[2507 Grant] BTCFi for Institutions: Multisig Custody with DeFi Access on Rootstock

Grants & Incentives
1

  1. Project Name & Description
    Aconcagua Finance, through its product Boveda.ai, is building institutional-grade infrastructure for BTCFi on Rootstock. Bóveda vaults are non-custodial, multisignature smart contracts based on Safe (Gnosis), offering secure and flexible self-custody tailored for individuals, companies, and asset managers.

    Safe is already deployed on Rootstock (via safe.rootstock.io), however, the current Safe Apps ecosystem is limited, restricting the ability of users to interact with native DeFi protocols from within their vaults. With this grant, we aim to fill that gap by integrating key Rootstock-native protocols — eg Tropykus, Boltz, Sovryn — directly into the Safe interface.

    This will enable everybody to bridge, lend on Tropykus, and interact with Sovryn directly from their secure multisig vaults, with added features like timelocks, whitelisting, and role-based access. By embedding these DeFi integrations as Safe Apps, we transform Rootstock into a viable platform for institutional BTCFi — combining custody-grade security with seamless protocol access. Access will be allowed from the same safe.rootstock.io.

    Our goal is to unlock a full institutional experience on Rootstock, helping attract capital and adoption through a transparent, and secure interface tailored for serious crypto users.

  2. Team Background
    Manuel Rico Molina (Founder, COO, CTO): https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuel-rico-molina/
    X: @mricomolina
    Github: Aconcagua-CTO · GitHub

    Santiago Lacasia (Cofounder, CEO): https://www.linkedin.com/in/santiago-lacasia/

  3. Total Grant Amount
    $14.000 total; requesting $8.000 for Milestone 1

  4. Milestone 1 – Deploy First Safe App on Staging ideally via IPFS
    Grant Request: $8,000 – Timeline: 8 weeks
    Main Deliverable: One Safe App fully integrated and deployed to the Safe staging environment with IPFS hosting and manifest compliance.

  5. Milestones 2, 3, and 4
    Milestone 2 – Add Additional Safe Apps to Staging + Submit First for Listing
    Grant Request: $2,000 – Timeline: 4 weeks
    Main Deliverable: Additional Safe Apps deployed to staging + first app submitted for official Safe listing.

    Milestone 3 – Submit Remaining Apps + Execute Bootstrap Phase
    Grant Request: $1,000 – Timeline: 4 weeks
    Main Deliverable: Remaining Safe Apps submitted for listing + Bootstrap Phase of go-to-market strategy completed. (See go to market strategy below)

    Milestone 4 – Complete Traction & Growth Phases with Adoption KPIs
    Grant Request: $3,000 – Timeline: 3 months
    Main Deliverable: Achieve 10 BTC used on Safe Apps.

  6. Technical Specs

    1. Safe App Architecture
      Each Safe App is built as a client-side React application using the cra-template-safe-app provided by Safe. It runs as an iframe inside the Safe{Wallet} and communicates with the user’s Safe via the @safe-global/safe-apps-sdk.

    2. Development Tooling and SDKs
      safe-apps-sdk Base JS SDK for Safe communication
      safe-apps-react-sdk React hooks for easier integration
      safe-apps-provider Generic Web3 provider for Safe-based apps
      safe-apps-wagmi Integration for apps using WAGMI hooks
      cra-template-safe-app Create React App template with Safe boilerplate

    3. IPFS & Staging Deployment
      Each Safe App will be deployed on:

      IPFS using web3.storage or nft.storage

      Optionally mirrored on HTTPS with SSL for testing and debugging

      Test environments will be accessible via Safe’s “Add Custom App” feature

      For production, each app will be submitted for listing in the official Safe App registry, following Safe’s process (submission form, QA review, optional walkthrough)

  7. **Value Prop for Rootstock
    **
    This project enhances the utility and institutional appeal of the Rootstock network by expanding the Safe ecosystem with direct integrations to important native DeFi protocols.

    While Safe is already deployed on Rootstock, the current set of Safe Apps is minimal, limiting the ability for users — especially institutions — to engage with the broader BTCFi ecosystem. By adding these integrations, we transform Safe on Rootstock into a powerful gateway for secure, compliant, and flexible financial activity, all within the network.

    With Boveda.ai, institutions can bridge BTC, deploy capital into DeFi, and manage roles, whitelists, and governance securely through multisignature vaults. This increases Rootstock’s competitiveness as a Bitcoin Layer 2, unlocks new use cases for BTC, and lays the groundwork for onboarding DAOs, OTC desks, family offices, and businesses holding digital assets — all while driving protocol-level adoption across the network.

  8. **Demo and GitHub repo

    Demo**
    Our tesnet environment is open at https://catedral-boveda.web.app/
    It is currently limited because vaults can’t be created, so you can register and create your user, but will be initially without vaults. But we’ll deploy as we develop. Feel free to ask for credential to sample vaults.

    GitHub repo
    GitHub - aconcagua-finance/Aconcagua-API-CONTRACTS-POLYGON

  9. Video Pitch:
    Here it is. I’m a tech guy, don’t judge me too hard :blush:
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aubWzzOLzGOGzJ78Nlka2tdSaLQ2SBne/view?usp=sharing

  10. Go - To - Market Strategy

    1. Phase 1: Bootstrap (16 weeks – Already Started)
      Target Audience: Crypto-native users (DeFi participants, OTC traders, DAOs, family offices)
      Actions:

      Participated as speakers at Bitcoin Pizza Day Argentina

      https://x.com/BitcoinAR/status/1925338681209929834

      https://x.com/BitcoinAR/status/1925338696271663178

      Published testnet and invited early users to test vault functionality

      Featured in the “Charlas con Sato” podcast (includes information on unrelated product from our company)
      https://www.youtube.com/live/VimFn8LfQTY?si=CShNd7rQ4C3wm3m1

      Delivered 1:1 onboarding sessions to early adopters

    2. Phase 2: Traction (3 months)
      Target Audience: Wider geographical user base, academic and educational reach
      Actions:

      Confirmed participation in Descentralizar.org

      Launch of self-custody educational content series (already prepared)
      Contenidos Web - Google Drive

    3. Phase 3: Growth (3 months)
      Target Audience: Institutional users — small asset managers, companies, HNW individuals
      Actions:

      Perform digital campaigs

  11. Sustainability.
    The safe apps will be open and available for everyone on safe.rootstock.io with no connection or relation required with boveda.ai.
    We offer concierce setup and custody of keys at a price for open source products to our customers

2

Hi Delegates! I would love to hear your feedback before the onchain vote @Kaf_StableLab @Avantgarde @Curia . Thanks in advance!

Manuel

1 Like
3

Thank you @Ikabott for the revised proposal, the added go-to-market strategy, and the clearer articulation of your value proposition to the Rootstock ecosystem.

Could you consider including in this revised version the adoption metrics you previously shared in response to our rationale? That would help make the proposal more complete and transparent regarding how success will be measured. Specifically, you mentioned

We also have a follow-up question regarding how adoption will be evaluated going forward. The final milestone’s target of 10 BTC deployed across vaults still feels quite low, given the scope and funding requested. Could you provide more ambitious or multidimensional KPIs, for example, the number of unique users or institutions onboarded, vaults created, or transactions executed through the integrated Safe Apps?

1 Like
4

Thanks for the feedback!
We just finished discussingthis, and we believe we found a way to incorporate it:
We start our marketing efforts earlier, with the first milestone, and we add the initial traction also earlier. We add a new milestone (5) to complete the growth phase of the go-to-market strategy with a more ambitious goal. As a comparison, 20 BTC (our new goal of all apps) is 2.3M USD (with today valuation) is more than half of what tropykus has borrowed today. We increase our budget slightly to accommodate additional marketing efforts from (from 14k to 16k).
Let us know!

Regards

  1. Milestone 1 – Deploy First Safe App on Staging ideally via IPFS
    Grant Request: $10,000 – Timeline: 8 weeks
    Deliverables:
    One Safe App fully integrated and deployed to the Safe staging environment with IPFS hosting and manifest compliance.
    Bootstrap phase of the go-to-market complete (See go to market strategy below)

  2. Milestones 2, 3, 4, and 5
    Milestone 2 – Add Additional Safe Apps to Staging + Submit First for Listing
    Grant Request: $2,000 – Timeline: 4 weeks
    Main Deliverables:
    Additional Safe Apps deployed to staging + first app submitted for official Safe listing.

    Milestone 3 – Submit Remaining Apps + execute traction phase
    Grant Request: $1,000 – Timeline: 4 weeks
    Deliverables:
    Remaining Safe Apps submitted for listing
    Traction Phase of go-to-market strategy completed. (See go to market strategy below)

    Milestone 4 – Complete listing process of all candidate apps and start Growth Phase with Adoption KPIs
    Grant Request: $1,000 – Timeline: 2 months
    Deliverables:
    Get 0.1 BTC bridged from Bitcoin network to a vault
    Get 2 vaults above 0.1 BTC on tropykus investment

    Milestone 5 - Complete growth phase Grant Request: $2,000 – Timeline: 6 months
    Achieve 20 BTC used on Safe Apps.
    Onboard 100 users