GLIF Introduction

Hi Centrifuge community! I’m Jonathan Schwartz, and I co-founded GLIF - an umbrella brand for a suite of apps and tools for the Filecoin Network. We run public and dedicated nodes, a block explorer, and built the recommended Filecoin web wallet and multisig wallet.

I’ve been working with @mj-pl and the Filecoin Green Team to design a proposal around a custom Centrifuge Staking Pool built on Filecoin to invest in real world assets. For context - custom staking Pools on Filecoin are made possible by GLIF Pools - a protocol for deploying, managing, and upgrading custom Filecoin staking Pools. Pools conduct all their business on-chain, but can access secure, off-chain data through signed W3C Verifiable Credentials.

Pools are flexible and powerful because they can blend off-chain information with on-chain borrowing, accounting, and security. For example, we could build a Pool that takes USDC or DAI and uses it to buy Filecoin Storage Providers pre-approved hardware like solar arrays, batteries, and energy efficiency upgrades. Or a Pool that requires Storage Providers to receive an audit from the Filecoin Green team in order to borrow $FIL. Most importantly, Pools earn their yield from work being done in the real world (storing “humanity’s most important information”).

We feel confident that a Centrifuge Staking Pool built on Filecoin with Filecoin Green is well suited for RWA funding for four reasons:

  1. Centrifuge funding would help decarbonize a blockchain ecosystem and advance climate tech, which would serve as a strong example of healthy, real world use cases of blockchains.

  2. Centrifuge’s stake would operate securely on DeFi rails. Information about funds, where they’ve been sent / used, payment schedules, and penalties are all tracked on chain. A Pool doesn’t have to be “automated” - a Centrifuge, Maker, BlockTower, and/or Filecoin Green operator could approve deals in the real world and enforce them on chain. Additionally, Centrifuge would own its own Pool (or delegate the Pool’s ownership) and can set its own rules.

  3. GLIF can leverage its other tools (Wallet, Safe, Explorer, Nodes) to help bring even more eyes and supply into a Centrifuge Pool from a retail base (if it makes sense for Centrifuge). The Centrifuge Pool could grow to be the place for anyone to stake crypto to affect real world outcomes. Potentially a much bigger splash than the initial capital injection, and a growth opportunity for Centrifuge. I put a sample screenshot at the bottom of this post so you could see what that might look like from our Staking App.

  4. GLIF will commit internal resources to building a custom Pool for Centrifuge. We’ll make sure it gets done right.

We’re doing our homework to learn more about the opportunity here and what’s important to Centrifuge before making a formal proposal to the community. In the meantime, I figured I’d introduce myself, so - hello world!

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Thanks for the introduction Jonathan! Cool to see and learn more about what’s going on in the Filecoin ecosystem. There’s a lot of synergy between GLIF and Centrifuge as its described today. I would personally love to see Centrifuge infrastructure supporting Filecoin’s ecosystem.

This is exactly the right idea. I’ve engaged in some conversation with Marc already and I know his thread has more info, but I’ll repeat some of it here.

The biggest challenge with this pool, or any pool on Centrifuge today, is finding senior capital liquidity. While the protocol has an existing integration with Maker and our ecosystem has many investors, there is just not enough on-chain capital looking for yield. This is due in part due to macro market conditions and also our ecosystem still being developed. Your ability to find investors or capital, and bring them to the pool will be critical to making this work. I’ve got some more ideas here, so will continue the conversation with Marc and yourself private.

The opportunity here is to leverage Centrifuge’s on-chain securitization structure and associated infrastructure (i.e. Cent Chain, Connectors etc.) in support of a digital native ecosystem that is Filecoin. Really exciting opportunity!

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