Protego - A decentralized trust and safety protocol

Name of Project

Protego

Proposal overview

Blockchain is a revolutionary technology facing strong opposition from many Governments and even tech pioneers. Even retail users are being defrauded by ransomware and counterfeit NFTs. This is because many bad actors ranging from low-risk threats like phishing attackers and Money launderers to high-risk threats like Al-Qaeda terrorists, use Blockchain for their nefarious purposes.

This is the problem we are solving with Protego, a trust and safety protocol to assess the risk of any interaction on any blockchain. Think of it as the compliance layer in a Metaverse future. Imagine making a Metamask Ethereum transfer, buying an Armour NFT in Metaverse, etc., and getting a risk assessment of the interaction even before it happens. As the beachhead, We are helping NFT platforms and consumers (using crypto wallets) tackle IP & Copyright and Cyber Security (Wash Trading, Rug Pulls, Stolen NFT, AML, etc.) issues.

Team

The team comprises Forbes 30 under 30 serial entrepreneurs from Stanford Engineering and Berkeley MBA with 20+ years of combined experience spanning across Forbes AI 50 startups to large tech companies such as Google and Amazon.

Founder profiles: Gaurav: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurava91 and Anuja: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anujaverma1

Stage

Protego is in early POC stage at the moment where we have implemented Counterfeit NFT detection on Ethereum. We are expanding into other use-cases aggressively and talking to almost all major NFT platforms and wallet providers in top L1 chains inluding but not limited to Ethereum, Solana, Algorand and Harmony.

We are part of Stanford Blockchain Accelerator and Cypher Accelerator by Wharton, UPenn for this Winter cohort, where we are actively working on launching Protego.

Milestones

  • Launch with 1 NFT Marketplace.
  • Integrate with Ethereum Wallet.
  • Expand to Non-Ethereum chain including Harmony and Solana.
  • Launch Crowd sourced tokenomics driven data gathering and processing design.

Market Need

  1. Large Dapps are acting as a vehicle of user harm: Hackers are leveraging Dapp smart contracts to Phish users. For example: OpenSea Users Phishped
  2. Retail users are being defrauded by billions of dollars each month. Law enforcement agencies are resource-constrained and simply too busy going after the big-ticket frauds and hack that retail users are left behind. Also, sometimes catching a bad actor after the crime has been committed is a waste of resources all around if we can save users early enough in the process. For example, when you buy a stolen NFT by mistake your funds are gone and your NFT is locked.
  3. Regulatory bodies are preparing to crack down. Now DeFi protocol developers cannot hide behind the defence “Go regulate the smart contract code”. FATCA is now considering people who are creator, owner and operator with sufficient influence in a DeFi community as liable for the effects of DeFi protocols. This is the reason even Uniswap is using the services of TRM Labs. Incentives are aligned for creators of protocols to work with the regulatory bodies.

Proposal ask

50K. Grant will be used for building product and launching beta.

Metrics for success

  • Launch with 2 NFT marketplaces (including one on Harmony) by Q2 2022
  • 100K MAU for Chrome extension by Q4 2022

External links

The project is not yet public; further details have been provided directly to the Harmony team.

Based on Harmony Project X’s program (d13: aaron-jack), approved for $50K investment

As discussed, we think this project solves a critical problem in blockchain adoption. The funding will be provided via Project X d8: aaron-jack

Updates:

  • Implemented the NFT image plagiarism detection tool in March and went through the B2B sales process with NFT marketplaces (OpenSea, Foundation, Rarible, StxNft, Nifty Gateway). Only OpenSea cared about the problem.
  • We have now pivoted to working with wallets. We have received a much better response from Wallets (spoke to 1Wallet, Falcon Wallet, BlockWallet, TallyHo Wallet). Wallets want to use our services but monetization is a concern that we are trying to hash out. On the product side, we are implementing a framework to simulate EVM transactions to catch malicious transactions before execution. The Proof-of-concept for this product should be out in a couple of days!
  • We have expanded the team to have 2 part-time MBA Wharton interns helping us with product and eng. We will be presenting at Wharton’s Cypher Accelerator Demo Day on the 22nd of April.
  • We burned through only ~$1K out of $50K till now.

Next goal:

  • Have the proof-of-concept of framework for simulating transaction released for EVM supported chains
  • Connect with Wallets in https://harmonyuniverse.one/. Will connect with @Jacksteroo for the same!

Updates:
We presented on Cypher Demo day and got great response
Here is a quick stripped down version of the demo showing transaction simulation protego-demo.mov - Google Drive

  • Continuing the conversations with wallets
  • Also exploring B2C strategy