Request Network project update (January 19th, 2018)-Announcing a $30 Million Request Fund

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Request

5 min readJan 19, 2018

The Request protocol aims to formalize financial flows on the blockchain by setting the standard for payments, invoicing, accounting, and auditing in cryptocurrencies, so that crypto-enthusiasts can invoice, get paid, and get their salary in crypto.

Here are some of the best resources to learn more about Request:

Website: https://request.network
Blog: https://blog.request.network/
Github: https://github.com/RequestNetwork/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RequestNetwork/
Testnet Version: https://app.request.network/

Announcing Request Fund — Call for Projects

Our goal is to scale the Request Network Project in a decentralized way and build an efficient future together. For this to happen, we’d like to share a (non-exhaustive) project list we came up with. Each project can be developed either by the Request team or by anyone inside the Request Hub ecosystem. If developed by someone or a company from the ecosystem, Request Network will reward contributors with grants.

We’re looking for passionate people and teams who are willing to join forces to build out Request more efficiently. There are many other projects Request Network could support, we will thus update the list over time.

Request Network will allocate $30 million (in REQ & ETH) over the next 5 years to the Request Fund.

Amounts: $20k to $100k per project, paid out when pre-defined milestones are reached. Grants might increase for highly successful projects. These grants are intended to cover some of the costs involved so that anyone can build on top of Request.

Here is a first list of project ideas we would be keen to fund:

Mobile apps to create, detect, and pay requests
Invoicing apps (Paypal-like)
Point of Sale (Square-like)
P2P payment apps (Venmo-like software)
Crowdfunding apps (Patreon- or Kickstarter-like)
Online payments e-commerce plugins (WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento,…)
Payroll apps (Gusto-like)
Supply chain traceability
Accounting apps (Quickbooks-like)
Smart financial auditing algorithms
IoT platform integration (IBM Watson, AWS IoT, Azure IoT, etc…)
Factoring apps
Expenses (Expensify-like)
Virtual Reality payment integrations
Off-chain reputation systems
Crypto-currencies VAT/Tax payments
Insurtech

If your project in addition to one of these fields is also promoting financial inclusion or access to education, we will definitely regard that as a bonus.

Application process

We’re targeting skilled teams and have high expectations on focus and quality.

In your application, we will ask for the following information:

Describe your project in one sentence.
Describe it in detail.
Link to the website or add any relevant link.
What is the goal of the project?
Who are the team members, how did you meet, and what did you manage to build so far?
What is it that made you want to start this project?
How long have you been working on this and how advanced is the project? (prototype, alpha, beta, …)
Describe the timeline and milestones.
What is the estimated total overall budget and grant amount requested?
Have you incorporated or formed any legal entity?
Submit your contact details.

If we’re interested, we might ask for additional details.

There will be an application review by qualified community members, and a review by the foundation.

If your project qualifies, you can expect two responses within 21 days:

A. You are eligible for a grant (ETH and REQ vesting).

B. We need more information, which could result in point A at a later point in time.

Join the Request Hub here and apply to the Request Fund here.

Grants will be distributed at the discretion of the Request Foundation. Conditions may change over time and based on our experience.

Feel free to learn more with the following resources:

Mind map view of the ecosystem.
Mind map view of the Tech ecosystem.

Additions to the Tech mindmap

We’ve updated our Tech mind map.

VR payments:
We believe that VR/AR is part of the future, then we have to be prepared to pay for digital VR/AR content material. Some big corporations such as Alipay and Mastercard are already preparing for it (see for a demo). The Request Network is also built to handle VR payments and we will integrate the VR SDK in the future. Feel free to contact us if you wish to start an implementation in such a system.

QR Code:
QR code support is still very early-stage in the Ethereum ecosystem. However, we will be able to pay requests from a phone by scanning a QR code on a paper receipt, on a computer, or on a paying device.

For this, we will use the recommendation from the EIP 67:
https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/67

New exchange listing

The REQ token is now tradable on Huobi.pro, a global cryptocurrency exchange based in Singapore.

Hiring

We are looking for Back-end developers and Full-stack developers to join our team — people with a strong interest in blockchain technology, open-source, decentralization, security, testing, and in designing the best user experience.

Check out the job offers here. We look forward to receiving your application!

White Paper translations

Thanks to the community members, translations of the white paper are in progress for the following languages: Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Slovenian and Turkish.

Feel free to reach out at translations@request.network