Adulis Digital Asset Exchange

Building a centralized exchange that allows people to trade different cryptocurrencies, including Cardano, with their local currency.

I have experience in building trading engines. I am also active in the crypto community here in Ethiopia since I was a freshman in college. I have developed apps on Solana but now looking to expand on Cardano. I recently developed a P2P crypto exchange group locally on telegram.

[IMPACT]

Create a virtual off-chain / on-chain stablecoin based off of local currencies to facilitate trade. Finally, provide liquidity for ADA and other digital assets on a centralized exchange.

Once the project is complete, the product will be marketed directly in P2P trader communities. Different retail traders and businesses can use the service to act as liquidity providers and market makers in the ADA markets easily.

We are foreseeing challenges particularly coming from finding licenses in operating locally. Regulation and policies are unclear regarding transactions related to Cryptos with local currencies. My strategy to mitigate the risks of stepping in the path of governments and traditional institutions is to first focus the project only within the P2P Crypto community and once I get enough traction on volume I would push the project out towards officials for licensing.

Since our team is also based in Ethiopia, we will be focused on building the exchange and marketing it here first in an environment we're accustomed to.

[FEASIBILITY]

First step is to build a full-fledged exchange with ETB wallet integrated. Then next is to create a virtual off-chain/ on-chain ETB stablecoin to facilitate trades. After that, integrating the ADA/ETB Market pair and providing proper liquidity with our current exchange. These can be done in a 3 month time period.

After that, licensing and market testing will be rolled out at the same time. Onboarding users from our community by educating them on how to use the exchange to get access to ADA and other cryptos easily. Similarly we'll market it to users across the world to help provide liquidity on our platform. This will also take around 4 months to drive enough momentum and volume from the market on our exchange.

After a while, we shall rebuild our APIs and backend infrastructure for further optimization and improvement. This might possibly take around 4 months tops.

Most of the Cardano received from this funding is allocated for liquidity and market making provision on the exchange. Around 160000 USD worth of ADA will go on to provide liquidity on ADA/ETB pair. The rest of the money which is around 40000 USD worth of ADA is allocated for renting working spaces, licensing costs and employee salaries.

Our team is currently comprised of three people.

Iyakem Estifanos is a Computer Science graduate from UCLA. He has experience in full-stack development (with emphasis on frontend) and programming in general. He is also highly interested in Business and Management; he has taken multiple classes in this area and also worked in business startup firms in Ethiopia as a Business Developer. Iyakem has also majored in Linguistics (alongside Computer Science), making him adept in both Engineering and Social Sciences.

Tomas Tsega on the other hand is Applied Mathematics and Economics graduate from University of Washington. He has skills in quantitative finance, programming, and development in general. He has been involved in Crypto since 2013, and thus has extremely deep knowledge in it.

I, Yeabsra Hailu, am a Computer Engineering student who has a wide range of experience from Business Development to Full Stack Development with Javascript and Typescript. I have built apps mostly on Solana. I have also built a P2P Crypto Exchange for Ethiopians to facilitate exchange of crypto with their local currency, ETB. I have also been deep in the Blockchain and Crypto space for five years mostly involving myself in the trading and exchange space.

[AUDITABILITY]

The primary progress of the project is measured on the number of active users on our platform exchanging ADA back and forth. A dependent metric would also be the amount of ADA volume traded on our platform. But other metrics can include the github contributions to our organization repository.

A functional trading platform that allows people to trade crypto and primarily ADA. A functional crypto and local currency reserve should be available. A secure and functional user management and authentication system should also be available.

This is a new proposal which is not a continuation of a previous project.

SDG Rating

SDG goals:

Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

SDG subgoals:

8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

8.6.1 Proportion of youth (aged 15–24 years) not in education, employment or training

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