Introduction to Rally Developer Ecosystem and Developer Bounty Program
tl;dr: Rally community has initiated a new Developer Bounty Program to bootstrap development of tools and technology for the network with a fund that rewards developer contributions with $RLY.
This week, the Rally community voted on their first governance proposal for the developer ecosystem. The vote initiates a new program (Developer Bounty Program) that oversees a 1,000,000 $RLY fund to reward developers for contributing to apps and tools that Rally Creators need.
Blazing Trails
Creators are always on the cutting edge of monetization tools and services. In the last few years, new crypto-focused Creators have emerged as the tip of the spear in using the latest blockchain tools for branding cryptocurrencies, tokenizing digital assets and micro-transacting with audiences. This group is building and implementing entirely new kinds of tooling with their audiences to do it. This soaks up a lot of time and effort in addition to what it already takes to build great content.
As these Creators and others follow in these footsteps, Rally has kicked open the door to a new era where creators, celebrities, brands and crypto influencers can build their own token economies, enabling tomorrow’s Creators to push the envelope without having to do it alone. Rally is helping support Creators with the construction of an ecosystem with the explicit purpose of rewarding healthy involvement to anyone who proves their contributions to the community.
An example of this commitment in motion, earlier this month Rally announced a network governance initiative that proclaims 70% of the total $RLY supply will be distributed to the community over the next several years (see here). As a part of that announcement, a pool was set aside specifically for Developer Ecosystem and Strategic Partnerships, which means $RLY is set aside with the explicit purpose of building a developer community within the greater Rally network.
Earlier this week, the first in a long line of developer community programs was voted on: The Developer Bounty Program.
Goals of Developer Bounty Program
The primary objective of the program is to bootstrap development of tools and technology around the Rally Network with a fund that rewards contributors with $RLY. The program functions as a wish list (Bounties with requirements) with accompanying rewards for developers that deliver applications and tools.
Creators shouldn’t need to take on building complicated processes or managing tools in order to take advantage of cryptocurrencies in their communities. The Rally Network design helps connect Creators with talented community members who can do all that tough tools development. While Creators already have a full plate creating content and launching new experiences, developers do want to build things, and in some cases are already a part of many Creator communities. The real trick is finding and sourcing developers to get that work done, as it’s no small task. The Developer Bounty Program will connect these groups with healthy network alignment early and often through $RLY grants, so Creators can spend more time doing what they should be: Creating.
Bounty Lifecycle
To give you a sense of how this will work, let’s explore the lifecycle of a Bounty.
Phase 1: Identifying the Need
- A new idea pops up from within the community for something that’s hard to do; For example, a Creator needs a new way to gate access to their content using Creator Coin, and no existing tools let them do that in their community.
- The community then discusses with the Bounty Administrators, sharing their ideas together on how it could work and how it why it’s important.
Phase 2: Bounty Goes Live
- At this point, the Bounty Administrators gather requirements and put together a new Bounty based on the community input (along with a reward of course).
- Sometime later, a developer comes along and skims the Bounty Board and realizes a chatbot they’ve already made could be modified to detect Creator Coin owners, and gets to work.
Phase 3: Developer Presents to the Community
- After some hard work and not too much sweat, the developer completes their upgrades and shares their work in a format that can be reviewed by Rally Network community members (something like a test deploy of their app/plugin/extension/bot/etc.), then submits an application to the #bounty-submission channel in Discord.
- Next, a community discussion and review takes place. Anyone who owns $RLY or Creator Coins is allowed to participate in the evaluation until the review period ends.
Phase 4: Vote and Reward
- Once the review period is over, a vote is taken to either approve or decline the developer’s submission. (It’s highly encouraged that developers join this discussion and help teach the community about their work as it’s being reviewed)
- Finally, after an approval vote is passed, the Bounty Administrators distribute the Bounty reward to the developer and coordinate with them on any final deployments or integrations.
Now that you have a good idea of why Bounties exist and how they play out, you’re invited to join the Rally community to help identify the next set of Creator challenges, or be a part of solving them.
Getting Involved
If you’re interested in participating in the Rally developer ecosystem, either as a developer or as a member of the Rally Network, please join in. Also, follow or watch any of Rally’s announcement channels for the next post with details on how the Bounty program works and how to participate in the Bounty Board Launch Announcement.
