Rewind: My Journey with Memento Blockchain and Our Achievements
I want to take a moment to comment the recent news and share my personal journey with Memento Blockchain. It all began in 2017 when a few friends and I embarked on an ambitious venture to establish a crypto hedge fund. Our aim was to create a traditional fund capable of investing in the burgeoning asset class of digital assets. Back then, everything was complicated — custody, exchanges, and the fact that no traditional service providers (banks, administrators, auditors) were equipped to handle cryptocurrencies.
Quickly, we realized a more significant and intriguing problem to solve: instead of creating a single fund investing in digital assets, why not redesign the entire fund structure? We envisioned moving everything onto the blockchain, enabling anyone to create their own digital native fund in minutes and at a fraction of the cost. This vision birthed the idea of the “Domani Protocol.”
From the outset, our primary goal was to develop an infrastructure on the blockchain for digital fund management in the B2B sector. We aimed to provide professional fund managers with a real alternative to the traditional, obsolete fund structures that still rely on fax machines (yes, you read that right). Unfortunately, we were ahead of our time. Between 2017 and 2019, our discussions with banks, asset managers, and fund management houses went nowhere.
In 2020, during the DeFi Summer, we decided to launch our protocol on Ethereum as a decentralized dApp. This turned out to be a wise decision. We garnered substantial engagement and TVL, received positive feedback from the community, and continuously refined our infrastructure, both backend and frontend, while addressing bugs.
By 2022, after deploying the Domani Protocol on five different chains, we sensed the time was ripe to pitch to B2B clients again. We were fortunate to begin working with Deutsche Bank on Project DAMA — a proof of concept on the Ethereum testnet. This project aimed to provide a more efficient, secure, and flexible solution for digital fund management and investment servicing, utilizing a tailor-made version of the Domani Protocol. The project was completed successfully in early 2023, laying the foundation for our next steps. For those interested, you can check out the whitepaper here and the demo videos here.
Last year, we recognized that to make the Domani Protocol viable for use on the mainnet, we needed to establish a controlled environment where professionals could utilize it safely and compliantly. This realization sparked the inception of the Hyperchain concept, leveraging the zk-Stack, which emerged from extensive discussions with the zkSync team. This vision aligned perfectly with the opportunity for Deutsche Bank to join Project Guardian, creating a seamless and synergistic collaboration.
Our primary objective for the next six months is to design a functional, efficient, compliant, and secure Layer 2 solution based on zero-knowledge technology. This solution will be interconnected with all other chains, both private and public, thanks to the interoperability system developed by Interlabs. Our ultimate goal is to make the creation of digital native funds a tangible reality.
What began as a fun idea in 2017 has evolved significantly and is now on the brink of being presented to one of the most advanced and respected regulators in the world. Although there is still considerable work to be done and we are not there yet, the progress we have made over the past seven years is remarkable. We are excited about the journey ahead and remain committed to achieving our vision.
