Hello all,
I recently submitted a proposal for an AAVE grant and wanted to share it with the community.
1. Name?
- “RJ” Raljoseph Ricasata
2. Email
- rj@edge.app
3. Grant Category
- Applications and Integrations
4. Company or Project Name
- Edge
5. About you and your team?
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CEO - Paul is a proud Electrical Engineering and Computer Science graduate of UC Berkeley with a wide range of technical skills from low-level 3D graphics engineering to development of custom web CMS systems, even before people knew what a CMS was. He held lead engineering positions with Nvidia and Chromatic Research.
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Chief Architect - William Swanson has been writing software since he was 11 years old. Although he has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, he is just as comfortable working with software as he is with electronics. He has built systems at every level of the technology stack, from custom circuit boards with embedded firmware up through websites and 3D graphics applications.
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Head of QA - RJ - Myself the one submitting the application on behalf of Edge have had the honor and privilege of working to this day with Edge for over 8 years and have had an incredible journey with a front row seat in crypto since 2012 to witness the space evolve to where it is today. I have a background in Accounting and have served in areas of Support/QA/Accounting and am in process of my 2nd Masters all while trying to keep up with the ever fast evolving space in crypto.
Airbitz Inc was founded in 2014, and rebranded to Edge, a self-custody exchange platform, in 2017. Since then, we have been focused on increasing functionality, expanding our global accessibility, and growing our presence in the crypto space by sponsoring conferences and hosting our own monthly meetups, with notable speakers and influencers. We support over 177 different fiat payment methods around the world and support over 130 assets. We have created a “best price option” which automatically searches through our swap exchange partners that provides the best price for a given pair. We have reached over 1+ million accounts created and our exchange volume has grown 3-4x year over year.
Edge is known as being the first open-source, non-custodial, and multi-asset wallet with swaps built into it to support XRP and Monero. We want to build the world’s 1st AAVE integration on a non-custodial mobile wallet that has a unique action queue built-in that allows a loan to be taken out and deposited into a bank within a few taps.
We’re building for the next billion users in mind where the wallet must be familiar and secure yet still allows users complete privacy and full custody and ownership of their keys without even Edge ever having access or knowledge.
6. Describe the project you are working on
Edge will build and showcase the world’s first AAVE integration into a self-custody wallet which will allow the depositing of BTC as collateral and automatically have borrowed stablecoins deposited in the user’s account, all in one step.
Integrating AAVE into Edge in a seamless manner will open up the gates to the masses allowing users to borrow against their crypto. Development has started and designs have been created, to show our simple process of borrowing on AAVE where with just a few taps, a user would be able to take out a loan and have that directly deposited into their bank
This move will be unprecedented. Unprecedented to the users that those behind the scenes that know or have experienced the flow before manually will know that taking out an AAVE loan as it stands now requires a multitude of steps.
- Swapping the BTC into WBTC to use as collateral,
- Approving the deposit of tokens as collateral
- Actually depositing the collateral
- Taking out the loan,
- And finally, depositing the borrowed stablecoin into a bank.
To someone non-technical, this can be a daunting and incredibly difficult process that presents many pitfalls and cracks where along the way a user might send to the wrong address, wrong chain, or even worse be scammed or expose a key where funds can be permanently lost.
The Edge + AAVE integration solves this by making it incredibly easy within a few taps to complete the process and will help fuel mainstream adoption by offering the first of its kind where any user anywhere in the world with a mobile device can take out loans with crypto on an incredibly easy-to-use wallet that is ready for the masses.
7. Relevant Links
- Edge
Website - https://edge.app/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/edgeapp/
Github - https://github.com/EdgeApp/edge-react-gui
Twitter - https://twitter.com/EdgeWallet
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/Edgewallet
- Paul Puey - CEO of Edge
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulpuey/
https://twitter.com/paullinator
https://github.com/paullinator
- William Swanson - Chief Architect
https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-swanson-834089a6
https://github.com/swansontec
- RJ - Head of QA
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rjricasata/
https://twitter.com/rjrs2k
8. Project Goals
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This will be the FIRST non-custodial wallet on mobile with AAVE integration built-in with an action queue that makes this possible where in a few taps a user can do the entire process of taking out a loan and having those funds deposited straight into the bank dramatically increasing user adoption and network growth for the AAVE ecosystem
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AAVE and Edge together will allow people from countries where this was not possible in traditional banking to be able to access loans with incredible ease of use compared to the current process
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Increased market and reach with more users being able to access AAVE for loans
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Putting AAVE in the hands of an already existing 1+ million users on Edge with active monthly users in the 6-figures
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Integration of Edge + AAVE makes this a one-stop shop for both Edge and AAVE users without the need of utilizing multiple wallets or complex steps
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Own dedicated phone line to speak with a human for users that need help using AAVE integration in Edge and outside of Edge on a browser
9. Milestones
- Alpha version - Integrated into Edge but expected to have some missing functionality at this such as settlement to bank and BTC to wBTC conversion. AAVE is at least accessible and has some buttons or layout already completed. Loan Dashboard scene but not fully ready
- Toward the end of August 2022 - A Beta version - Feature complete but may have bugs. Functionality to take out a loan and close out.
- Early October 2022 - A release candidate and pending Marketing - A version that is fully ready to go and will release based on any important marketing requirements such as cross promotions or specific date to set live
Funding Request and Budget Breakdown
$95,420 Total
App Design - $20,000
- Research/Design and Layout
- Icons and text warnings
- Buttons/Modals
- Animations
- Full UI/UX Screens/Edits
Engineering/QA- $60,000 -
- Action Queue Functionality
- Taking out a loan
- Borrowing more
- Adding more collateral
- Change of principle
- Withdraw Collateral
- Close loan
- Actively identifying bugs and verifying fixes
Marketing - $15,420
- Designs related to marketing
- Development of advertising and use of online
- Promotions on social media
- Influencers
- Educational material and content
- Sponsorship - A conference located in a country where inflation is rampant and/or traditional banking is severely limited or nonexistent
Legal Status?
- Incorporated
Imagine you’re us. What else do you think we should know about your application?
Edge is a team that values privacy and self-custody foremost and has a proven track record for the past 8 years within the cryptocurrency community. We have hosted cryptocurrency meetups in San Diego, CA where we are based since 2014 helping to educate and unite the community by providing a place for individuals to collaborate and learn from each other.
I myself, have personally used AAVE when it was still in v1 and have used that to take out loans and purchase assets and property. I have been in Bitcoin since 2012 and joined Airbitz in 2014 where we all have been paid 100% in BTC since then and even now to this day. AAVE has opened up possibilities in the industry with the ability to do loans and Edge can take this further to the edge of the network.
As someone who has been in this for a decade with thousands of hours providing support for users on the phone and that has also spent tens of thousands of hours spent navigating the crypto world I can identify the real issues that users struggle with most and we are a team that can build the solution to hand off to the masses.
I believe this is going to be an incredible feature to fuel adoption built by a team that focuses on and retains core values of privacy and self-custody.
I and the Edge team thank you for taking the time to read through our application and we know that we can turn this dream into a reality and reality into a dream.