Stellar Community Fund

By Normal

Normal - Wrapped Assets

SCF #35

$80.0K

Build

Awarded

Normal Tokens - wrapped assets of each Top 100 crypto helping Stellar users get easy exposure to any asset without using bridges, CEXs, or multiple exchanges.

Products & Services

Normal Tokens (improvement) - wrapped assets and accompanying liquidity pools on Stellar for each Top 100 cryptocurrency (for example, Normal Bitcoin (nBTC) backed 1:1 by deposits of the underlying asset in Qualified Custodian accounts
Soroban MPC Minter Wallet - a Soroban MPC wallet contract used to ensure Normal Token minters can only execute approved transactions with newly minted Normal Tokens
Normal Unified Liquidity Layer - a Soroban contract allowing investors to provide liquidity to any Stellar DEX pool using just a single asset (like XLM or USDC) - is necessary for acquiring liquidity for Normal Tokens

Soroban

Yes

Requested Budget

$80.0K

Success Criteria

Reaching $10m TVL for Normal Tokens on Stellar with secondary market liquidity pools on various DEXs like Aquarius, LumenSwap, and Blend

Go-To-Market Plan

Four steps:

Once live on mainnet, convert our Letters of Intent with ~$10m institutional sales pipeline into full clients to kickstart Normal Token liquidity
Acquire partnership with LumenSwap and/or Aquarius to deploy co-marketing campaigns to attract initial Normal Token traders (including rewards)
Build native crypto custodian integrations - enabling any client to easily provide liquidity to or trade Normal Tokens on Stellar (instead of pitching them one-off)
Partner with existing Stellar communities like Beans and Decaf to provide their communities with unfiltered access to cryptocurrencies via Normal Tokens

Traction Evidence

Since our SCF #31 submission, we've scaled our AUM to over $350k from 200+ clients across 30+ countries.

We've also developed the following institutional clients and sales pipeline:

Carpathian Capital - $10m AUM crypto hedge fund
Ronin Digital - $5m AUM crypto hedge fund
Accuplan - $1.5b AUM crypto IRA provider
Pipeline - another $5m in AUM

Tranche 1 (Deliverable Roadmap) - MVP

Institutional Portal for the Normal Protocol:

Description: We've built the interface for users to swap Normal Tokens on Stellar, but we need to build an interface for institutions to onboard, provide liquidity, and manage their positions supporting Normal Tokens across the Stellar ecosystem.
Completion: Fully functioning Next.js app available at https://prime.normalfinance.io
Timeline: 6 weeks
Budget = $10,000
- 40hrs/week for 6 weeks of front-end engineering by our developer Niko Gorjan (he built the Normal trading interface) at $40/hr = $9,600

Tranche 2 (Deliverable Roadmap) - Testnet

Normal Token (wrapped assets) Soroban Contracts:

Description: Updates to our existing contracts need to be made to properly manage the minting and redeeming of Normal Tokens, how they're provided as liquidity, and how arbitrage takes place between our primary market and other Stellar DEXs.
Completion: Fully functioning contracts and architecture docs available in a branch named wrapped at https://github.com/normalfinance/normal-v1-stellar
Timeline: 6 weeks
Budget = $20,000
- 40hrs/week for 6 weeks of Soroban engineering by a newly hired Rust engineer at $80/hr (I'm shooting to negotiate this lower) = $19,200

Normal API Custodian Integrations:

Description: To ensure Normal Tokens are always backed 1:1 by Qualified Custodian deposits, we must build integrations into popular custodians like Coinbase Prime and sFOX to monitor partner institution balances. When balances change, this API triggers an appropriate Soroban mint or burn event to maintain a 1:1 backing.
Completion: Privately shared API docs and test suite via Swagger/Postman that work with test custodian accounts
Timeline: 6 weeks
Budget = $22,000
- 40hrs/week for 6 weeks of Typescript/Python engineering for the API integrations at $50/hr = $12,000
- 20hrs/week for 6 weeks of Soroban coding for necessary Soroban contract updates at $80/hr = $9,600

Tranche 3 (Deliverable Roadmap) - Mainnet

Normal MPC Minter Wallet:

Description: To ensure partner institutions do not double-spend, Normal Tokens are minted to a 2/2 signing key MPC Stellar wallet - one key owned by the institution and one by Normal. This ensures that only approved transactions may be executed with Normal Tokens so that the 1:1 backing ratio remains intact.
Completion: Fully functioning 2/2 signing MPC wallets that can adequately manage Normal Token minting/redeeming/liquidity provision
Timeline: 6 weeks
Budget = $28,000
- Fireblocks Stellar MPC wallet subscription = $4,200/year
- 20hrs/week for 6 weeks of Soroban engineering to build MPC Minter Wallet Stellar DEX integrations at $80/hr = $9,600
- 20hrs/week for 6 weeks of Typescript engineering to integrate Fireblocks MPC wallets with the rest of the Normal Protocol at $50/hr = $6,000
- 20hrs/week for 6 weeks of Typescript engineering to add Minter Wallet integration to Normal Institutional Portal at $50/hr = $6,000

Team

Joshua Blew - Co-founder & CEO - 7+ years coding, 5 years building fintech/crypto projects, built AI for stock trading, Linktree for Web3, & smart wallet w/ 30% less gas.
Justin Benjamin - Co-founder & COO - Previously product and growth at CoinFlip and Bitcoin of America, built a 300+ member international crypto trading community.
Amit Anand - Head of Marketing - Built 10m+ impression marketing strategies at Polygon, leads partnerships at Zo World.
Jake Penzato - Biz Dev Lead - Partnership and customer relations, content creation, BS Marketing & Business Admin @ Aurora University.
Nima Beheshtian - Head of Institutional Sales - Former Head of Sales at Ankr and BitGo with deep experience in blockchain security and infrastructure
Niko Gorjan - Developer - Web Designer, 3D Animation Expert, and Front-End Programmer
John Reyes - Intern with wicked skills