Long-Term Vision: The Finance Exchange aims to harmonize ADA staking rewards, DeFi, and traditional finance, by leveraging blockchain technology and educating businesses, it will create a sustainable financial ecosystem that benefits delegators, businesses, and DeFi investors alike.

Project Goals:

1. Create fiat liquidity reserves for entities who generate ADA or are funded by ADA grants.
2. Create a system to reward entities for measurable on-boarding statistics including increases in transaction volume and ADA held as a store of value.
3. Create a simple and educational on-boarding experience for businesses and individuals interested in joining the Cardano Ecosystem.
4. Create an open-source set of tools for other businesses or individuals to accomplish these same goals for the Cardano Ecosystem. This will include tutorials on how to set up your own exchange, and boilerplate contract templates. This will be condensed into an easy-to-use App that leverages the Cardano Blockchain and rewards businesses or individuals for verifiable metrics in a way that is sustainable and beneficial for the Cardano Ecosystem.

Some short videos providing a description as well as examples of the project scope.

• Basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YA6c8l0VrQ
• Example Business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Bc7k2XCTY
• Sustainable Incentives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQlmcF7gvrw
• Legal Frameworks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB94RAK2_Zo

1. Traditional businesses need a way to access ADA, that makes sense to them. We need to meet them where they are. Let's consider an example of a business that has no experience with blockchain outside of what they have heard in standard media outlets. Most are skeptical of the industry and have poor examples led by exchanges either attacked relentlessly by regulation, forced into bankruptcy from the LUNA unwinding, or they saw the sensationalized FTX case involving billions in fraudulent behavior. A Morning Consult survey from December 2022, shortly after FTX’s collapse, found that 66% of Americans viewed cryptocurrency as a risky investment. If left to find their own way, most if not all businesses will engage in more standard ways of upgrading their business operations vs going to Coinbase or Binance and trying to figure out how blockchain can help their business and which chain best fits their network needs. They simply don’t even understand what a blockchain is, how it can integrate into their business, and are more likely to explore use cases for the Cardano Blockchain if approached by a peer within their industry with experience in the ecosystem.

2. Projects need to be funded in a way that minimizes the sell pressure on the price of ADA. eg exchange ADA for traditional currency to pay expenses.

3. Traditional businesses need a way to become educated on the benefits that the Cardano Ecosystem can bring to their operations.. Based on business dealings we have found few business owners/operators who have heard of blockchain, fewer still who invest in it, and less understand the difference between a layer 1 blockchain, a memecoin, or an NFT. The most common thought is that these are all risky digital currencies that may or may not increase in value, and it wastes a lot of electricity. We believe this is the perfect opportunity for an educational program sponsored not by exchanges, but by industry peers who understand the specific needs that the blockchain can address within their business and associated ecosystem/industry.

1. An Open-Source Finance Exchange model that enables ADA holder entities to connect with businesses holding traditional currency to exchange ADA and traditional currencies via decentralised protocols and apps. See Overview Diagram in the references section. (Problem Statements 1 & 2)

2. Incentivize traditional businesses to on-board industry peers after they prove verifiable metrics like increases in ADA holders/Transaction Volume creates a low risk and sustainable way for the Cardano Treasury to fund adoption. MAV100 and selfdriven will work in collaboration with Waterra USA, Inc. to test the program by on-boarding members of the groundwater industry with the intent to educate them on use cases within the Cardano Ecosystem, so they can collaborate to build useful industry tools in the future. Waterra USA has a client/vendor list of over 1800 businesses including: 60+ Universities, 30+ United States Geological Survey Offices, hundreds of private contractors, distributors (ex: Pine Environmental), and manufacturers (ex: Allied Motion). With decades-old personal relationships, the ability to reach out and educate these businesses on the possibilities within the Cardano Ecosystem will have a higher success rate than traditional crypto education platforms. For more information, please reference Supporting Link video : Finance Exchange Episode #2. Rewards from the initial pool will be earned by accomplishing 1 of 2 things: Increasing transaction volume and ADA purchased for use as a store of value. (Problem Statement 3)

-- For a conversation overview see the Deep Dive Podcast link in the "Further information" section of this proposal.

Deliverables:

1. Community Framework for measuring transaction sources - for tracking ROI
2. Framework to integrate traditional business activity into Cardano ecosystem to increase liquidity and transactions.
3. Exchange system to keep ADA in system to reduce sell pressure.
4. Education programs

Definition of Done:

1. Documentation covering frameworks - open-source on github repo.
2. MVP tech/app built and usable - open source on github repo.
3. Initial businesses engaged - as part of the pilot program.
4. Incentives rewards pool initiated - as part of the pilot program.
5. Educational website & explainer videos

See attached PDF for full dertails.

STAGE | USD | ADA:

1. Setup | Infrastructure and legal formation | 50,000 | 75,758
2. Stakepool setup | 40,000 | 60,606
3. Delegation Efforts | 10,000 15,152
4. Business Onboarding | 100,000 151,515
5. Program Development | 150,000 | 227,273
6. Management Team Growth | 150,000 | 227,273

See attached PDF for full details.

STAGE | PURPOSE | DURATION (Months) | USD:

1. Setup | Infrastructure and legal formation | 1 | 50,000
2. Stakepool | Setup pool & pledge capital for staking operations | 1 | 40,000
3. Delegation Efforts | Scale staking rewards and delegations | On-going | 10,000
4. Business Onboarding | Pilot on-boarding Businesses | 6 | 100,000
5. Program Development | Collateralization and DeFi product launch | 6 | 150,000
6. Management Team Growth | Build the skilled, growth-focused team | 6 | 150,000

The team has deep experience in business, information technology for businesses (over 25 years), research & Cardano technology and economics.

The selfdriven team has a deep understanding of the Cardano technology stack from the first principles, the ledger, cryptography, network, apps (dApps), proofs (zk to societal), services (tech and societal) - we understand the why, what and how.

See linked PDF proposal for more details.

The proposal helps support and develop an entity that provides value for already existing businesses that have their own sustainable revenue streams that have been in business for decades. Those businesses will be incentivized through the proposal to develop new ways of leveraging the Cardano Ecosystem, and will have robust legal contracts providing stability and consistency for the operation.

https://x.com/MAV100_ADA/status/1904568107726942561 https://x.com/MAV100_ADA/status/1905652107601924145

No significant dependencies.