Proposal to Whitelist Everest (Id) with 50K BNT Co-investment

[tfns]

Proposal to Whitelist Everest (Id) with 50k BNT Coinvestment

For this proposal to pass, it requires 35% quorum and 66.7% supermajority.

This proposal is expected to appear on Snapshot for voting on TBD . Make sure to stake your vBNT for voting before this date and time to participate in the DAO decision.

TL;DR

• Proposal to whitelist Everest Id.
• Co-investment of 50,000 BNT.
• There are some security concerns that could prohibit whitelist status - heavily concentrated token holders and whether code is audited.
• There is no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the Everest project.
• The benefit to Bancor is clear. The Everest community has asked for a whitelisting before on Twitter [1] and being able to stake ID on Bancor will increase awareness of the protocol and open the door for possible partnerships.

Token Address: 0xEBd9D99A3982d547C5Bb4DB7E3b1F9F14b67Eb83

Project Website: https://www.everest.org/

Deepest pools with ID are ID/ETH on Uniswap with a $626,071 liquidity, ID/ETH on SushiSwap with a $84,897.41 liquidity (Figure 1),.

Figure 1 - Exchanges that trade ID. Taken from ID price, chart, market cap and info | CoinGecko.

A co-investment of 50k BNT at $2.84 would equate to a $142,000 co-investment, allowing enough space for the pool to be the second deepest in any DEx.

Token Security

ID has a max supply cap of 800,000,000 ID. Contracts are standard ERC-20 pausable contracts. The contracts don’t have any permissions that grant administrators unrestricted mint/burn capabilities.

The top 15 contract and addresses with the highest concentration of ID tokens are wallets that exclusively own ID, suggesting they might belong to exchanges or the team, as well as the token contract, UNI ID/ETH pools and another Everest contract. Top 4 wallets collectively hold 70% of all ID tokens in circulation.

Figure 2 - Top 15 holders of ID, taken from $0.3517 | Everest ID (ID) Token Tracker | Etherscan.

Project

Everest is a next generation blockchain + fintech platform bringing the mass-market of users and traditional financial institutions into the decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto + fiat future.

The Everest Foundation offers Stakers, eAgents and eTellers the cost-competitive, vertically integrated solution from Everest Networks for onboarding an account with integrated eKYC + compliance, and the ability to effectively resell Everest-supplied services, such as DeFi (savings, lending/borrowing, swapping, etc.), international routing, peer-to-merchant. Stakers, eAgents, and eTellers are incentivized through the ID token, a utility token that rewards virality and holding.

Everest incorporates a massively scalable payment solution, EverChain, with a multi-currency wallet, EverWallet, a native biometric identity system, EverID, and a flexible value tracking token, the CRDT (Figures 3 and 4).

Figure 3 - Everest Ecosystem.

Figure 4 - Everest Platform

Everest has recently partnered with Oracle. Other partners include Aave, FTX and Kyber which are publicly partnered.

Everest

More info on their whitepaper https://www.everestlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/EverestFoundationPlatformTechBriefv320.pdf

Update (information provided by @obsidianking)

The Everest team seems maintain a significant degree of sensitivity to information sharing due to the regulatory constraints on their business model. Despite this, they have made non-trivial efforts to let the community know that progress is being made.

1. The first quarterly progress report was released to the community at the end of Q2, and admins committed another progress report on the last day of Q3.
2. Maintenance notifications are given to the community about updates to the Alpha version of the web app. Community members have noted significant improvements in the product’s core feature - signing via facial recognition technology.
3. Re-branding activity has resulted in observable changes to the Twitter account and website of the team. On 7/28/21, an admin responded in the affirmative to a community member’s comment that the team is “preparing for traffic.”
4. It’s also worthy to note development of the team in addition to the product. They have hired a new Head of Engineering, a new frontend integration engineer, and a new VP of Marketing.

I believe that this proposal should be re-opened and re-evaluated with the new information that has come forth in the last two months.

Tokenomics

IDs are a utility token enabling access to the Identity Network and every exchange of value in the economy.

Receiving payments is always free within the system, but users need to stake 1-100 IDs in their wallet if they want to send payments.

Like within all large systems, the higher levels of data, complexity, visibility and targeting require a larger stake, up to 250,000 IDs.

Institutions need to stake varying amounts of IDs to gain tiered levels of access and additional IDs for market-specific applications.

The ID token has a number of uses within the Everest ecosystem. For the Platform, it acts as a component of the authorization system, allowing access to the platform for users, developers, and organizations. For specific applications, holding ID tokens unlocks various “premium" features within the applications, or unlocks savings on fees charged for service. For staking, locking ID tokens into a staking contract for a period of time earns rewards. For governance, holding ID tokens unlocks certain voting rights on decision making.

Community and Communication

Everest is active on Reddit and Telegram. The Everest team also operates official Twitter , Medium and Youtube accounts. Github shows no public activity since 2018.

Available Audits

The ID ERC-20 contract is a standard ERC-20 pausable contract. The contracts don’t have any permissions that grant administrators unrestricted mint/burn capabilities.

Couldn’t find information on Everest contracts and blockchain audits.

Market and Trading Data [2]

• ID’s price at the time of writing is $0.2194.
• All-time high: $1.98 (9th Apr, 2021).
• All-time low: $0.145992 (23rd May, 2021).
• Price 90 days ago: $0.864197
• 116,700,00 tokens in circulation.
• The current market capitalization is $25,774,616.
• The ID token is only available on Bilaxy, Kyber Network, SushiSwap, Uniswap.
• The 24-hour volume of the Uniswap ID/ETH pool is $189,949. The extrapolated yearly fees collected are 16.61% of the pool liquidity. [3]
• The 24-hour volume of the SushiSwap ID/ETH pool is $17,617.19. The extrapolated yearly fees collected are 11.49% of the pool liquidity. [4]

[1] https://twitter.com/Bancor/status/1398914537408110593
[2] Data taken from Everest price, ID chart, market cap, and info | CoinGecko
[3] Data taken from Uniswap Info
[4] Data taken from $0.37 | ID | SushiSwap Analytics

[glenn]

Hi Tiago,

Does this proposal have support from the Everest community? Certain folks won’t vote in favor of whitelisting unless that happens (e.g. voting automaton).

[tfns]

I’m currently trying to talk to their community about it with no success. They have previously requested whitelisting on twitter. Will update soon.

[eldude]

Yeah, if there isn’t an audit - no way.

[tfns]

After investigating further, I would like to withdraw this proposal:

• Everest offers 40% APY staking in their native platform.
• Community didn’t express enough interest in staking in Bancor.
• Some audits were made, but the information on them is not easily accessible.
• Development of the protocol seems to have slowed down recently.

[eldude]

I support you. Further, this is one of the reasons I have a high level of trust with your proposals.

[tfns]

Thank you, much appreciated!

[shikiland]

Don’t think this would benefit Bancor that much. MY vote is NO…

[tfns]

Hello, this is a deprecated proposal and will not be submitted for voting. Thank you for your input nevertheless.

[obsidianking]

I want to add some perspective to the reasons for deprecating this proposal. I would like this to be re-evaluated for a vote.

*** Everest offers 40% APY staking in their native platform.**
They offer 40% APY for locking up tokens for 365 days. Some people may not want to forgo access to tokens for that long. Next is 25% APY for 90-day lockup. This is a more reasonable benchmark since Bancor requires people to keep liquidity positions for a period of 90 days for 100% impermanent loss protection. Furthermore, rewards from the Everest platform are paid out in ID tokens. This doesn’t allow for the diversification of assets that a protocol such as Bancor or Sushiswap might provide.

*** Community didn’t express enough interest in staking in Bancor.**
Please revisit. Uniswap, Sushiswap, and Bitfinex are gateways for access to the ID token. Sushiswap is the only platform with a framing program available. Bitfinex is a centralized exchange. Neither of the Dex platforms allows single-asset lp. I think if the community was more aware of Bancor’s technological advantages, others would voice interest. There is low volume on all three of these exchanges; however, if you check Everest’s etherscan page, you will notice that there has been a significant increase in the tokens set aside to these platforms — about 7M tokens in total.

*** Some audits were made, but the information on them is not easily accessible.**
Everest has carved out a niche for its product in a sensitive regulatory environment. Evaluating them like most other blockchain projects may obscure the reality of the painstaking effort the team is putting forth to remain recognized as legitimate and compliant. Although audits are not available, Everest has secured a range of partners that imply reliability - Oracle Corporation, Visa, Ethereum Foundation, Chainlink, and more have formally recognized ties to the project.

*** Development of the protocol seems to have slowed down recently.**
I am not sure if this is totally accurate. The Everest team seems maintain a significant degree of sensitivity to information sharing due to the regulatory constraints on their business model. Despite this, they have made non-trivial efforts to let the community know that progress is being made.

1. The first quarterly progress report was released to the community at the end of Q2, and admins committed another progress report on the last day of Q3.

2. Maintenance notifications are given to the community about updates to the Alpha version of the web app. Community members have noted significant improvements in the product’s core feature - signing via facial recognition technology.

3. Re-branding activity has resulted in observable changes to the Twitter account and website of the team. On 7/28/21, an admin responded in the affirmative to a community member’s comment that the team is “preparing for traffic.”

4. It’s also worthy to note development of the team in addition to the product. They have hired a new Head of Engineering, a new frontend integration engineer, and a new VP of Marketing.

I believe that this proposal should be re-opened and re-evaluated with the new information that has come forth in the last two months.

[tfns]

Hello @obsidianking, the proposal has been reopened as per your recent comments.

*** Everest offers 40% APY staking in their native platform.**
They offer 40% APY for locking up tokens for 365 days. Some people may not want to forgo access to tokens for that long. Next is 25% APY for 90-day lockup. This is a more reasonable benchmark since Bancor requires people to keep liquidity positions for a period of 90 days for 100% impermanent loss protection. Furthermore, rewards from the Everest platform are paid out in ID tokens. This doesn’t allow for the diversification of assets that a protocol such as Bancor or Sushiswap might provide.

As you have acknowledged, the 25% APY for a 90-day lockup is significantly high. You accrue fees in the TKN you’ve deposited, in this case, ID. The exposure to BNT would only happen if LM rewards were activated for a whitelisted ID/BNT pool. Even then, the rewards might not be sufficiently competitive against the 25% no IL single-sided staking option that ID offers.

*** Some audits were made, but the information on them is not easily accessible.**
Everest has carved out a niche for its product in a sensitive regulatory environment. Evaluating them like most other blockchain projects may obscure the reality of the painstaking effort the team is putting forth to remain recognized as legitimate and compliant. Although audits are not available, Everest has secured a range of partners that imply reliability - Oracle Corporation, Visa, Ethereum Foundation, Chainlink, and more have formally recognized ties to the project.

Unfortunately, the lack of audits are a concern, as Bancor also works as an insurance protocol against impermanent loss. But I’d like to see what the community thinks about this.

*** Community didn’t express enough interest in staking in Bancor.**
Please revisit. Uniswap, Sushiswap, and Bitfinex are gateways for access to the ID token. Sushiswap is the only platform with a framing program available. Bitfinex is a centralized exchange. Neither of the Dex platforms allows single-asset lp. I think if the community was more aware of Bancor’s technological advantages, others would voice interest. There is low volume on all three of these exchanges; however, if you check Everest’s etherscan page, you will notice that there has been a significant increase in the tokens set aside to these platforms — about 7M tokens in total.

Do you think we could have other ID community members chime in this thread and possibly have some Everest team members join our weekly community call? These are just ways in which a community can express their interest in staking ID on Bancor and thus push this proposal forward.

*** Development of the protocol seems to have slowed down recently.**
I am not sure if this is totally accurate. The Everest team seems maintain a significant degree of sensitivity to information sharing due to the regulatory constraints on their business model. Despite this, they have made non-trivial efforts to let the community know that progress is being made.

1. The first quarterly progress report was released to the community at the end of Q2, and admins committed another progress report on the last day of Q3.
2. Maintenance notifications are given to the community about updates to the Alpha version of the web app. Community members have noted significant improvements in the product’s core feature - signing via facial recognition technology.
3. Re-branding activity has resulted in observable changes to the Twitter account and website of the team. On 7/28/21, an admin responded in the affirmative to a community member’s comment that the team is “preparing for traffic.”
4. It’s also worthy to note development of the team in addition to the product. They have hired a new Head of Engineering, a new frontend integration engineer, and a new VP of Marketing.

Thank you for this information, will add it to the initial proposal.

[eldude]

Cool, anyone know if the team is involved?

[Bazingaman]

Yeah I think this is a cool proposal. I think a lot of Everest investors including myself would be more than happy with a staking or yield option on Bancor, as it is not everybody that want to do KYC in order to be able to stake their ID on the official website.

[Trghty]

A lot of people want to stake ID without KYC at this point, this would be a great partnership between two amazing projects, lets do it.

[mike_fast]

This would reasonably lead to a lot of people interested in the Everest ID key areas (governance, biometrics, regulated stablecoins, compliance and fiat-onramping) - all growing areas - to also discover Bancor, which would strengthen the protocol

[dexy]

Highlights Everest ID key areas (governance, biometrics and fiat-onramping etc) - all extremely popular in the near future - A partnership with Bancor is highly beneficial to both systems. Makes sense.

[coinman]

I think this would be a good project to whitelist for a number of reasons. While Everest does offer somewhat high APY for 90-day lockups, users must give them biometric data to do so. This isn’t something that many are interested in doing, hence the utility of offering staking services that don’t require self-doxxing.

I like the long-term utility of the project and their partnerships with companies like Oracle and AAVE for eKYC. They also run the only Chainlink oracle at the moment for eKYC services, a use case that was prominently emphasized in Chainlink’s WP 2.0. I think that the Everest community would appreciate having the extra avenue to earn a return on holdings and that as the project continues to grow and generate interest this could be a good opportunity for Bancor to continue to increase their profile as well.

[glenn]

Co-investment is small enough to allow us to gauge the interest in this pool. Assuming that it fills up completely, then we might want to consider growing:

volume for the Uniswap pools seems OK:

and I think we can target to be the second largest pool (greater than suhiswap)

[Drewby11]

As part of the Everest community, I think this would be mutually beneficial. ID holders would be excited for staking on Bancor. And, with some of Everest’s major partnerships (Oracle, AAVE, Polygon etc…), it will inevitably lead to more exposure down the line for Bancor.

[tfns]

This proposal wasn’t submitted. I’ve added it again to the Level 1 Drafting and removed the “Proposal withdrawn” section.