Detailed Plan
Problem statement:
How can developers of DeFi dApps create smart contracts for home mortgages and autoloans when standard contractual provisions vary from state to state? How can we bring the expertise of mortgage brokers and auto finance agents into the Cardano community?
Solution:
In order to avoid the limitations of having smart contracts that are written for 50 different state jurisdictions, we seek to create templates on a modular approach that will work in multiple states. The templates for each part of the contracts will be written in natural language, Plutus and Marlowe. Team members will create informational resources for home and auto finance professionals to explain the advantages of smart contract and defi loan options.
Experience:
- David Watts, business systems oriented on the problems of blockchain scalability.
- Kip Moyer, home mortgage consultant
- Justin Mcallister, auto loan officer for a major auto manufacturer
- Jeffrey Downard, professor specializing in law, ethics and logic. Director of collaborative projects to build educational resources, director of crowdsourcing project.
- David Chan, serial entrepreneur and business consultant
- Board of Advisors: https://www.keplerscs.com/our-team-1
IP:
Open workshop on Zoom in both a live and recorded form. The educational resources will be publicly available via a Youtube channel. The templates will be freely available for developers and dApp users in the Cardano community.
Defining success:
A workshop with participants drawn from the home mortgage and auto finance communities. An integrated set of video tutorials on the use of smart contracts for defi loans. A set of templates for smart agreements written in both natural language and Plutus.
Timeline and Budget:
Phase 1:
- Months 1-3: Legal Research on choice of home mortgage and auto finance clauses in smart contracts: ($5,000)
- Months 2-3: Workshop budget including coordinator and assistant ($2000)
- Website development and and Youtube channel: ($2000)
- Months 2-4: Creation and editing of an integrated set of video tutorials on the proper use of defi provisions in smart contracts for mortgages and auto loans. ($3000)
- Months 3-5: Development of templates for smart agreements written in both natural language and a design for a dApp to process the clauses in Plutus and Marlowe: ($18,000)
- Months 1-4: Project direction ($14,500)
- Months 1-4: Project oversight and evaluation by members of Board of Advisors, 4 months, ($14,000)
- Months 2-4: Regular updates and final report to Catalyst community: ($500)
- Total: ($59,000)
- Months 5-9: transition to Phase 2 of the project
Our team is committed to the effective use of Catalyst funds to achieve the goals of the project and support the larger Cardano community. Towards this end, we are committed to procedural safeguards in the form of oversight by a board of advisors with a wide range of areas of expertise in finance, accounting, startups and IP. The board is providing oversight and auditing functions as a guarantee.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn7mp5BXNH3pWkHtM85Z3rA
Resources:
Caldarelli, Giulio, and Joshua Ellul. “The Blockchain Oracle Problem in Decentralized Finance—A Multivocal Approach.” Applied Sciences 11, no. 16 (2021): 7572.
Chohan, Usman W. “Decentralized Finance (DeFi): An Emergent Alternative Financial Architecture.” Critical Blockchain Research Initiative (CBRI) Working Papers (2021).
Feenan, Sara, Daniel Heller, Alexander Lipton, Massimo Morini, Rhomaios Ram, Robert Sams, Tim Swanson, Stanley Yong, and Diana Barrero Zalles. “Decentralized Financial Market Infrastructures: Evolution from Intermediated Structures to Decentralized Structures for Financial Agreements.” The Journal of FinTech (2021).
Meegan, X., and T. Koens. “Lessons Learned from Decentralised Finance (DeFi).” ING. URL: https://new. ingwb. com/binaries/content/assets/insights/themes/distributed-ledger-technology/defi_white_paper_v2. 0. pdf (2021).
Schär, Fabian. “Decentralized finance: On blockchain-and smart contract-based financial markets.” FRB of St. Louis Review (2021).