Bot Eliminator – Powered by Proofspace & Atala Prism

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Marcin Kugla

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

marcin.kugla@ruhrpott-blockchain-technologies.com

Additional applicants

Allison Fromm, Viktor Radchenko

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

2

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

Yes

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.” .

We will use Atala PRISM as our Foundation for the Bot Eliminator

Atala PRISM is a self-sovereign identity (SSI) platform and service suite for verifiable data and digital identity. Built on Cardano, it offers the core infrastructure for issuing DIDs (Decentralized identifiers) and verifiable credentials, alongside tools and frameworks to help expand your ecosystem.

With Atala PRISM we do not have to start from scratch and use this as a benefit of being a part of the Cardano ecosystem. This will save a lot of additional budget and time to deliver our tool!

Further, we will use AdaQuest as an already-launched mobile game with account registration to test & proof our tool.

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

No

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

Since every online game has a different approach to Account handling, Integration, maintenance, and support for the Bot Eliminator, this tool will be not free. But if will be less expensive and more effective than other current Anti-Cheat solutions.

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Gaming

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

As explained in the title above, playing online games has become a standard part of the gaming landscape.

 

Whether in the current Counterstrike, Valorant, Diablo, or World of Warcraft. Players often try to gain advantages, which often destroys the balance within the competition.

 

Game developers have been trying to combat this since the early hours of online gaming. Unfortunately, this is still very difficult today.

 

Examples are multi-accounting or the use of bots. Fake email accounts are used and operated by a single person. The advantage is obvious: game mechanics that are designed to take time or achievements that often require months of resource gathering can be achieved in a matter of days using fake accounts.

 

Game developers spend tens of thousands of dollars on anti-cheat software. In most cases, the mostly anonymous players bypass some of this software, reducing the fun of the game for honest players.

 

In the multi-million dollar gaming market, as in typical online commerce, everything revolves around economic metrics. Bots and multi-accounts often distort these numbers and make it even harder to do the math when it comes to monetization!

 

Thanks to Cardano's blockchain technology, we will at least minimize the problem of multi-accounting and bot farming.

 

Game developers can use our technology to ensure fairness and healthy competition in their worlds. To this end, we are creating an interface for developers using ProofSpace and Atala PRISM.

 

TL;DR

ProofSpace allows you to secure your project with sign-up and sign-in flows - powered by Atala PRISM verifiable credentials.

 

The AdaQuest team will provide your current mobile game as a test pool. At the moment it is the Open Alpha, playable by all.

 

Of course, after the first successful deployment, our solution will be available for all other gaming products on the Cardano blockchain.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

Since this challenge is mainly about enriching the Cardano ecosystem and we are relying on existing Cardano solutions, this certainly answers the question of benefits directly.

 

Of course, we expect this to make a strong impression on existing games on our blockchain.

 

In addition, we see it as a perfect tool to convince other game developers of Cardano, even if they have been developing on other blockchains. As interoperability has always been seen as a strength of Cardano, we hope that the Bot Eliminator will bring additional attention to our blockchain.

 

In addition, the AdaQuest team will use its Web2 developer network to present the finished and tested tool to the classic studios. Furthermore, we like also to address streaming services like Twitch, Kick, and Youtube or other classic account-driven providers from the telco and e-commerce sector.

Example Source of the Bots misery: https://uk.pcmag.com/old-video-streaming-services/132825/twitch-discovers-over-75m-bot-accounts-inflating-streamer-stats

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

The success of our project will be measured by three key indicators.

 

The first KPI will provide AdaQuest with reliable figures on the actual number of registered and active players. This will be done in the short term as it is part of the proof of concept.

 

The second indicator is planned as a mid-term benchmark. Here we will measure the number of Cardano games that will use our tool.

 

Last but not least, the tool will be presented to the web2game development community after its successful implementation and the success will be reflected by titles that will use it effectively.

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

The impact of the Bot Eliminator will be published within one month after the deployment at AdaQuest. We will present the results on the appropriate Cardano social media channels and town halls.

We plan to use the awareness of ProofSpace, Atala Prism, and AdaQuest to generate more coverage.

Furthermore, we will leverage existing partnerships within and outside our ecosystem to broadly showcase the tool. 

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Atala PRISMA is already software in use and our foundation.

 

With Proofspace and AdaQuest we have two other teams that have already been funded by Catalyst and have continued to deliver their previous projects even in the current bear market.

 

Our teams are public! The companies are registered entities and have contributed significantly to the awareness of Cardano since the launch of the mainnet.

 

To date, both teams have used events to introduce people from various industries to the Cardano ecosystem.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

Our main goal remains to eliminate bots and too many multi-accounts in the game.

 

We are aware that we cannot achieve this 100%. But what we can do is minimize the number of bots in an unprecedented way.

 

It will be much harder with multi-accounts because our approach will allow players to continue to use multi-accounts, which will take months of additional effort. And few players are willing to do that.

 

This is similar to the principle of becoming a Cardano Stake Pool Operator. We have adopted this into our concept:

As you may know, anyone who wants to become an SPO must first deposit 500 ADA to the protocol. This approach has allowed very few cheaters to become Stake Pool Operators since the start of the mainnet. Further, most of the time, they were quickly exposed by the community. We are aiming for the same success with the Bot Eliminator tool.

 

To put it in numbers. A 50% reduction in bots and multiaccounts would be a great success. In fact, we hope to make the tool even more effective over time and aim for a bot removal rate of over 90% in the long term.

 

As a concrete example, the AdaQuest team has provided us with current figures from the Web2 Online Gaming segment:

 

Standard online game bot & multi-account benchmark of a well-known AAA mobile title - 6 months after launch;

 

Data before cleansing:

Registered accounts: 5M

DAU (Daily Active Users) = 30K

MAU (Monthly Active Users) = 1M

MPU (Monthly Paying Users) = 800

 

Data after bot cleaning:

Registered unique accounts (estimated) = 2.5M

DAU (unique) = 8K

MAU (unique) = 240K

MPU = 800

 

Here you can quickly see that the user has at least 2 accounts or more. And finally the provider is able to detect why there is such a small amount of monthly paying users at former 5M registered accounts.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

As we rely on software already in use (Atala Prism, ProofSpace, AdaQuest), the milestones tend to keep costs down. This gives us a significant advantage over competitors, as we don't have to start from scratch.

 

These are the milestones we are aiming for:

 

1st month - two sprints

 

Sprint 1:

Week 1 - Preparation Phase

Week 2 - The framework is prepared accordingly.

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Milestone 1: Preparation & Framework (2 weeks)

 

Sprint 2:

Week 3 - Implement the first version of the Bot Eliminator.

Week 4 - Intense testing of the Bot Eliminator

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Milestone 2: Testing & delivery of the final product (2 weeks) 

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Milestone 1: Preparation & Framework (2 weeks)

Week 1:

Deliverables: Project flow chart.

Outcome: Proofspace and AdaQuest programmers gain deeper knowledge about frontend and backend functionality.

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Week 2:

Deliverables: Framework code ready.

Outcome: AdaQuest and Proofspace have the code base to proceed.

 

Milestone 2: Testing & delivery of the final product (2 weeks)

Week 3:

Deliverables: Bot Eliminator - Version 1.0 Beta.

Outcome: Release candidate ready for testing.

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Week 4:

Deliverables: Bot Eliminator - Version 1.0 

Outcome: Launch of the Bot Eliminator on ada-quest.com

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

Milestone 1: Preparation & Framework (2 weeks)

Cost = 18000ADA*

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Milestone 2: Testing & delivery of the final product (2 weeks)

Cost = 18000ADA*

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Testing & Documentation

Cost = 4000ADA*

 

Resources:

1 Tech Lead(Frontend/Backend) Proofspace team

1 Tech Lead(Frontend/Backend) AdaQuest team

Several Testers within both teams

1 PM Lead (Documentation)

ADA prices include a 20% margin for volatility

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The most important point in our entire proposal is to save costs. We do this by - as already described above - using existing developers from the Cardano ecosystem.

The budget here is kept absolutely small. The result would certainly be an enormous enrichment for the Cardano ecosystem and could easily bring in a lot more than the invested capital.

In addition, there is also the possibility that other projects from our community will benefit from it or will further develop the Bot Eliminator ;)

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept