#62 Ramp's treasury proposal for adding KSM to Ramp's SDK so that KSM could be bought frictionlessly across multiple dApps and wallets
Context of the proposal
After successfully delivering support for Polkadot in Ramp's SDK, Ramp team wants to add another asset to the list - KSM.
The idea of building a functional canary network to test the particularly innovative solutions is something that has been long missing in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. As for Polkadot, good on-ramping is important for Kusama as well and should be included in the building process from day one. Following the research Ramp team did while integrating Polkadot, we are convinced we have the necessary skills and know-how to quickly add support for KSM.
Problem
We see the Kusama ecosystem developing, but for usage numbers to come, easy access for new users must be ensured. Currently, the first-time user willing to enter the ecosystem must enter either via centralised exchange. These steps are bearable for the current users of the network and crypto-natives, but will be a huge obstacle to new participants.
To significantly improve the process for the end-user, networks need on-ramps for easy, streamlined access using fiat money.
Solution
Here enters Ramp. With Ramp the purchase process takes place in just one interface, it is directly correlated to the wallet user is using for the purchase and, usually, takes much less time and requires fewer data than centralised exchanges need.
Ramp offers a powerful SDK that allows developers to offer KSM purchases with cards, bank transfers and open banking within their apps. This means that Kusma powered solutions requiring KSM to use wouldn't need to ask new users to leave the app to complete the purchase. Think of it as Stripe for crypto onboarding.
With Ramp, we want to provide KSM users and developers with a battle-tested alternative to a centralised exchange: an on-ramp that easy to implement and delightful to use. It will shorten the onboarding process from a few days to a few minutes which will contribute to the overall development of the Kusama ecosystem.
Proposal
We'd like however to help the ecosystem to grow and thus ask the treasury to participate in upfront costs to lower our risk and allow us to proceed promptly and integrate before the ecosystem reaches billions in real-life usage volume. We adjusted the cost and work estimation so that the overlapping parts are not included twice - both the technical integration and the legal assessment have been proportionally decreased and discounted.
You can review full proposal here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ksfQnat8jmwdLb-H_fJ3zxM9JoiVCFLCM3O9tTaPDZ4/edit?usp=sharing
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We have integrated Ramp in Fearless Wallet release 1.1 and I would say that it was a pretty easy and fast thing to do. For sure there were some challenges and issues during the integration, but overall the process was smooth and the Ramp team is actively responding in their Discord.
We're excited to announce that we have concluded the integration of Kusama into Ramp SDK. You can try it at https://ramp.network/buy/?swapAsset=KSM
Here's an overview of how this integration progressed:
Ramp performed extensive legal research when integrating Polkadot and extended it to Kusama. The positive result of our research enabled us to pursue the integration of KSM tokens into Ramp SDK. We can disclose the research data to council members upon demand.
We decided to apply a tiered solution to identity verification (approach where small amounts can be bought with less obtrusive KYC). This significantly improved user experience for the first-time buyers who are not discouraged by extensive identity checks.
Our legal research also enabled us to confidently provide sales service in all of the countries currently supported by Ramp with the exception of the United States. This grants KSM quite a bit of coverage, as Ramp is operational in 170 countries! We are working to enable purchases in USA in Q1/Q2 2021. Our technical approach to the integration was based on the Polkadot integration, which granted speed and cost-efficiency. We decided to build on top of an exchange providing liquidity to minimize any maintenance cost for the future. Combining the exchange with our infrastructure we managed to keep the transaction processing time and cost at the same levels as for other currencies supported by Ramp. The exchange rates are kept close to the market standard - we strive to keep the variation from mid-market rate at less than 0.3%.
By connecting our infrastructure to an external liquidity source we managed to keep all our payment options available. This means KSM users can use Open Banking transactions, debit and credit cards, Apple Pay and SEPA transfers to pay for the purchased tokens.
Before launching on production, KSM was integrated into our development & staging environments to ensure correct configuration and handling of the blockchain. Any and all bugs found are documented and fixed.
Last but not least, we adjusted our documentation to reflect the added support for KSM and Kusama blockchain and created the dashboard to track KSM purchases. You can try the flow at ramp.network/buy and via our partners supporting Kusama blockchain.
This is great, we would like to have it in https://twitter.com/Kodadot just added issue https://github.com/vue-polkadot/apps/issues/161 :)
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