[2510 Grant] Zerem Finance - Real World Asset (RWA) lending aggregator focused on residential real estate acquisition

Grants & Incentives
61

Hello @Ezequiel , you mentioned that you were not confident that the first batch planned for April 10th, would met that deadline. Can you provide any updates on when you expect the April 10th batch to be released, and as @Axia as also mentioned, is there anything that we as delegates can help to move this forward? Tks!

62

Hi @DAOstar_gov and @Axia,

Over the past week, we’ve been running some tests with real funds. Even though I haven’t been very active in the forum, I’ve been in close contact with the Labs team throughout the process.

As we keep testing, we noticed that the previous batch — which was expected on April 10th — still hasn’t launched yet. I imagine we’re not the only ones facing some delays.

From what I understand, one of the upcoming apps to be launched will support RIF.

I’ll keep you updated as we make progress.

Thanks

1 Like
63

Thank you, @Ezequiel for the update. If you can provide regular updates on the forum, will help the delegates understand your proposal progression, as well any issues that you’re trying to solve. This will allow for understanding and better support of your proposal. Please let the delegates know when you have an update on the first batch and it’s expected release. Tks!

64

Hello @Ezequiel , we wondered if you had any updates that you could share regarding the first batch. Do you have an idea of a new release date?

Also, with the sunsetting announcement from the Tropykus team, how will this affect this grant, since Zerem integrates with Tropykus? Tks!

65

Hi @DAOstar_gov ,
I will do a reply to the original post with more info.
But TL/DR, as Tropykus is sunsetting we will migrate our credit infrastructure following labs recommendations to LayerBank. We are also analyzing other options.

Thanks.

2 Likes
66

Updates and Challenges

Updates

  • Mini app submitted to Lemon for testing (access: https://miniapp-lemon.zerem.fi/). We can onboard testers upon request.
  • Evaluating migration of our lending infrastructure from Tropykus to LayerBank and/or Sovryn following Labs’ recommendation.
  • Building a new real estate portal with expanded inventory and multi-country coverage.

Key Challenges & Actions

1. Lemon launch delay

  • The first batch (expected April 10th) has not launched yet.
  • We are assigned to the second batch, but timelines are currently uncertain due to the delay.

Action: Waiting for updated rollout schedule from Lemon.

2. Tropykus sunset → required migration

  • Tropykus infrastructure is being discontinued.
  • Our lending product is based on their stack (Compound fork), so migration requires code changes.
  • Relationship with RSK Collective originated through Tropykus.

Action: Actively evaluating LayerBank and Sovryn as alternatives.

3. Infrastructure limitations (critical)

  • Reliable swap and ramp-off flows are required for product viability.
  • Both centralized and decentralized alternatives tested presented significant operational issues.

What happened (detailed):

  • We initially operated with Buenbit, which allowed us to ramp off RSK tokens to ARS. While pricing was not optimal, execution was reliable enough for operations.
  • Buenbit temporarily suspended RSK support (prior to the Nexo acquisition), and although it was later restored, functionality became restricted after the acquisition was announced:
    • Deposits were enabled
    • Swaps and withdrawals were disabled
      → Result: funds could enter but not be exited (blocking operations)
  • We then tested an alternative exchange recommended by Labs:
    • First deposit (on-chain): ~3 hours to be reflected
    • First swap: successful
    • First ARS withdrawal: ~3 hours
    • Second attempt (larger size):
      • Internal platform issue during migration
      • Previously approved KYC was revoked
      • ~4 days to regain account access via support
      • Balance visibility temporarily lost
    • Post-recovery issues:
      • Token mismatch in UI (RDOC displayed instead of USDRIF)
      • Swaps and ramp-off not functional despite balances appearing correct
      • No ability to withdraw original funds (~$1K)
    • Final resolution required manual intervention:
      • Platform team swapped USDRIF → USDT0 on our behalf
      • Only then we were able to complete ramp-off→ Result:
    • High operational risk
    • Lack of control over funds
    • Dependence on manual support processes
    • Not viable for production usage
  • We escalated back to Labs and tested decentralized alternatives:
    • Initial option: ~2 hours execution time per swap (not operationally efficient)
  • Current setup:
    • Using Symbiosis Finance (~20 minutes execution time)
    • Routing partially dependent on LayerZero
  • Additional disruption:
    • One of the main routes was temporarily unavailable due to the LayerZero / KelpDAO incident
    • This temporarily impacted swap availability until the route was restored

Impact

  • Intermittent inability to operate (swap / ramp-off blocked)
  • Increased execution times and uncertainty
  • Exposure to counterparty and infrastructure risk
  • Not scalable under current conditions

Current stance

  • This setup is not financially optimal, but it is sufficient to maintain operations.
  • We are actively working on:
    • More reliable infrastructure alternatives
    • Faster and cheaper execution paths
    • Viable incentive mechanisms for users

Summary

  • Product progress continues (MiniApp + Real Estate portal).
  • Core blocker remains infrastructure reliability on RSK.
  • Temporary solution in place; optimization in progress.

Regards.
Ezequiel

3 Likes
67

DOMAIN UPDATE

Due to an administrative issue with our Finnish registrar, our new domain is now:

zerem.finance

Updated links:

Updated email addresses:

  • *@zerem.finance

All funds and operations remain fully unaffected.

We are also actively working to recover our previous domain.

1 Like
68

Thanks for letting us know regarding your doman change. I’ve tagged @tamlerner so she also see’s this. Tks!

1 Like
69

Thank you so much @Ezequiel for the transparency and your honesty, and we recognize that your team is dealing with operational challenges along with Tropykus sunsetting.

As this changes the scope and inadvertently could change the outcome, we had some thoughts and questions:

  • Since the original proposal was optimized for Tropykus’s Compound fork, will this migration impact the Timeline or the Budget for the remaining milestones? Specifically, does this technical debt move resources away from the Seller Portal development originally scoped in M3?
  • The issues with Buenbit and the secondary exchanges are concerning. Is Zerem exploring a direct liquidity provider or Market Maker partnership to stabilize these swaps, or are you entirely dependent on the fix at the ecosystem-level infrastructure?
  • You mentioned the current setup is sufficient to maintain operations but not viable for production. Since the Collective is funding a production-ready RWA aggregator, what is the “Success Threshold” for infrastructure reliability that must be met before you consider M3 complete? We want to ensure we aren’t building a portal for assets that users cannot actually settle or exit due to these ramp issues.
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70

Hello @Ezequiel , we understand that you spoke to the RT team earlier this week asking for delegate feedback. We were wondering you had a chance to review our questions we posted almost 2 weeks ago (i.e. above), and had any thoughts? Tks!

1 Like
71

Hi @DAOstar_gov, apologies — I just missed your reply.

To summarize:

1. Since the original proposal was optimized for Tropykus’s Compound fork, will this migration impact the Timeline or the Budget for the remaining milestones? Specifically, does this technical debt move resources away from the Seller Portal development originally scoped in M3?

At the moment, there are two lending protocols on RSK: Sovryn and LayerBank. Each uses a different interest rate model than Tropykus, and Sovryn also has some pricing inconsistencies — for example, with DOC.

As far as I know, a collaboration between IOV Labs and LayerBank was announced to address some of these infrastructure issues, especially around interest rate mechanics. However, in our view, unlike Tropykus, LayerBank appears to be more oriented toward traders, which makes it not fully aligned with our use case.

From a development perspective, this does introduce some technical overhead, but at this stage we do not expect a material budget impact, and the milestone scope remains unchanged. M1, M2, and M3 still follow the same intended direction, including the Seller Portal originally scoped in M3.

The larger impact is currently less on the lending side itself and more around the settlement path, particularly where Lemon becomes an important focus for operational viability.

2. What is the “Success Threshold” for infrastructure reliability before considering M3 complete?

The core issue is related to our off-ramp and settlement flow.

Our purchasing circuit requires us to acquire tokens and then off-ramp them to merchants, regardless of whether those tokens originate from lending protocols or are directly provided by users. However, there is currently no clear or reliable path to off-ramp RSK-based tokens.

When we started this project, we had Buenbit, partial support from Lemon, and — as far as I understand — Ripio also supported this flow in the past. At present, this is expected to be supported by Krypton, but in practice, it is still not operational.

For Zerem to operate efficiently, we should ideally be able to convert, for example, 100 USDRIF or DOC into no less than 97 USDC. Right now, there is no reliable exchange infrastructure to consistently off-ramp those assets.

Using DeFi alternatives introduces two major issues:

  1. The effective exchange rate is already around 93–95%.
  2. For transactions above ~$2K, slippage becomes significant (or not available), forcing us to split them into smaller operations, which increases execution time, complexity, and costs.

Because of this, the challenge is not the lending side itself, but rather having a production-grade and reliable settlement/off-ramp infrastructure that allows these assets to be converted efficiently and predictably.

Regards
Ezequiel

1 Like
72

Thank you so much, @Ezequiel for your detailed response to our questions, and your honesty of the current status of the project. Identifying that the primary blocker is at the ecosystem-level settlement (the $2k slippage ceiling and the 93–95% exchange rate) rather than the lending side gives us a much clearer picture of the risks.

Since M3 (the Seller Portal) scope remains unchanged but its real-world utility depends entirely on solving this off-ramp bottleneck, we have three brief follow-up points:

  1. The Lemon Launch Dependency: You noted that the settlement path makes Lemon the core focus for operational viability. Given that the Lemon rollout is currently delayed and timelines are uncertain, is the functionality of the M3 Seller Portal dependent on the Lemon integration being live? Or can the portal be fully tested and reviewed by the delegates using the current DeFi (Symbiosis) path despite the slippage?

  2. The $2k Transaction Ceiling: Since cars and real estate inherently ( and usually) involve transactions significantly higher than $2,000, splitting transactions manually is a major bottleneck. Until Krypton or other institutional rails become operational, what is the temporary workaround for a user trying to execute a $10,000 auto loan? Is the Zerem team manually subsidizing/absorbing that 5–7% slippage right now to maintain operations? And how will that affect the long-term viability of the project?

  3. Lending Protocol Alignment: We appreciate your observation that LayerBank being too trader-focused. If LayerBank isn’t a great fit and Sovryn has pricing inconsistencies, are you pausing the credit/lending features of the portal during M3 to focus strictly on spot commerce settlement, or will you be forced to build on LayerBank anyway to meet the milestone timeline? (i.e. can you disclose a “Plan B” in case Krypton support is not operational in time for M3 roll-out?)

We remain very supportive of your team pushing through these infrastructure issues, but we want to make sure the milestones are framed realistically against what the underlying RSK network can support right now. Tks!

73

Thanks for the detailed explanation here. This problem gets at a broader issue that is not so much Zerem-specific so much as an ecosystem infrastructure issue for Rootstock.

The distinction I’m trying to understand is the following: Rootstock can have live DeFi protocols and still not yet have production-grade settlement liquidity for larger real-world transactions. For a product like Zerem, the critical question is not only whether the app or seller portal is built, but whether the underlying network can reliably support the settlement path that the product depends on.

I did some research and my read is that RBTC liquidity appears meaningfully stronger than most of the stablecoin settlement routes, but the routes involving DOC, USDRIF, USD₮0, USDC, etc. still look fairly thin once transaction sizes move beyond small pilot amounts.

A few data points I found:

By comparison, WRBTC / USD₮0 and WRBTC / USDT pools appear deeper:

  • USD₮0 / WRBTC: about $486k reserve and $82k 24h volume
  • USDT / WRBTC: about $248k reserve and $97k 24h volume

So my concern is that the issue is whether Rootstock can support repeatable $2k, $10k, or larger real-world settlement flows with predictable execution, acceptable slippage, and no manual intervention?

That seems especially relevant for Zerem because cars and real estate are naturally larger-ticket purchases. A $2k practical ceiling is not really workable if the intended use case is asset acquisition. And if the effective exchange rate on some routes is already around 93–95%, that is a material viability issue for merchant settlement.

I’d be interested in seeing this framed with route-level data. For example, for $500, $2k, and $10k transactions:

  • What is the current best route from the user’s Rootstock asset into the merchant’s desired settlement asset?
  • What asset does the merchant ultimately receive?
  • What is the quoted output vs. actual output?
  • What are total slippage, bridge fees, and off-ramp fees?
  • How long does the route take?
  • Does the route require manual intervention from an exchange, bridge, or partner?
  • Can the team share test transaction hashes for these flows?

I’m still supportive of the team continuing to work through this. In fact, I think surfacing this issue is valuable for the Collective more broadly. But for this grant, I think the key question is whether M3 can be evaluated as production-ready if the settlement/off-ramp route remains dependent on thin liquidity, delayed integrations, or manual support.

This may be a place where the Collective needs to get more rigorous in how it evaluates infrastructure-dependent grants: not just “is the app built?” but “what transaction size can Rootstock actually support for this use case at acceptable execution loss?”

2 Likes
74

Hello @Ezequiel , we want to explicitly echo these comments in this very detailed analysis posted by @Axia (great work btw, thk u!). The hard on-chain data that Axia brought forward regarding Rootstock’s fragmented stablecoin landscape perfectly validates and reinforces the core structural issues we highlighted in our previous comment.

When looking at the numbers Axia shared - specifically the total stablecoin supply on the network sitting at roughly $13.16M across six separate, isolated tokens, it becomes highly clear why the $2,000 transaction ceiling exists. For example, with a core pool like USDRIF/USD₮0 holding just around $319k in reserves, a single $10,000 auto transaction represents over 3% of the entire pool’s depth.

This data directly reinforces the exact operational questions we put forward:

  • The Slippage and Cost Bottleneck: With pool depths this shallow, a standard $10,000 transaction moving through the current DeFi path (Symbiosis/LayerBank) will trigger severe, mathematically unavoidable price impact. Axia’s request for a granular matrix tracking slippage, fees, and manual intervention at the $500, $2k, and $10k thresholds is exactly the transparency delegates need. If a $10k settlement yields an unacceptable exchange rate for the merchant, the system cannot be considered production-ready without constant, manual capital subsidies from your team to mask the slippage.

  • The Infrastructure Dependency: If the route-level data proves that the native on-chain liquidity cannot cleanly absorb realistic auto or real estate settlement flows today, it confirms that Milestone 3’s viability is entirely dependent on the delayed Lemon and Krypton integrations. This transforms our question about a “Plan B” into an absolute priority. We need to know how the platform functions when forced to fall back on the thin network infrastructure available right now.

  • Target Asset Realities: Given that RBTC liquidity is significantly deeper but stablecoins are dangerously thin, it forces us to look at the enterprise value proposition. If auto merchants are pushed to accept volatile gas assets because the network’s stablecoin pools scale poorly for high-ticket items, it fundamentally alters how these milestones should be realistically framed against what the network can actually support in 2026.

Ultimately, evaluating M3 isn’t just a matter of checking if the Seller Portal code compiles; it’s about verifying if the product can operate securely at an enterprise scale without choking on the underlying liquidity realities. We look forward to seeing your thoughts to how to resolve these issues. Thks!

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75

Hello @Ezequiel , we wondered if you have any thoughts regarding our questions that ourselves and @Axia proposed a couple of weeks ago? Please let us know how we can help. Tks!

2 Likes