Hello World
We are gamifying decentralized finance to enable uniquely secure trading by transforming toxic MEV incentives into free market opportunities, internalizing them into better prices.
The principle of Urani Protocol and Swap is straightforward: it harnesses the power of intents, a type of order flow auction mechanism where a user submits a signed message containing information for the Urani Protocol to execute the trade on their behalf.
Additionally, inspired by the world of extreme sports, where enmity and friendship coexist amidst thrilling moments, Urani Arena provides a real-time visual infrastructure for orderflow auction competition.
Arbitrage is generally considered a healthy type of MEV as it promotes a free market. Conversely, toxic or harmful MEV can occur when users trade with high slippage and unknowingly become victims of sandwich attacks, or when the Solana network is congested due to heavy sniping.
Born with a Bang
Urani was founded on March 10, 2024, during the Solana Colosseum Hackathon by:
➡️ bt3gl, a crypto-native astrophysicist Ph.D., an Ethereum researcher and builder since 2021, one of the co-founders of the blockchain team at Shopify, and a former senior engineer on the security teams at Apple, Etsy, and Yelp.
➡️ Bryan, a backend engineer with a decade of experience, who worked with bt3gl at Shopify.
➡️ Sage, a security and infrastructure engineer with a decade of experience, and in the MEV space since 2022.
➡️ Giulia, a NASA PhD student optimizing aerospace systems, who hung out with the team just for the event.
The team gathered in Kreuzberg, the heart of Berlin's industrial revolution and activism, where they joined SuperteamDE and won first place in their competition.
HUGE round of applause to our top place local winners!
— Superteam Germany (@SuperteamDE) April 18, 2024
🥇 FIRST PLACE: @urani_labs
🥈 SECOND PLACE: @chompdotgames
🥉 THIRD PLACE: @getBonny pic.twitter.com/OPLWCwSOrr
Its streets bore witness to labor struggles and political movements, leaving a lasting legacy visible in its architecture, culture, and community dynamics.
Within less than two months of its existence, Urani won first place at Solana Colosseum Hackathon's DeFi track and was invited to join its accelerator — an impressive achievement considering that only ten of the 1,071 projects were selected.
18/ 📊 First prize in the DeFi & Payments Track goes to @urani_labs, an intent-based swap aggregator bringing MEV protection.https://t.co/1zkkzBhGBm pic.twitter.com/pKiLfPhoFW
— Solana (@solana) May 6, 2024
At that time, the idea was still in its early stages.
Trailblazers, Not Followers
Urani is the Latin plural of Uranus.
When we laid the foundation for Urani, our values were unmistakably clear:
- Deliberate Action, Resolute Impact: With a blend of caution and determination, we navigate our journey, ensuring each step forward is purposeful and steadfast.
- Trailblazers, Not Followers: We defy the norms and refuse to conform to the status quo, forging new trails in the world of crypto and beyond.
- Sustainable Foundations, Positive Sum Games: Our focus extends beyond immediate gains. We build with an eye on longevity, laying foundations that endure and thrive over time while fostering positive sum outcomes.
- Ownership, Privacy, and Meritocracy: We are neo-cypherpunks at heart. We hold dear the principles of ownership, privacy, and personal freedom, embedding them into the fabric of all we do.
Think Infinite
We're dedicated to innovation and firmly believe in crafting a groundbreaking technology that seamlessly integrates into the Solana ecosystem.
Urani addresses Solana's toxic-MEV minimization at the application layer by:
Additionally, we coined the term "MEV agents" to distinguish "healthy" bots from toxic MEV bots. We refer to the humans behind these bots as "MEV agent operators." At Urani, they are as important as any other actor in the supply chain.
Anyone can become an MEV agent operator and build upon their favorite strategy to win order batches. We call this "bring your favorite strategy" (BYFS). You can think of agents as "customizable skateboards", allowing operators to navigate the hypergraph of the order flow auction landscape.
The competition runs for a little less than a second, and the winning operator takes a part of the surplus (the rest goes back to the users).
Amazing work from the @SuperteamDE builders! 🔥🔥
— Orca ☀️ (@orca_so) May 10, 2024
By offering a progressive culture, no slippage and limit orders by design, a competitive liquidity marketplace, and novel price optimization, Urani can establish a positive-sum e-game for all parties involved: users, MEV agent operators, market makers, DEXs, aggregators, or any liquidity sources.
Want to chill with us? Sign up as an MEV Agent Operator and make a bag while playing. Anons and newcomers are welcome.