Three ideas to bring your builds into focus with UMA at ETHNewYork
tl;dr This article summarizes three build case ideas for hackers using UMA, Across or Outcome.Finance ahead of ETHNewYork’s hackathon this weekend. The ideas include building a zero-slippage, gas-less optimistic DEX; establishing token floor price guarantees with KPI options; and using UMA to execute and enforce a will that includes crypto assets. UMA will be awarding $10,000 in total prizes at the hackathon to the top builds.
Join us at ETHNewYork and build something cool with UMA, Across or Outcome
Building in a bear market is better. We mean it.
Bear markets are less noisy, with fewer fair weather traders and ponzi schemers. Markets like these chase away the riff raff and make more space for serious builders with patient, talented, professional teams and bright ideas.
We’re expecting to see a lot of that serious energy and talent at ETHNewYork this weekend. The conference and hackathon runs from June 24–26 and core members of UMA will be there to meet you and to guide hackers through the competition that will include $10,000 in prizes from UMA.
More than $500,000 in total prizes will be awarded at the hackathon.
As we get closer to this weekend’s activities, we’re excited to share a few concepts for potential hackers to pick up and carry over the finish line. These are designed to jumpstart creativity among the hundreds of hackers to build something cool using UMA’s optimistic oracle (OO), the Across cross-chain bridge and/or Outcome.Finance’s DAO governance and treasury tooling.
UMA wizards Sean Brown, Nick Pai and Matt Rice will be in New York throughout the event and will be hosting a workshop on Friday, June 24 at 10pm local time. The workshop will introduce hackers to the OO and provide a simple how-to guide for building with it. Our team-members will also be available for consultation at our booth and at the sidelines of the conference through the weekend.
Earn $10k in prizes for building with the OO, Across or Outcome
The best use cases using the OO, Across or Outcome tooling will win $10,000 in total prizes.
- First place = $5,000
- Second place = $3,000
- Third place = $2,000.
The winners could also be eligible to receive a further grant if you continue building on our platforms. Hacking begins on Friday, June 24 with judging taking place on the morning of Sunday, June 26.
Why UMA’s Optimistic Oracle is key to the Future of Web3
UMA is an optimistic oracle (OO) that can record any knowable truth onto a blockchain. It tells smart contracts “things about the world” so they can enforce real-world payout conditions. The OO has been called “a human-powered truth machine” because it is flexible enough to handle ambiguity and expands the design space possible in Web3.
The Across bridge, Polymarket prediction markets, and Outcome.Finance DAO tools are three of the many great use cases for the OO.
The opportunities for the OO are limitless, but here are three great ideas that hackers and pick up and build at this hackathon or at any point, thereafter. Please take a look at our Hacking at UMA page for key resources to get you started
1) Build a zero-slippage, gas-less optimistic DEX
You could use UMA to build a zero-slippage gas-less optimistic DEX, where assets are swapped within a smart contract based on orders published by users, but bundled and executed on-chain by relayers. Like with Across Protocol, the other side of the trade can be provided out of the relayer’s pocket and the relayer can get paid back (plus fees) after a challenge window.
This is basically adapting the Across relayer pattern for swaps.
Unlike other DEXes, it doesn’t matter if you have liquidity in the swap contract because the price is provided optimistically by the relayer or specified in the order. You can get the price from any good source, even an aggregated price from multiple centralized or decentralized exchanges, or let the user specify what they’ll accept.
The user could also specify limits, stops, expiration times for execution, if -> then conditional flows, and any other requirements, all in the order that gets published off-chain somewhere and then executed by the relayer.
For extra points you could integrate this with Across Protocol for zero-slippage cross-chain swaps. The simpler version, for a hackathon proof-of-concept, could simply allow optimistic relayer execution against a pool contract where traders deposit their funds and then post orders later.
2) Establish token floor price guarantees with KPI options
You could use KPI options to provide a floor price guarantee for buyers of a new token during a token generation event.
Token prices can be very spiky, especially in the weeks and months after a token generation event, so a “floor price” KPI option can reassure early buyers and smooth out trading on the lower end.
In this scenario, the buyers receive both the token and an additional LSP token that represents a claim on some ETH, BTC, or stablecoin that the project team raised during initial funding. If the regular token price drops below a certain level, they get a bigger payout from the LSP token. This gives buyers confidence that they retain some minimum value if the token price trends downward.
This is a powerful use case that can easily be implemented using UMA’s existing contracts, which makes it a great hackathon project. It would be even more interesting if it was incorporated into a comprehensive fundraising strategy for a new DAO or protocol issuing a token, which could include success tokens, outcome-based KPI options issued to specific teams, or other clever applications of UMA’s contract systems.
3) Use UMA to execute and enforce an estate will that includes crypto assets
Sorting out a will where the deceased has crypto assets is a pain, especially if the executors are not familiar with crypto. UMA could be used to enforce your wishes after you pass by putting assets you wish to pass on into a financial contract using the LSP contract.
Say you have 10 Eth that you wish to pass on after you die, but cannot be confident that you will not require access to it before that point. Create an LSP contract and send the shorts to your, say, nephew’s address and keep the longs.
If you require access, you can propose that the contract is settled in favor of the longs using event based expiry (the event being “I am alive and want my money back”). When you pass, an executor or your nephew can propose that the contract is settled in favor of the shorts using event based expiry (the event being “death of contract creator and estate is being settled”).
There are a few considerations here:
- There are effectively two “events” involved. An alternative might be to review after a particular period of time.
- There is also a need to identify a reliable public method of determining death, such as a death certificate posted on a website, or an obituary notice.
- It’s also important to establish a long dispute period so that your nephew doesn’t claim that you are dead prematurely and use a forged death certificate.
There are several other build concepts available for review in our Ideas Bank.
We look forward to seeing you in New York this weekend and we invite you to get in touch via our Discord channel and Twitter. Happy hacking.
