Community Project Funding
Second meeting
Team Nimiq are pleased to announce that the second Community Funding Board Meeting was held on January 24, 2019. This meeting focused on evaluating the six community funding proposals that were put forward to help further strengthen the Nimiq ecosystem. We’d like to thank all of you for continuing to support Nimiq with this initiative, our Nimiq community representatives and the community lead teams who created such thoughtful funding proposals. Without further ado, we’ll jump into what was discussed and what was decided upon in the meeting:
Nimex
- Project purpose: Nimex is a decentralized exchange dedicated to buying and selling NIM using Ethereum.
- Development stage: Working product.
- Project team: Nimex
Proposal
The Nimex team proposal asked for $800 in funding a month to help cover hosting fees and help support the continued operation of the exchange. Current hosting fees were reported to be around $1.1k — $1.3k per month on AWS and the Nimex team revealed that they could not afford to absorb this monthly operation cost for much longer.
Community funding board evaluation of Nimex
After a lively debate, the board unanimously agreed that efforts should be made to support Nimex and that advice would be given on ways to further improve the exchange (which could be funded at a later date subject to the submission of an additional funding proposal).
Highlighted concerns
- Hosting costs
The Funding Board agreed that it was exceptionally likely that significant cost savings could be achieved by changing the current hosting platform. It was agreed that members of Team Nimiq would assist Nimex to reduce exchange hosting fees. - Potential improvements
It was put forward that a full NIM base pair would add significant value to the exchange. Additional development areas like improved UX, arbitrage trading support, user stats and increased gamification were suggested.
Funding status
The Board agreed, with the help of Team Nimiq, to devote time to help Nimex reduce their hosting fees and potentially fund the development of additional exchange features based on the submission of an additional funding proposal.
At the time of writing, members from Team Nimiq already began giving support directly to Nimex founders in order to reduce their costs and make their project feasible.
PoW-Captcha
- Project purpose: Captcha provides a simple way to verify that a user is an actual human. However, the rise of machine learning is eroding the effectiveness of traditional captchas. It’s proposed that a PoW-Captcha would make it uneconomical for spammers to abuse this new system. The PoW-Captcha also enables website owners to potentially open up an additional revenue stream. This project proposes to build the PoW-Captcha system on top of Nimiq’s official mining protocol and aims to supersede the traditional captcha.
- Development stage: Concept
- Project team: Skypool
Proposal
Skypool asked for 8 million NIM in funding to deliver their proposed PoW-Captcha solution. This was broken down as follows:
- Cloud server: 1 million NIM
- Development: 3 million NIM
- Promotion: 4 million NIM
Community funding board evaluation of the PoW-Captcha
The Board felt that the Skypool proposal lacked sufficient details to fund the project in its current state. From the technical perspective, it was agreed that the product should work. However, the PoW-Captcha would only verify proof of computing power, rather than verifying that a user was a human. Bots and computing power could solve this new captcha but the cost of doing so would be high. This means that the product would provide enhanced SPAM protection.
Highlighted concerns
- Project cost
The board concluded that the funding request for the project seemed too high across the board. Cloud hosting costs of over $750 appeared high. Additionally, over half the project funding was allocated to marketing and the proposal included no details on how exactly these funds would be spent. - Usability concern
Although the Board felt that the idea sounded good in principle, there were concerns about its implementation. The potential slow speed of PoW-Captcha confirmation was highlighted as a potential pitfall that could significantly harm the user experience.
Funding status
The Board requested that modifications be made to the proposal, detailing costs in more detail and how the marketing budget would be spent. It was also decided that a minimum viable product should be proposed to the Board to help alleviate the current usability concerns. With these two actions, the Board felt that they would be able to make a fully informed decision regarding project funding.
ShortNIM
- Project purpose: To shorten URLs to make them easier to share. The URL shortening service also gives content creators a new way to monetize content. Users clicking on a ShortNIM link would mine some NIM whilst being redirected and this would be credited to the content creator. This does away with the need for monetization through aggressive banner ads and enables a cleaner user experience.
- Development stage: Working product
- Project team: ShortNIM
Proposal
The ShortNIM team asked for 150k in NIM to help support the project. Proposed NIM allocations are broken down as follows:
- Server costs: 50k NIM
- Domain renewal: 40k NIM
- New logo creation: 40k NIM
- Development: 20k NIM
Community funding board evaluation of ShortNIM
Upon evaluation, the Board felt that the level of funds requested and allocation seemed reasonable. The Board did raise a concern over the experience of end users being forced to wait to mine the link before being redirected. However, the Board accepted that such experiences are commonly accepted in some communities and concluded that the product did have a market.
Funding status
The Board decided to approve the funding proposal for ShortNIM.
Nimiq Wallet Manager
- Project purpose: Right now, users can only send funds by using the Nimiq Safe. What happens if the Safe is unavailable? NIM supporters would have a much harder time managing their funds. The Nimiq Wallet Manager (NWM) provides NIM users with an open sourced tool that they can install on their own server and provides an alternative way to send funds without the use of the Nimiq Safe.
- Development stage: Concept
- Project team: Brantje, Co-founder of SushiPool
Community funding board evaluation of NWM
The Board was enthusiastic about the development proposal for NWM. It was highlighted how NWM would also help further decentralize the Nimiq Ecosystem and how the project could create the first true wallet for Nimiq that could be easily run locally.
It was also discussed how Brantje’s self-hosted solution would increase the number of Nimiq network nodes and how this should improve the overall network. The Board loved this outcome from a technical perspective and how an increase in the number of full nodes could be encouraged without the use of masternodes. It was also discussed how Team Nimiq could help advise on strengthening NWM’s encryption.
Highlighted concerns
- Project milestones
The cost of the proposal and funding schedule was debated. It was decided that the project should be split into two parts: Part One would be the creation of the initial version of NWM and Part Two would be submitted to the Board for funding later and focus on adding additional feature sets.
Funding status
Brantje was contacted during the meeting and notified of the Board’s decision. It was agreed that a minimum viable product for the Nimiq Wallet Manager would be granted 4 million NIM in funding and that a separate proposal could be submitted upon completion for the addition of extra feature sets.
GetNIM App
- Project purpose: In economically challenged communities, desktop ownership is low and that excludes a significant number of people from earning NIM through methods like mining. However, most people in these economically challenged communities own a smartphone. The GetNIM app gives smartphone owners a new way to earn NIM through viewing ads and rewards would be stored in the integrated GetNIM wallet. It is proposed that such an app will open up NIM use to new communities.
- Development stage: Early start-up phase
- Project team: Discord users Bushwhack & RRAALLVV
Proposal
The GetNIM team asked for 1 million NIM in funding and proposed the following allocation breakdown:
- To pay for NIM rewards within the app: 500K NIM
- Marketing: 500k NIM
The proposed ad revenue share was allocated as follows:
- 80% for the users.
- 20% for GetNIM to support further growth.
Community funding board evaluation of GetNIM
The Board appreciated the benefits that GetNIM could bring to the Nimiq ecosystem through spreading NIM to a wider audience. It was agreed that the project had potential. However, there were concerns on how the marketing budget would be spent.
Highlighted concerns
- Marketing plan
The Board agreed that more details on the marketing spend were required to consider funding the proposal as is. - Additional monetization
The Board also saw the potential for GetNIM to be leveraged as a service for researchers to collect survey data. It was discussed how this service could monetize better than simply serving regular ads.
Funding status
The Board agreed that a more comprehensive breakdown on fund allocation was needed to approve the GetNIM proposal. Provided the GetNIM team were able to give a reasonable response, it was felt that the project would very likely be approved for funding.
NimLotto
- Project purpose: NimLotto is envisioned to be a Telegram bot that operates a speed lottery every five minutes.
- Development stage: BETA
- Project team: Teelegram @PlKA0 & @brantje
Proposal
The NimLotto team were seeking 200k NIM to support the creation of a NIM lotto app. In addition to funding, NimLotto also requested the support of the Nimiq team whilst in Beta. The funding breakdown can be seen below:
- Development: 100k NIM
- Hosting: 50k NIM
- Marketing: 50k NIM
Community funding board evaluation of NimLotto
The Board liked the concept, however, it was felt that the proposal lacked enough details to approve funding based on the proposal submitted.
Highlighted concerns
- Legal
The Board acknowledged that there might be legal issues with funding a gambling app. It was agreed that Nimiq’s legal counsel would have to be consulted before NimLotto could be funded. - Lack of details
The Board also noted that the proposal submitted by NimLotto was a little light on details and specifics on how the funding would be used.
Funding status
It was agreed that NimLotto should be asked to submit a more detailed proposal for consideration by the Board. It was advised that the new proposal should give a more detailed breakdown of how funds would be used and allocated. NimLotto then contacted the Community Funding Board on January 27, 2019 to notify that the previous finding shortfall had been solved and that they anticipated the launch of NimLotto at the beginning of February.
Final word
We’d like to thank all members of the Nimiq Community Funding Board who participated in the latest meeting. Two out of six proposals were approved and further funding approvals are pending, based on the community project teams supplying additional details or making proposal modifications.
Do you have a great idea that needs funding and could add value to Nimiq’s growing ecosystem? Well, start crafting your proposal and submit your PDF to proposals@nimiq.com before the 15th of February to get it reviewed in the next funding meeting. If you need guidance on proposal formatting, please just check out our blog post here.
Pura Vida
Team Nimiq & Nimiq Community Board
DISCLAIMER: None of the statements must be viewed as an endorsement or recommendation for Nimiq, any cryptocurrency, or investment product. Neither the information, nor any opinion contained herein constitutes a solicitation or offer by the creators or participants to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments or provide any investment advice or service.
