Please describe your proposed solution
📌<u>Core Problems</u>
Our team's objective is to expand accessibility to Web3 in Vietnam by building on-chain applications that are more intuitive and user-friendly for the broader public. While we aim to enhance the overall experience for everyday users, our broader mission is to catalyze the widespread adoption of blockchain technology and ignite innovation across various industries, focusing on Cardano and the auction industry. Some of the core problems we aim to address include:
🍀Mass adoption and real-world usage
For Cardano blockchain technology to gain mass adoption and real-world usage on a global scale, two key factors are essential:
- First, there must be on-chain applications that provide genuine value to people's everyday lives. These applications should solve real-world problems.
- Second, accessibility is crucial. People need to easily understand and use these applications, without the complexities typically associated with blockchain. The user experience must be seamless, intuitive, and integrated into the tools and devices they already use, ensuring that blockchain's potential is accessible to everyone, not just tech enthusiasts.
With these two factors, Cardano can become a transformative force in industries and communities worldwide.
🍀Auction Fraud
According to scientific research, the auction industry is facing the following main problems that need to be solved:
- Auction fraud - more than 70% of bidders often worry that they aren’t paying a fair price and the result was cheated.
- Auction results depend on the auctioneer and auction house’s reputation.
🍀Deposit Requirements in Auctions
Deposit requirements are a common practice in English-style auctions to ensure that the winning bidder fulfills their obligation to purchase the item. However, they can also introduce two common problems:
- Lack of Transparency - Auction houses may not provide full transparency regarding how deposits are handled, leading to concerns about fairness and trust.
- Refund Complexities - Refund processes are often cumbersome, with delays in returning deposits to unsuccessful bidders, which can cause frustration among participants.
🍀Legal and Regulatory Compliance
- Ensure that Participants and the platform comply with relevant laws and regulations, including KYC/AML requirements, data protection regulations, and auction-specific law as prescribed in here.
📌<u>Our Vision and Mission</u>
Our Vision
The decentralized Auction House platform envisions a future where the auction industry is fundamentally fairer and more accessible, redefining how digital and tangible assets are bought and sold. We aim to create a transparent, efficient, secure, and community-driven ecosystem that benefits all participants: sellers, buyers, auction houses, and DeFi partners alike.
Our Mission
To revolutionize the auction industry by integrating blockchain technology and utilizing DEFI to create a transparent, open, efficient, and accessible platform that redefines how assets are bought and sold.
📌<u>Proposed Solution</u>
To address these issues, we propose a next-generation auctioning platform grounded on these four pillars. Each pillar encompasses a suite of solutions that synergize to attain a specific objective:
1. System solution
2. Business solution
3. Accelerating adoption of the Decentralized Auction platform and Cardano
4. Legal and Regulatory Compliance
In the proposal in Fund 13, we requested funds to build an MVP on Hydra, the Layer-2 of Cardano, and use Atala Prism for issuing DIDs (decentralized identifiers) and verifiable credentials in a Real-World use case: Auctioning Vietname State-owned Tangible Assets. The dApp is not only the first step towards real-world mass adoption but also a dApp that leverages unique features only possible on Cardano.
🍀System solution
By integrating smart contracts built on Cardano's Layer 2 Hydra and Atala PRISM into our existing auction platform, the identity of the bidder or winning bidder remains anonymous to everyone while still ensuring that participants and the decentralized auction platform comply with local laws and regulations, including KYC/AML requirements, data protection regulations, and auction-specific laws as prescribed.
Transaction results for auctions are stored on the Cardano Layer-1 blockchain. Smart contracts automatically determine the winning bidder, ensuring the results cannot be manipulated.
🍀Business solution
The objective of this solution is to bring more users to the Cardano blockchain ecosystem through a real-world use case on the decentralized auction platform and to keep them engaged for a longer period.
- New user onboarding:
Let's start with a simplified O2O ( online to offline and offline to online) user journey as below figure.
- We can acquire new users through both:
- Online marketing (Google search ads, Facebook ads, mobile app downloads) and offline events (auction houses, partner coffee shops).
- Additionally, we can incentivize non-crypto users on our Web 2 platform to adopt cryptocurrency.
- According to Vietnamese asset auction law, account registration and bidding deposit are required for state-owned asset auctions. Bidders must use FIAT (VND) for the eligibility bidding deposit, but they are encouraged to deposit additional ADA to earn exclusive benefits.
- The identity of the bidder or winning bidder remains anonymous to everyone while still ensuring that the decentralized auction platform complies with local laws and regulations. This is powered by Atala Prism. A Cardano-based wallet will be created and integrated into the existing platform during account registration. The wallet address will be used for receiving deposit refunds or earning rewards.
- Bidders must deposit 5% to 20% of the auctioned asset's value (2-4 weeks in advance) to be eligible to bid. We accept ADA as an additional deposit alongside FIAT (VND) to ensure compliance with local law. The ADA will be locked and staked to earn interest. Since the price of state-owned assets is typically very high (millions of USD), earning interest becomes one of the platform's main revenue streams, in addition to bidding transaction fees. This contributes to the growth of Cardano's TVL and transaction volume.
- Audited smart contracts will determine the winning bidder, and the bidding transaction results will be stored on the Cardano blockchain for transparency and security. The contracts will also send deposit refunds to the wallets of unsuccessful bidders.
- State-owned assets will be delivered to the winning bidder by one of our partners (the auction houses) through a traditional process.
- User engagement:
We proposed the Bid-to-Earn model with ATK token to encourage bidders to use ADA for bidding deposits instead of using FIAT. It also brings new users and converts existing non-crypto users to crypto users via a rewarding program as the following figure.
The Cardano blockchain-based smart contracts auction platform operates as a generated sales for auction houses ( Partners). The partners will pay a sale commission when the platform finds a successful bidder ( winner). The auction platform takes a small part of the sales commission ( 1 to 10%), the remaining will be converted to the ADA and then rewarded to the winner's wallet & newly registered users' wallet. It encourages existing non-crypto users to create new Cardano-based wallets to receive ADA.
The platform also on behalf of the Auction houses takes bidding deposits, one of the advantages of using ADA instead of FIAT for bidding deposits is the bidder's earning interest via the platform's staking pool. Traditionally, the bidder had to deposit 20% in FIAT ( 2-4 weeks in advance) of the price of the auctioning assets to a locked bank account to be eligible for bidding. There is no interest and the process to return the deposit is time-consuming.
🍀Legal & Regulatory Compliance
Using Atala Prism for issuing DIDs (decentralized identifiers) and verifiable credentials in a Real-World use case: Auctioning Vietname State-owned Tangible Assets.
🍀Solution for Decentralized Auction platform and Cardano blockchain adoption
<u>Partnership with the top local and international Auction Houses</u>
- Our team is working closely with strategic partners such as Lac Viet Auction House and Milton Auction House to introduce the benefits of the new decentralized auction platform and blockchain, particularly Cardano, to their user base. The agreements and images from the signing ceremony with the two strategic auction houses can be found at this link.
- Tutorials and Guides
- Providing comprehensive tutorials, guides, and FAQs helps their users understand how to use the platform effectively, from setting up a wallet to participating in auctions.
- Webinars and Workshops
- Hosting webinars and workshops on topics related to auction and blockchain technology to educate their users and enhance their engagement.
<u>Industry-Academic Partnership</u>
- Collaborating with top local tech universities such as Hanoi University of Science & Technology, Da Nang University of Science & Technology, FPT University, and Hanoi Open University to foster innovation and strengthen collaboration between academia and industry. Upcoming activities include an MOU agreement to publish joint research papers, case studies, and whitepapers on the application of blockchain in the auction industry. The official confirmation of the partnership between us (KOET Co., Ltd and Lac Viet Auction House) and the four top local tech universities can be requested via email [email protected]
<u>Legal and Regulatory Compliance Studies</u>
- Actively collaborating with law schools and legal research centers under the Ministry of Justice to study and address the legal and regulatory challenges in the auction industry, particularly those related to blockchain technology. Training videos and publications can requested via email [email protected]