Please describe your proposed solution

The printing of USD by a central government to fund its expenses is eroding the purchasing power of USD, and making it unstable.

(https://www.statista.com/statistics/1032048/value-us-dollar-since-1640/)

Furthermore, as the world enters a period of increased turmoil and instability, the weaponization of USD and of the USD-based financial system is leading countries to challenge and move away from the USD as a global reserve currency.

Under such circumstances, USD-pegged stablecoins may face high instability risks.

Historically, gold has been used as a safe haven in times of instability. Not surprisingly, central banks of various countries are increasing their gold reserves (https://www.investopedia.com/gold-shines-so-far-in-2024-as-central-banks-invest-heavily-8672711) and the price of gold is going up (https://goldprice.org/gold-price-chart.html).

Cardano needs a Gold-pegged stablecoin.

Gluon Gold (https://gluon.gold) is the only decentralized crypto-backed gold-pegged stablecoin in existence today.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnvm1we6xts>All other gold-pegged stablecoins available in other chains today are commodity-backed and thus face trust and centralization risks and issues, like fiat-backed stablecoins.

We will bring the Gluon Gold stablecoin to Cardano via the Rosen Bridge (https://app.rosen.tech/).

Gluon Gold on Cardano will be decentralized end-to-end:

• Gluon Gold itself is fully immutable and autonomous.
• The oracle on which Gluon Gold depends is decentralized and currently operated by more then 15 independent nodes.
• The bridge is decentralized.

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

The Cardano Community will have access to a fully decentralized gold-pegged stablecoin to protect itself from the above-mentioned instabilities. This is financial inclusion, independence and stability through on-chain gold, for people across the world who do not have easy access to physical gold and who are subject to inflationary currencies in their countries.

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

Dr. Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo (a.k.a. Zahnentferner) has already received and managed more than 1 million USD in research grants in several countries and always achieved the goals of the proposed projects. He is the founder of the Djed Alliance and of The Stable Order. He is the main author of the Djed paper, author of the Gluon protocol and one of the 5 engineers who participated in the R&amp;D of Djed/SigmaUSD. He is a former Director of Engineering for Cardano and among his works is the design of Cardano's native assets, which is an essential functionality for almost every project on Cardano.

Mohammad Hasan Samadani is the Lead developer for the Rosen Bridge project + SuSy Bridge (Wormhole). He holds a PhD in computer science and has over 12 years experience in security, software development, and team management. Designed various applications for the Ergo ecosystem.

Joseph Armeanio is currently a Board Member and Manager of Business Development of the Ergo Foundation.

What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1: Milestone Outputs: creation of the native assets for rsGAU and rsGAUC on Cardano.

Acceptance Criteria: native assets created and metadata included in the relevant registries.

Evidence of Milestone Completion: We will provide links to the assets in a Cardano blockchain explorer and to their metadata in the relevant registries.

Expected Milestone Length: 3 weeks.

Milestone 2: Milestone Outputs:

• linking of rsGAU and rsGAUC on Cardano to, respectively, GAU and GAUC on Ergo, through the Rosen Bridge.
• Tutorial on how to bridge, in the form of an article.

Acceptance Criteria:

• it should be possible to bridge between GAU and rsGAU and between GAUC and rsGAUC through the Rosen Bridge interface (https://app.rosen.tech/).

Evidence of Milestone Completion: We will provide a link to the tutorial and reviewers wil be able to follow the tutorial to bridge the assets.

Expected Milestone Length: 3 weeks.

Final Milestone: Final close-out report and close-out video.

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Dr. Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo (a.k.a. Zahnentferner) is responsible for the Gluon protocol. Mohammad Hasan Samadani and

Joseph Armeanio are responsible for the Rosen Bridge.

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Assumption: 1 ADA = 0.35 USD

The requested funding (20000 ADA) is approximately 7000 USD. We expect to spend approximately 50% of this on personnel costs to make the necessary technical and configuration work, and 50% of this on marketing costs, such as production and dissemination of the tutorial.

No dependencies.

This is a joint project of The Stable Order and the Rosen Bridge team.

How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The value of protecting Cardano from the risks associated with USD are immeasurable. And the cost is just 20000 ADA.