Deploy: MonoX AMM on Harmony

Funding Proposals Grants
1

Name of Project / DAO / Company

MonoX Protocol

Application type

Grant.

Deploy our single-sided AMM on Harmony

Proposal overview

MonoX is a multi-layer and multi-chain protocol with the objective to solve capital inefficiencies caused by liquidity pairs. MonoX achieves this by grouping deposited tokens into a virtual pair with vCASH.

MonoX’s first product is our decentralized exchange, Monoswap. We enable project owners to list their tokens without the capital requirements of traditional liquidity pairs.

This new protocol design results in lower trading fees, less capital to deposit for liquidity providers, less siloed capital, and the ability for projects to launch their token with zero capital. It also creates opportunities for DeFi products and services such as lending and derivatives markets. MonoSwap also offers a more capital-efficient way to trade Value Backed Tokens (VBTs) such as NFT shards, synthetics, gaming tokens, and insurance tokens.

MonoSwap launched October 20 2021 and has accrued $20m TVL and is deployed on both Ethereum and Polygon. MonoX is proposing integration of the MonoSwap AMM with Harmony to increase cross-chain interoperability, scale, and speed. We have also made >$800k revenue since launch.

How our project can add value to the Haromy Ecosystem
Our product is very well suited to help their flourishing DeFi ecosystem scale. AMMs using Liquidity Pairs create an expensive capital requirement for developers and projects launching new tokens. Thanks to our single-sided liquidity, we solve these issues and projects can focus on using funds for building the project instead of providing liquidity. Projects can launch their token with 100% capital savings. Due to the way our protocol works with vCASH, we can easily facilitate cross-chain swaps after we have deployed which can help to easily transfer capital and liquidity to Harmony.

Team

Co-founders in crypto space since late 2016. CEO, founder and tech lead has worked on blockchain side projects since 2016, while working full time as CTO for various start-ups in the AI and Ecoms space and Venture Capital. Other Co-founder is a two-time co-founder, ex ConsenSys, and expertise in business management, growth marketing, and token launches with experience in Venture Capital.

Have scaled the team to 20 with 17 developers across three cross-functional scrum teams, and 3 on the business development/growth team.

Proposal ask

Total: $50,000

Justification

Funds will be used for development, initial liquidity, incentivized pools etc.

Metrics for success

TVL, User growth, projects / tokens launched on our AMM

Community - Twitter: 37k | Telegram: 20k | Discord: 5k

External links

DApp | Documentation | Twitter | Discord

2

Thank you for submitting a proposal to Harmony’s $300M Ecosystem Fund

We are in the process of reviewing your proposal. We would also love :blue_heart: to have the Harmony community participate to ask questions and provide feedbacks.

If you have more details to add, please do so by replying to this thread.

3

Amazing growth. 70+K Twitter followers, 60K Telegram (+more from unofficial channels), 5K+ on Discord. The vCASH mechanism is unique. Audits look to be completed from two sources – Halborn and Peckshield.

Approved for a Port grant of $50K. Congratulations and welcome to the Harmony Ecosystem! :tada:

Looking forward to the initiative to launch on Harmony’s Mainnet over an estimated 4-8 weeks timeframe.

Meanwhile, to prepare receiving funds, email your identification documents to kyc@harmony.one and create a Gnosis Safe MultiSig wallet at https://multisig.harmony.one and using instructions below
:arrow_right: Setup Gnosis Safe with MetaMask & 1Wallet

Checkout the Funding FAQ for further info at Harmony Funding FAQ

We’d love :blue_heart: to see weekly updates on this channel to keep the community posted on this proposal’s progress!

4

MonoX protocol was accepted for a Harmony ONE port grant in November of 2021 and was planning to launch on the network in early December. Unfortunately, an exploit disabled the launch of MonoX on Harmony ONE. The MonoX team has been working diligently for the past few months to get the protocol back on track, recently launching MonoX 2.0 on Polygon, Binance BNB smart chain, Avalanche, and Arbitrum. We really appreciate the grant and we are providing an in-depth analysis below, including root cause analysis of the exploit, preventions put in place, security improvements, and scope changes made since December. We are looking forward to working with the Harmony community and deploying MonoX 2.0 on the Harmony One blockchain!

Root Cause

When a user makes a swap, the price of the token they receive goes up (supply decreases in the pool) while the price of the token they deposit decreases (supply increases in the pool). The code in MonoX did not prevent a user from swapping the same token in and out. This alone is not an issue, however, in the case of this exploit, the price would go up on the token being swapped for itself. This enabled a user to exchange the same token for itself while increasing the price of “tokenOut”. The user repeated this process over and over again, moving the price of $MONO token astronomically high and allowing them to exchange their $MONO for millions of dollars worth of protocol assets.

Preventions Put in Place

  1. Disabled users to swap the same token

  2. Extra security for vUnit (the protocol reserve asset)

  3. External liquidity pool to back vUnit

  4. Each vUnit is backed by at least $1

Security Improvements

Beyond fixing the code, MonoX is working with other protocols to simulate and defend attacks in real world scenarios, instead of just having auditing companies to look at the code. Additionally, MonoX 2.0 will have an Immunefi bug bounty program from the start of the DEX launch. The Bug Bounty program enables users or hackers to receive legal compensation for bugs they find in protocol code, incentivizing moral behavior.

Scope Changes

The first order of business for MonoX is to acquire protocol-owned liquidity. We have built a bonding mechanism that sells discounted vUNIT to users in exchange for certain assets. This bonding mechanism incentivizes user participation through positive ROIs. Once enough liquidity has been deposited we will relaunch our DEX and DAO. Beyond the protocol owned liquidity, upgraded security measures and bug bounty program, we are not changing the nature of MonoX too much. The protocol operated at a very high level prior to the hack and we want to maintain our core functionality as we move forward.

Final Thoughts

The MonoX team is highly motivated and committed to building a sustainable, useful, and Defi-centric protocol. We are thrilled to bring MonoX 2.0 and the MonoX community to the Harmony One blockchain!