The STK team went to ETH San Francisco and swept 3 sponsor prizes right off the shelf! We won MakerDao prize for best use of the Maker API, Bloom prize for Best Use of Bloom Protocol in Lending, and Wyre Grand Prize for building on the Wyre API and SDK.
Thomas Lui and Nat Chin were at ETH San Francisco this past weekend. At the event, we met Brandon and Peter Hulst, who joined our group.
In addition to exploring the Valley and the Bay Area, we surrounded by top-talent from fellow participants at the events and sponsors who were mentoring.
We built a completely end to end solution for a user to receive FIAT loan from collateralized cryptocurrency without an intermediary, called LendingParty.
The application would allow signing up with Bloom through their Bloom Share Kit. This would allow users to use BloomID as a single sign-on solution to verify their identity and agree or decline on sharing personal information with the application, by simply scanning a QR code. The problem currently with decentralized applications is how difficult it is to use and receiving personal information. Some other systems may require even more barriers to sign up. Bloom’s API made this flow for signup incredibly easy, by simply scanning a QR code. After the verification, our application will able to receive information such as name, phone number, email.
After the verification, our application is able to receive MakerDAO CDP ID and allow user to easily take out cryptocurrency based loans, through MakerDAO’s Collateralized Debt Position (CDP). We implemented using Dai.js , which is a library that makes it easy to build applications on top of MakerDAO’s platform of smart contracts. There are a few benefits of CDP loans over fiat loans:
- Repayment time is completely flexible — users are allowed to take out Dai or more collateral if they so choose. *
- No credit history check — anyone can create a CDP as long as they have an Ethereum Address.
- No middleman — the funds are locked up in a contract, and one never has to rely on a credit union or a bank.
- Not selling ETH — your ETH is locked up in the CDP, at which point you can continue to withdraw DAI. You do not let go of your ETH.
* This is revolutionary in the loaning space. Currently in the fiat world, people are forced to take out loans at extremely high interest rates. Loaners are strapped for cash, and keep taking out loans at rising interest rates. This flow causes a continuous cycle of debt, which keeps growing. By not having a time limit on repayment (i.e. revolving credit), there is no pressure to repay within a certain amount of time.
The last part of our solution uses Wyre’s off-ramp technology. Funds are taken out of the CDP, and deposited directly into a banking account, given account number, institution number, and routing number. Currently, even the UI/UX for converting crypto to fiat is clunky. Not to mention, it often takes quite a bit of time, especially depending on which method you use to extract it — wire transfers, in specific. Wyre provides a very convenient and easy-to-use off-ramping solution to make it easy for every day users to take advantage of CDP’s.
In other words, a user is able to take out funds from their CDP, and have it deposited right into their bank account, with the typical user-friendly interfaces that we see in everyday apps. We also used Lottie for adding high-quality animation and creating smooth interface within the time allotted. Big thanks to the Bloom team for providing their Lottie JSON files. Thank you to the MakerDAO, Wyre, Bloom team for guiding us about their documentation.
The STK team will be going to many events within the next few weeks! We will be mentoring at U of T Blockfest, run by UofT Blockchain Group this coming weekend! Feel free to visit our booth, if you’ll be there!
We are also running our own hackathon in Toronto — STACKATHON, in our office in the Distillery District on November 24th — 25th. The focus for this will be level two-scaling solutions, including sharding, state channels, side-chains, and more. Visit the link here to apply!
