eGP 5: Grant request for Yacht Labs to improve native iOS interface for Euler Finance lending & borrowing

Summary:

We are requesting an $18,000 grant for continued improvement of a native interface for Euler Finance in the Yacht iOS app. Yacht is a native mobile application and dApp platform which allows users to interact with DeFi protocols on their devices. You can download our MVP on our website (https://yachtlabs.io/app). The MVP allows Euler users to view their accounts and configure custom notifications triggered by changes in health score and interest rates. In this grant we propose to add the ability to actively manage your account (supply, borrow, self-mint, burn) as well as add enhanced visualizations described in the specification and implementation section. By building a mobile interface for Euler, we aim to increase the user base of the protocol, increase TVL and give users the ability to manage their loans and borrows on the go.

Abstract:

Yacht is a team of builders bringing decentralized mobile finance to all. Henry Minden, a founder of the Constellation Network, and Adam Straus bring nearly 20 years of engineering experience to the team with a focus on mobile development. Our senior designer Julian has worked closely with tech startups, emerging consumer brands, and Fortune 500 companies as a brand consultant, creative director, and advisor for over 15 years. We are developing an iOS (and later Android) application which provides users with native interfaces for core DeFi primitives starting on the Ethereum network and expanding into multi-chain support.

There is currently not a single native interface for any major lending protocol on Ethereum. Users must interact with these protocols on their PCs which limits usability and potential for reactivity. In lending protocols, token price and interest rate volatility can require quick user action either to re-collateralize loans or to take advantage of market conditions to short/long an asset. By enabling users to take action on their phone, they no longer worry about having access to their PCs to manage their assets.

We have already built out the basic read-only interface for Euler Finance lending and borrowing including notifications. This grant will continue development to enable signing transactions with a hardware wallet and building out the mobile featureset to more fully match Euler’s desktop user interface. This includes hardware wallet functionality for borrowing and lending in any activated market, self-mint and burn, visualization of profit and loss and health score v time trajectory.

We are planning on open-sourcing the codebase for this work. We firmly believe that the application layer of web3 needs to be openly auditable to ensure security and fairness for users. Additionally, we would also be open to releasing an Euler-only version of the app if there is interest from the community.

Motivation:

DeFi is growing at a rapid pace: there are $15 billion dollars in TVL in Ethereum lending protocols and a billion dollars flowing through Ethereum DEXs every day. But there are still only about 5 million active DeFi wallets in the Ethereum ecosystem. If we want the decentralized finance user base to grow and our protocols to be secured with higher TVL, we need to increase accessibility by enabling users to interact with core DeFi protocols on their mobile devices.

There are many mobile wallets out there, the most famous being Metamask and Coinbase Wallet. But these wallets are not native integrations of DeFi protocols but rather require you to find the protocol you want to interact with in a dApp browser and open a web browser view on your phone to begin using the protocol. Web views on mobile devices are not a natural path forward to onboard millions of users into DeFi. As users of these protocols, we find interacting with DeFi on our mobile devices to be a painful experience. At Yacht, we build integrations from the ground up with mobile UX in mind, leveraging our years of experience to provide users a great mobile product.

We chose Euler as our lending protocol because of its borrow/lending integration with any ERC20 token that has a WETH pair. We value the core web3 tenets of composability and decentralization, so Euler Finance was a natural fit for Yacht.

With the completion of this app, Euler will have the distinction of being the only major ETH lending and borrowing protocol with a native mobile interface.

Benefits of Native Mobile:

With a mobile device, it becomes easy to stay updated on your borrowing and lending positions. Push notifications enable users to respond to price changes and re-collateralize or pay back their loans quickly to prevent unexpected liquidations. Users can also quickly check their borrowed assets interest rates to ensure they have enough tokens to pay down their loans and prevent liquidation.

Onboarding with Yacht and managing your Euler accounts is simple. We enable users to import existing private keys or seed phrases and manage any existing loans and borrows right when they start up the app.

Specification & Implementation:

We are requesting an initial $18,000 grant to fund the development of the Euler mobile interface with a full feature set that matches the web application’s interface:

• Connecting a Ledger device to sign and send txs
• Borrowing and Lending in any activated market
• Ability to self-mint and burn
• Visualization of profit and loss on deposited funds
• Visualization of health score v time trajectory based on current market conditions

We ask for 70% of the funds ($12,600) payable up-front, and the remaining 30% ($5,400) payable upon production launch and open sourcing of the aforementioned feature set.

How Long Will Development Take:

To ensure that we have built a robust system, we expect development to take 6 to 8 weeks from the proposal vote going through.

What will the $18,000 be used for?

• AWS costs ($1000)
• Node provider cost ($1000)
• Contributor Compensation ($16,000)

To enable notifications, we will need to host a database which tracks users’ loans. We will only store data that is publicly accessible on the blockchain and will not be collecting any personal data or other information that is not publicly available. A mapping will be stored between a user’s device ID and settings they have determined regarding when to notify them of changes in market conditions.

Future Roadmap:

After the successful completion of this grant, the Yacht Labs teams intends to add the following feature set:

• Android App
• One-touch leveraged longs/shorts through self mints and AMM swaps.
• Enhanced visualizations of portfolio

Voting

Yes Vote - Yes, fund $18,000 ($12,600 up-front, $5,400 on completion) to Yacht Labs Inc. Ethereum address (yachtlabs.eth) to build an open source native iOS app to manage Euler Finance accounts

No Vote - No, don’t fund Yacht Labs Inc. and remain without a native iOS app integration

Contact: straus@yachtlabs.io, henry@yachtlabs.io