Pedestal

The Web3 community thrives on:

• New immersive ways to interact online
• Financial inclusion and decentralization
• Transparency and permissionless innovation
• Having fun

Yet, there is no decentralized social investing platform that allows Web3 users to participate in a fun and interactive trading contest with just a wallet.

Pedestal exhibits the essence of Web3 culture, promoting decentralization by allowing users to trade cryptocurrencies without the need for intermediaries, while fostering a sense of community and friendly competition among its users.

Pedestal ensures a fair playing ground for all players, making it a great platform for novices and experienced traders alike. Stake ETH for the prize pool, fund your Pedestal wallet, and climb the leaderboard!

Getting started on Pedestal:

• Creating a contest: Users can create contests and set rules such as the duration of the contest, the maximum number of wallets that can join, the amount they need to stake for the prize pool, the required balance to start, and the prize allocation.
• Once a contest is created, users can share the link to the contest with their friends to invite them in.

Once you’re on the contest page:

• Create your Pedestal wallet by selecting “Connect Wallet”
• Stake the ETH required to join (amount that is set during wallet creation)
• These funds go towards the prize pool and will be disbursed at the end of the contest
• Fund the Pedestal wallet with the starting balance (amount that is set during wallet creation)
• This is the balance all players will start with, to ensure an even playing field
• Connect to the chat portal and send a message to other players in the contest

Once all players are in and ready to go:

• The countdown begins and the in-platform trading is available

Here are some key features of Pedestal:

• Onboarding: To enter a contest, players will interact with a simple connection experience where they will quickly create Pedestal embedded wallets and be guided to staking the necessary ETH and funding their wallets with the starting balance needed.
• Leaderboard: Updates in real-time to allow players to keep track of the positions and know how far behind or ahead they are, compared to the other players.
• Activity tracker: Allows players to view on-chain transactions as they happen in real-time, to stay vigilant on their competitor’s strategies. Transaction information being pulled from Alchemy.
• Deadline adherence: Pedestal ensures that all trading is halted at the moment of the contest’s end.
• Automatic rewards: Once the contest ends, Pedestal automatically rewards the players with their respective winnings and transfers their Pedestal wallet funds back to their personal wallets.
• Wallet to wallet messaging: Players can chat throughout the contest to socialize with others, say “gm”, and exchange ideas.
• Decentralized exchange capabilities: Pedestal contains an in-platform swap widget. This is our proof of concept’s starting method to trade. The Pedestal team plans on including more trading options and capabilities in future versions of the platform.

When the contest creation is done, the parameters provided by the user are stored in MongoDB, in addition to on the blockchain in the form of a smart contract.

• The duration of the contest parameter is used for deadline adherence, so that the contest ends at a guaranteed time.
• The maximum number of wallets parameter is used so that the contest begins once the right number of wallets have joined and are ready to compete.
• The parameter that is the amount to stake for the prize pool is used for when a user wants to join the contest. They are prompted to sign a smart contract that has them transact the ETH required to stake to enter the contest.
• The required balance parameter is also used as part of a smart contract when the user is prompted to sign and transact the balance required.
• The prize allocation parameter is used to adhere to the proper distribution of funds back to the players and the proper allocation of rewards to the contest winner.

Our team implemented the use of embedded wallets through Privy. Our solution actually allows for the creation of these embedded wallets through a simple interface. In addition, these wallets are able to perform transactions independently.

Pedestal uses Alchemy’s API SDK to aggregate data and then gather the needed information specific to the wallets in the active contest. The information gathered at a set cadence is used to update the contest leaderboard and the activity tracker.

The platform’s swap widget to make trades is through an implementation of Uniswap. Keeping the trading in-platform ensures a more fair playing ground for all players and creates additional security measures.

The instant messaging capabilities are built using XMTP. For our proof of concept, our users can send messages to a default recipient address. Added functionality will allow for wallet to wallet messaging.

The front-end is built using mainly React. The back-end is built using mainly Node.js. Our team used the web3 Javascript package to interact with the smart contracts.

Both front-end and back-end are in production using Vercel. The URL of the contest once created is shareable, offering a way to invite new users to join a contest.