Introduction

As the Injective community makes preparations to unveil testnet futures protocol, submissions are open for the first Market Idea Competition. The derivatives market and the DeFi space have both reportedly evolved exponentially over the past year. With the emerging technological innovations, the public now has a glimpse of the boundless potential a derivatives market presents. For example, the trading volume of decentralized exchanges reportedly grew 70% in the middle of 2020, setting a record high of $1.52 billion. In addition to this, the anticipated ETH 2.0 community testnet is likely to make waves in the DeFi space. This marks a momentous time of changes in the cryptocurrency world, and this is only the beginning. As such, it is a valuable opportunity for enthusiasts to engage and exchange ideas that would benefit the Injective community as a whole.

Participants are invited to draft a proposal for an innovative market idea that could be introduced in the future to the DeFi space. These proposals will be reviewed and critiqued by notable blockchain and cryptocurrency professionals as well as expert market makers. All participants are open to make valuable contributions to the DeFi community by using creativity and innovation through this Market Idea Competition. The best proposals will be selected and potentially turned into reality on the Injective Protocol exchange.

Purpose

It is the mission of the Injective community to help the DeFi community progress and adopt creative, decentralized derivatives products. The purpose of this competition is to generate interest among the broader population and industry leaders in new, disruptive, and advanced market ideas.

Timeline

Submission Deadline: August 24th, 2020

Prizes

Grand Prize: $5,000 USD
2nd Place: $2,000 USD
3rd Place: $1,000 USD
Most Creative Award: $500 USD
Best Choice Award: $500 USD
Honorable Mention: $200 USD
Honorable Mention: $200 USD
Honorable Mention: $200 USD
Honorable Mention: $200 USD
Honorable Mention: $200 USD

Eligibility

Participants in this market idea competition must be at least 18 years of age and ideally would have sound knowledge of basic economics, financial markets, blockchain, and the current business trends in decentralized finance. Submitted works must be original and adhere to requirements against plagiarism.

To participate, the submitted work must include the following:

Market design, product overview, and background
Proposed financial and technical infrastructure, pricing calculations, and risk analysis
Value proposition and product utility
Similar existing markets (if any)

Participants are free to use any citation format as they please. The recommended format for submission is a Times New Roman font in the font size 12. Submissions should be about 2 to 3 pages maximum in length.

Please save your file in a PDF format and upload it onto a cloud service of your choice (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc), and complete this Injective Protocol Market Idea Competition Entry Form on or before the deadline August 24th, 2020.

Judging Panel

Helen Tu, Head of BUSD at Binance
Kirill Gourov, Corporate Developer at Kraken
Ran Neuner, Host of the Crypto Trader show on CNBC Africa, CEO of Onchain Capital
Josh Felker, Founder and Managing Partner of BoxOne Ventures
Daniel Matuszewski, Co-founder at CMS, Former Head of Circle Trade
Lenix Lai, Director of Financial Markets at OKEx
Kevin Zhou, Co-founder of Galois Capital
Eric Chen, CEO/Co-Founder of Injective Labs
Wayne Lin, Founder of Axia8 Ventures

Judging Criteria

1. Financial & technical robustness and thoroughness (40%)

Market overview

Identify the index price as well as the maximum update interval that is ideally suited to your market idea. Extra credit will be given to participants who are able to find the index price API and data entry.

Hedging/Replication

If the market proposed can be hedged or repeated to be risk neutral, the participant should conduct an in-depth analysis using a formal and structured model to guide traders and market makers to price derivatives and provide liquidity.

NPV Calculations

The participant must demonstrate the ability to understand NPV calculations and address the following issues: How is profit and loss calculated? Are there expiration/settlement, funding rate, or other key market parameters in play? What is the safe initial and maintenance margin ratio range?

2. Analysis quality (35%)

The participant will be judged on their analytic ability in their submission. Some examples that serve as important considerations are: whether all possible scenarios and market conditions have been considered and addressed, the expected liquidity and volume cap, and assessing the potential financial attack vectors, if applicable.

3. Creativity (25%)

Participants are encouraged to explore their creativity and ingenuity. Possibilities can range from derivatives from cryptocurrency or traditional perpetual futures to binary option prediction markets.

Official Rules and Legal Disclaimer:

No purchase is necessary for participating in the competition.
Contest entry period ends August 24th, 2020.
Contest results will be posted publicly by Injective Protocol in due course. Winners are then required to respond to an email from the Injective Protocol team for the receipt of prizes.
Once winners are verified, winners are required to send their personal information for the receipt of prizes. Prizes will be sent within 15 days of the announcement of contest winners.
Participants must be at least 18 years of age to be eligible to receive the prizes.
This competition is open internationally. Restrictions due to compliance regulations for different jurisdictions apply. Please consult the respective laws governing your region for the most accurate information.
Injective has full discretion over the interpretation of competition rules.
Inappropriate behavior, including but not limited to: cheating, plagiarism, and bribery are strictly prohibited. Submissions that do not meet these guidelines will be disqualified by Injective.
This contest is not affiliated with Medium, Twitter, or any social media platform.
By joining this competition, you acknowledge that all the contents of Your Entry (including all associated intellectual property) may be made available to the public, at the sole discretion of Injective Protocol.
Any personal data provided to Injective relevant for the purpose of this Competition, including name and email address, will be collected specifically for purposes of administration of the Competition and complying with legal processes and regulatory requirements, such as tax reporting and record keeping. Personal data will be retained and kept in strict confidence.

Reference Materials

It is highly recommended that participants read through all the published material from Injective from the links below and generate a unique interpretation and vision.

A Brief Guide On Designing a Derivatives Market: https://medium.com/injective-labs/a-brief-guide-on-designing-a-derivatives-market-20137c1aa24d

Official Website: https://injectiveprotocol.com
Whitepaper Link: https://docsend.com/view/zdj4n2d
Medium: https://medium.com /injective-labs
Github: github.com/InjectiveLabs

As a starting point, there are a few markets that can be explored that would prove useful for the creation of market ideas.

For crypto native markets, topics that could be worth looking into are the Ethereum hashrate, yet-to-launch tokens, perpetuals, and the stablecoin market.

For those more interested in looking into the traditional financial markets, reading up on the markets for T-bond, gold-crypto, and equities would be one of the ways to go.

For those who want to dip their feet into prediction markets, the possibilities are endless. Some of the predictions that can be used are movie box office results, results from sporting events, and even esports.

About Injective

Injective is a lightning fast interoperable layer one blockchain optimized for building the premier Web3 finance applications. Injective provides developers with powerful plug-and-play modules for creating unmatched dApps. INJ is the native asset that powers Injective and its rapidly growing ecosystem. Injective is incubated by Binance and is backed by prominent investors such as Jump Crypto, Pantera and Mark Cuban.