DeFi and NFT dashboard for Cardano

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The problem

The main challenge we are addressing is that currently it’s very difficult for Cardano users to monitor their portfolio, including ADA staking, investments in DeFi dApps, rewards, NFTs, yield farming opportunities and many other ecosystem activities. DeFiYield will make all of these accessible in one place.

• The Cardano ecosystem is an ever-growing land of opportunity, however the problem is that it is not possible for users to find one single place to explore all the top DeFi Yield Farming opportunities and also have one place where one can track a deeper scope of the Cardano portfolio.
• There can be so many assets to track such as tokens, ADA staking, pools, vaults, rewards, NFTs, and more. For instance, USD value of tokens (and in particular liquidity pool positions) can be difficult to retrieve, especially when they are not listed on popular aggregators like CoinGecko and CMC. As the Cardano ecosystem grows at breakneck pace, users might struggle to keep track of all their positions, sometimes even forgetting where they have deposited some of their funds.
• Finally, searching for many of these great DeFi Yield Farming opportunities can be very time-consuming, just to stay in the loop and up-to-date with what is available to Cardano users.

Our solution

We will integrate all of Cardano’s top DeFi protocols in our DeFiYield dashboard, so that users can have one single place where they can keep track of all their positions no matter how complex, including tokens, ADA staking, pools, vaults, lending and borrowing, and more – even bundling together multiple addresses. Figures 1 and 2 below show how this will look like.

We have already integrated four major Cardano DeFi protocol (MinSwap, SundeaSwap, MuesliSwap and Wingriders) and we will integrate at least 8 more as part of this proposal work. We will select the protocols for integration based on objective metrics like usage, popularity, relevance to the Cardano ecosystem as well as TVL.

By using historical data, we will also provide a transaction page where users will be able to retrieve and review all of their Cardano transactions annotated with easy-to-understand labelling.

We will also extend our Explore Opportunities tool to the Cardano ecosystem. This useful tool is an APY aggregator that will displays all the top Yield Farming opportunities that Cardano has to offer, sourced from all the available DeFi protocols.

The NFT section of our dashboard will show users a full display of all their favorite and most popular Cardano NFTs (see Figure 3). It will be very useful for tracking what NFTs you’re carrying and how they are doing on the market. The floor prices and properties will be sourced from the top Cardano NFTs marketplaces such as JPG Store and OpenCNFT.

Finally, we are developing an SDK, that will allow external developers to use our DeFiYield API inside of their projects, thus fostering the Cardano builders community.

In an effort to engage the DeFi community and new user, we will keep creating video tutorials on how to use each of the Cardano protocols, the best strategies for Yield Farming, and how to get started guides for new users.

Figure 1: The home page shows the full overview of the account (wallet, deposits, lending, etc) as well as the protocols where the user has invested. Clicking on a protocol opens up a page which displays the user's detailed positions in pools and staking vaults.

Figure 2: The wallet page shows all the Cardano tokens with the corresponding USD value. Clicking on the deposit page will display the user's delegated ADA and all the detailed positions in the Cardano DeFi dApps.

Figure 3: The NFT dashboard page will display all the user's NFTs on Cardano, with information (including floor price) sourced from the top NFT marketplaces. The advanced filters allow the user to visualize any slice of their collections as needed.

Who will benefit?

This project will benefit both DeFi beginners and advanced users on Cardano, because anyone in crypto and Web3 will find these tools extremely useful. Imagine one place where you can track all your Cardano DeFi assets. Cardano users exploring Web3 and DeFi want to see more dashboards that consolidate the best tools and opportunities in one place, making it easier to access, less clicks and work to engage with. We believe the DeFi and Cardano community will benefit greatly from our solutions because we will showcase much of what Cardano in DeFi has to offer, contributing to it’s every growing ecosystem of opportunity.

By leveraging on our strong integration with other EVM and non-EVM blockchains, we will also introduce many users of other chains and protocols to the opportunities and innovations of the Cardano ecosystem.

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

Our solution will make it easier for users to discover all the newest Cardano DeFi Protocols and dapps that are emerging in the market, giving users a one-stop-shop place to access many of the best opportunities Cardano DeFi has to offer.

Additionally, our dashboard will provide a great and frictionless way to introduce existing EVM users to the Cardano Ecosystem, which contributes to its overall user adoption. We currently have 23 chains integrated, including 6 non-EVM chains (naturally including Cardano) and more being soon onboarded. Users from all other chains will be introduced to Cardano’s leading protocols.

Another exciting feature is that users can now bundle multiple Cardano address in one single dashboard view to easily track even the most complex assets and DeFi positions. Consolidating all the best and most cutting-edge tools in one place will strengthen the Cardano ecosystem and increase the usability of the existing Cardano DeFi protocols and dApps.

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

While we do not expect to encounter any major risks, there could be occasional delays in implementing some of the most complex/unique DeFi dApps and in integrating some advanced features of the NFT marketplaces.

Additionally, for newly integrated protocols or features there can be sporadic glitches where the displayed information (e.g. APR of some pools) might not be up-to-date or correct.

Our mitigation approach consists in creating open chat groups with many of the protocols and dApps we are integrating, since the start of each process. We do this so we can connect directly with their dev team to clarify any complex tech questions that might come up. For instance, we have group chats with MinSwap, SundeaSwap, MuesliSwap and more. We also work very closely with the Cardano protocols on a marketing push to ensure we are supporting introducing them to our community and showcasing the range of opportunities they offer: this means our goals are very well aligned with the protocols' ones, and protocols teams are happy to support us promptly in addressing or investigating any technical issue where we might need help.

We also have a highly-experience Quality Assurance team which collects information from users to quickly identify and fix any glitches that may arise. Based on our track record, we have proven to be equipped to overcome these challenges and look forward to sharing this great success with the Cardano Ecosystem.

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

Months 1 and 2

• Integration of 4 Cardano protocols
• Integration with public APIs connected to the blockchain for getting up to date info about active pools and user positions.
• Improvement of dashboard to better display Cardano protocols information (such ADA staking with validators info, ensure correct balance in USD is shown, etc.)
• Implement a separate internal service for indexing each block in cardano blockchain and storing them internally. This will improve the stability and performance of the integrations with Cardano protocols and Cardano user balances.
• Research: NFT marketplaces integration, Cardano transactions page
• Investigation of the possible approaches for getting live data about NFT collections, flow prices, and sales history from public APIs of different marketplaces.

Months 3 and 4

• Integration of 4 additional Cardano protocols
• See description above.
• Explore Opportunity tool to show Cardano farms: release of version 1
• Implement fetching of APR/APY data for integrated Cardano protocols from different public resources and storing them internally.
• NFT dashboard prototype (internal testing, not for release)
• Implementing the approach for getting live data about NFT collections, flow prices, and sales history from public APIs of different marketplaces.

Months 5 and 6

• Explore Opportunity tool: release of version 2 (incremental improvements based on users' feedback)
• NFT dashboard (sourcing information from top Cardano NFT marketplaces)
• Finalize the approach for getting live data about NFT collections, flow prices, and sales history from public APIs of different marketplaces. Fixing bugs and adding improvements based on users' and team’s feedback.
• SDK
• Implementing a publicly available library (npm package) for external developers who want to use our DeFiYield API inside of their projects.
• Transactions page (showing annotated Cardano txs)
• Implementing a tx parser based on the indexing tool implemented earlier. We will be using already stored live data from the blockchain and show it to the users via our internal services.

Promotion of the new Cardano-related features of the DeFiYield dashboard will be done throughout this period from our usual very active social media channels (Twitter, YouTube, Telegram).

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Developers: On average, we will allocate two developers full-time ($6,500/month) over the course of six months. We will rotate the developers from our team pool depending on the specific skills needed.

Please refer to the team question below for a detailed overview of the developers who will work on this project and their skill-sets.

• Developers: $6,500*[2 developers]*[6 months] = $78,000

For project management (cost: $35/hour) we estimate about 15 hours/month of work (approx 45 min/day on average) including task assignment and tracking as well as daily stand-ups (15 min/day).

• Project management: $35*[15 hours]*[6 months] = $3,150

Regarding documentation, we already have an extensive documentation available on our website detailing all the main features of our dashboard. We also make available some technical documentation for developers. Therefore, we will only need to extend the documentation to cover the new Cardano-specific features, as well as the SDK. We estimate a total of 24 hours, at a cost of $35/hour.

• Documentation: $35*[24 hours] = $840

Marketing & promotion: about 10-12 instances of Cardano ecosystem educational content as Medium articles or short videos (including tutorials, DeFi dApps walkthroughs, DeFi & Yield Farming education, i.e. how to stake/farm your funds, how to track your Cardano investment with the DeFiYield dashboard).

• Marketing: $3,600

Community engagement: weekly community updates (including news, tutorial and educational videos), tailored strategies to increase our community base and engagement on a weekly basis with AMA, quiz, and more activities

• Community engagement: $2,500

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Budget Summary:

• Developers: $78,000
• Project management: $3,150
• Documentation: $840
• Marketing: $3,600
• Community engagement: $2,500

Total: $88,090

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

We have an incredible team expanding through Europe, Dubai, Ukraine, Canada, and US. The team members who will be working on this project are heading it with the most care and work ethic to ensure a good working relationship with all partners involved.

Technical Team

Anton Kosiak, Technical Lead - Anton works as a Technical Lead at DeFiYield from the beginning of 2021. With over 15 years of development experience, he has been building apps with millions of users and other technically advanced solutions for various industries, including finance. This has allowed him to acquire extensive experience in Back-end and Front-end development. Anton is particularly skilled in Node.js, React Native React.js and Haskell. As a big fan of blockchain technologies, he possesses all the skills needed to lead the team.

Roman Hreits, Back-end Developer - Roman is a Back-end Developer at DeFiYield. Although Roman is active in all phases of the software development lifecycle, he is especially interested in developing solutions that require Java skills. Roman has a big experience with high-load systems. He is also very keen to engage in various discussions that revolve around DeFi. He closely follows development of Cardano ecosystem and is a firm believer in the future of financial services without intermediaries.

Ivan Koliesnik, Full-stack Developer - Ivan joined DeFiYield with an already impressive portfolio of web development projects. At DeFiYield he is focused on the development of the internal API, UI as well as integration of decentralized protocols. Ivan specializes in JavaScript and Haskell, but never stops acquiring new technical skills. Also Ivan is very familiar with Cardano ecosystem. In his free time, he reads books, learns new languages as well as plays guitar.

Mykola Borodyn, Full-stack Developer - Having vast experience of over 14 years both in software development as well as DeFi, Mykola has brought valuable knowledge and expertise to the DeFiYield team. In his daily work Mykola primarily uses JavaScript. He is, at the same time, very knowledgeable in a wide range of frameworks, such as AngularJS, environments, such as Node.js, as well as database management systems – MongoDB and MySQL.

Stepan Samko, Lead Front-end Developer - Crypto native, Stepan is a talented Front-end developer with experience of over 5 years in building top-notch, secure and performant web Front-end with JavaScript, TypeScript, the React Framework and popular libraries. DeFiYield greatly appreciates Stepan’s role in the team given his deep expertise both in Front-end development as well as DeFi. In return, he shares his knowledge with the team, conducts regular feedback sessions, integrates best-practices.

Sergey Popravka, Front-end Developer - Sergey is passionate about all things related to blockchain technologies and, in particular, DeFi. As a professional with experience covering modern Front-end web technologies like React/Redux, LESS, Babel, Ajax he is a valuable member of the DeFiYield team. Sergey’s creative mind is noteworthy – he is the right person to discuss the latest trends in DeFi.

Matteo Barnabè, Product Development Manager - Matteo manages DeFiYield's product development, leads the tech team, communicates with Cardano Protocols tech teams on integrations, testing, bug fixes and clarifies technical parameters of what is needed to ensure a successful integration. Matteo has an extensive background encompassing math & physics, data science as well as project management and is passionate about all things crypto with a special interest for DeFi protocols.

Marketing and Communications Team

Sonali Giovino, Head of Communications - Sonali is passionate about DeFi and forging strategic long lasting relationships. With a background in leading marketing teams, Business Development, Public Speaking and Events. Sonali manages DeFiYield’s marketing and strategic partnerships with Blockchains and Protocols. She also will work in coordinating the Twitter Spaces for our Cardano segments, where we will invite guests like MinSwap, MuesliSwap and Cardano influencers to share more on the Cardano Ecosystem. She will manage a lot of the marketing content that gets shared on our socials and community channels.

Salvatore Di Benedetto, Marketing Manager - Salvatore manages our influencer and video media department. He is currently in contact with many Cardano influencers and aims to develop a whole Cardano Tribe that we can work closely with in creating engaging Twitter Spaces, Video content, interviews etc that as a team with our partners can get pushed out to multiple channels.

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

We plan to keep supporting the Cardano community as it evolves and innovates over time.

While at this time we do not have specific plans to return to Catalyst for further funding, we are excited to keep following the new developments in the Cardano ecosystem and to listen to our users from the Cardano community. Based on their needs and request, we will gauge the next steps to evolve our dashboard and product to better suit the demands of the Cardano community.

If there appear to be more innovative protocols, dApps and wallets that become popular and/or reach significant TVL, it might be helpful for our users and the Cardano community to integrate them in the DeFiYield dashboard. In that case, we might consider returning to Catalyst at a later stage for additional funding.

[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?

Every Cardano community member will be able to easily track and validate the progress of this project. We will iteratively release the new features and integrations as we develop them, they will be freely available to all users on https://defiyield.app/

We refer to the timeline above for more detail, however – briefly – we will release the following:

• The dashboard will support Cardano’s assets and investment, including ADA staking, pools, vaults and lending protocols.
• The Explore Opportunity tool will show investment opportunities (“yield farms”) from the entire Cardano ecosystem.
• The NFT dashboard will support Cardano NFTs with information sourced from the top marketplaces (such as JPG Store and OpenCNFT).

We will also monitor the following:

• How many users visit our dashboard, with particular attention to users exploring Cardano related features or connecting Cardano wallets.
• How many users will be using these features, and how they use them (e.g. time spent on each one).
• In addition, we also collect direct users' feedback (e.g. glitches/bug reports, requests for new features, etc.) to constantly improve our product.

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

Success will look like seeing all Cardano users being able to intuitively connect their wallets to our platform to have an in-depth view of their portfolio on a seamless user-friendly dashboard. A secure place where users can track all their Cardano-related investments such as staked ADA, farms, vaults, liquidity pools, NFTs, lending and borrowing positions, and more. The ability to bundle together multiple addresses allows users to monitor even the most complex positions.

Even when users forget about certain investments or positions or even just about unclaimed rewards, they can always rely on DeFiYield dashboard to provide a solid and up-to-date view of their portfolio. They can browse and track a full scope of their favorite Cardano NFT collections.

Moreover, since DeFiYield is a cross-chain dashboard supporting more than 20 EVM and non-EVM chains, this gives users coming from other chains a great opportunity to explore and invest in Cardano and its DeFi protocols.

Success is offering users a dashboard they can depend on and rely on while accessing the most innovative tools to succeed in DeFi and stay safe.

[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 an entirely new proposal.