The Ones in the Arena: Rolla
“The tidal wave of progress eventually hits the shore. You can either grab a surfboard or get blindsided.” — Jordan Steeves, CEO, Rolla
This week we’re coasting into the arena with Rolla, a DeFi options protocol for generating yield on crypto or stablecoins based on risk level. Rolla boasts such features as zero gas fees and instant trades, while also aiming to be extremely user friendly.
Beginning March 17th, Rolla is sponsoring a 7-day security audit contest at Code4rena with a prize pool totalling $75K. In anticipation of the contest kicking off this week, we asked Rolla CEO Jordan Steeves to tell us more about their protocol, their views on security, and what gets them most excited about Web3.
What are you building, and what sets it apart from similar offerings in the space?
Rolla aims to be the best structured product protocol in DeFi, providing infrastructure for risk-based yield generation via option trading.
What’s your vision for your project? What are you building towards in the longer view?
To create a completely new way for one to get risk-adjusted returns on their assets.
What’s the most innovative idea in your project/protocol?
Whether the market is a bull, bear, or sideways market, Rolla lets you get yield on your assets using options.
It takes courage to undergo a public audit by a swarm of anonymous security researchers. It also says a lot about how much you prioritize security. What advice would you give to those on the fence?
Security is a key pillar of your reputation in DeFi and the more competent auditors look at your codebase, the less likely you are to have issues. This is why Rolla has undergone formal verification, manual audits and is excited to be launching on Code4rena.
Security has become an increasingly vital topic in Web3 and DeFi. How do you think the ecosystem needs to evolve in order to rise to the challenge?
We need 10x the amount of competent security auditors in the space at a minimum. The majority of the issue is low linear supply of auditors and high exponential demand for audits. Up-to-date courses getting users from 0 to 1 as a security auditor for free on Youtube or Udemy would be helpful. Moreover, easier formal verification services that DeFi apps can plug into would be a massive time-savings.
What gets you most excited about Web3?
Eventually, DeFi will just be “Fi”. Imagine the same financial services in TradFi are available in DeFi and the security is on par. However, with DeFi, you have non-custodial access of funds, trustless operations, and interoperability with other services. From pure administrative costs, you don’t have to create contracts, they’re already on the blockchain. Counterparty risk is visible on-chain. Funds can be in one place but the “receipt” for those funds can be used as collateral elsewhere. None of this is possible in TradFi and is hyper-efficient. Thus, the majority of the financial system will eventually be built on DeFi protocols, such as Rolla, being built today.
In the early ’90s, someone’s request to “send them a message/note” would have implied a physical letter and maybe an email. Today, it’s obviously implied to use something over the internet (email, Telegram message, etc.). A physical message is not even in the frame of reference. This is mostly a factor of time, technological advancement, and society’s acceptance that it is safe. The same will eventually happen with DeFi, with lending/borrowing, swapping assets, options futures, other derivatives, and general value transfer. It will merely become common knowledge that financial services take place on a blockchain.
As history has shown, with relentlessly cold consistency, evolution always wins. The evolution of something may be ignored, marginalized, or even banned; however, the tidal wave of progress eventually hits the shore. You can either grab a surfboard or get blindsided.
Complete the following sentence: “I wish more Web3 projects would…”
Actually take security seriously and get audits from competent auditing companies. Constant hacks make our industry look bad for everyone in DeFi.
What Web3 project name do you wish you’d thought of first?
Terra
What do you geek out about, beyond Web3?
The underground rare Pepe sticker trade.
Is there anything else you want to make sure we include?
Sign up for updates on our app: https://rolla.finance!
Learn more about Rolla
- Website: rolla.finance
- Twitter: twitter.com/rollafinance
Rolla’s $75K security audit contest opens March 17, 2022, and runs for 7 days. Details at code4rena.com.
The Ones in the Arena spotlights emerging and established DeFi projects and their founders, with an eye to celebrating and learning from them. The series’ name is inspired in part by Teddy Roosevelt’s famous quote, which has a central place in Code4rena’s philosophy.
