IC1101 iUSD

Inspiration

We learned about ICP from the simple Instagram ad, and it made us crazy. Technology deep-dive videos are amazing. The best experience of writing asynchronous smart-contracts we ever had ( yes, we tried NEAR too :) ) AND! The first REALLY decentralized Bitcoin integration, this one is actually AWESOME. There is so much liquidity potential hamsters haven't used yet. We understood – we should help utilize this liquidity.

What it does

So, we got the goal – to utilize Bitcoin liquidity in the best way possible. But how can we proceed, if there are so many Bitcoin HODLERs, who don't want to sell their BTC ever, or at least for millions? So, the best solution is not to sell Bitcoin, but to mortgage it!! The classical lending protocol Compound offers really big percentages for USDT about 4-5% per year. It is not the case, if you have a lot of BTC, and wait for the next bull run in 5 years. That's why we decided to proceed with the MakerDAO approach to creating our own overcollateralized stable coin, but make it much better by removing Maker's disadvantages: still high borrow percent, auction-based liquidation, strong dependence on the centralized assets(USDC, WBTC, etc.), DAO controlled by whales.

How we built it

Supernova Workshops and other video material help a lot in deep diving into the Internet Computer. DApp is built with motoko and reactjs utilizing four canisters roles: web-part, Bitcoin token, stable token, minter. Also, we use Java icp client - IC4J for the liquidator bot. We still waiting for the Bitcoin <--> ICP bridge and big liquidity market running on the ICP to bring our project to life.

Challenges we ran into

Asynchronous code requires a different way of thinking in terms of smart-contract development and security audits. We need to create really robust protocol against market volatility, front-run attacks, etc. Also, some parts of the infrastructure is pretty fresh, and buggy (like Plug wallet), but we still are moving on 💪.