Business Development Lead.
• Responsible for Partnerships and comms.

Developers:

• Itzamna: Co-Founder and Lead Development. 
• Responsible for Cardano Bitfröst development & TSS modifications.
• Kukulkan: Dev & Node ops.
• Responsible for Cardano fullnode in Kubernetes.
• Bitol: Full stack blockchain ops.
• Responsible for Cardano Bitfröst development.
• Maximon: Full stack blockchain ops.
• Responsible for Cardano Bitfröst development.
• Hunahpu: Full stack blockchain ops.
• Responsible for Cardano Dex aggregation development.

Marketing:

• Akna: Head of Marketing.
• Responsible for Marketing.

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

Milestone 1:

Modify Maya’s Go implementation of TSS, Bitfrösts, Vaults & Churns to be EdDSA compatible.

$70/hr x 2 devs x 6 weeks x 40hr/week = $28,000

Milestone 2:

Implementation of the Bitfröst service for Cardano. 

$70/hr x 2 devs x 4 weeks x 40hr/week = $22,400 

Milestone 3:

Full audit of code modified for the Cardano integration.

$70/hr x 2 devs x 3 weeks x 40hr/week = $16,800

Development Cost ($) = $67,200

Development Cost ($0.37/ADA) = 180,000 ADA

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

Firstly this project is fully Open Source for anyone to benefit. Second, this proposal will connect Cardano to both Maya Protocol and by association THORChain, enabling ADA native swaps between all tokens traded on Maya and THORChain. 

Maya Protocol and THORChain are massive and battle tested cross-chain liquidity protocols with $100s Million in TVL and Trade Volume.

Each new chain added to their protocol leads to significant increase in cross-chain swap volume, bringing large amounts of liquidity to the added chain via decentralized and permissionless interoperability. 

Maya Protocol (www.mayascan.org/pools)

• TVL: $51 Million (+59% 30-day growth)
• Total Volume (30-days): $101 Million
• Total Transactions (30-days): 66,330 transactions

THORChain (thorchain.net/pools)

• TVL: $1.3 Billion
• Total Volume (30-days): $4.5 Billion
• Total Transactions (30-days): 2.6 Million transactions

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agrees to Fund 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