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By Cede Labs
Cede Labs specializes in bridging the gap between Centralized Finance (CeFi) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) by offering seamless, secure connectivity to over 15 Centralized Exchange (CEX) APIs. Our innovative solutions unlock liquidity from CEXs, enabling effortless integration for dApps and asset managers to optimize their operations without compromising user experience.
The Problem: CEX connectivity presents significant challenges due to the tremendous lack of fluidity between centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi). This disconnection prevents the seamless transfer of liquidity, with over 40% of crypto liquidity trapped in centralized exchanges, limiting the potential for DeFi innovation and broader ecosystems like Stellar. Moreover, existing liquidity gateway solutions are inefficient, expensive, or not user-friendly (FIAT on-ramp, Bridges, …); with CEX integration being highly complex, especially for Web3 teams whose core expertise lies elsewhere. Adding to the difficulty, the maintenance of CEX API keys requires heavy ressources and continuous monitoring.
The Solution: To bridge the gap between CeFi & DeFi, Cede Labs is building two products:
To integrate cede.store into a dApp, similar to how a DeFi wallet functions, the dApp interacts with a provider object (e.g., `window.ethereum` for EVM wallets or `window.cede` for cede.store). The dApp can execute various methods, such as retrieving balances or initiating a withdrawal from the exchange to the blockchain.
If a project prefers not to interact directly with this API, they can utilize our widget, which facilitates the transfer of funds from a CEX to the user’s address. For a list of all our partners, visit https://cede.store/partners.
Stellar Integration & Soroban: As part of our broader strategy, Cede Labs is working to integrate the Stellar blockchain into its API and SDK. This will allow Stellar-based dApps to access liquidity from centralized exchanges, greatly expanding Stellar’s utility. Soroban, Stellar’s smart contract engine, will be instrumental in this integration, particularly through the introduction of an "Instant Protocol Deposit" feature. This feature will enable users to seamlessly transfer assets from CEXs directly into Stellar-based protocols, such as DeFi applications, without the need for intermediaries. By leveraging Soroban, we ensure that this functionality is permissionless and optimized for security and scalability, helping Stellar attract significant liquidity and making it a competitive player in the DeFi space.
Why We Chose Stellar We selected Stellar’s blockchain infrastructure for three primary reasons:
This not only empowers financial institutions but also accelerates the integration of Stellar’s ecosystem into mainstream financial operations. As we continue to refine our offerings, Cede Labs is committed to driving the adoption of Stellar by providing the tools and infrastructure necessary for institutional participation in the blockchain ecosystem.
Maybe in the future, but not in this submission
$119.8K
To measure the success and impact of Cede Labs and our Cede.store extension and SDK, we have identified key metrics across adoption, developer engagement, integration, and business performance. These KPIs will help us track our growth, user satisfaction, and overall contribution to the Stellar ecosystem.
Adoption Rate:
Developer Engagement and Reliability:
Integration Success:
Business Metrics:
Our go-to-market strategy at Cede Labs is designed to drive widespread adoption of our Cede.store extension and Cede SDK among institutional players and key stakeholders in the Stellar blockchain ecosystem. We are focusing on both ecosystem partnerships and financial institution onboarding to fuel our growth and expand our presence within the Stellar ecosystem. End-user acquisition Regarding retail end-users, we understand after our 3 years of experience that a B2B2C GTM is the most efficient and relevant strategy to bring massive amounts of users in a new ecosystem with minimum efforts and without crazy marketing expenses. Indeed, the strategy focus on partners acquisition which will be detailed in the points below, and we leverage our partners’ community to top down the user acquisition. Furthermore, we leverage cede.store users to bottom-up collaboration with new partners.
Ecosystem Partnerships – B2B We will target startups and established developers within the Stellar ecosystem by offering deep integration and consulting support. Our goal is to ensure that any project looking to manage liquidity between centralized exchanges (CEXs) and Stellar can leverage our tools to do so seamlessly.
Financial Institution Onboarding – B2B Targeting financial institutions is a cornerstone of our strategy. We are focusing on custody solutions, OEMS, prime brokers, market makers, and other services & tech providers providing their services to asset managers.
Marketing and Branding Our marketing efforts are centered around building a strong brand presence within the blockchain and financial sectors through targeted social media campaigns.
By implementing these strategies, Cede Labs aims to become the provider of CEX-to-Stellar liquidity management solutions, driving innovation within the Stellar ecosystem. Through strategic partnerships, financial institution onboarding, and community engagement, we are positioned to significantly contribute to the adoption and development of Stellar as a blockchain leader in institutional finance.
I) Steps for our MVP From November 2024 to February 2025 - $44 500
Brief Description We will integrate the Stellar blockchain into the cede.store extension and its provider API. The goal is to enable users to withdraw liquidity from CEXs to the Stellar chain. Additionally, this integration will allow dApps to use the provider API to perform the same function.
How to Measure Completion Completion will be measured by ensuring that transfers from centralized exchanges to Stellar blockchain work from the extension and the dApp, using cede.store Provider API.
Estimated date of completion: December 28, 2024
Budget: $17 800
Brief Description Some dApps might manage CEX API keys directly for users to eliminate the need for downloading the cede.store extension. For these clients, we offer our white-label solution, Cede SDK. We will integrate the Stellar chain into the SDK to enable the retrieval of Stellar chain data, initiate withdrawals to Stellar, and track the status of these withdrawals.
How to Measure Completion Completion will be measured by ensuring that all methods used for CEX withdrawals to the Stellar chain are functional. We have an SDK demo stand that allows us to test these methods.
Estimated date of completion: January 15, 2025
Budget: $17 200
Brief Description To help our partners to integrate the Provider API or the Cede SDK, we’ll improve our developer documentation, integration guides and create/update the playground allowing to play with Provider API.
How to Measure Completion Completion will be measured by ensuring that all methods used for CEX withdrawals to the Stellar chain are functional. We have an SDK demo stand that allows us to test these methods.
Estimated date of completion: February 15, 2025
Budget: $9 500
II) Steps for our TestNet From February 2025 to April 2025 - $55 500
Brief Description In order to ensure the safety of both products before open-sourcing them, we will conduct whitebox penetration testing.
How to Measure Completion The audit report will be presented by the end of the audit for both products: cede.store and Cede SDK.
Estimated date of completion: February 31, 2025
Budget: $27 500
Brief Description To get more trust from users and our clients, we’ll open source the extension and Cede SDK. This implies making some code refactoring and splitting the codebase - currently we use the monorepo. These changes also imply a lot of QA after the migration to ensure that provider API and Cede SDK are stable and nothing is broken.
How to Measure Completion Completion will be measured by ensuring that cede.store extension and Cede SDK package repos are public.
Estimated date of completion: March 15, 2025
Budget: $11 000
Brief Description The @cedelabs/react-sdk is a comprehensive React SDK containing react hooks designed to streamline the integration of cede.store into dApps. With a range of powerful features and hooks, this SDK simplifies the process of interacting with the cede.store extension. It facilitates various actions, such as retrieving user balances, identifying available networks, and initiating and tracking withdrawal requests.
How to Measure Completion Completion will be measured by ensuring that @cedelabs/react-sdk is available and has methods allowing to integrate withdrawals from CEXs to Stellar, as well as presence of the developer documentation.
Estimated date of completion: April 1st, 2025
Budget: $17 000
III) Launch on MainNet From April 2025 to May 2025 - $19 800
Brief Description IPD stands for Instant Protocol Deposit. We plan to develop a feature to directly invest user’s CEX assets to a protocol while staying non-custodial. For example, a user will be able to invest directly in an AAVE lending pool from his CEX assets. It allows any players to attract the maximum liquidity from CEX to the user’s wallet. Similar to transak one (FIAT to smart-contract): https://transak.com/transak-one
How to Measure Completion Completion will be measured by ensuring on our demo app that funds withdrawn from a CEX are directly deposited into the Stellar protocol on behalf of the user (the user keeps ownership of funds)
Estimated date of completion: May 15, 2025
Budget: $19 800
Team Members: 6 - Pierre Ni (Co-founder & CEO): Graduate of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, entrepreneur since 2021, crypto investor since 2020. - Gabriel Begazo (Co-founder & COO): Graduate of INSA Lyon and IIT Bombay, founder of Kryptosphere INSA Lyon, in crypto since 2017. - Ariel Benittah (BD Lead & Head of Partnerships): DeFi investor since 2019, contributed to GMX, entrepreneur who generated $700k in drop-shipping. - Canberra Menthonnex (Product Manager): Computer science graduate, previously worked for several fintech companies. - Nikita Terekhov (Co-founder & CTO): Graduate of INSA Lyon and MIPT, winner of multiple hackathons, former engineer at Worldline. - Mathieu Raimbault (Full-stack Developer): Full-stack developer, joined Cede Labs in 2021, became a shareholder after contributing as a freelancer.
Nikitacede
Nikita Terekhov
Felix
Cedelabs
No other submissions.