Name of Project / DAO / Company
Ferrum Network
Application type
Product Launch
Proposal overview
The proposal can also be viewed in a word document here:
Problem Description
Ferrum Network is a cross-chain Blockchain as a Service company that specializes in adding token utility and advisory services to projects across the crypto space. Since our inception in 2018, the project’s goal has been to facilitate mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies on a global scale by building white-label blockchain solutions that power startups and established organizations, enabling them to get their product to market faster.
As we continue to see the evolution of blockchain infrastructure and L1 solutions, it becomes increasingly evident that the tools that exist on Ethereum are few and far between on other solutions. This is where Ferrum Network comes in. Having already built the technologies mentioned in the previous section for Ethereum, we are looking to expand our reach toward other L1 solutions. We believe that Harmony is the next L1 solution to see massive adoption which is why we’re choosing to start here.
However, with mass adoption comes great responsibility. The amount of dApps that have added value to the Ethereum ecosystem is staggering. Many of these dApps are easily configurable to L2 solutions. But this has led to more scalable L1 solutions to be left on an island with few early adopters choosing scalability over comfortability. We believe that we can help solve this problem in a few ways.
Token Utility
At Ferrum, we design white label products that add utility to tokens from their early stages and beyond. More often than not, when a project launches, their product is not fully complete. Oftentimes, this causes investors to grow impatient and sell the token prematurely. Through our staking technology we give projects the ability to give their community a reason to lock their tokens, see the bigger vision of the project, and be rewarded for it.
Through our token bridge, we give projects the ability to become cross chain compatible and add additional token utility through our bridge swap fee mechanism. They can choose to burn these fees and become a deflationary asset, treat it as a revenue stream, consider them token buybacks, or use it as a reward mechanism for their community just to name a few.
Adoption
At Ferrum our mission is literally to break down barriers to mass adoption. We believe that other scalable L1 solutions face massive challenges when it comes to generating adoption themselves. In turn, this impedes the adoption of crypto as a whole since scalability is in fact the biggest blocker.
If projects building on Harmony are forced to build out Staking and Bridging technology because no white label solutions exist, this will deter them from building on Harmony in the first place. Knowing those solutions are in place will attract many more developers and dApps to the network.
One of the other major challenges that L1 chains face in regards to adoption is the difficulty in which interoperability is achieved. EVM compatible bridging solutions are a dime a dozen. However, our architectural differences between the others on the market make bridging to non EVM compatible chains a reality. Naturally, if projects deciding whether or not to build on Harmony have the ability to be cross-chain compatible with non EVM compatible chains, they will be more inclined to do so.
Creating Space and Freeing Capacity
Ferrum is a product oriented company. We believe that the best way to achieve success is by identifying problems and providing solutions. Therefore, we recognize that it’s important for other projects in the space to have the capacity to work on their products.
Solutions usually arise out of necessity. As with our Staking as a Service product, we noticed a substantial number of projects trying to build out their own in-house staking tech. With the rise of cross chain interoperability we started to notice the same pattern of projects attempting to build out their own bridging solutions. This ultimately led to delays in their core products. When the value proposition of a project is lost so is the value of the asset.
Security
When talking about software, exploits are inevitable. They’re especially common in emerging markets such as crypto as we’ve seen lately with the ever increasing number of hacks that seem to be occurring almost daily! At Ferrum, we’re committed to building secure protocols. We consider ourselves “paranoid security freaks”. We emphasize business and operational security best practices in addition to technical architectural security. This approach boasts nearly 100 Staking as a Service clients with an all-time high of over $100 million in TVL, which translates to hundreds of smart contracts that have been created. We’re proud to say that throughout our tenure providing these solutions we have not fallen victim to a single exploit! We took this same approach when architecting the Ferrum Cross-Chain Token Bridge and have integrated some of the same security protocols used in our Staking Tech.
Goals and Scope of Solution
Goals
With this grant we intend to achieve the following:
- Integration of Harmony with our Cross Chain Token Bridge
- Integration of Harmony with our six different Staking as a Service products
- Traditional Staking
- VIP Staking
- NFT Staking
- Liquidity Staking
- Multi Asset Staking
- Reflection Staking
- Referral of our partner and incubated projects to the Harmony ecosystem
- Contingent on the integration of our products
Scope of Solution
We believe that what Ferrum brings to the table in terms of value is quite greater than the majority of projects who likely seek out grants from the foundation. The majority of projects can only grow the ecosystem linearly via their product or platform alone. Ferrum, on the other hand, can facilitate the growth of Harmony on a multi-dimensional scale since the products that we offer can help the majority of projects in the ecosystem and the projects belonging to our ecosystem generally heed our advice on where to build their products. As outlined previously, Adoption, Security, Token Utility, Creating Space and Freeing Capacity, Products, and Deal Flow are all elements that Ferrum will bring to the table via this grant.
High Level Technical Approach
We use an iterative and lean approach toward integration and development in general. We focus heavily on quicker deployments internally to incorporate feedback, then start detailed usability, security, functionality and reliability testing to capture any gaps in our initial approach. We quickly implement this feedback and then get the product in the hands of our customers when it passes our standards for performance and security.
Once the product is in the customer’s hands, we utilize an effective feedback loop to continuously improve our product by prioritizing the feature enhancements and bug fixes based on the priority of the feedback we are receiving.
In order to integrate with Harmony we’ll be utilizing the same principles. We will first scope out the integration, then start with a shell app version of the deployment that will explore the possibilities of the functional integration. Based on the results of this initial effort, we’ll identify high traction and demand areas to prioritize and build further into a production ready product. We will then proceed to develop and deploy the integration through our deployment cycle. Dev → QA → UAT → Staging → Launch.
We will repeat this process to integrate the rest of our product suite and future products as well.
What stage of the product or idea are you (and your team) at? Is it live on Harmony and/or another chain? How many active users do you currently have, or aim to acquire? How much funding do you need? What are your milestones? What help do you need, or what gaps are there in your team?]
Both our Staking as a Service and our Cross-Chain Token Bridge are currently live. The next iteration fo the Cross-Chain Token Bridge which will allow Cross-Chain swaps and will be the predecessor to our DEX is currently under audit along with some new Staking products. We currently have over 100 clients across BSC, Polygon, and Ethereum with an all time high of over 100 million USD in TVL. We have bridged millions of dollars of various assets in the short time that our bridge has been in existence.
Funding Request
Ferrum is requesting a $30,000 grant from Harmony. We are open to both stable coins and ONE tokens. We would request to receive one half of the grant prior to integration so that we can scale and deploy our resources accordingly. The second half would be requested upon completion of the integration.
Milestones
Detailed Technical Plan and Statement of Work
Cross-Chain Token Bridge
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Scope out the integration of Harmony with the bridge, including details about Bridge Pool setup on Harmony (Month 1)
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Determine if Harmony integration can also support cross-chain DEX based liquidity option for bridge liquidity or if a 2 way liquidity pool bridge with on-bridge liquidity is the only feasible option (Month 1)
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Define resources and work required to integrate and start integration (Month 1)
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Build and deploy a shell app that will allow swaps between (Month 1-2)
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Harmony <> Ethereum
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Harmony <> BSC
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Harmony <> Polygon
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Share with internal team for QA and incorporate QA feedback (Month 1-2)
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Share with Harmony team and beta testers for UAT and incorporate UAT feedback (Month 1-2)
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After feedback is incorporated, submit the Harmony deployment for auditing to an appropriate auditing firm. (Month 2-3)
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Incorporate Audit feedback then get the product ready in the staging environment (Month 2-3)
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Launch at the scheduled date (Month 2-3)
Staking
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Scope out the integration of Harmony with the staking services including offerings of Traditional, VIP, LP, NFT and Reflection Staking (Month 1)
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Determine if Harmony integration can also additional staking options such as LP staking and VIP staking or if the option for traditional staking pools is the only feasible option (Month 1)
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Define resources and work required to integrate and start integration (Month 1)
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Build and deploy a shell app that will allow traditional staking including (Month 1-2)
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Deployment of pool
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Staking Period
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Mandatory Lock
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Early Withdrawal
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Redistribution of Early Withdrawal
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Maturity
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Share with internal team for QA and incorporate QA feedback (Month 1-2)
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Share with Harmony team and beta testers for UAT and incorporate UAT feedback (Month 1-2)
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After feedback is incorporated, submit the Harmony deployment for auditing to an appropriate auditing firm. (Month 2-3)
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Incorporate Audit feedback then get the product ready in the staging environment (Month 2-3)
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Launch at the scheduled date (Month 2-3)
Team
[Describe your team - roles involved, experience levels, GitHub/LinkedIn profiles]
Naiem Yeganeh, PHD - Founder, CEO and Lead Developer
Having worked as a software engineer at the likes of Microsoft and Amazon to leading a core machine learning team at Bloomberg, Naiem is the mastermind behind the products at Ferrum. His technical prowess has laid the foundation for Ferrum’s success.
Email: Naiem.Yeganeh@Ferrum.Network
Ian Friend, ESQ - Co-Founder and COO
Ian worked for many years as a lawyer before meeting Naeim in 2018 and deciding to embark on the Ferrum journey. Ian is one of the most beloved founders in the space and is the face of the company. The confidence that he has been able to instill not just in the community but also the multitude of projects that Ferrum has advised is invaluable to the success of Ferrum.
Email: Ian.Friend@Ferrum.Network
Taha Abbasi - CSO
Taha has co-founded a multitude of companies including a wildly successful software development house called Web N App. Taha has worked as the CTO of multiple companies including National Geographic - Singapore and has led teams responsible for the Mars 2020 and Europa missions at NASA. Taha serves as the CSO at Ferrum and oversees the development of Ferrums wide array of products.
Email: Taha.Abbasi@Ferrum.Network
Nichell Logue - EVP Operations
Nichell served as both a Project Manager and ultimately a Team Leader at CSC for over a decade before joining as the EVP of Ops at Ferrum. CSC is the world’s leading provider of business, legal, tax, and digital brand services to companies around the globe. At Ferrum, Nichell plays an integral role in ensuring the internal operations of the company are running smoothly. She’s a genius in terms of creating SoPs for the otherwise overwhelming amount of moving pieces at the company and also heads up our HR department.
Email: Nichell.Logue@Ferrum.Network
Nick Odio - EVP Partnerships and Growth
Nick is a serial networker. From being heavily involved in the music industry, working with Grammy award winning artists, to leading field operations divisions for companies, Nick has extensive experience in areas related to strategic partnerships, entertainment and influencer relationship management, as well as strategic initiatives.
Nick.Odio@Ferrum.Network
The rest of the amazing team at Ferrum can be found at https://ferrum.network/about-us/.
Proposal ask
Ferrum is requesting a $30,000 grant from Harmony. We are open to both stable coins and ONE tokens. We would request to receive 1/2 of the grant prior to integration so that we can scale and deploy our resources accordingly. The second half would be requested upon completion of the integration.
Justification
The funds from the grant will be used to fund the allocation of engineering, project management, support and executive resources to integrate the Ferrum suite of products to Harmony over the next 2 quarters and to support the adoption and acceleration of the evolution of these products on Harmony in the following 2 quarters.
We feel that this is the best path forward for Ferrum to be able to justify prioritizing this integration for our extensive product suite with Harmony. With a small but quickly growing team, we need to be cognizant of our backlog of items and how this affects our overall roadmap. However, a partnership that entails the aforementioned items, we believe, is crucial to the execution of our overall mission to break down barriers to mass adoption and to the overall success of Ferrum Network. On the same token, through this relationship we intend to add an immense amount of value to and aid in the expansion of Harmony as well!
Reporting Commitments
Ferrum Network vows to provide Progress Updates to the Foundation every month to any of the information provided above:
• Progress reports: detailing how our project is advancing, including any deviation from the initial plan or if you expect such deviations in the future.
• Financial reports: expenses and other items related to the use of our budget, including any deviation from the initial plan or any expected deviations.
Metrics for success
An Underwhelming Success:
- Integrating Harmony with only a portion of the product catalogue
- Referring a small amount of projects to the Harmony Ecosystem
A Great Success:
- Integrating Harmony with our entire product catalogue
- Referring a substantial amount of projects to the Harmony Ecosystem
An Overwhelming Success:
- Integrating Harmony with our entire product catalogue and continuing to develop further iterations of those products while continuing to seamlessly integrate the Harmony infrastructure
- Referring a majority of the projects from our ecosystem to Harmony
