Stellar Community Seed Fund Finalists: Litemint, OptionBlox & YieldBlox

Founder(s): Frederic Kyung-jin Rezeau

Industry: Gaming/Entertainment

Stellar Use Case: NFTs, DEX

The implications of blockchain technology are profound for the digital goods industry, especially independent creators and developers. By taking advantage of blockchain payment rails, indie creators and developers can build, distribute, and monetize their games and digital goods via microtransactions without having to rely on distribution channels such as app stores. However, implications do not equal reality, and the current state of blockchain gaming is beset with high transaction fees and slow speeds.

Spurred by his passion for games and blockchain, developer Frederic Rezeau sought a way to bridge both worlds without alienating users from either side. His goal? To build a gaming platform on blockchain where payment rails allow creators to implement microtransactions and monetize digital goods, but would be accessible to mainstream gamers. After researching which blockchains were best optimized for low transaction fees and high speeds, Rezeau ultimately chose to build gaming platform LITEMINT on the Stellar network.

LITEMINT is an innovative example of multiple use cases on Stellar. It offers an open-source wallet specifically for gamers to store their collectibles and game assets, as well as its eponymous tradable card game. Just earlier this year, LITEMINT launched the first NFT marketplace on Stellar – well-timed given the recent buzz around NFTs and how blockchain as a whole can support individual creators and developers.

Aside from Stellar’s low fees and high speeds, what attracted Rezeau the most to Stellar was its decentralized exchange (DEX). The DEX runs 24/7, instantly matching offers from throughout the world. By connecting its NFT marketplace to the DEX, LITEMINT enables everyone, from artists to gamers, to freely create and trade collectibles and NFTs with each other, fostering a greater sense of community on the platform and broader Stellar ecosystem.

Having successfully proved its concept to gamers and the Stellar community, LITEMINT plans to use its SCF winnings to focus on expanding its offerings cross-platform as well as drive advertising. The intersection between gaming and blockchain is still fairly new, and Rezeau is eager to provide a positive experience for both creators and players alike on Stellar.

“If you are a business and looking for payments technology, I highly suggest getting into Stellar. They have the tools to make everything work, on top of the speed, low transaction costs, and the DEX – so just go for it.”
– Frederic Rezeau, CEO & Co-founder of LITEMINT

Founder(s): Markus Paulson-Luna, Andrew Pierskalla, Alex Mootz

Stellar Use Cases: DeFi

“The promise of DeFi is the promise of financial inclusion, because the current financial ecosystem fails to serve much of the world.”
– Markus Paulson-Luna, co-founder of Script3.

Script3 is the pre-seed stage startup behind OptionBlox and YieldBlox, DeFi protocols built using Stellar’s Turing Signing Server solution. While building OptionBlox and YieldBlox, the Script3 team considered how their products could actually contribute to financial inclusion rather than just promising it.

OptionBlox, Script3’s DeFi financial derivatives product, was born out of the financial derivatives industry’s failure to effectively serve the global market. By opening up access to financial derivatives, solutions like OptionBlox empower emerging markets to improve market efficiency and give businesses access to hedging solutions and capital generation solutions. Anyone who has an Internet connection can use OptionBlox’s technology, as opposed to a small fraction of the world that has efficient access to the current financial derivatives market. Coupled with flexibility for all derivatives use cases and usability for all types of users, OptionBlox is primed to innovate within the financial derivatives ecosystem.

Script3 also offers a DeFi lending protocol in the form of YieldBlox. Leveraging Stellar’s efficiency and removing intermediaries from the act of lending, YieldBlox enables retail users to lend and borrow on-ledger while paying negligible transaction fees. By bringing DeFi lending to the Stellar network, YieldBlox contributes to greater trading and payment liquidity on the Stellar DEX and empowers users to optimize yield from their capital.

Retail users won’t be the only ones to benefit from DeFi lending on Stellar. Anchors and other financial institutions on the network can take advantage of YieldBlox to borrow destination currencies and settle payments instantly while waiting on originator currencies, ultimately improving payment liquidity on the DEX.

As for what Script3 plans to do with funding from the Seed Round, they plan to build out their team and continue working on their comprehensive roadmap over the span of one year. By focusing on their marketing and development efforts, Script3 can fully launch OptionBlox and YieldBlox and expand their services as soon as possible.

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You can view all the finalists of the SCF: Seed Fund here! Voting begins on April 26!