Solve asset fractionalization

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

The creation of a canonical smart contract where whitelisted assets (and bridges) can exchange their bridged asset by a canonical version that will be used by the Cardano ecosystem.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

The team is part of the core developers of Milkomeda and it has developed multiple critical infrastructure tooling for Cardano e.g. cardano-serializaion-lib, carp, Flint, CIPs, etc.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The creation of a canonical smart contract where whitelisted assets (and bridges) can exchange their bridged asset by a canonical version that will be used by the Cardano ecosystem.

Requirements

• A multisig smart contract will control the adding of assets and the control of whitelisted bridges.
• Most likely it will be the same as the one from the validators of the Cardano <> Milkomeda bridge
• There will be a delay in the adding of bridges or assets of X amount of time.
• The bridge will create a synthetic asset for every asset that needs a canonical version.
• It may happen that some bridges that are whitelisted for other assets don’t support other assets therefore the list of assets should be flexible in the number of assets that can be bridged
• Asset X using Bridge Y should be able to pausable in any direction (separately)
• An user should be able to move back a canonical asset to a specific bridge derivative version
• If the user is trying to “unwrap” X amount but the canonical bridge only has a partial amount of X, it should fail. It’s expected that the user should be able to calculate the maximum amount and for the remaining asset use the assets bridged by using another bridge.
• Only for ERC20 tokens
• (other requirements may be added during the development in order to improve the solution after QA and testing)

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

Cross-chain collaboration can take many forms and one form that's expected is the exchange of assets between different chains. As mentioned in the problem statement one of the main issues of cross-chain collaboration when moving assets is the fractionalization of assets which generates liquidity problems and negatively impacts the UX of protocols that use these assets. This proposal fixes that.

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

There are always risk in every project but in terms of complexity and the requirement of externals there isn't a particular risky module or task. In general these type of solutions require a high degree of quality in their development to mitigate security problems. Besides working with experience people in the team we will work with a high quality auditor to double check the work.

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

a) Proof of concept / MVP demo

b) Implementation of canonical bridge connected to validators of Milkomeda

c) Audit by 3rd party

d) Audit fixes

e) Open sourcing of codebase

f) Deployment to Milkomeda C1

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Estimated

a) 50% development and deployment (3 months)

b) 30-40% audit

c) 15% project management

d) 5% catalyst management

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

One of the core developer teams behind Milkomeda will be working on this project including some known people like Sebastien Guillemot and Rob Kornacki.

Full list of team members:

• Nicolas Di Prima (Project Manager)
• Senior Solidity Developer
• Protocol Developer / Lead Dev (Seba / Rob)
• QA

Indirectly also a company that performs the audit will be sub-contracted. For this type of task it is expected that at least 2 auditors are working on the review.

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

It will depend on what the community thinks of the solution. Solutions always can be improved and for example for this one there could be a DAO that decides the selection and whitelisting of assets per bridge. This is not necessary for a secure functional version so it's not certain that more funds are required (most likely no if you ask us)

[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?

a) Proof of concept / MVP demo

b) Implementation of canonical bridge connected to validators of Milkomeda

c) Audit by 3rd party

d) Audit fixes

e) Open sourcing of codebase

f) Deployment to Milkomeda C1

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

The success of the project will be measured by the correct deployment of the canonical bridge and the usage of at least one protocol in Milkomeda and one in Cardano for at least one of the major assets (like USDC) in the first month after deployment

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

This is a new project.