IntoTheBlock Risk Radar Grant Proposal
Request
Receiving Address: 0xa564B8fbB6542637ECf6fEde24F1CBFd2bE70103
AJNA Amount: 350000 AJNA
Applicant and Team Information
Applicant Name: IntoTheBlock
Email: info@intotheblock.io
About you and/or the team:
IntoTheBlock (ITB) was founded in 2019 and is one of the largest crypto data providers. We have support in our app for custom analytics for more than 10 chains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, Polygon, Tron, Avalanche, Cardano, Algorand, and more) 1000+ coins, 5000+ NFT collections, and 20+ DeFi protocols, as well as other traditional finance metrics. Our analytics are available for both retail users and institutions, integrating with partners such as Binance, CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, Bitstamp, Deribit, Decrypt, Coindesk, and Tradingview, in addition to 300+ other companies.
IntoTheBlock has been deeply involved in DeFi over the past three years. Through our DeFi Quant Platform, we have helped over 20 of the largest crypto institutions deploy more than $1B in assets via sophisticated, non-custodial strategies aided by our risk management tools. These strategies are tailored to each institution’s risk profile and would have not been possible without our extensive focus on risk management.
Additional Links:
- IntoTheBlock Website - https://www.intotheblock.com/
- IntoTheBlock Risk Radar App - https://defirisk.intotheblock.com/
- IntoTheBlock Analytics App - https://app.intotheblock.com/
- IntoTheBlock Quant App - https://intotheblock.finance/
- IntoTheBlock Medium - IntoTheBlock - Medium
- IntoTheBlock Twitter - https://twitter.com/intotheblock
Project Information
1. What is it?
The project will create and integrate a dashboard of risk signals for Ajna into ITB’s Risk Radar platform. The Risk Radar aims to be a central hub for users to access risk information for popular protocols across the DeFi ecosystem. The Ajna Risk Radar dashboard will be freely available to the public and will allow users to review Ajna economic risks in near-real time and compare across other protocols to develop their own strategy based on their risk profile. The platform will also be accessed by ITB institutional clients who have allocated over $1B into DeFi using ITB risk management.
2. What problem is being solved, how?
Economic risks present a large risk vector for users in DeFi. While technical risks are often mitigated through the diligence of the developers in the protocol and security audits, economic risks can arise as market conditions change. Therefore, real-time risk signals are essential to track potentially developing economic risks.
ITB’s DeFi Quant Platform has been safeguarding hundreds of millions of dollars in assets from our institutional clients using the same risk indicators that we offer in our Risk Radar. We believe that these risk indicators should be accessible to the entire DeFi community to help inform users on risks and the current status of the DeFi protocols.
3. How will this project be a source of growth or success for Ajna? Please include a step-by-step summary of how you imagine the completed project will affect Ajna.
The Ajna Risk Radar will help users monitor the economic risks they face when opening and maintaining positions in Ajna. This brings confidence to capital allocators who feel more comfortable with this level of transparency, while helping educate users about the risks they take.
ITB’s indicators are designed to provide actionable insights into the market, allowing users to identify economic market risks early so that they can adjust their strategies accordingly. Additionally, ITB’s supporting documentation on how to utilize the indicators and downloadable data increases the accessibility of risk data for all types of users. ITB believes that indicators in the Risk Radar are differentiated from products provided by other providers and are complementary to others when a user is developing their risk profile.
Important to Ajna’s growth, the Risk Radar dashboard will bring exposure to Ajna from ITB’s institutional clients that use the risk indicators to make portfolio strategy decisions when deploying their capital into DeFi.Ajna’s incorporation into the Risk Radar platform boosts its accessibility to institutions, DAOs, and treasuries.
4. What is/are the objective(s)?
The overall goal of the Risk Radar app is to provide a holistic view of economic risks and other risks of individual protocols and how these risks interact. Users will be able to use the Risk Radar as a tool to develop risk models for their DeFi asset allocation strategies. Ultimately, we aim to increase confidence in DeFi protocols by making all of this data available to monitor.
5. What is/are the deliverable(s)?
ITB is suggesting the grant to be structured by milestones and will be split in two phases with each phase covered by a grant. The first phase will cover the indicators linked here. A mock-up of the indicators can be found here. The first phase grant will cover the following:
- Indicators dashboard for Ajna deployments on Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism blockchains
- Documentation covering Ajna’s risk dynamics
- Quarterly upgrades and maintenance, such as adding new collaterals and facilitators, modifying metrics based on feedback
The first phase grant will cover the four blockchains above where we believe the majority of liquidity will be deployed. Based on the evolution of Ajna’s deployments and liquidity, ITB will determine any additional blockchains to support in the second phase grant.
6. What is the timeline for completing the deliverables?
The tentative timeline for a finished dashboard would be within two quarters after the grant has been approved. Updates on progress and links to alpha stage dashboards will be provided during the process.
7. What level of support do you anticipate needing through the duration of the project?
ITB’s researchers, smart contract engineers, and data scientists will be able to create and build the Risk Radar in its entirety. However, based on building similar products for DeFi protocols, we find that having a line of communication with the team can help clarify any doubts or questions that arise. An open communication channel will also provide a collaborative development process so that we can integrate feedback from the team.
8. How often will progress reports be published to the forum?
ITB’s recommendation is to publish progress reports as each milestone is finished. This will mean a report with a link to our alpha environment for each batch of indicators and then an update when documentation is complete and for each quarterly upgrade.
9. What are the estimated costs associated with the full completion of this project?
The estimated cost of the full Ajna Risk Radar dashboard is $60k. The cost breakdown can be found in our Cost Transparency Document. ITB is proposing to split the project across two phases that will be funded by two separate grants. This grant will cover the first phase of the dashboard (10 indicators). Once the first phase is completed, we will submit a new grant for the second phase.
10. If applicable, How will the project be maintained after completion of the grant?
Ongoing maintenance including support for new collateral assets that are automatically added. The ITB team will frequently review the data and indicators to make fixes and adjustments if any issues arise.
Additional Information
11. How will you handle a delay in your project timeline?
If there are any delays to the project timeline due to technical issues on ITB’s side or events that pause the protocol, ITB will publish an updated timeline and status report to the forum and prioritize the work that can still be completed to minimize any potential delays.
12. How will you handle a scenario where the project can’t be completed due to insufficient funding or other factors?
The Risk Radar is not ITB’s primary economic product, but rather a product that we are building with the vision of creating a product that will be accessible to all DeFi users, bringing transparency and helping improve risk management in the space. ITB has previously built and finished similar projects for other DeFi protocols such as Curve and Aave.
ITB is committed to completing the project as outlined in the proposal. If there are blocking factors it may get delayed, though that has not been the case with previous grants. In the worst case scenario that the project is unable to be completed for completely unforeseen reasons, ITB would be returning the funds.
13. How will you handle a scenario where the project is completed, but significantly under-budget?
Similar to the response above, we will aim to still build the Risk Radar. In a situation where the budget is significantly lower than the expected budget, we would open dialogue with the community in the forum to make a smaller selection of the initially proposed indicators and build the Ajna Risk Radar with those indicators.