MAYZ: Cardano Cross-Chain Index

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

A Cross-Chain Index will represent the value of Cardano ecosystem in a very accurate way and be available in other blockchains for users to obtain it directly from their regular-native wallets.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Founders of Rats DAO, Rats Lab and ALDEA.

SPOs of 1MATE and FALCO.

Creators of "Bitcoin Para Todos" Spanish Podcast.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

To achieve our vision, we will create a multi-chain decentralized protocol whose smart contracts will be running on Cardano with effortless single-click token bridging to host chains such as Ethereum and Polygon. This kind of cross-chain infrastructure allows the protocol to provide more accessible services. For example, Ethereum users will no longer have to set up a Cardano wallet to invest in the Cardano ecosystem.

Cardano Index Token

The Cardano Index Token will be managed by a set of smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain. This set of smart contracts will manage the portfolio of assets that the index represents. It will receive and withdraw funds, buy and sell assets, and mint and burn the Cardano Index tokens. Every Index Token will represent a fraction of a basket of Cardano tokens, meaning your investment is diversified and the value will grow or contract inline with the value of the Index as whole.

Cross-chain Investment

On the host chains, we will build smart contracts that will interact with existing bridges to allow easy purchasing of tokens. For example, an Ethereum investor will be able to buy index tokens on Ethereum network using $ETH, whilst smart contracts will handle the purchasing, bridging and minting. In the reverse, an Ethereum investor can sell their token and receive $ETH in exchange, without needing to worry about bridging and selling multiple tokens.

We have already been working with Life Network on the branding, first version of the Technical Whitepaper and on the first version of the Website.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Our proposed solution impacts directly in this challenge through the following actions:

1) Providing a diversified portfolio of Cardano Assets that represent the process of wealth creation on Cardano

2) Bringing exposure to non cardano investors, such as crypto investors unfamiliar with the Cardano ecosystem and even non-crypto investors

3) Simplifying the challenges of managing a well-diversified portfolio in a fast-evolving ecosystem. 

4) Promoting the Cardano Excosystem and trying to lure users and funds from other blockchains

5) Developing new technical implementations connecting Cardano to other blockchains and vice versa (SDKs, APIs, bridges, etc)

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

We have identified the following risks that could prevent us from delivering this phase of the project successfully:

• Oracles: our solution needs reliable oracles in order to provide the most accurate value for each asset. To mitigate this risk we are planning to develop our own and also collaborating with teams that are already working on this endeavour.

• Bridges: our entire project relies on third pary bridges - there is a strong dependency there. To mitigate this risk we are working in parallel on both paths: developing our own and using bridges already developed.

• Plutus: although we are developing our product in other chains, great part of the effort will be done in Cardano. To achieve this, we need expertise from Haskell/Plutus devs, which is not easy to find in the market. To mitigate this risk we are having conversations with important developers from the ecosystem, such as MLabs.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Roadmap with Milestones and Status

Q2 2022 - Friend and Family Sale - Complete

Gather the first 100.000 ADA destined to the development of the first version of the Whitepaper, Branding, Website and ISPO.

Q2 2022 - Branding - In Progress

Project Branding developed by the Life Network Team.

Q2 2022 - Whitepaper Release - In Progress (Mayz Whitepaper V0.1)

Whitepaper being developed by the Life Network Team and the Cardano Index Project Team.

Q2 2022 - Official Website - In Progress (https://mayz.io)

Website being developed by the Life Network Team.

Q2 2022 - ISPO Launch - In Progress

ISPO being developed by the Life Network Team.

Q4 2022 - Proof of Concept & Market fit - Pending (Project Catalyst Proposal)

MVP. Basic Index representing the Cardano ecosystem on ERC20 blockchain.

Q1 2023 - Marketing Strategy - Pending (Project Catalyst Proposal)

Go-To Market: Image Content, Social Media Plan, Blog Post, Medium - Setup.

Q1 2023 - Open Sale - TBD

Timeline

The budget for this proposal covers 4 months of development and marketing efforts, from Q4 2022 to Q1 2023. See the budget breakdown for more details.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

For this MVP we have identified the following areas of development:

• Smart Contracts (*): u$s 30.600
• Bridges/Oracles: u$s 23.400
• Marketing: u$s 11.000

(*) Our smart contracts will go through an External Audit but not at this stage.

You can find a detailed breakdown of our budget here: Budget Breakdown

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Diego Torres - CEO: Corporate financial expert with many years of experience in both the private sector and the academic environment. LinkedIn

Matías Falcone - CTO: SPO of Falcon Cardano Stakepool, awarded with IOG (2021) and Cardano Foundation (2022) delegations. Founder of ALDEA. Backend Developer at GameChanger Wallet. LinkedIn

Agustin Franchella - CMO: Founder of Rats DAO and active member of Cardano NFTs community. LinkedIn

Federico Ledesma Calatayud - PM: Business Manager with experience in crypto since 2013. SPO of 1MATE. LinkedIn

Alfred Vilsmeier - Developer: SPO of [TOPO⚡] and [WHITE] Cardano Stakepools. LinkedIn

Rodrigo Molina Dacaret - Developer. Twitter Gitbook

Robert Van Horne - Asset Management Analyst: LinkedIn

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

With these funds we will cover the development of an MVP. This will help us understand if our first basic Cardano Index is a market fit on the community. If this is the case, then we will apply for further funding to improve our product in next rounds.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

We will use these Key Metrics to track the progress of the project:

Financial

• AUM = Asset Under Management: 2.000.000 ADA
• Number of token Under Management: 20 TOKENS
• Liquidity on Secondary Market: 250.000 ADA (TVL)
• Number of address (holders of Governance token): 500
• Mint Lead Time (average & deviation): 5'
• Burn Lead Time (average & deviation): 10'

Project Management

• Smart Contract V1 deployment (Yes or No)
• Bridge Integration (Yes or No)
• External Audit (Yes or No)

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

• Multiple addresses on EVM compatible networks, hold, swap, mint, and burn tokens representing a basket of Cardano ecosystem assets for the first time.

• More accessibility to Cardano exposure increases adoption among users that wouldn't know about Cardano's interesting project without this compelling index solution.

• Bring as many users and investors from other blockchains to Cardano as possible. Be able to facilitate the onboard to the Cardano environment to people and business around the globe, making the process easy, fast, secure and with low fees.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

It's an entirely new solution.