As we navigate through the second quarter of the year, it’s incredible to reflect on how far we’ve come. The dedication of our team has been unwavering as we continue to strive towards delivering an even more exceptional product experience. Over the past months, we’ve achieved significant milestones in the DeFi industry and implemented upgrades to ensure our vaults are vigorous during catastrophic events to provide top-notch security and functionality.
Let us take a quick recap on the priorities that we proposed back in Q1 medium article:
- Full mobile support — Recognizing the increasing demand for full mobile support, we understand that simply adapting our desktop version won’t suffice. Currently, navigating the Sandclock website and app can be confusing for our users, this made us reflect on our goal of simplifying crypto investment.
To address this, Sandclock’s website and app page will be completely revamped. We’re merging them into one single product-centric platform. Due to its aesthetic, our design team decided to name this facelift project “Project Dune”. Expected to go live in Q2 2024. - Marketing efforts–After working with a Web3-native marketing agency and seeing lackluster results, we decided to part ways and regroup. Following an in-depth discussion with the team, we’ve crafted a new direction to market our vaults.
One of our recent initiatives involved partnering with Superform to list our vaults on their website. This collaboration aims to expand our reach and provide users with easier and cheaper access to our vault through any L2. Currently our products are one of the top performing vaults on Superform. - Staking and Yield Streaming — Staking is LIVE! $QUARTZ holders can now put their $QUARTZ token to work by depositing it through the staking page.
We’ve completed the development of the Yield Streaming contract and it’s currently undergoing testing with promising results. Knowing that releasing the yield streaming feature would be costly on Ethereum mainnet, we have something up our sleeves. - SOC audit — We completed an audit certifying our compliance with SOC 2 standards, making us one of the first few DeFi protocols to achieve this important milestone. This audit, based on criteria developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), assesses our information systems relative to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. Successfully passing a SOC 2 audit not only demonstrates our commitment to adhering to rigorous, industry-specific standards for handling data, but it also helped us identify and mitigate potential risks, enhancing our overall security posture, making Sandclock a stronger protocol for its users.
- Insurance — In June 2021, the team embarked on an initiative to explore insurance coverage for user deposits at Sandclock, recognizing the unique challenges and risks associated with the operation. Over the following months, extensive discussions and deep learning sessions with insurers revealed a significant gap in the market’s capacity and willingness to offer traditional insurance solutions to Web3 operations. Faced with these challenges, by Spring 2022, it became apparent that creating a bespoke insurance solution was necessary.
This led to the strategic decision to establish a captive insurance company dedicated to Sandclock. Significant steps included drafting a tailored insurance policy, hiring HUB International to conduct an intensive feasibility study, and engaging with legal and regulatory bodies, including the Bermuda Monetary Authority, to ensure compliance and secure licensing. A crucial partnership was formed with AIG, which provided infrastructure support and involved their VP of Captives in Bermuda joining the board of the new captive.
As of Spring 2024, the project has nearly completed its incorporation phase and is poised to issue its first policy. This policy protects protocol funds against losses from unforeseen events such as security breaches, much like traditional bank deposit insurance systems in Canada and the USA. Looking ahead, the team plans to expand its insurance offerings and collaborate with other industry players to protect a broader spectrum of crypto assets on-chain, aiming to set a new standard for insured deposits in the industry. - L2 + Starknet — We’ve been actively exploring opportunities to bring Sandclock to L2 solutions like Starknet. Nimbora, in particular, caught our eye. Nimbora, built on Starknet, offers cost-effective interactions with Layer 1 protocols. However, given the early stage of the protocol, we’ve decided to pause our integration efforts to allow for a better understanding of its development trajectory before committing significant development resources.
Rest assured, we are fully committed to advancing Sandclock’s presence on L2s, as evidenced by our Superform partnership. Following extensive research and evaluation, we have chosen to focus on integrating with the Base chain. - Discovery work to integrate Opus — Opus, our sibling protocol, completed its final round of audits in February, signaling that the launch of Opus protocol is happening soon. Given that the Opus team is currently finalizing audit fixes and tokenomics, it makes sense for us to align our discovery efforts closely with their launch timeline. We want to ensure smooth collaboration with the Opus team and avoid creating any friction that could delay their launch.
If you haven’t already, we encourage you to follow Opus on Twitter to stay updated on their progress and upcoming launch. - 30,000,000 $QUARTZ Burn — We submitted a proposal to burn the Charity mining allocation token, which encountered some challenges in reaching the required quorum during the DAO voting process. Observing the overwhelming community support for burning the charity mining token, we realized that we were falling short of the quorum as the deadline approached. After careful consideration, the team decided to use our tokens to help reach the quorum threshold.
We’re pleased to share that the tokens have been burned!
Concluding Q1:
It’s been a challenging yet rewarding quarter for us. We’ve dedicated significant effort to navigating regulatory processes, achieving insurance coverage, and securing SOC compliance — marking a pioneering achievement in the DeFi industry. While we’ve made substantial progress on our Q1 priorities, there are a few pending tasks undergoing enhancement before their public release.
But our work is far from over! We’re incredibly excited and motivated to continue delivering new features and advancements throughout 2024.
What’s next?
Having dedicated significant time to preparing and upgrading our architecture, we’re now ready to focus on scaling. While the spotlight may currently be on Liquid Restaking Tokens (LRT), we’re not discouraged by it. Our move to Layer 2 (L2) allows us to offer high and sustainable yields through our scUSDC and scETH vaults at a cheaper cost.
We believe that once the hype surrounding EigenLayer and the LRT points system subsides, interest will return to Liquid Staking Tokens. Despite initially considering leveraging LRT yield with leveraged points, we ultimately decided against it due to the lack of composability of LRT tokens and nebulous liquidity sources.
But that’s not the end of our story! We have a new strategy in the works, adding even more flavor to our roster.
Let’s not forget that yield streaming will be coming soon! This is more feasible when we adopt L2 solutions, we’re making yield streaming and Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) more affordable and efficient than ever before.
Protocol <> Protocol exposure
With Sandclock already up and running as a product, our next focus is to attract more TVL. To achieve this, we are expanding our efforts by reaching out to other protocols for partnerships. Through these collaborations, we aim to grow together and enhance the value we offer to our users.
2.7 Million TVL + 11M exposure to stETH
Our TVL has reached the $2.7 million milestone, reaching an all time high. Notably, we’ve achieved almost $12 million worth of stETH exposure. This tweaking of leverage allows depositors to enjoy higher yields on their investments while sleeping soundly knowing that their investments are being autonomously monitored for liquidations!
…and that’s all for now! Cheers to the growth of Sandclock and our beloved community members who stuck with us through thick and thin!
