Ondo Finance: Advancing DeFi Security on the Ethereum Blockchain

Client’s profile 

Ondo Finance is a US-based company delivering DeFi services to its clients via the Ondo protocol. The principle behind Ondo’s operation is to ensure better risk/return balance for clients investing their crypto assets into liquidity pools. The Ondo protocol functions via Vaults, to which the crypto investors pool their funds depending on the risk/return expectations they have. Ondo vaults provide the assets held in the liquidity pool on other DeFi systems, such as SushiSwap, thus receiving and distributing the rewards for liquidity to the Ondo investors. The process may be done in two ways – via fixed return tranches giving lower revenue and connected with lower risks, and via variable tranches that lead to higher returns but involve more significant investment risks.  

Client’s requirements/ goals 

Ondo Finance contacted the 4IRE team to write smart contracts for their protocol to enable smoother and safer liquidity provision on various DEX platforms. Our developers were tasked with testing the already implemented strategies and also developing new strategies and functionality for the Ondo finance solution. 

Additionally, the company wanted to update its official website and delegated the front-end development and design tasks to 4IRE software developers. The old website version also required some troubleshooting and fine-tuning. 

Business challenge 

The project was already operating when Ondo Finance turned to us for assistance in expanding their existing contract architecture and smart contract technology. Overall, no challenge was identified in the cooperation with the 4IRE team on the client’s side, as all deadlines and milestones were observed.  

In the process of blockchain audit, the 4IRE engineers did not face any significant challenges while testing the already functioning system for bugs and problems. The only notable challenge in the work of the 4IRE team was to ensure full compliance and technical interoperability between the newly created smart contracts and the existing contract architecture and writing down new strategies as well as help with the front end part of the Ondo project. 

Implementation 

All project communication took place in Slack, Github, and via Zoom meetings. The team involved on the side of 4IRE included six professionals – one BA, one Tech Lead, two blockchain developers specializing in DeFi, and two front-end developers. 

After reviewing the existing backend of the Ondo solution, the 4IRE developers performed an additional smart contract development step to ensure Ondo’s interoperability with a greater number of currently functioning DEXs without safety or integration concerns. It was required to ensure that the Ondo protocol functions smoothly and provides sufficient safety for the funds invested in the liquidity pool.

Solution delivered 

The involved technology included Solidity and React JS. The 4IRE team created an additional set of smart contracts to ensure Ondo’s interoperability with a greater number of existing DEX platforms, thus optimizing the allocation of invested crypto assets and increasing the returns and option diversity for its clients while at the same time maintaining a high level of the system’s security. 

Project outcomes 

Our work on the Ondo project started in August 2021 and still continues. To date, we cannot assess the overall project outcomes as it is still in the making. However, the intermediate outcomes include robust strategy testing for better operational safety of Ondo liquidity pools’ distribution across DEXs and effective supplementation of the existing smart contract set with new smart contracts ensuring the expansion of a partnering DEX list. We’re still in the process of website update and new front-end design development, with more improvements yet to be seen.