Community Project Funding

Third meeting

One of the unique things about Nimiq is that we have an amazing, highly active and global community. All across the world, there are many community members who are actively engaged with the Nimiq ecosystem and share the vision for Nimiq’s browser blockchain through the scaling of a decentralized payment protocol and ecosystem built on the ethos of ease-of-use.

The key goal of the Nimiq Community Project Funding initiative is to increase our connection with and to further support the community. Team Nimiq see this as key to the future success of the Nimiq ecosystem.

The third Board Meeting was held on February 21, 2019, and we would like to thank our Nimiq representatives, participating Nimiq team members, proposal submitters and everyone in the community who provided their insights on the latest round of Community Project Funding proposals. You’re what makes Nimiq great and will undoubtedly play a key role in Nimiq’s future.

Before going any further, we would like to provide a high level of transparency and update the community on the current project funding status during the current six-month term:

Key points:

• 4 months left in the current Community Project Funding term.
• 31.65 million NIM is still left to be allocated to community projects & rewards.
• Team Nimiq is working closely with or has financially supported 10 projects through the initiative.

Changes for funding proposals

The opening part of the third Board Meeting was focused on optimizing the current proposal framework and agreeing on what the board would like to see to efficiently evaluate and support future proposal submissions.

It was agreed by the board that the Nimiq Community Project Funding initiative would pursue a policy of:

“Contribute first, reward later”

The key reason for this policy is to help ensure that projects built around Nimiq are done so for the right reasons and that the teams building on Nimiq share our vision, rather than contributing to the ecosystem for quick financial gain.

When it comes to the submission of Community Funding proposals, this new policy means that developer time should not be included anymore. Instead, upfront funding requests should be restricted to costs required to get the project started and/or to maintain it operational it (e.g. server costs, NIM to be used within the system, etc) .

Teams working on Nimiq Community Funding Projects are now compensated through a reward system. A project can now be split into multiple parts and once a milestone has been hit, the project team shows the work done to the Community Funding Board who will determine an appropriate reward for the project team. This model ensures that those teams who prove the most value will be rewarded the most. It was felt by the Board that this key change would further align incentives and increase the quality of projects being built for the Nimiq ecosystem.

For any community team submitting a funding proposal remember that you can also request:

• A security audit by Team Nimiq.
• Mentorship.
• Assistance with UI/UX design.

Team Nimiq wants to support the community with more than just funding and welcomes collaboration and increased engagement opportunities between the project team and community teams.

Meeting proposal evaluation

A total of six funding proposals were discussed in the latest Board meeting.

GetNIM

• Project purpose: App users would be rewarded with NIM for viewing ads. This provides a free way for users to enter the Nimiq ecosystem and means that the only barrier to entry is smartphone ownership.
• Development stage: Alpha testing.
• Project team: Discord users Bushwhack & RRAALLVV
• Previously evaluated? Yes, the Board requested proposal modifications.

The GetNIM team modified its funding request and reduced marketing spends from 500k NIM to 200k. One million NIM was requested in total with 800k NIM being allocated for app user distribution. This modification was accepted by the Board and the project was approved for one million NIM in funding.

Nimiq China

• Project purpose: Translation of Nimiq content into Chinese to help grow Nimiq’s exposure in Chinese speaking communities.
• Development stage: Working product.
• Project team: Discord user Miao#6120

Nimiq China requested funding to continue operations on NimiqChina.com. The funding request was broken down as follows:

The Board decided that all upfront costs for the Nimiq China project are to be approved to enable the continued operation of the website. These include domain registration and server costs (130k NIM). It was also decided that Nimiq China should be granted an additional reward of 370k NIM to recognize the efforts and contribution made to the Nimiq ecosystem. This resulted in the Board approving a distribution of 500k NIM in total to Nimiq China.

In addition, Miao#6120 will also be contacted and offered a position as a Nimiq ambassador for China. Further compensation for this role will be offered to help grow Nimiq’s presence in China and Chinese speaking communities.

NimiqX

• Project purpose: NimiqX is made up of six projects. The key one is focused on Nimiq APIs to interact with the Nimiq blockchain. Other subprojects include a mining calculator (https://calc.nimiqx.com/), Nimiq metrics (https://metrics.nimiqx.com/), Nimiq price (https://price.nimiqx.com/), a converter (https://conv.nimiqx.com/), and a NimiqX Discord bot.
• Development stage: Working product.
• Project team: Discord user Miao#6120

Proposal funding request:

The Board identified that NimiqX could benefit from a security audit by Team Nimiq and decided to support the project by offering this free of charge. It was also agreed that the Community Funding initiative would fund the server costs for NimiqX (700k NIM) and that the requested development funding would fall under the policy of “contribute first, reward later”. It was agreed that NimiqX could propose milestones for future reward evaluations and that the Board would determine a fair reward amount once the milestones had been hit.

It was acknowledged that NimiqX had added value to the Nimiq ecosystem which should be acknowledged through a reward of 800k NIM. This means that the community funding board approved NimiqX to receive a total of 1.5 million NIM and a free security audit carried out by Team Nimiq.

SushiPool | Nimiq GPU mining improvement proposal

• Project purpose: To improve GPU mining through the creation of an OpenCL-based and fully open source version of the GPU Mining client.
• Development stage: Prototype.
• Project team: SushiPool.
• Requested funding: 18 million NIM for development.

The Board was not convinced that the proposal would benefit the wider Nimiq community and viewed the project as falling outside the scope of the Community Funding initiative. Instead, the project was seen as only helping miners and was rejected on this basis. However, the Board praised the initiative shown by SushiPool and EhssanD (who had commented on the proposal and had developed two closed-source NIM miners that work on any pool). To recognize these efforts, it was decided that the following rewards would be granted:

• Mat (Developer at SushiPool): 300k NIM
• Terorie (Developer at SushiPool): 300k NIM
• EhssanD (Community Developer): 600k NIM, reward is conditioned to EhssanD releasing the code to the community.

SushiPool | Nimiq ATM community proposal

• Project purpose: To create a Nimiq plugin for Batmthree Crypto ATM machines. This would enable any Batmthree Crypto ATM owner to allow users to buy NIM from the ATM.
• Development stage: Concept.
• Project team: SushiPool.
• Requested funding: 14 million NIM for development.

There were no upfront costs included in the proposal and the Board believed that it was an interesting project worthy of support on the basis of “contribute first, reward later”. It was agreed that SushiPool should be notified of this decision and that the Board would certainly consider development rewards if progress was made.

Nimiq Lightning network framework

• Project purpose: Research to prove the viability of a Lightning Network built on top of the Nimiq blockchain and implement payment channels and routing.
• Development stage: Reseach.
• Project team: Billy Garrison.
• Requested funding: 3.5 million NIM.

After technical input from Team Nimiq, there were doubts that the proper implementation of Lightning could be done without user restrictions that diminished user experience. However, it was acknowledged that Billy’ proposal was asking the right questions. It was also noted that Billy’s style of writing and his ability to explain tech in a straightforward way was valuable.

The Board decided that it was an important research area and that there was value in getting started on researching this area, even if this preliminary research was only used to help future researchers. The decision was made to give Billy a research grant and to make him eligible for additional rewards based on future research writeups. It was also agreed that if Billy was successful with his research, that he would eligible for a significantly higher NIM reward then he initially requested.

Closing thoughts

All Board members were asked to devise proposals on how the Community Funding Board transition would work for newly elected representatives and advised that this topic would be discussed at the beginning of the next meeting.

Want to be part of something bigger?

The community teams behind all six proposals discussed in this months Community Funding meeting were approved to be either supported or rewarded. If you share the vision of Nimiq’s browser blockchain and believe that decentralized payment protocols and ecosystems should be built with ease of use in mind, then we’d love to hear from you. To get started you’ll need to get working on your proposal and send your PDF to proposals@nimiq.com before the 28th of March and the Board will evaluate it in the next meeting. If you need help with proposal formatting please read our previous blog post here and don’t forget about the Board’s new policy of “contribute first, reward later”.

Pura Vida
Team Nimiq

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.