Make NEAR CEXy

Marketing DAO
1

tl:dr
Near should aggressively pursue partnerships with Centralised Exchanges (CEX) so that they enable deposits and withdrawals of ERC-20s directly to NEAR and Aurora. Near would essentially subsidise the cost of using the Rainbow Bridge to enable the fast transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in assets.

Introduction

  • Solana and Binance both have an unfair advantage gained through their respective CEXs (FTX, Binance). They were to kickstart their ecosystems by enabling automatic withdrawals of ERC-20s to their own blockchains, removing the complexity of bridges, etc.

  • More recently more exchanges have been joining the trend by adding direct withdrawals and deposits to Polygon.

  • During the AMA with OkCoin on Twitter Spaces yesterday, the OkCoin rep asked specifically about Aurora, and said that they recently enabled deposits/withdrawals w Polygon and that they could do the same in the future with Aurora. Let’s not let momentum die.

The Problem(s)

  • The Rainbow Bridge is AMAZING, truly the gold standard. As simple as it is to use, it adds a little bit of friction for ‘normies’ AND it is EXPENSIVE. (I tried transferring wrapped Near back to Near Mainnet yesterday and the gas fee was $988).

  • We have VERY little liquidity. A mediocre pair on Sushiswap has more liquidity and volume than the entirety of Ref.Finance pools combined.

The Opportunity

  • Defi is coming to Near. The Ref token and yield farming should be going live within a few weeks, with many more to follow.

  • Let’s remove as many barriers as possible so anyone can transfer their assets into NEAR and farm them. How many millions worth of BTC can we get on NEAR over the next three months?

  • The Idea / Proposal *

Let’s form a rock solid relationship with a large exchange - Coinbase, Kraken, OkCoin, anyone willing to take our cash and start offering deposits and withdrawals of assets directly into Near Mainnet (and Aurora when suitable).

I believe this initiative creates a positive growth loop; it is much more economical to pay for the Rainbow Bridge gas fee (~$988) once and transfer millions worth of assets. The simplified model in turn allows many, many more new users to send assets over and enter the ecosystem. The value created, reflected in both adoption metrics and increase in Near price should easily be several orders of magnitude greater than the cost of implementing the program. Let’s offer a generous incentive to our new CEXy partner(s) and ensure we all capture the upside.

Looking forward to your thoughts, ideas and suggestions :slight_smile:

AVB

6 Likes
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Work on the supply side has to be balanced with demand side. If everyone was farmer in medieval Florence, there would be no Medici family to finance the carefree lifestyles of artists to bolster the ego of said Medici family.

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Offering direct deposits and withdrawals to own chain is what made Binance smart chain popular among binance users. For one, there’s no need to try out a bridge and it does a good job at offset fees via bridge. Good idea @satojandro

I reckon near Mainnet first until Aurora has a full-fledged launch.

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Spot on. Although it is important to acknowledge that enabling withdrawal and deposits of ERC-20s to Near Mainnet is extremely important too and needed. For instance, right now AscendEx is allowing USDC withdrawals and deposits to Polygon and that has helped move a huge amount of USDC into that network. We need a way to easily bring the core assets required for DeFi to take off. [I’ll leave the topic of enabling BTC transfers directly to NEAR probs using REN for a separate thread. I guess WBTC will have to do for now]

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Coinbase should be primed for this opportunity. As a cornerstone NEAR investor, it can build its DeFi product offering on NEAR first. Meaning NEAR is to Coinbase as BSC is to Binance and Solana is to FTX.

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This would make sense even as a regional play. There certainly seems to be a move from American exchanges to counter the rise of Binance and other foreign exchanges. However, I fear that Coinbase is so big and corporate now that they have become laggards in terms of innovation. Also, Coinbase has invested in quite a few projects and I don’t think the management of those investments overlaps at all with the management of the exchange (conflicts of interest, etc.)
I’d just compare a Coinbase with newer, hungrier exchanges who are moving super fast and trying to find an edge: AscendEx is definitely on that bucket. I haven’t tried it yet, but OkCoin is potentially in that category too and we have already started a working relationship with them

1 Like