Proposal to Whitelist Request Network (REQ) with 100K BNT Co-investment

DAO Archive (SUBMITTED)
1

This proposal is expected to appear on Snapshot for voting on 2021-10-24T12:00:00Z. Make sure to stake your vBNT for voting before this date and time to participate in the DAO decision.

TL;DR

  • Proposal to whitelist REQ.
  • Proposed co-investment is 100,000 BNT.
  • There are no apparent security concerns that would prohibit whitelist status.
  • There is no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the Request Network project.
  • The benefit to Bancor is clear.

REQ token address: 0x8f8221afbb33998d8584a2b05749ba73c37a938a

Project Website: https://request.network
Request Network is a blockchain payment request technology. Request currently supports Ethereum & ERC20s, Polygon, Celo, Fantom, and Near payment networks.
The protocol’s most successful app allows businesses to pay & get paid in cryptocurrencies, whatever the payment networks.
In the last 6 months, Request went from >$1M to >$100M of crypto invoices paid through Request App, by +750 actors including Maker, Aave, Near, Ocean, and The Sandbox.

Token Security

REQ does not have an elastic supply or rebase mechanism. The Request Network contracts do not have permissions that grant administrators unrestricted mint/burn capabilities. The REQ token supply is fixed at 1,000,000,000, of which 999,881,815 are in current circulation. The contracts and addresses with the highest concentration of REQ tokens are predominantly the Binance, Coinbase, Huobi and Kucoin wallets, and the Swiss-based Request Network Foundation’s wallets.

1636Ă—654 83.9 KB

Project

The Request Network project is a blockchain payment request technology. Request Network is a decentralized payment request network, aiming to replace thousands of old school payment request databases. As with any decentralized system, Request Network is nearly impossible to compromise, as the adversary must control the majority of the network to influence its behavior. Therefore, Request Network offers a trustless payment reputation. Due to the general nature of financial databases, and the already well-established and rapidly growing need for state-of-the-art security, Request Network serves a clear purpose now and in the future. The Request Network blog features a detailed list with examples of payment networks it connects with, such as Ethereum, Polygon, Near, Fantom, and Fuse.

Tokenomics

Request Network’s native token, REQ (ERC20) is an Ethereum token that powers the Request Network, a protocol for creating and requesting payments. Transactions on Request Network are immutably recorded and requests are processed without an intermediary.

REQ is required to vote in the project’s off-chain governance and serves as an anti-spam mechanism for payment requests, thanks to its burning function at each payment request creation. Therefore, the REQ token is a utility token and not merely a symbolic representation of the project. Coinbase and Binance are reputable centralized exchanges with helpful blog entries that discuss the project: Request Network (REQ) | Binance Research and https://www.coinbase.com/price/request

Community and Communication

Request Network is active on Discord, Reddit, Telegram, and Twitter. Activity on GitHub is frequent, with new updates appearing every 2–3 days. The development team and advisors are presented on the team tab on the Request Network website. Christophe Lassuyt, the co-founder and CEO of Request Network, is the project’s main spokesperson. The Request Network website main contact e-mails are:

Available Audits

Request Network has been audited at least four times since 2017, by reputable auditors:

Market and Trading Data

  • Request Network’s price at the time of writing is $0.22
  • All-time high: $1.15 (Jan 06, 2018)
  • All-time low: $0.0048 (Mar 13, 2020)
  • Price 90 days ago: $0.047
  • 999,881,815 tokens in circulation
  • 1,000,000,000 maximum supply.
  • The current market capitalization is ~$220,000,000
  • The REQ token is available on major exchanges, including Binance, Coinbase, and Huobi Global.
  • The 24-hour spot volumes range from $5,000,000 (Coinbase REQ/GBP) to $58,000,000 (Binance REQ/USDT).

Benefits for Bancor:

Benefits for Bancor are clear. At the time of writing, Coinbase estimates the popularity of REQ at #83. Popularity is based on the relative market cap of tradable assets on Coinbase. What this means: Popular assets have a large market cap, which may imply enthusiasm for the asset. Less popular assets may be relatively undiscovered. Source: https://www.coinbase.com/price/request

3 Likes
2

Thank you for the proposal and welcome to our governance forum @ChristopheL_Request ! Great use case for the crypto industry all around. Would love to see both communities and projects working together.

I wanted to add that the deepest REQ pool in a DEX is the REQ/ETH pool on Uniswap V2, with a $4,952,063 liquidity and extrapolated APR from 24hr fees of 17.64% [1].

A 100k BNT coinvestment would allow for a pool depth of $800k. If the pool space is filled up quickly and the pool volume justifies it, we can create a proposal to increase the coinvestment.

Some questions and requests for integration:

  • On your app Request Invoicing, could you please add BNT as a form of payment under the invoice section? See Figure 1 for drop-down where this option would show up.
  • Could this option also please be added under the payment section of the Request Invoicing app? See Figure 2.
  • Do you have a list of ERC-20s you will be supporting when the WooReq app is live on mainnet? If so, please add BNT.

IMG_20211024_022123
IMG_20211024_0221231080Ă—1526 133 KB

Figure 1 - Drop-down menu to choose a cryptocurrency to receive invoice funds in.

IMG_20211024_022307
IMG_20211024_0223071080Ă—1677 114 KB

Figure 2 - Drop-down menu to choose a cryptocurrency to pay with.

Thank you again and hope the proposal passes!

[1] Uniswap Info

1 Like
3

I agree with @tfns, the pool should be a lot deeper to be competitive with Uniswap. We will have to get a co-investment limit increase if the pool fills up quickly to match the liquidity in Uniswap V2.

1 Like
4

Thank you for your message. The REQ community would be happy to have REQ white-listed on Bancor!

Great questions; let’s dive deeper with answers below:

  • We want to start small and see how it goes. Yes, if the pool space is filled up quickly and the pool volume justifies it, we will create a proposal to increase the co-investment.

  • We want to provide the smoothest experience to the actual users. Last year, someone from Bancor asked us to list BNT, and we did. Then we spoke with Yudi Levi. He honestly explained that he would not adopt Request Invoicing with BNT anytime soon because the volume of invoices is a bit low. That’s why we removed the token from the available options.
    This was last year, and things have probably changed a lot. Would you guys send and pay invoices in BNT? If we get commitment from a few actors of the ecosystem, we will move fast to ensure a great experience. Celo, Aave, Maker, and Near ecosystems are quite happy with the product. Anyway, we will get in touch with Yudi again and see if the situation has changed. The same applies to Wooreq and the payment section.

2 Likes
5

Quick question, is there any overhead to having $BNT listed as a token to receive payment for an invoice? I think having the option there regardless would be beneficial for any current or future users if the demand is there.

1 Like
6

We want to maximize the user experience. As soon as someone commits to use BNT, we will make sure it’s possible.
We will also improve the user experience for adding new tokens in the future. You can imagine something similar to Uniswap where we can import a token directly.
In the meantime, the less the better as there is already an important number of currencies that the app supports.

1 Like
7

OK, that’s great to hear. I think most of the DeFi protocols are using tokenlist FYI.

1 Like