Wolfram Marlowe Smart Contract Execution

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Jon Woodard

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

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Requested funds in ada

294857

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

7

[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)

Our solution puts real-time pricing data into a Marlowe smart contract and autonomously executes the internal logic. This workflow completes a round-trip financial contract without manual support.

[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.”

This project is dependent on the Wolfram Price Feed Infrastructure (Fund 11 proposal) because that's the infrastructure to retrieve real-time pricing for any smart contract. We do not foresee this preventing the completion of this project, but could further delay it without funding.

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

No

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

The workflow and real-time pricing database will be open source under an Apache open source license, but the harvester that delivers the real-time data to the financial contract use case in the workflow notebook will not be open-source.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

Example of the MVP: We have developed a prototype smart contract that allocates the gathered funds to specific wallets based on choices made by a designated Bridge address. The guide in Jupyter Notebook, available here, walks through the deployment and execution steps for the entire smart contract workflow.

Our prototype directly inputs values into the smart contract by the Bridge address. The primary objective of this proposal is to advance this prototype by integrating our Wolfram Price Feed Infrastructure into the smart contract. This enhancement aims to automate the data input process, demonstrating the utility of our service within the Cardano community.

Cardano's revolutionary approach to smart contracts through Marlowe holds immense potential, bringing programmable blockchain applications closer to financial experts by lowering technical barriers. However, a significant challenge has emerged with the current absence of a streamlined mechanism for echoing pair pricing data from centralized exchanges to Marlowe smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain. This gap impedes the efficient execution of smart contracts, limiting their ability to make informed decisions and execute internal logic based on up-to-date and accurate pricing information.

Real-time Data Integration:

The primary objective of this project is to seamlessly integrate pricing data from the Wolfram Price Feed Infrastructure into the Marlowe ecosystem. We aim to establish a systematic process that collects real-time pricing data and echoes it onto the pre-production testnet. This integration will be triggered in response to users' requests through smart contracts, ensuring that the pricing information is not only accurate but also readily available for the execution of Marlowe smart contracts.

Backend Implementation (Harvester):

To enhance the operational efficiency of a Marlowe based contract, we propose the development of a robust backend system. This system will serve as a backbone for pushing requested pricing data seamlessly to the corresponding smart contracts. Functioning as a choice function, the backend will facilitate the execution of internal logic within the smart contracts. This objective seeks to establish a dynamic and responsive link between the collected pricing data and the execution of Marlowe smart contracts, thereby fostering a more agile and efficient decentralized financial environment.

End-to-End Demonstration (Workflow):

A key aspect of this project involves showcasing the practical implications of the integrated system through an end-to-end demonstration. By focusing on a specific use case, such as the European covered call option, we aim to illustrate how the integration of pricing data significantly enhances the functionality of Marlowe smart contracts. Alongside the demonstration, we commit to providing the Cardano community with comprehensive documentation. This documentation ensure transparency in our approach and also serve as a valuable resource for users, facilitating the seamless adoption of this integrated system. Through this demonstration and documentation, we aim to empower users to fully grasp the capabilities of the enhanced Marlowe ecosystem and encourage widespread adoption within the Cardano community.

We can now expand the complexity of use cases which could potentially onboard the next set of institutional economic users.

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

By addressing the current limitations of a financial smart contract in accessing reliable pair pricing data and autonomously executing the internal logic, this integration will unlock latent potential of Cardano's financial applications.

A complete workflow, from financial derivatives to real-time pricing data and autonomously execution, is a basis for building even more DeFi applications. Developers can run our real-time database themselves, they can call our real time data api/backend or they can use the workflow and logic of the derivatives contract to expand their own. 

Quantitative measurements of impact are: 1) Pull requests from our github 2) API requests from our price feed and 3) the number of financial use cases we can build using this systematic workflow.

[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?

Wolfram Blockchain Labs (WBL) is a subsidiary of the 36-year-old Wolfram Research that is exclusively licensed with high-performance blockchain technologies and specifically designed to extend ecosystem tools for application development for distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). WBL often uses additional expertise in specialized areas from both Wolfram Research and Wolfram Technical Consulting teams.

Our capability to deliver the project with high levels of trust and accountability is grounded in several key factors:

• Track Record: Wolfram Blockchain Labs (WBL) has a proven track record in successfully completing substantial projects (Catalyst included), for which we have completed seven projects already. We've gone through the Milestone pilot in Fund 9 & 10 and the subsequent revision process, through two sets of proof-of-achievement processes and one of our projects was used as an example for good documentation (DADF - Fund 9). We understand the governance process and support the mission to improve and grow auditability of the Catalyst governance system.
• Experienced Team: Our team comprises professionals from diverse disciplines, including blockchain technology, finance and project management. Our multidisciplinary approach brings a comprehensive and holistic perspective to the project, ensuring that all aspects are addressed with a high level of expertise.
• All of seven completed projects across Fund 8 and Fund 9 have occurred within budget.

This experience relays our ability to meet project objectives, timelines, and budgetary constraints and deliver results. We believe we have been good stewards of the Catalyst process and are well-suited to deliver the project with high levels of trust and accountability.

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

Create Smart Contract in Plutus

1. Setup the Plutus environment for development
2. Design the Plutus smart contract
3. Define contract constraints to ensure a trust-less protocol for financial applications
4. Define contract payment mechanism
5. Define the refund mechanism
6. Develop the Plutus smart contract
7. Publish the Plutus smart contract

Create Harvester Service 

1. Review Marlowe transaction serialization process
2. Develop a Wolfram Language script to harvest UTXOs at the smart contract address
3. Connection to data provider service Wolfram Price Feed Infrastructure.
4. Develop a mechanism to submit a transaction that fulfills the data request
5. Notebook as a demonstration of the Harvester service

Test the Harvester Service using Marlowe

1. Define a User Contract in Marlowe
2. Review Marlowe block components
3. Define user constraints to interact with the service
4. Implementation of the Marlowe contract
5. Test the Marlowe project
6. Use a Jupyter notebook as a demonstration
7. Publish the Marlowe project
8. Documentation

Smart Contract Review/Audit

1. Review smart contract logic
2. List security improvements
3. Verify that the improvements have been implemented

N/A

Closes out Reporting

1. Video
2. Close out report

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

Jon Woodard, CEO

Jon Woodard is the CEO at Wolfram Blockchain Labs, where Jon coordinates the decentralized projects that connect the Wolfram Technology ecosystem to different DLT ecosystems. Previously at Wolfram Research Jon worked on projects at the direction of Wolfram Research CEO Stephen Wolfram and prior to that was a member of the team who worked on the monetization strategies and execution for Wolfram|Alpha. Jon has a background in economics and computational neuroscience. He enjoys cycling in his spare time.

Johan Veerman, CTO

Johan Veerman is General Manager at Wolfram Research South America and CTO at Wolfram Blockchain Labs. Previously he has been Science Advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Peru and Chief Scientist on two Antarctic expeditions. Johan's background is on physics and business management. He enjoys playing soccer and is a certified cave diver.

Steph Macurdy, Head of Research and Education

Steph Macurdy has a background in economics, with a focus on complex systems. He attended the Real World Risk Institute in 2019, lead by Nassim Taleb, and has been investing in the crypto asset space since 2015. He previously worked for Tesla as an energy advisor and Cambridge Associates as an investment analyst. Steph is a youth soccer coach in the Philadelphia area and is interested in permaculture.

Gabriela Guerra Galan, Project Manager

Gabriela Guerra Galan: Gabriela has 15+ years of experience leading projects. She is a certified PMP and Product Owner with bachelor's degree in Mechatronical Engineering, complemented by a master's degree in Automotive Engineering. As the co-founder of Bloinx, a startup that secured funding from the UNICEF Innovation Fund, she has demonstrated a passion for driving innovation and social impact.

Daniel Suarez, Manager Blockchain Integrations

Daniel Suarez: Daniel is a Manager at Wolfram Research. He is in charge of the software architecture as manager of the blockchain project, and has been with the company for seven years. Daniel has a background in electronic engineering, focusing on Digital Signal Processing and Parallel Computing. Previously, he has experience as a radar software engineer at Jicamarca Radio Observatory. He enjoys playing drums.

Piero Sanchez, Lead Developer

Piero Sanchez: Piero is Lead Developer of Blockchain Integrations at Wolfram Blockchain Labs/Wolfram Research South America. Piero has been with the company for five years, and he is in charge of integrating and maintaining new blockchain technologies with the Wolfram Language, as well as helping other team members with technical tasks. He has a background in experimental physics and quantum optics and has worked in the blockchain group since it started. In his free time, he likes to play video games and board games.

Alec Macher, Developer

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

1. Create Smart contract in Plutus - (₳81,125)
2. Setup the Plutus environment for development
3. Design the Plutus smart contract
4. Develop the Plutus smart contract
5. Publish the Plutus smart contract
6. Create Harvester Service - (₳104,006)
7. Review Marlowe transaction serialization process
8. Develop a Wolfram Language script to harvest UTXOs at the smart contract address
9. Connection to data provider service Wolfram Price Feed Infrastructure.
10. Develop a mechanism to submit a transaction that fulfills the data request
11. Notebook as a demonstration of the Harvester service
12. Test the Harvester service using Marlowe - (₳62,404)
13. Define a User Contract in Marlowe
14. Test the Marlowe project
15. Publish the Marlowe project
16. Smart Contract Review/Audit - (₳39,002)
17. Review smart contract logic
18. List security improvements
19. Verify that the improvements have been implemented
20. Close out Reporting - (₳8,320)
21. Video
22. Close out report

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

In our project, we are developing a minimum viable product (MVP) for a financial derivative workflow within the Cardano DeFi ecosystem, leveraging real-time data and autonomous smart contract execution. The costs are aligned with the requirements of this venture. This MVP promises worthwhile value for the money by laying the groundwork for a versatile range of applications, from expanding financial derivatives to integrating weather data and prediction markets. The scalability and potential of this project to attract a broader user base and developers to Cardano, coupled with its capacity to serve as a foundational technology for future DeFi applications, significantly outweigh the initial investment. Our approach ensures that the project stands as a cost-effective, high-value proposition in the rapidly evolving landscape of blockchain technology and DeFi applications.

[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