This past quarter was a whirlwind of building behind the scenes, marked by an expansive B2B outreach push — connecting with leading Ramps in their respective geographies and markets — team expansions, and pivotal developments, particularly surrounding the beta production of the Embr Payments API.

While we’ve condensed our highlights to offer a concise read, rest assured every significant moment from the past three months is encapsulated in this recap. So, without further ado, let’s get into the major milestones of Q3!

Highlights:

• New Team Members Joining the Fray

• Successful Alpha Release of the Embr Payments API

• Embr.org refresh

• Hacken Audits for the Anchr Smart Contracts

• Embr Labs’ Vision For Payments

• Ongoing Development

• API Progress Update

• First Tests of the Clearing Protocol

• Looking Ahead

New Team Members Joining the Fray!

July — In order to support our growth ambitions, we’ve expanded the Embr Labs team to help address our growing list of shared responsibilities. In the time since their addition, we’ve already felt our combined capabilities increase proportionally, allowing us to ship more, and even faster!

Successful Alpha Release of the Embr Payments API

August — Spawning from our Q2 partnership, Unlimit Crypto has worked behind the scenes to leverage our API as an added on-chain liquidity source to support the onramping of crypto assets like USDGLO. As our Alpha partner, Unlimit Crypto offered the team at the GLO Foundation a direct fiat-to-token flow that was compatible with over 1000+ integrated payment methods and major card brands. This allowed USDGLO to be purchased in their consumers’ preferred local payment methods across 190+ countries worldwide.

By leveraging our API within the Unlimit onramp, the Glo Foundation was able to make its Uniswap pair (USDGLO/USDC) purchasable in 1-step from fiat, right on its website, while keeping its liquidity and supply decentralized. This made listing on a CEX unnecessary as consumers could buy their stablecoin directly without the need to jump from one external intermediary to another.

Not to mention, the API completely abstracts the native coin layer from the payment flow. Consumers seeking to buy USDGLO didn’t have to fiddle with smart contract addresses, slippage, or native coins, providing a seamless, direct purchase flow that hasn’t been seen yet.

I’m excited about adding the API natively into our liquidity engine because it allows us to scale a lot faster and be less reliant on traditional liquidity sourcing methods. We’ll be able to service and onboard projects at a fraction of effort and speed compared to our current process and ultimately be able to service a wider range of users.

-Bryan Feng, Head of Unlimit Crypto

This ongoing collaboration marks the first production application of the Embr Payments API and sets us on a promising path toward our ultimate mission: building a better payment system, decentralized.

Embr.org Refresh + Added Pages!

September — We’re excited to unveil another bundle of updates to the Embr.org website! You will notice a few visual updates, heaps of updated language, and the addition of a blog page and an Embr Checkout page. The website is an ongoing work in progress, and we have plenty more updates in store with the website, so be sure to keep stopping by!

Hacken Audit for Anchr Smart Contracts

In our continued commitment to transparency and security, we’re proud to announce that our Anchr smart contracts underwent a rigorous audit conducted by Hacken, a globally recognized cybersecurity firm. This audit evaluated the robustness, performance, and security of our on-chain contracts, ensuring they uphold the highest industry standards.

We’re pleased to report that our Anchr smart contracts passed with flying colors (a perfect 10/10), reflecting our unwavering dedication to providing a reliable and secure infrastructure for the broader crypto community. We always prioritize the safety of our users, and this successful audit reaffirms our commitment to maintaining a secure environment for all transactions and interactions on our protocol.

You can read the full audit here.

Embr Labs’ Vision For Payments

September — Our recent article, A Better Payment System, Decentralized, lays out the broad vision for Embr Labs’ payments disruption. In the burgeoning $9tn digital payments arena, DeFi lags due to user experience hurdles and a lack of real-time, scalable interoperability.

There are serious roadblocks in the way of DeFi becoming positioned to become mainstream, and addressing these challenges accomplishes two things: it allows DeFi to be accessible by your average Joe, and it positions DeFi-powered payments to eventually compete with established TradFi financial services.

Our USDC-enabled payment solution puts us on a path toward disruption in the Web3 payments space and our unique approach aims to enable seamless payment functionality that newbies and experts alike can appreciate.

Together, we are building the payment infrastructure for the next Internet.

Ongoing Development

Our journey into DeFi-powered payments continues with unwavering passion and determination. Our collaboration with GLO and Unlimit showcased the potential of our USDC-enabled payment solution, but we firmly believe that we’ve just scratched the surface. A technology that altogether abstracts the native coin layer from DeFi, like ours, is a profound innovation that contains the power to disrupt multiple verticals in the DeFi space and beyond.

Our eyes are set on the ramp providers’ payment UX, specifically offering our USDC-enabled payment solution as an alternative on-chain liquidity-provision source for ramp providers who are currently shackled to their centralized intermediaries. Leveraging the power of our API, ramps can dynamically enable and disable tokens on-demand through their products at the flip of a switch — all from a convenient dashboard. For ramps, our USDC-enabled payment solution lowers overhead costs, streamlines their stacks, and allows them to be more flexible in what assets they can offer as the market changes.

Q3 can be summarized fairly simply: We are building up and building out. From engineering to business development, to preparing for the deployment phase of our API — Q3 was a crucial building phase that will open up many doors in the coming months. Building phases, although not the most exciting and hype-worthy phases, build a sustainable baseline for what should be an exciting period of growth for our USDC-enabled payment solution over the coming months in Q4.

API Progress Update

We’ve finished the basic API documentation necessary for partners to begin integrating the beta version of the API into their ramps and liquidity engines. The documentation will continue as an active work in progress as the scope of the API scales.

As Elon Musk once famously said, the hard part is “building the machine that builds the machine,” not just building the prototype, like what we did with GLO and Unlimit. The documentation and the base API for our payments platform is the “machine that will build the machine.”

From here, we can begin allowing select ramp providers to integrate our API to deliver seamless, one-step purchase flows to their end-users — altogether abstracting the native coin layer. Buying a token in DeFi should be as easy as buying something off of Amazon in 1-click, and with what we’ve built, this is quickly on its way to becoming a reality.

First Tests of the Clearing Protocol

In addition to everything else we’ve mentioned, we’re nearing the time to begin delving into the mechanics of the clearing protocol and how governance will work within this new payment system. The clearing protocol serves as a routine risk assessment of the assets made available through the Embr API. Each crypto asset made available will have met the 16-point risk assessment before anyone can purchase it.

Without diving into the weeds here, a clearing protocol is essential for a system like the one we’re building. We’ve performed tests of the clearing protocol and already have a rough idea of its efficacy in catching assets with red flags from being made available through the API.

In order to allow on-demand, 1-step payment power, assets made available through the API must be safe and assessed for risk regularly. Expect an article to dive into this topic more thoroughly.

Looking Ahead

Q4 is shaping up to be a pivotal one for Embr — as a token, community, and company. These coming months represent a convergence from a multi-front effort to get the API off the ground. Looking ahead, there are a number of milestones to expect out of this quarter; most revolving around the API and integrating it into partners’ systems to get things rolling.

Remember the discussion of the clearing protocol above? This is where Governance comes into play. Governance in the Mattr One Protocol will comprise of two bodies: The Governing Committee, and the $EMBR token community. Together, these governing bodies will oversee and safeguard the Mattr One Protocol over time.

In the near future, the team will set forth the first proposal to the governing bodies to establish the framework and ruleset that will guide the Mattr One Protocol in the right direction out of the gate. Keep your eyes peeled for announcements along this regard. If you wish to learn more about Governance and how it will work, check out our dedicated help center section for Governance.

A Final Note

As this Q3 recap comes to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on the strides we’ve made and the challenges we’ve surmounted. It’s clear that every hurdle faced has only served to fortify our resolve, and each victory, no matter how small, has brought us closer to our delivering on our overarching vision for the future of payments.

Your support and feedback have been invaluable in shaping Embr Labs’ trajectory. With Q4 here, we anticipate accelerated growth, continued innovation, and even more opportunities to demonstrate the disruptive potential of our platform. Our journey in the ever-evolving world of DeFi is far from over, and we’re thrilled to have you alongside us every step of the way.

Looking forward, let’s continue to innovate and redefine what’s possible. Until our next update, here’s to breaking new ground together!

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