Should Gnosis Fund Spherium Finance To Add Gnosis Chain In Its Cross-Chain Ecosystem?
Project Name
Spherium Finance
What are we building?
Spherium Finance is building a complete suite of cross-chain DeFi applications comprising a Bridge, Universal Wallet, Token Swap platform, Money Markets, Staking services, Lending/Borrowing protocol, and inter-blockchain liquidity transfer all of which will be fully cross-chain compatible across mainstream EVM and Non-EVM compatible chains.
Purpose
DeFi platforms face a number of challenges in their early stages, including a fragmented DeFi landscape, in which users must register across multiple DeFi platforms to access the different financial services; a complicated UI, as these platforms are designed with tech-savvy users in mind, making it difficult for the new users to easily learn how to use DeFi solutions; and high transaction fees, as DeFi platforms are built with layer 1 architecture which makes transaction charges high, preventing their mass adoption. Moreover, given recent flash loans and security attacks that have made DeFi users lose millions of dollars, the DeFi industry is nowadays in a dichotomy between achieving more growth and scalability or investing more time in solving dApps security issues before its mass adoption.
In Spherium Finance, we are introducing a user-friendly interface, building a financial ecosystem to unify the fragmented DeFi landscape, and providing a single platform for multi-asset, cross-chain swaps, crypto financing solutions, and cross-chain interoperability. For the scalability-security dilemma posited above, Spherium Finance intends not only to build a scalable cross-chain ecosystem, but also the safest one in the industry.
Growth So Far
Spherium Finance has been designed to be a long-term project. This means that we will continue to add products and keep working on improving them based on continuous technological advancements.
The cross-chain interoperable bridge, HyperBridge, is already live on Mainnet, released in February, 2022. Upon release, it effectively connected Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Now, the release of a new stable version is also done with the addition of other EVM chains. Our bridge, which was designed with interoperability in mind, will be the most immediate gateway for cross-chain transactions.
Try the bridge here: https://app.spherium.finance/#/transfer
In the next month, we will launch our cross-chain AMM DEX, HyperSwap, making token swaps across chains efficient and sustainable. Further down the roadmap we have:
HyperStake: Cross-Chain Staking Platform
HyperLend: Cross-Chain Lending Protocol
Spherium Wallet: Cross-Chain wallet
Spherium Mobile App
We intend to complete the dApp ecosystem by the end of 2022.
Project Description
Spherium Finance is a financial ecosystem that unifies the current scattered DeFi landscape. The ecosystem will include a bridge, an universal wallet, a token swap platform, money markets, staking services, lending/borrowing pools, and inter-blockchain liquidity transfers, all of which will be fully cross-chain compatible. This ecosystem aims to be the most interoperable one in the DeFi landscape, both in terms of cross-chain and functionality integrations. We chose to build this project because as early adopters of DeFi apps, we experienced firsthand how difficult it was to access several main services in the industry.
For example, if we wanted to swap tokens and at the same time access borrowing interest rates, we probably needed to create two accounts in two different protocols (one per function). Hence, we realized that while there was a boom in services offered by the DeFi industry, the DeFi services’ mass adoption wasn’t yet possible due to the lack of ease and interconnectedness in operating the services they offered. Thus, we decided to come up with a solution that addresses these issues, and hence, meaningfully contribute to the industry’s scalability.
Product Features
Spherium Finance will be a multi-chain interoperable ecosystem with the following key features:
- Multi-chain interoperable services across 20+ chains
- Decentralized protocol management ecosystem with voting procedures for token holders
- Layer-2 solutions will be adopted to speed and economize transaction fees
- Intuitive friendly user Interface that facilitates use of services for non-crypto users
- On-chain KYC for all users to boost ecosystem trust and security
Overview of Architecture
The architecture for our services are mostly the same. Making use of Web3.0 stack along with Microservices, we aim to bring our users the best of both worlds. Since we support only EVMs for now, the variables among our services are mostly smart contracts and microservice(if any).
Founder Description
Aanchal Thakur is a Strategy and Finance consultant, with an overall experience of 15+ years. She is a partner in a strategy, legal and financial consulting firm and is also a Banking and Blockchain domain consultant. She has been speaking and sharing her views on Blockchain for over 4 years, had been an ambassador for a couple of Blockchain projects in India, and is currently supporting a couple of projects in the space of DeFi and NFT in different roles. She has been a startup mentor, investor, and advisor with a keen focus on strategy and compliances.
Sash Jeetun is a London based investor, advisor, and co founder, he has been involved in blockchain since 2014 and is a big believer in DeFi, he comes with degrees in business management and international business as well as a vast background in research, advisory, crypto funds, and fundraising. Sash has led investment rounds into several projects as a business angel before deciding to take a plunge into founding Spherium.
Milestones
Phase I: The Foundation
This phase consisted in laying down the foundations for product development and brand building. We focused on raising funds with several VCs, consolidating our product roadmap, and creating key partners. Additionally, we created the token and key core infrastructure.
Milestones Achieved
- Generated our ERC-20 token
- Audited and improved token contract
- Provide the first mockup for our desktop app (only its front and backend basic infrastructure)
- Finished fundraising rounds ($3.3M fundraised)
- Secured IDO and initial Listing partners
Phase II: The Bridge
This phase we focused on building our first DApp amongst a host of applications to kickstart our cross-chain journey. Initiated with our cross-chain bridge named “HyperBridge” allowing easy transfer of assets from one chain to another chain. Initially we will be supporting major EVM compatible chains and helping projects and users go cross-chain.
Milestones Achieved
- Constructed the architecture for the ERC-20 to BEP-20 bridge
- Audited the Bridge and smart contracts with multiple security companies (Halborn, Peckshield, Quillhash) and made audit suggested changes
- Added 10+ EVM compatible chains on backed including Gnosis chain
- Used the bridge to create our BEP-20 token version
- Launched Bridge testnet
- Improved UI/UX
- Brought 10+ startups that are interested to add liquidity to the bridge and generate different chain versions of their native tokens
Phase III: Subsequent Product Features and its Consolidation
This phase focused entirely on development of the further applications in the roadmap, Cross-Chain DEX, Cross-Chain Staking, Cross-Chain Lending and Mobile App.
Milestone Achievements
- Created the subsequent architectures for each Spherium product in the following order: HyperSwap, HyperStake, Spherium Wallet, HyperLend (borrowing/lending)
- Launched HyperBridge on Mainnet
- Consolidated the product features’ integration by improving UI
Grant Amount and Breakdown
Grant Amount Requested - $100K
Grant Breakdown:
- Build (Adding Gnosis chain on HyperBridge) + Testing = $30k
- Audit = $20k
- Bounty for Projects to extend their liquidity to Gnosis chain = $20k
- Incentivisation of users(covering eth gas fee) = $20k
- Marketing exp= $10k
Why should Gnosis grant Ecosystem funding to Spherium?
Gnosis should fund Spherium Finance because both work towards the same goal of making DeFi services and transactions more scalable and easy for the user. Gnosis does so by enhancing technical functionalities of transaction settlements (e.g., MEV protection), and Spherium does so by focusing on how to make the front-end user experience better and easier. Hence, when combined, we can achieve the most efficient DeFi platform ever built both in terms of transaction protection/settlement and user experience. The tech improvements of transactions combined with the right service integration architecture might bring massive scalability to DeFi by providing easy-to-use services with cheap transaction costs.
To find out more about Spherium Finance, please visit our website