BankFi: Asset-Backed Launches Enabling Project Longevity

[Proposal setup] Proposal title

Please provide your proposal title

BankFi: Asset-Backed Launches Enabling Project Longevity

[Proposal Summary] Budget Information

Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA

330000

[Proposal Summary] Time

Please specify how many months you expect your project to last

8

[Proposal Summary] Translation Information

Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated

No

Original Language

en

[Proposal Summary] Problem Statement

What is the problem you want to solve?

The current standard for a company crowdfunding their projects on Cardano is unsustainable and exposes both company founders and Cardano community members to unnecessary roadblocks and risks.

[Proposal Summary] Supporting Documentation

Supporting links

• https://www.bankerlabs.io
,
• https://blockchain.yepple.io/contributions

[Proposal Summary] Project Dependencies

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

No

Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'

No dependencies

[Proposal Summary] Project Open Source

Will your project's outputs be fully open source?

No

License and Additional Information

This is a proprietary product designed to stimulate project success on Cardano. It utilizes several existing proprietary aspects. As a competitive product offering a significant value proposition to companies building on Cardano, it is intended to generate revenue for BankerLabs after the first year of Cardano Treasury contributions (details about Cardano Treasury contributions can be found in the Solution).

[Theme Selection] Theme

Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal

Yield

[Campaign Category] Category Questions

Describe your established collaborations.

IBMM (aka Neo Vikings) - A major mining operation

• We have partnered with IBMM for BTC mining at scale to enable our most funded BankFi asset vertical with more than $1,000,000 in purchases

World Mobile

• We are a top Global Distribution Partner, with more than $400,000 in purchases

Angel Finance

• Acquired equity stake

Smart Choice - Billion dollar insurance network

• Access to physical locations in over 44 states for future BankFi verticals

Yepple - A premier Cardano development firm

• We acquired Yepple, giving us a development team that can ensure longevity in our products

Describe funding commitments.

The collaborations we have in place support the viability of our goals, enabling us to scale our revenue generation up to and beyond the point that this proposal would be impactful to Cardano. The collaborations do not require any funding from this proposal; if this proposal is accepted, companies launching through this new mechanism will have the option to select one or more of the revenue-generating BankFi asset verticals and associated collaborators with which they wish to engage.

Describe your key performance metrics.

Primary KPIs are the amount of funding raised through the platform and the amount of rewards distributed. These directly correspond to the financial viability of the project as well as its monetary benefits to Cardano. Secondary KPIs are unique users and total transaction count, demonstrating adoption independent from market health.

Assets Under Management: $1,500,000+ USD

Rewards Distributed: 486,900+ ADA

Monthly Users (BankFi only): 2,983 (screenshot provided)

Lifetime Transaction Count (BankFi + Yepple): 100,000 - 300,000 (was not always tracked)

[Your Project and Solution] Solution

Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem

Pillar - The Foundation of Lasting Success

Currently, companies launching on Cardano have two main points of friction. The first is sales commission fees, which take away from the capital the investors chose to place in the hands of the company. The second is a lack of access to yield-bearing financial resources. Opening a bank account, let alone gaining access to a business savings account with meaningful interest, is near impossible for Cardano (and, in general, Web3) companies. Because Cardano users have an expectation of products being built after an initial sale, this leaves projects in a situation where they must raise long-term funding without access to financial tools that would maximize the effectiveness of those funds.

Our proposal elevates project sustainability and empowers investors of both Cardano fungible tokens and NFTs. Backed by the infrastructure and scale of the existing BankFi platform, companies on Cardano will be able to launch their fungible tokens and NFTs through our BankFi dashboard. When launching a sale, they are able to elect a percentage of the net sale revenue (between 50% and 100%, inclusive) that they would like to have placed in BankFi asset verticals. Further, they may pick the allocation they would like to designate for each of the diversified BankFi asset verticals (e.g. BTC Mining or World Mobile).

As the sale progresses, at the time of each purchase transaction, the selected percentage of the net payment amount will be directed into the BankFi asset vertical while the remainder is sent directly to the project. This allows the company to retain liquid funds for short-term use (e.g. 6-12 months) while keeping the rest in BankFi as a long-term revenue generation mechanism to support perpetual progress and growth as a project. We have seen countless projects on Cardano fall short of their goals, but it is rarely due to malicious intentions – much more often, it is due to the inability to deliver using the initial runway due to their lack of access to opportunities to capitalize on those funds while building their product.

As the minting provider, we do not take a commission from the sale revenue. 100% of net revenue (after blockchain fees) goes to a combination of the BankFi asset vertical and the company running the sale. How is this feasible for us? It’s simple – we never touch the raised capital from the sale, but we do retain a share of the revenue generated by the BankFi assets. This aligns our success with the success of all projects that we launch on Cardano, ensuring integrity and dedication for our BankFi verticals. To ensure full transparency, a small upfront charge of 500 - 2,500 ADA may be required on a case-by-case basis depending on the needs of the client; however, we expect this to be negligible when compared to the current commissions that are extracted during Cardano sales.

So far, this proposal has explained a solution for projects that are committed to building and could benefit from additional revenue opportunities. However, there is another occurrence that we have seen on Cardano. Although it is less common, it is far more damaging – founders that mislead and/or abandon their community (i.e. “rug”). Rather than allowing a malicious founder to benefit from long-term revenue generated as a result of their company’s sale, we propose a user-facing capability that allows the investors of a project to reclaim the underlying BankFi assets from the project owner through an act of governance. This governance mechanism functions by allowing holders of a collection to record their tally, at any time, that the project is either malicious or no longer viable. Once a total of ⅔ (66.67%) of all voting power have recorded their tally, the underlying BankFi assets are distributed to the holders. There are a few caveats and points of clarification to protect both projects and investors:

• A tally from an investor expires after 3 months; this prevents stale tallies from affecting the project after pivots or new successes
• Once the 66.67% threshold is reached, BankerLabs will follow a transparent protocol to determine if the vote was based on mistaken assumptions or misinformation; if it is found that the voters did not have access to critical information regarding the project prior to the vote, BankerLabs may reset the vote as permitted by the protocol
• Projects will be exempt from having investments reclaimed for the first 3-6 months (as it contextually applies to what they are building) to ensure that they have an opportunity to deliver prior to being exposed to fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Another clearly defined protocol will determine if BankerLabs shall waive this 3-6 month window of protection and enable holders to place their tallies in cases of clear malicious behavior from the founder(s)

Putting together asset-backed sales and holder governance to reclaim the assets when appropriate, we will have a system in which honest founders have a financial tool for sustainable building and dishonest founders are able to be throttled by a supermajority investor vote reclaiming their source of funding. This will add confidence for investors (knowing they can reclaim an average of 50-100% of their original investment value depending on what the project selected), increase project viability in any sector including DeFi, gaming, and real-world applications, and amplify the demand and adoption for Cardano as we continue to make new users aware of the financial opportunities within BankFi and funnel all revenue from external sources back into ADA.

As a demonstration of our commitment to long-term success and sustainability, we will concede two different things for the betterment of Cardano:

• For the first year of operation (started only upon the first launch of a sale after proposal completion), we will waive the potential 500 - 2,500 ADA upfront cost required to launch a sale. This is intended to lower the barrier to entry for new projects and increase the amount of builders within the space
• For the first year of operation (started only upon the first launch of a sale after proposal completion), 100% of the gross revenue generated by the BankerLabs team through the Pillar sales platform will be donated to the Cardano Treasury. This is our token of appreciation for the support of the Cardano community and a demonstration that we are truly here for the long-term betterment of Cardano

[Your Project and Solution] Impact

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

There are 4 core beneficial impacts to Cardano as a result of this proposal’s deployment.

1. Project viability and sustainability, particularly for well-funded projects, is drastically increased due to the ability to passively yield perpetual revenue. Almost all projects launching on Cardano go through a cycle of Raise Funds => Deplete Funds => Ask the community for more funds. Each time this cycle is repeated, original investors are diluted and the community is less and less likely to support the continuance of the project. With this new model, after the Raise Funds stage is a new cycle of Generate Passive Revenue => Deliver Value => Increase Project Adoption.
2. Consumer protection for both NFT and fungible token sales. Regardless of whether a company is well-intentioned or not, the fact is that Web3 attracts many startups. According to several studies, including ones conducted by Harvard as well as the consensus of accelerators such as ycombinator, 75-95% of funded startups fail (with failure typically referred to as failing to remain operational for 2-10 years). We have witnessed this first hand with countless companies on Cardano who raised hundreds of thousands, and some in the millions, who ended up losing all of the assets that were entrusted to them. While no investment is ever 100% safe, this proposal opens the door to an unprecedented level of consumer protection through the ability of the investors to reach consensus and reclaim a majority portion of their original investment. This safety will boost investor confidence, which creates an additional positive feedback loop of better funding for projects and more successful long-term operations.
3. BankFi verticals create both short-term and long-term demand for ADA. Some verticals, such as our World Mobile vertical, directly support projects building on Cardano, which ultimately leads to greater adoption and success of Cardano and ADA. Other verticals, such as BTC mining, are a long-term funnel of funds from external cryptocurrencies to ADA. All revenue generated from these BankFi asset verticals are converted from their currency (in this case, BTC) into ADA to be distributed to the project and users.
4. As mentioned above in the Solution, we are waiving all upfront sale costs as well as donating 100% of all revenue generated as a result of the proposal to the Cardano Treasury for the first 12 months of operation. To ensure the Cardano Treasury receives a fair and complete contribution, this 12 month period will not be considered as started until the day that we successfully launch a sale for a client after the completion of this proposal. With modest success, this means that this proposal should pay back at least 50% of the total cost within the first year. With the level of success we are targeting, this proposal would be completely paid back by the revenue it generates, giving Cardano projects a powerful tool for success at no cost to the Cardano Treasury.

To clarify the math around point (4)’s Cardano Treasury donations, here is an example. Assume that we support companies on Cardano raising a total of $12 million USD in funds within the first year of operation, which is in fact lower than our target KPI for funds raised. For the sake of simplicity, assume that this money is raised evenly throughout the year, so $1 million USD each month. Also assume that the average BankFi asset vertical APR is 35% (slightly lower than we have yielded for the past quarter), projects choose 75% of their raise as the amount they would like to commit to the BankFi asset verticals, and the revenue share for the Cardano Treasury is 10%. With these realistic values in place, we see $1.3 million USD in additional capital generated for Cardano companies as well as more than $144,000 USD donated to the Cardano Treasury. This is all within the first year alone.

[Your Project and Solution] Capabilities & 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?

There are two primary roadblocks to maximizing the adoption and success of this proposal. The first is business management acumen, particularly the skills to manage large amounts of funds, oversee operations, and form valuable partnerships. The second is the technical deliverable, which requires a high level of reliability for the user experience, transaction processing, investor governance, and revenue distribution mechanisms.

This first roadblock is handled by the competency of the BankerLabs team. The two leaders of the team, Andrew Caldwell and Stephen Caldwell, are both executives at Smart Choice. Smart Choice is an insurance network valued at more than $1 billion USD, with more than 300 employees operating in 44 states across the US. They have utilized $170 million USD for acquisitions of smaller companies in the last 24 months alone. They process more than $300 million USD in insurance commission annually for more than 10,000 insurance agents. Andrew Caldwell is the President/CEO, responsible for effective decisions on company direction, acquisitions, and every other aspect of scaling their business. Stephen Caldwell is the Director of Financial Analysis, ensuring all funds flowing through the company are properly accounted for. He ensures proper oversight for all financial operations at the company, which far exceeds the magnitude of almost every project launched on Cardano. They have the capability to scale the platform, form impactful business relationships that maximize asset revenue generation while furthering the adoption of Cardano, and manage the BankFi asset vertical funds in a way that is transparent, optimized, diversified, and compliant.

The technical roadblock is competently handled by Yepple, a dedicated development team that has been operating exclusively on Cardano for more than 4 years. Of all the solutions Yepple has deployed on Cardano (token generation, airdrops, metadata updates, staking, NFT customizers, storefronts, custom dApps, etc.), sales for NFTs and tokens have always been their flagship solution and represent the highest level of quality and innovation. After facilitating sales for Metera, Angel Finance, Nike, Titans, BankerLabs, Walkers, Inmates, Ape Nation, Salty Seagulls, Fren, Neo Vikings, BeezHive, Sports Alpha Club, and of course many more, and processing 10s of millions of ADA in volume without any funds being handled improperly, their track record speaks for itself when it comes to security and reliability.

The capability of this proposal has already been proven through the existing products of BankerLabs and Yepple. Namely, BankFi is an existing platform on the Cardano mainnet that has more than $1.5 million USD in assets under management and has already distributed more than 486,000 ADA to investors. It also has full support for holder-based governance that has been utilized for many votes within the BankerLabs community. Additionally, Yepple’s NFT and token sale platform has been utilized consistently for over 4 years for hundreds of projects with great success. This proposal takes these two existing, successful mainnet products and provides an integration that creates a new value proposition for companies, users, and Cardano itself.

[Milestones] Project Milestones

Milestone Title

Technical Design & Protocol Documentation

Milestone Outputs

A product whitepaper detailing all public-facing mechanisms of the protocol, namely the sale process for NFTs and token sales, the process and considerations pertaining to the conversion of a user purchase to a project investment, and the process and considerations pertaining to the governance action available to holders to reclaim their BankFi asset share. Additionally, a step-by-step protocol instruction document detailing the actions the BankerLabs team follows in the following circumstances:

• After a governance action to reclaim investment shares has passed, BankerLabs will determine if the vote was based on mistaken assumptions or misinformation (if yes, the vote will be reset following the protocol)
• Upon request for a review of a project that is expected to have behaved maliciously, BankerLabs will determine if there is sufficient evidence of this malicious behavior (if yes, the 3-6 month governance protection that each project receives at launch will be waived)

Acceptance Criteria

The documentation provides a clear understanding of the core protocol concepts as described in the Outputs for this milestone. Protocol documentation followed by the BankerLabs team in the aforementioned circumstances is as objective and unambiguous as possible given the context.

Evidence of Completion

PDF documents containing all Outputs in this milestone are publicly available through the primary community channels of BankerLabs – the BankFi website and the BankerLabs Discord server. Documents are available upon request by any individual or entity.

Delivery Month

1

Cost

24000

Progress

10 %

Milestone Title

Project Dashboard - Investment Selection & Sale Overview

Milestone Outputs

Both a video demonstration and a publicly available demo URL showcasing the dashboard that a company/project utilizes to manage and view their sale. Includes a responsive website design with API & database implementations supporting the demonstrated functionality.

Acceptance Criteria

Both a video demonstration and a publicly available demo URL are provided. The dashboard shows the following live data: ADA raised, ADA invested, ADA distributed to client, tokens/NFTs sold, sale phase timeline (if applicable), client revenue address, total BankFi asset allocation percentage. The dashboard allows management of the percent allocations for each BankFi asset vertical available.

Evidence of Completion

A video demonstration and a publicly available demo URL are provided to Catalyst. The visual interface shows all data detailed in the Acceptance Criteria. The interface allows the user to input the percent allocations for the available BankFi asset verticals.

Delivery Month

2

Cost

48300

Progress

20 %

Milestone Title

Sale Investment Integration

Milestone Outputs

Both a video demonstration and a Pre-Prod Testnet demo URL showcasing an NFT sale through BankFi. Includes a responsive website design with CIP-30 wallet connect and transaction building, as well as integrations for the API, database, and Cardano transaction processor supporting the demonstrated functionality.

Acceptance Criteria

The sale page allows the user to select an NFT quantity and then send in payment for the NFT(s) utilizing CIP-30 wallet connection. The purchasing wallet receives the corresponding NFTs in their wallet. The project dashboard developed in Milestone 2 shows the updated sale data in real-time as each transaction is processed. All ADA is processed and transferred according to the protocol definition in Milestone 1. The project owner is able to view their share of BankFi assets for each BankFi asset Vertical they have selected for their sale.

Evidence of Completion

A video demonstration and a publicly available demo URL are provided to Catalyst. The visual interface shows all data detailed in the Acceptance Criteria. The Pre-Prod Testnet transactions corresponding to the NFT minting are viewable on-chain.

Delivery Month

5

Cost

93600

Progress

70 %

Milestone Title

Holder Governance

Milestone Outputs

Both a video demonstration and a Pre-Prod Testnet demo URL showcasing the ability of a holder to participate in a governance action on whether or not BankFi assets should be reclaimed from the project and returned to the holders. API & database implementations supporting the demonstrated functionality.

Acceptance Criteria

The governance page allows a user to vote in favor of the governance action. The governance page allows a user to revoke their vote in favor of the governance action. The governance page displays the total vote weight, which is equal to the total NFT/token supply held by users who have voted in favor of the governance action divided by the total eligible NFT/token supply. The governance page displays the user’s personal vote weight, which is the total NFT/token supply held by the user within the project’s policy ID. The governance page properly reflects changes to a user’s on-chain holdings within a reasonable time frame (1 hour maximum).

Evidence of Completion

A video demonstration and a publicly available demo URL are provided to Catalyst. The visual interface shows all data detailed in the Acceptance Criteria. The interactions detailed in the Acceptance Criteria are possible and reflect the Pre-Prod Testnet data accurately.

Delivery Month

6

Cost

57300

Progress

80 %

Milestone Title

Revenue Share Reclaiming

Milestone Outputs

A video demonstration showcasing the effects of the holders of a project passing a governance action to reclaim BankFi assets from the project. API & database implementations supporting the demonstrated functionality.

Acceptance Criteria

The project dashboard displays to the project owner that the BankFi asset shares have been reclaimed via a governance action. The project’s account displays the current BankFi assets for the sale as zero. Eligible holders of the NFT/token, based on the defined protocol in Milestone 1, receive their proportional share of the BankFi assets that were reclaimed from the project due to the governance action.

Evidence of Completion

A video demonstration is provided to Catalyst. The visual interface shows all data detailed in the Acceptance Criteria.

Delivery Month

7

Cost

57300

Progress

90 %

Milestone Title

Promotion, Financial Projections, Close-Out Report & Video

Milestone Outputs

A minimum of 5 cumulative hours of X Spaces hosted by BankerLabs with the intent of showcasing the results of this proposal. Infographics and other marketing content showcasing how this new feature operates and what the benefits are for companies and individuals on Cardano. Financial projections for expected Cardano Treasury donations based on market activity and expected demand. Comprehensive Project Close-Out Report and Close-Out Video as defined by Project Catalyst.

Acceptance Criteria

The report and video must comprehensively cover all aspects of the project, demonstrating the successful deployment of all milestones. The financial projections must be backed by tangible and relevant data. The promotional material must be aligned with the proposal.

Evidence of Completion

Final project close-out report and a video link shared with the community through Discord, social media, and potentially additional locations if requested by Project Catalyst. The financial projections are available via a Google Sheets URL shared through Discord and social media. The @BankerLabs X account has a history of a minimum of 5 cumulative hours of Spaces hosted by them with a title relevant to this proposal.

Delivery Month

8

Cost

49500

Progress

100 %

[Final Pitch] Budget & Costs

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Server hosting, webserver hosting, database hosting, legal/compliance, accounting, crypto price APIs, IPFS storage, internal software for processes and project management (e.g. Jira, Google Workspace), and many other overhead factors, with a budget of $3,000 - $5,000 per month, are covered by existing project operations and can be shared by the features in this proposal with no funding allocated to them.

Development (8 months) - $166,000

• $93,000 for senior software engineer development (critical components such as governance and blockchain/monetary interactions)
• $63,000 for non-senior software engineer development (non-critical components such as UI/UX implementation)
• $6,000 for development documentation to ensure scalability and robustness
• $4,000 for DevOps to ensure optimal server operation and product availability

Project Management (8 months) - $60,000

• $36,000 for internal project management of the proposal to ensure timelines, functionality, and quality are upheld
• $24,000 for external project management to onboard projects, provide support to clients and users, and target new opportunities for the platform

Marketing/Promotion/Graphic Design/Video Editing (8 months) - $38,000

• $24,000 for social media management and promotion
• $8,000 for graphic design related to marketing and promotion
• $6,000 for video editing related to project updates, marketing, and promotion

Total: $264,000

[Final Pitch] Value for Money

How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?

The value being produced by this proposal is both tangible and intangible. The intangible portions are projects on Cardano having a higher potential for success and an increased confidence in NFT and token investors. The tangible portions are the funds raised by projects through our sales platform, the total revenue generated as a result of raised funds that were allocated to BankFi asset verticals, total transaction count, and the total amount of funds donated to the Cardano Treasury.

While the intangible benefits are great for the Cardano ecosystem, they are harder to quantify and thus we won’t even consider them for this section. The tangible value, however, is much easier to measure.

We are targeting an average of $1.25 million USD per month being raised by projects through our sales platform. While nothing is guaranteed, a reasonable estimate for average APR across BankFi asset verticals is 35% as that is slightly less than the historic rate since launch. Assuming projects select 75% as the amount of funds they would like to commit to BankFi assets (the median of the allowed 50-100% range), and assuming that the fee for the platform is a 10% share of all revenue generated from the BankFi assets, we would generate over $180,000 USD for the Cardano Treasury in the first year. If we are able to help projects raise an average of $1.6 million USD per month with the other metrics staying the same, we see a return of $231,000 for the Cardano Treasury in the first year. With the current price of ADA being approximately $0.70 USD at the time of writing this proposal, that would be enough to pay back 100% of this proposal’s budget to the Cardano Treasury.

Beyond what is being given back to the Cardano Treasury, using the $1.25 million USD per month metric above we would see more than $1.6 million USD revenue generated for projects through the BankFi assets without extracting any of the initial capital. This is $1.6 million USD in additional buying pressure for ADA coming from BankFi assets like BTC miners – any that is only the first year.

With these targets, we intend to inject 7-8x the value of this proposal back into the Cardano ecosystem within the first year of operation. Each year after that increases exponentially as new sales come in and previous ones continue earning passive revenue. Keeping the same rate of sales each month, after 5 years we will have injected over $48 million USD into the Cardano ecosystem.

As an established platform, we are not asking for any complementary fees for server/website hosting, database maintenance, legal or financial council, or any other overhead costs associated with building the project. We are only asking for the bare minimum costs, which include the development, project management, and a portion of marketing focused directly on this product.

[Required Acknowledgements] Consent & Confirmation

Terms and Conditions:

Yes