PGP Proposal: rapidX Protocol + EPNS

rapidX · October 29, 2022, 4:52pm

Project Name
RapidX Protocol
Email
rapidxpay@gmail.com
About You
My name is Sri. I have a decade of experience in TradFi, Banking and Web3.0 technologies combined. Along with me, there are two more team mates. Sridhar is the Solidity developer and he has a vast experience in Enterprise Software Development. Manish is the Frontend/Backend developer and he has developed several web3.0 projects as a freelancer.
Email: rapidxpay@gmail.com
Discord: Discord
Project TL:DR

RapidX Protocol is the first ever Blockchain based Incentivized Global Payments Infrastructure for sending/receiving money across the world INSTANTLY and at ZERO transaction fee. One of the Apps built on top of this protocol is rapidXPay. Think of this App as a decentralized PayPal but with Zero transaction cost both to payer and merchant! Video of demo of MVP V1.0 () is available at following link: (() -Version 1.0 imposes a very small fee. The upcoming public incentivized testnet version 1.0 removes the fee completely. )

For Hands-On, please refer to links at Section 12.

Proposal Category
Defi
Project Overview

Our Vision is to make sending/receiving money across the world real-time at zero transaction cost. Towards this vision, we are building the first ever Blockchain Based Incentivized Payments Protocol and also an application that is powered by this protocol. Users of the App can send/receive money from across the world for FREE and INSTANTLY. We believe that by solving real world problems, mass adoption to blockchain tech will be achieved.

Our solution is built on principles of decentralization, meaning the users own the network. Users to the network are the Liquidity providers(LPs), payers, merchants, bridges and frontends. LPs can put their idle cash to work by adding liquidity to Isolated single sided currency pools. Anyone i.e, individual, HNIs, Corporates etc. can easily add liquidity in their domestic currency.

Core Architecture:
A Cross border transaction is broken into two domestic transactions and are in turn connected by the rapidX smart contract suite. All rent seeking intermediaries are done away with. Open Banking APIs are used to connect TradFi to DeFi. Flow of funds involves following steps:

Payer sends fiat currency from his/her bank account to the rapidX bridge.
Bridge tokenizes the fiat currency to digital currency and submits the transaction to blockchain
Smart contract uses the rapidX adaptive AMM to convert the currency to recipient/merchant’s preferred currency.
Recipient receives the digital currency in his wallet
Recipient can convert the digital currency to fiat currency using rapidX Bridge.

Adaptive AMM powers the currency conversion. Adaptive AMM ensures Auto and Self rebalancing of pools through dynamic fx conversion rate setting(formula driven) based on supply and demand of the currency. Some transactions receive cashbacks if such transactions help balancing an unbalanced pool. Smart Contract maintains a cashback incentive pool.

The rapidXPay App works seamlessly for non-blockchain native users as well. In fact having a blockchain wallet is only optional to senders (but we encourage users to create wallet to receive loyalty tokens).

How ZERO transaction fee is ensured?
Transaction involves following processes: On-ramp, tokenization, currency conversion and payment transmission. We strive to achieve zero costs at each of these processes.
(1) ZERO On-ramp/Off-ramp Fee: By using open banking APIs, we reduce/remove the on-ramp fee involved in sending the fiat currency to rapidX bridge. In the demo App, we have integrated with UPI for INR. As a result, the onramp fee is zero.

(2) ZERO Tokenization Fee: Bridges earn revenue through interest rates as they custody the FIAT currency and hence are sustainable without imposing any tokenization fees.

(3) ZERO Transmission fees: Polygon L2 blockchain is used which has near zero gas fee and hence the payment transmission costs are abysmal, especially when compared with TradFi payment giants such as PayPal which charge around 4%

(4) Wholesale Currency Conversion rate: Now retailers can enjoy wholesale fx rates which are hitherto accessible only to big corporates. This unfair advantage is dismantled removing the competitive disadvantage to retailers/small merchants.

(5) Cashbacks and Loyalty Tokens: Additionally, payers can receive cashbacks (or upfront discounts) and loyalty tokens when they undertake transactions that strengthen the protocol.

Protocol revenue and benefits to LP:
rapidX protocol borrows the liquidity from the liquidity pool at inter-bank rate and converts the currency at wholesale rate. This small margin generates revenue to smart contract for every transaction. 50% of the revenue goes to LPs and 50% goes to treasury. The protocol strives to maintain wholesale rate for every transaction on an average but the actual rate may sometimes be higher or lower than the wholesale rate depending on the demand and supply to ensure automated pool balancing.
LPs earn real and sustainable yield by deploying their idle cash. LPs can earn anything between 15-25% APR assuming a utilization rate of 20-30%. Additionally, LPs and other users can mine loyalty tokens when they undertake certain activities that strengthen the protocol.

Governance:
Decentralized governance with voting power represented through Loyalty tokens(ERC20). Treasury is also governed through voting.

Current Status:
We have built an MVP during the ETHOnline Hackathon 2022 in September. For MVP we have implemented the Application with tokenization, smart contracts and adaptive AMM with Cash Backs. We have also implemented communication layer through PUSH notifications. Merchant getting payment confirmation notifications and Merchant sending exclusive offers to those opted in users who pay with rapidX.
(In MVP V1.0 imposes a very small fee. The upcoming public testnet version removes the fee completely.)
We are thankful and honored to receive some prizes including from PUSH team.
Please have a look at our demo video:

We also invite you to try our demo and provide your feedback (links provided in the Relevant Links section)

What we are doing Currently? :
(1) Building a Incentivized TestNet V1.0 to enable real users to try. Activities include:
a. Fix the smart contract bugs found in the MVP
b. Create a new front end with better UX
c. Web2 experience for Login ie social Logins (Magic Wallet)
d. Incentivize transactions through tokens(non-ERc20)
e. Build Open banking API simulation layer
f. Build communication layer
g. Build Community and become active in social media platforms – twitter, Discord, TikTok etc.

Timeline: Two Months
In addition to current team, we would need another member to handle Social Media Management and Promotions

Costs: (a) Overall Design and Development Cost (b) Server and Hardware cost for public testnet (c) Social Media Management Cost (4) testnet marketing cost

(2) Building Incentivized TestNet V2.0:
a. Integrating with new open banking APIs
b. Integrating with new bridge partners (stablecoin or e-money issuers)
c. Implementing “Pay with rapidX” button/feature
d. Building Plug and Play APIs
e. Fixing the bugs of test net 1.0
f. Introduce ERc20 loyalty tokens
g. Streamlining the communication layer

Timeline: two Months
In addition to current team, we would need another a new member to handle APIs development to save on the time.

Costs: (a) Overall Design and Development Cost (b) Server and Hardware cost for public testnet (c) Social Media Management Cost (d) testnet marketing cost (e) Consulting & Advisory Costs

(3) Fix the bugs, finetune the development and Go-Live with managed liquidity with select jurisdictions

Value Proposition to EPNS
Our Payment Solution requires a communication layer and we are building this layer using PUSH notifications. Some of the notifications use-case include:
(a) When the payment is successful, notification will be sent to buyer to congratulate him on his receipt of X number of loyalty tokens.
(b) Merchants can send customized offers to his subscribed (loyal) buyers
(c) RapidX can send relevant Ads to all opt-in rapidX users.
(d) When a pool becomes imbalanced, notifications can be sent to all the relevant users to avail cashbacks.
(e) When liquidity is successfully added/removed, notification can be sent to LP
(f) When loyalty tokens are sent to smart contract and revenue is claimed, notification can be sent to all relevant users
(g) We will also implement chat after analysing if Push notifications can be used for chat between the users.
We believe that through our App we can bring mass adoption to PUSH and also to blockchain tech as a whole.
Funding Requested
$20,000 (63,845 Push tokens as on 29/10/2022)
Milestones

Milestone:1 ($10,000)
Building a Incentivized TestNet V1.0 to enable real users to try. Activities include:
a. Fix the smart contract bugs found in the MVP
b. Create a new front end with better UX
c. Web2 experience for Login ie social Logins (Magic Wallet)
d. Incentivize transactions through tokens(non-ERc20)
e. Build Open banking API simulation layer
f. Build communication layer
g. Build Community and become active in social media platforms – twitter, Discord, TikTok etc.
h. 7 (a), (c), (d), (e) mentioned above
Timeline: Two Months

Milestone:2 ($10,000)
Building Incentivized TestNet V2.0:
a. Integrating with new open banking APIs
b. Integrating with new bridge partners (stablecoin or e-money issuers)
c. Implementing “Pay with rapidX” button/feature
d. Building Plug and Play APIs
e. Fixing the bugs of test net 1.0
f. Introduce ERc20 loyalty tokens
g. Streamlining the communication layer
h. 7 (b), (f), (g)
i. Security Audit
j. Fixing the bugs founds in testnet V2.0 and gearing up for mainnet
Timeline: two Months

Wallet Address
0x1213f4462C8c0699DA80B83e75422C7EA9E12e75
Relevant Links & Attachments
MVP Demo video:
RapidX (Decentralized Paypal) | ETHGlobal

MVP Demo (Hands On):
1.Checkout Page (Integrated with Pay with rapidX):
https://rapidx.live/shop

Buyer: 0x6A036354B234A27abcc75C022fFfAC373BF599A6 (Prikey: 100604fb3e75942eabd7dfea4f9ff1f7912b9485712c251118843a8df031698b)
INR token: 0x9732364A18Cba18E26C2dE9832ffB227b045e6Df

Steps:

Open the checkout page from the link above
Login to Metamask using the above Buyer credentials.(Mumbai testNet)
Subscribe to notifications from Merchant by enabling “Alerts” on top right corner to receive any special offers.
Note that Merchant’s currency is Euro, while the buyer has only INR in his wallet.
Click on pay with rapidX
Notice that the Contract fee. It is 95% lesser than other centralized alternatives like paypal. (In upcoming testnet 1.0, the fee would be transformed to zero)
Choose pay with wallet and click on Pay. (we have disabled Pay with UPI currently for security reasons for public demo.)
Please wait and transaction will be confirmed in few secs! You can verify on the block explorer

Source code: GitHub - manish-rana001/rapidx: Rapidx Protocol frontend and smart contract files

Referral
Jaf from EPNS team.

Thanks & Regards
Sri .

KeerthiChegireddy · November 1, 2022, 2:00pm

This is really Interesting!!!

MrJaf · November 2, 2022, 4:20am

hi @rapidX,

Same as with other Grant Proposals I have a few questions before I start forming my own criteria for supporting this project.

Given that you are getting started right after the Hackathon - my assumption is that you don’t have a user base yet, but I might be wrong.
- Can you share current numbers regarding users? and maybe transactions in your platform?
- How do you plan to increase awareness and adoption of RapidX with merchants?
Milestone 1 doesn’t look clear to me in regards to the value proposition for Push Protocol. Can u please elaborate more?
- What does it mean to build the communication layer?
- Which notifications are you planning to include?
- How many users are you expecting to have by the end of Milestone 1?
- How are you making it to that number of users mentioned above?

rapidX · November 2, 2022, 11:49am

@MrJaf Thanks for your time for reviewing the proposal. Happy to answer the questions.

We are currently in the development phase. User acquisition would start soon with the implementation of the incentivized testnet. We have an elaborate phase wise marketing plan to increase awareness and adoption of our protocol.
(1) Firstly, with incentivized testnet we plan to onboard individuals who can play with the testnet, simulate transactions to feel the benefits, provide feedback and receive incentives in future(loyalty tokens, free NFT mint etc.). These users would be our early adaptors and would send funds among themselves or to their friends/customers when protocol goes live.
(2) We would then reach out to small and new merchants through twitter, youtube and instagram influencers who would promote our protocol as paypal alternative.
(3) Once we achieve, reasonable traction we would reach out to shopify to add our widget to their payment providers list. We would also look for partnering with existing crypto and fiat payment gateways.

The protocol is owned by its users i.e, Loyalty token holders and Liquidity Providers who ultimately stands to benefit if the protocol’s adoption increases. Therefore the community would play a central role in increasing the adoption. Building this community is part of the milestone 1.

Regarding Milestone1:

What does it mean to build the communication layer?

Communication layer relates to any event triggered messages(Acks, alerts, confirmations etc.) that need to flow to the relevant stakeholders. We will use PUSH for this.

Which notifications are you planning to include?

(1) Notifications to sender (once the recipient receives money, loyalty tokens receipt notifications), (2) Notifications to LP providers (3) Cashback opportunity & LP Pool imbalance notifications (4) General-purpose notifications (greetings, any paid promotions, stats about rapidX protocol performance reports etc.)

How many users are you expecting to have by the end of Milestone 1?
Atleast 2k-3k
How are you making it to that number of users mentioned above?
By increasing awareness through Incentivized testnet. Users who simulate the transactions would receive incentives ( loyalty tokens, free nft minting opportunities). The testnet would be promoted through twitter and youtube influencers. We also would be building a strong community using social social media as part of milestone1 who would promote the protocol.

Please do let me know if further questions/feedback. Thanks!

Sri .

Adam · November 5, 2022, 8:39pm

Interesting project - solves real world problem

MrJaf · November 6, 2022, 5:22am

Thanks for the responses @rapidX

The plan you describe looks good while the project is on development phase. However user acquisition is always hard at the initial stages and the 2k-3k users you mention is big goal by itself.

When do you envision starting this incentivized testnet phase where you are going to put your user acquisition strategies to test?
While numbers might need to be adjusted once you set things in motion, seeing a good amount of unique users coming to test already says a lot. And will also help putting numbers to notifications.

i.e. 1000 unique users receiving in Avg 6 notifications per month = 6.000 notifs

rapidX · November 6, 2022, 11:23pm

Hello Jaf. Thank you for the feedback.

Agree that user acquisition is hard at initial stages. We set an ambitious target of 2k-3k looking at the interest and participation shown by web3 community to incentivized testnets in recent times. Recently some projects acquired around 20k users through their incentivized testnets! So I believe that 1000 unique users with 6000 notifications is an achievable target.

We are Targeting first week of Jan 2023 to roll-out our first Incentivized public Testnet.

Gokul · November 7, 2022, 2:36am

Trying to solve a real world problem. Seems like good use case for push notifications!

MrJaf · November 8, 2022, 5:24am

hi @rapidX
This proposal almost meets the criteria to go to Polling phase.

The only thing pending is to define quantifiable goals for Milestone 2.

Just to be clear - same as it has been stated with other Grants - now we are wanting to attach Milestones and its corresponding installments to quantifiable goals.

As you mentioned in your previous post (aside from the technical implementation and features development) :

Milestone 1: looking for a user base in the range of 2,000 to 3,000 users.
Milestone 2: ???

Please make one final post with the final proposal details that include Milestone 1 and 2 goals, so we can move it to Polling Phase. (PS. adjust the numbers in the milestones if you need, they will be discussed further if needed).

rapidX · November 9, 2022, 12:30am

Updated Proposal

Project Name
RapidX Protocol
Email
rapidxpay@gmail.com
About You
My name is Sri. I have a decade of experience in TradFi, Banking and Web3.0 technologies combined. Along with me, there are two more team mates. Sridhar is the Solidity developer and he has a vast experience in Enterprise Software Development. Manish is the Frontend/Backend developer and he has developed several web3.0 projects as a freelancer.
Email: rapidxpay@gmail.com
Discord: Discord
website: rapidxpay.com
Project TL:DR

RapidX Protocol is the first ever Blockchain based Incentivized Global Payments Infrastructure for sending/receiving money across the world INSTANTLY and at ZERO transaction fee. One of the Apps built on top of this protocol is rapidXPay. Think of this App as a decentralized PayPal but with Zero transaction cost both to payer and merchant! Video of demo of MVP V1.0 () is available at following link: (() -Version 1.0 imposes a very small fee. The upcoming public incentivized testnet version 1.0 removes the fee completely. )

ethglobal.com

RapidX (Decentralized Paypal) | ETHGlobal

Paypal Killer - Revolutionizing the cross border payments through web3.0 payment rails

For Hands-On, please refer to links at Section 12.

Proposal Category
Defi
Project Overview

Our Vision is to make sending/receiving money across the world real-time at zero transaction cost. Towards this vision, we are building the first ever Blockchain Based Incentivized Payments Protocol and also an application that is powered by this protocol. Users of the App can send/receive money from across the world for FREE and INSTANTLY. We believe that by solving real world problems, mass adoption to blockchain tech will be achieved.

Our solution is built on principles of decentralization, meaning the users own the network. Users to the network are the Liquidity providers(LPs), payers, merchants, bridges and frontends. LPs can put their idle cash to work by adding liquidity to Isolated single sided currency pools. Anyone i.e, individual, HNIs, Corporates etc. can easily add liquidity in their domestic currency.

Core Architecture:
A Cross border transaction is broken into two domestic transactions and are in turn connected by the rapidX smart contract suite. All rent seeking intermediaries are done away with. Open Banking APIs are used to connect TradFi to DeFi. Flow of funds involves following steps:

Payer sends fiat currency from his/her bank account to the rapidX bridge.
Bridge tokenizes the fiat currency to digital currency and submits the transaction to blockchain
Smart contract uses the rapidX adaptive AMM to convert the currency to recipient/merchant’s preferred currency.
Recipient receives the digital currency in his wallet
Recipient can convert the digital currency to fiat currency using rapidX Bridge.