GRANT REQUEST: Copperx

📜 Treasury Grants
1

Basic Details

Project name: Copperx

Copperx enables web3 businesses to accept blockchain payments using our powerful suite of APIs that work on multiple networks and currencies. We provide the safest way for businesses to accept & manage crypto payments with features like multiple networks & currencies, automatic swaps, transaction privacy, AML detection, and powerful integrations with existing accounting tools. Our product offering includes Payment API & SDKs, Recurring Billing, Invoices, Marketplace Payments, etc. It’s like Stripe for Blockchain.

At Copperx, we are focused on providing the right set of tools & APIs to developers to enable swift crypto payments. Copperx works/will work seamlessly with protocols/tools including Superfluid, 0x, Coinshift, Safe, Wormhole, etc.

Here are the important milestones we have achieved in the past few months:

  • Jan 2023: Ethereum Mainnet support
  • Feb 2023: Checkout APIs
  • March 2023: Recurring Billing with streaming tokens by Superfluid
  • April 2023: Currency conversion with Uniswap
  • April 2023: BNB Chain Mainnet support
  • May 2023: WooCommerce Plugin for merchants
  • May 2023: Solana Mainnet support
  • May 2023: Invoicing
  • June 2023: Zapier integration to connect apps like Crossmint, Quickbooks, Xero, and more.
  • June 2023: Recurring Billing with interval-based subscriptions using EIP-5827

Read our customer testimonials: Copperx Testimonials

Point of contact:

Tarun Mangukiya

Team background:

Founders

Experienced founders with 1x exit with 2 million+ registered users from 250+ countries and 800K monthly active users.

  1. Tarun Mangukiya - Co-founded Iconscout (acq. by LottieFiles). He has worked with Polygon, Merkle Science, ETHGlobal, Timeswap, Scallop on various projects. He has 10+ years of experience in engineering, technology & team building.
  2. Dalpat Prajapati - Ex-Head of Design, Polygon. Co-founded Iconscout acquired by LottieFiles. He has 7+ years of product experience in the blockchain space and has been an advisor to Polytrade, Trace Network, and Mahadao.

Technology

  1. Rahul Kalkani - Ex-Tech Lead & System Architect, KNEIP. Experienced in building new products and revitalizing legacy solutions. In 7+ years of experience, he played diverse roles from tech lead to product owner, and system architect at Sixense, Kneip, Mazetec, and more.
  2. Rajani Ladumor - Ex-Frontend Engineer, LottieFiles. He is a pixel-perfect front-end engineer with 7+ years of experience in building high-quality products.
  3. Saddam Hossain - He has worked with an IT Consultancy company as a full-stack engineer previously. He did his engineering at VIT-AP, India’s renowned institute.
  4. Naimish Lukhi - He is currently a full-stack engineer at Copperx. He is a bright student from one of the well-known universities of India - PDPU. Previously he was an intern at Priori Capital & Iconscout. He is helping Copperx with blockchain development & building our powerful checkout engine.
  5. Dhruvil Lathiya - He is currently a full-stack intern at Copperx. He is also from PDPU. He is working on building powerful integrations for Copperx that can help simplify crypto payments for the masses. He has worked on WooCommerce Plugin, Zapier Integration, Gnosis Safe App, etc.

Design

  1. Alvish Baldha - Ex-Senior UX Designer, 46 Labs. He has also worked with Trucking Systems, Cerbos, and Red Software previously. He is the guy behind the Simple, detailed, and elegant Copperx Interface.
  2. Sujal Kalsariya - Ex-Lead 3D Designer, Scallopx. Specializes in 3D Motion Graphics and 3D modeling. He is the guy behind our every launch video.

Marketing

  1. Aditya Sharma - Ex-Marketing lead at TPH (India’s biggest Web3 community) & worked as a marketing executive with Mamaearth (D2C Unicorn). Worked with 5+ NFT projects and Protocols.

Other sources of funding and approximate amounts (grants, VC, etc.):

  • We are fully bootstrapped.
  • We have received grants from Push Protocol & Unstoppable Domains.

Project Details

Describe the problem being solved:

Despite numerous payment gateways entering the crypto space, none have successfully solved the problem to become the go-to solution for businesses and startups, leaving a gap in seamless multi-network, multi-currency payment acceptance. Additionally, there is a lack of robust APIs that can handle complex tasks such as invoicing, recurring payments, integrations into existing online commerce platforms, and accounting tools.

Our goal is to enable businesses to accept payments in the currency of their choice (mostly stablecoins) and allow users to make payments in any ERC20 token that they hold in their wallets.

In the current platform, we utilize Uniswap contract calls for swapping and rely on the Uniswap smart routing API for obtaining quotes. However, we are seeking to enhance the system by integrating 0x Contracts, enabling direct swap calls from smart contracts, and facilitating seamless integration with improved pricing and liquidity for end-users across multiple decentralized exchanges (DEX) markets.

This transition will not only streamline the integration process but also provide end-users with more competitive pricing and better liquidity options. By leveraging 0x contracts for swapping, we aim to enhance the overall payment experience.

With this proposal,

  1. We are aiming for an on-chain integration with 0x, where our contracts will send trades to the 0x Proxy.
  2. We will replace the Uniswap V3 Router with 0x calls in our Payment Handler smart contract, that receives user funds, validates it, performs the swap, and withdraws tokens to the end user.
  3. Expand payment support to more networks

Explain how the funding will be used:

The use of funds has been divided into 2 parts.

Product Development:

  • Backend: Integrating 0x Swap APIs in our backend for price quotes
  • Smart Contracts: Replacing Uniswap with 0x Exchange Proxy contract calls
  • Automated Testing: Ensuring the robustness and reliability of smart contracts is of utmost importance to us. As part of our commitment to quality, we will develop comprehensive automated end-to-end (e2e) tests for all possible token pairs that can be swapped on the supported chains by Copperx.
  • Adding support for more networks BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, and more.

Developer Incentives: Incentivizing developers to use Copperx APIs to build new use cases like event ticketing, accounting & treasury management, marketplaces, fintech, and more.

Indicate whether your solution/product will integrate directly with the 0x Protocol contracts (such as the 0x Exchange Proxy) or via APIs. If APIs, please list them (if known):

  • 0x Swap API for price & quote
  • 0x Contracts for Swap

Here is how the integration would look like:

Payment Flow.drawio
Payment Flow.drawio1252×1244 28.3 KB

List any critical milestones and dependencies (if applicable):

  • From July 10: Replacing Uniswap with 0x Swap API and 0x Contracts in testnet
    • Updating APIs to get quotes from 0x API for Polygon & Ethereum
    • Upgrading our smart contracts to use 0x Contracts for swap
    • Writing end-to-end test cases for contracts for forked networks
    • Integrating new contracts in our Payment API & Checkout Flow frontend
    • Integration test for the full payment flow with 0x
    • Deploying our backend with 0x support to Mumbai testnet
  • By July 29: Testing on Testnet
    • Monitoring transactions on Testnet for 1 week period
    • Rectify any issues/bugs in the payment flow
  • By Aug 12: Deploy on Polygon
    • Deploy backend with 0x swap support on Polygon
    • Monitor currency conversion for 1 week on Polygon
    • Enabling automated monitoring for APIs
  • By Aug 26: Deploy on Ethereum
    • After successful testing on Polygon, deploy Copperx APIs with 0x support on Ethereum
    • Monitor Ethereum Mainnet for transaction status
  • By Sept 2: Deploy on BSC
  • In the future: Add support for more networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche with currency conversion support in the Copperx Payment flow

Describe how the solution/product benefits the 0x Protocol Ecosystem:

  1. Tapping into new use cases: Enabling crypto payments & swap via 0x in novel use cases of Payments & Fintech. Copperx has powerful products including APIs, Payment Links, Invoicing, Recurring Billing, and more.

  2. Growing user base & volume for 0x:

    All the Copperx businesses and their end users will be able to swap using 0x. With each new business onboarding on Copperx, they will bring 1000s of their users to make payments via our Checkout API.

    1. Supporting Web3 businesses for payments: Our target businesses include Node/RPC providers, blockchain APIs, blockchain data & analytics tools like 0x, Chainstack, Ankr, Alchemy, Dune, Nansen, Bware Labs, etc. This will grow the overall user base of 0x significantly.
    2. Enabling payments for Web2 businesses: We have partnered with e-commerce businesses like crypto gift cards, event organizers, and IT/Design/Brand Consulting Services to help them accept payments via blockchain for faster and cost-efficient transactions. Additionally, we have plans to pilot our services in many more segments in the upcoming quarters. By tapping into these customers, 0x will be processing millions of dollars in swap volume.

  3. Be an integral part of the future of payments: As Copperx is tapping into the future of blockchain-based payments, 0x will be a market leader in enabling currency conversion, cross-border payment, and eventually mass payments.

Do you agree to tag your solution/product for visibility in 0x Explorer: Yes, it would be an honor.

What are the actual and/or target usage metrics (such as users and volume) for your solution/product:

We are currently in the beta stage and onboarding businesses selectively. Our businesses have already processed $70,000 in volume in the last 2 months as they are testing out our product. We are aiming to process $2M in payment volume in 2023.

Provide links to any of the following for the project (if available):
Demo: Copperx - Blockchain Payment APIs for businesses
Website: https://copperx.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CopperxHQ
Changelog: Copperx - Blockchain Payment APIs for businesses

Funding Request

I think the grant can be divided into 2 parts as performance-based milestones as below:

Product Development: $23,200

Developer Incentives: $6,200

Grant amount requested (in fiat): $29,400

Grant amount by token (ratio of tokens): $29,400 USD of ZRX

Receiving address and chain: 0x796fC6401705Ce6358196fCDF20C7d9F6a0eD8f8 on Polygon

7 Likes
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Not trying to be negative here but releasing amounts from the Treasury to fund projects, even
if worthy, has lead to zero value accrual for the ZRX token. I think we should be talking about not spending any of the Treasury until it can be somewhat proven that all of these project investments will provide some sort of return to the project itself. To date, the value of 0x token is pathetic compared to competitors. I am just speaking the truth.

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hey @tarunmangukiya thank you for your application. After a very brief preliminary analysis, it looks to me the grant is relevant to Polygon mostly. Therefore, I feel like the grant should be requested to be paid in MATIC.

Grant amount by token (ratio of tokens): $29,400 USD of ZRX

Imo the grant should be requested in $ equivalent of MATIC.

Receiving address and chain : 0x796fC6401705Ce6358196fCDF20C7d9F6a0eD8f8 on Polygon

Please note that, in this context, the treasury/voting is on Ethereum mainnet, and the grant, if approved, will be paid on the Ethereum mainnet and it will be your responsibility to then bridge it to the Polygon network if you are looking to hold the tokens there.

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Hi @gabririgo,

Thank you so much for your input. As we are live across multiple networks, I am open to go with your suggestion to have grant in MATIC.

And we will bridge funds as per our needs.

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Hey 0x community, I’m Fran, one of the founders of Superfluid

Wanted to jump in and endorse Tarun on this one. I’ve worked with CopperX directly (they have integrated Superfluid into their product) and can attest to their great work and especially incredible care for design.
Making a purchase from a CopperX checkout is almost like making a swap on Matcha :slight_smile:

The proposed change to the 0x API for swapping makes a lot of sense, as me and Tarun had previously discussed Uniswap as not being the best solution. For one, using 0x would remove the MEV/front-running risks inherent in on-chain AMMs.

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Hey Tarun, great that y’all are looking to improve your swap functionality by switching from Uniswap to 0x - that all makes sense to me.

I was wondering if you can break down how you go to the amounts requested for both product development and developer incentives (e.g. for product development, how much time are you estimating dev work to take; for developer incentives, who are you incentivizing and how?)

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Thank you so much for your comment.

Here is the breakdown:

  1. Product Development: We have listed down milestones based on the development times starting with writing smart contract, integrating it with backend & frontend and also writing rigorous test cases. It’s under the point, List any critical milestones and dependencies. I am happy to share detailed grant usage breakdown if required.

  2. Developer Incentives: There are various innovative applications for crypto payments, such as NFT Event Ticketing & Management, Point of Sale machines, Web3 marketplaces with Escrow functionality, and the ability to send cryptocurrency using a link, among others. Our aim is to support developers in building these solutions by launching a micro-grant program that incentivizes and assists them in getting started. With this program, end users will have the flexibility to make payments using any token, and Copperx contracts will facilitate the internal swap using 0x technology.

2 Likes
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Hey Tarun, appreciate the quick response.

For the product development breakdown, I was wondering if you could provide more details as to how those list of milestones/dependencies map back to the $23.2k ask - in the past, teams have elaborated on this by estimating work hours certain things would take as an example.

For the developer incentives, the community has suggested with previous grants, and I agree with the suggestion, that these additional requests to fund incentives that are predicated on the completion of the development work are separated out into a potential future grant. This is a slower/alternative approach to milestone based grant allocation that makes funds to do the next steps conditional on completing ones before it.

1 Like
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Hello everyone,

My name is Hennadii - CPO of Krater. Just wanted to give shout outs to Copperx.

Copperx helps us to accept stablecoins on multiple networks that our customers use. Previously we had to provide payment details in the invoice footer or memo but with Copperx this is not the case anymore.

Some customers prefer USDT and some prefer USDC or something else, on our end we use USDT so it’s useful to be able to receive exactly that without forcing the customer to pay only with USDT.

Copperx team is extremely passionate about helping their users to get the best experience out of crypto payments. We are looking forward to have deeper integrations with them soon.

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Hi everyone - I am Anshu, co-founder of Flint Labs. Writing this post here to give a big shout-out to the amazing folks at CopperX.

As a retail-focused web3 company, we have been working with a lot of freelancers, influencers, and remote workers, who always prefer getting paid in crypto. It used to be a messy task for both parties until Tarun introduced me to CopperX. We have started asking all our clients to request payment from us via CopperX, and it has never been easier for us.

I really love the thought the team has put behind regarding the process flow. In fact when Tarun shared access to CopperX’s alpha with me, I was blown away by the level of detailing they had already incorporated even in the alpha version.

Super bullish on the team and the product.

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I’m QEDK, smart contracts engineer at Polygon. I have known Tarun, Dalpat and Copperx team for a while now. They are one of the best teams at execution I know in this space. I think that with this proposal businesses will be able to accept crypto payments across multiple networks with 0x’s Swap API (I have endorsed the API and Matcha myself on several occasions). This is a cool use-case for DeFi that they are tapping into and I would love to endorse them to build for the future of payments.

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Thank you for your suggestion about milestone based grant approach. I agree that it is better way to go ahead with this proposal. We can create a separate grant proposal/release for it.

For development, here is an estimated breakdown (with milestones):

  • From July 10: Replacing Uniswap with 0x Swap API and 0x Contracts in testnet (22 D)
    • Updating APIs to get quotes from 0x API for Polygon & Ethereum to show rates on checkout session and use for currency conversion → 1D
    • Upgrading our smart contracts to use 0x Contracts for swap (3D) →
      • ERC20 to ERC20 Swap → 1.5D
      • ETH to ERC20 Swap → 1 D
      • ERC20 to ETH Swap → 0.5 D
    • Writing end-to-end test cases for contracts for forked networks (2.5D)
      • ERC20 to ERC20 Swap → 1.5D
      • ETH to ERC20 Swap → 0.5D
      • ERC20 to ETH Swap → 0.5D
    • Integrating new contracts in our Payment API & Checkout Flow frontend (7D)
      • Initial development for 0x support and updates in processing flows backend (Updating payment flow and checkout session engine to store and use 0x quote to do currency conversion on the spot post payment) → 2D
      • Integrating on frontend checkout flow (for wallet payments, QR scan payments, Coinbase Pay, Binance Pay, etc) → 1.5D
      • Performing checks & withdrawals on the backend → 1.5D
      • Test for all possible token pairs and disable any token pair where swap fails (not able to fix) or Check with 0x technical team to get token pair working → 1D - 3D
    • Integration test for the full payment flow with 0x → 6D
      • Updating/Rewriting checkout session engine functional tests → 3D
      • End-to-end checkout session browser test → 3D
    • Deploying our backend with 0x support to Mumbai testnet → 1.5D
      • Manual test post-deployment to test all offered features (such as payment link, invoice, subscriptions, checkout session API, and e-commerce plugins) to avoid any regressions → 1.5D
    • Adding edge cases support for testnet & mainnet → 2D
  • By July 29: Testing on Testnet (3D)
    • Monitoring transactions on Testnet for 1 week period
    • Rectify any issues/bugs in the payment flow → 3D
    • Checking with main customers to make sure their integrations or usage is not affected by new versions or release
    • Add alerts for 0x API performance and rate limit errors on the monitoring platform
  • By Aug 12: Deploy on Polygon (4.5D)
    • Prepare a rollout plan to release a new version on production such that any ongoing transactions or already created checkout sessions with previous swap functionality stills works and complete → 1D
    • Deploy backend with 0x swap support on Polygon → 1D
    • Monitor currency conversion for 1 week on Polygon, Enabling automated monitoring for APIs → 0.5D
    • Rectify any issues/bugs in the payment flow → 1 - 2D
  • By Aug 26: Deploy on Ethereum (2D)
    • After successful testing on Polygon, deploy Copperx APIs with 0x support on Ethereum → 1.5D
    • Monitor Ethereum Mainnet for transaction status → 0.5D
  • By Sept 2: Deploy on BSC → 3 - 4D
  • In the future: Add support for more networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche in the Copperx Payment flow → 10D

Overall cost calculation is as below:

Days Rate ($/Hr) Total
Frontend 11 40 $3,520
Backend/DevOps 22 60 $10,560
Blockchain 12 100 $9,600
Total 45 $23,680

(* D = All the calculations are in days)

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Hey @TonyDoughnuts just a quick clarification: 0x has put aside $3.5M worth of ZRX exclusively for the developments on Polygon using ZRX so whatever is left of that balance can be very clearly allocated here.

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Clarifying here as well: @gabririgo, there is a earmarked amount of approx. of around $3.5M worth of ZRX token which was put in the DAO for development so grant can be asked to be clearly paid in ZRX tokens.

And agree the treasury is on ETH so can only be getting grants on ETH.

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Thanks @tarunmangukiya for the proposal and an elaborate proposal to integrate 0x on Polygon. My personal take is to split the amount of development and incentives in two proposals and proceed with the implementation piece as a part of this request.

This integration will bring more volume to 0x on Polygon so it should be pushed for snapshot to understand the temperature.

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@tarunmangukiya suggesting a middle ground here that the grant is split 50:50 between ZRX and MATIC.

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Hi, 0x community! I’m Kritarth, CTO and Co-founder at Airchains.

We collaborated closely with Copperx to streamline the acceptance of recurring payments in cryptocurrencies. Their automated billing system has significantly simplified the process, enabling us to scale our business efficiently.

By allowing users to swap between different cryptocurrencies, we empower them to choose their preferred payment method, fostering greater accessibility and user satisfaction. I can personally attest to their exceptional work and unwavering commitment to quality. We’re excited about this collaboration’s prospects and its positive impact on both our businesses and the broader crypto community.

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I feel that payments are one of the most powerful and untapped uses of blockchain. I can envision a future where people transact using blockchain on a daily basis for both online and in-person commerce.

Copperx has made remarkable progress in past 6 months. I think that integrating 0x support into Copperx would enable more robust and efficient swaps for end users. This proposal will help us uplift the whole blockchain space for everyday life payments.

PS: I have worked with Dalpat for past 3 years at Polygon and I am confident that Copperx is the best team to build for the future of payments.

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Thank you for the suggestion. I think this makes more sense.

Excited to worked with 0x.

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Thanks for this detailed proposal and the updated breakdown @tarunmangukiya. Appreciate all the time you’ve taken to engage here. Generally speaking, I think a collaboration between CopperX and 0x could be great.

One question I have here for the 0x ecosystem is if grant funding is best suited for general 0x integrations? In my mind, the treasury is for the building of new 0x functionality—a more fruitful collaboration might be a partnership between 0x Labs and CopperX and additional new developments from there?