Based in Portugal, Lympid is an application for European consumers to put their Euros to work through decentralized protocols and/or access assets available on decentralized exchanges. João Lages, the co-founder of Lympid, and his team come from a background of blockchain consultancy, where they found a crucial pain point for day-to-day investors who do not necessarily have a technical background. Traditional web3 apps today are primarily geared towards a particular audience that understand and participate in the risks that come with sending funds to smart contracts. This encompasses managing keys, auditing contracts, managing gas fees, potentially bridging between chains, and/or multiple layers of swapping between multiple assets to find the best price and interact with your protocol of choice. João and his team saw an opportunity here to simplify access to DeFi, akin to buying stocks using the funds in your bank account.

Overcoming Obstacles: Challenges with bridging the gap

In order to “Demystify” DeFi in the manner Lympid envisioned, with the current state of regulations, finding the right partner for each step of the flow, with the right licenses and orchestrating it all together under one umbrella was key. Unfortunately just before launching their MVP in 2022, their fiat licensed partner pulled the plug on the program. In their search for a new partner, Lympid encountered numerous roadblocks. Current traditional on-ramp/off-ramp widgets only offer simple SDK solutions, which effectively is a jagged user experience with high fees (4%+), switching between different windows with different company logos, and a non-native experience. What Lympid required was a more flexible and customizable flow that encompassed the journey of a user right from registration until funding, within a single set of APIs. In this way, Lympid would be able to focus on building product, talking to users and iterating on product development as opposed to spending time on obtaining licenses, dealing with regulators and/or multiple partners with a jagged UX from day one.

Euros to 0xc3d... and back: How Lympid leveraged Striga's APIs to bridge the gap

In order to bridge the gap between Euros and smart contracts, Lympid needed: compliant user onboarding, compliant fiat payments, compliant trading and custody infrastructure and compliant infrastructure to call smart contract functions Each of the above activities in 2023 is a highly regulated activity, and becoming compliant is no easy feat. Lympid would have spent over €1M and up to 2 years to build all the above in-house. By leveraging Striga’s licence and infrastructure, Lympid was able to complete onboarding, build, and ship their MVP early in January 2023 — a mere 2 months from first contact! The MVP was a feature-rich web application that checked all the above boxes and more. You can try the latest version yourself at: app.lympid.io

Embed banking and crypto using a single set of APIs

After partnering with Striga, Lympid worked closely with the Striga team to build and launch in record time. The public application is now live, healthy, and growing, as Lympid continues to iterate and deliver new features. João and his team remain actively engaged with Striga — ideating, testing, and developing new functionality in line with the latest regulatory requirements, as the Lympid platform evolves and attracts larger investors.