cPoker Development

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Seomon Register

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

Seomonregister@gmail.com

Additional applicants

@randall

@psuzzi

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

7

[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?

No

[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.” .

No dependencies.

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

Yes

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

Project will be fully open source

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Gaming

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

We aim to develop cPoker, a decentralized poker game on the Cardano blockchain. This solution addresses the lack of decentralized poker options, providing a fair, transparent, and trustless gaming experience.Our project engages present and future Cardano community members by providing a new, exciting way to use the ADA token and the wider gaming community by offering a fair and secure poker platform.

In 2011, Full Tilt recklessly risked customers' funds in the stock market, and when a significant number of individuals withdrew their money, Full Tilt was unable to fulfill their requests. However, with our self-custodial poker platform, such a scenario is impossible. We have no access to players' funds whatsoever.

In addition, it's worth noting that credible poker sites have experienced numerous incidents involving super-users who were able to view players' entire hands. These incidents were eventually discovered through statistical analysis and other methods. However, on our platform, the presence of super-users is simply not possible. This is because we operate on a decentralized system where cards are not stored or processed on a centralized server. Instead, nodes execute the poker protocol and communicate directly with their opponents through peer-to-peer interactions on the blockchain. Moreover, our platform incorporates an incentive mechanism that discourages players from attempting to manipulate the game, as any deviation from the established protocol will result in penalties and there is no advantage to gain.

cPoker is a continuation of the Cardano After Dark - Hold’em poker, we are taking what we designed and learned from our previous proposal and pivoting away from the kaleidoscope paper which we were not able to implement due to technical and financial constraints. Instead we see a clear path to implement poker through zkproof technology.

We still believe this to be an interesting problem for other Defi protocols, topics like secure protocols without trusted intermediaries, zero knowledge, financial rewards and penalty enforcements, responsible gambling and responsible tokenomics are still some of the issues we work on and care about, we do try however focus on building a working open source poker protocol.

The legal aspect of Poker should not be understated, which is why we put in a budget for consulting and better understanding what our strategy for this should be and how we can mitigate risk as much as possible while still being able to deliver an innovative solution.

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

cPoker addresses the “Products & Integrations” challenge by implementing a unique product, cPoker, and integrating it with the Cardano ecosystem. By offering a decentralized poker game, we contribute to ecosystem growth, user engagement, and innovation. We believe this will stimulate transaction activity, demonstrating Cardano’s versatility beyond financial transactions. The benefits include attracting new users, increasing value locked, fostering adoption, fostering growth and innovation, and enhancing user experience within the Cardano ecosystem.

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

The success of the project will be measured by:

• Completing the working application
• The number of active users
• the volume of transactions within the game
• Sustainable revenue for Cardano After Dark treasury and contributors
• community feedback and engagements
• and growth in value locked on the Cardano blockchain

As the users will be onboarded only at project completion, we plan to host onboarding sessions to gather feedback via surveys, which will provide insights into the project’s impact and help refine the game for optimal UX. 

A strong indicator of success will be having a working cPoker application, with a growing number of users for the dApp.

A secondary but important benefit consists in delivering a Cardano interactive dApp achieving fast communication through a state channel. We believe this will serve as an example for fostering innovation in Cardano by opening the possibility to have dApps where groups of people can build transaction collaboratively in almost real-time.

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

The outputs and results of the project will be shared through multiple channels, updating the community via twitter, discord, and ATHs for regular community engagement. When done, the project will be publicly available on GitHub. Additionally, we will collaborate with Cardano’s developer community, organizing workshops and webinars to share knowledge, discuss our solutions, and encourage further R&D activities related to decentralized multi-player games and similar interactions.

Regarding the project's impact on further R&D, the output of this project will serve as foundation for future endeavors. We have already identified potential applications that can benefit of improved interaction, particularly within the gaming and decentralized governance domains. By leveraging the output and the knowledge gained from this project, we aim to drive innovation and explore new possibilities.

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

Our capabilities are best demonstrated by what we have already done. We developed DRED, explored the Kaleidoscope paper, designed and coded some of the poker protocol with the help of Catalyst. We have managed funds before and shown resilience when practically things didn’t work out as described in the paper, by pivoting to a zk proof solution and the work we have done shows that there is effort behind our project and long term goal to build a poker project on Cardano.

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

The main goals of our project include:

• Develop and test the cPoker game
• onboard active users after six months from development start
• demonstrable usage and transaction volume
• share our experience with the community, and gather feedback to improve the project.

We already de-risked part of the project by contributing a partial implementation of the zkpoker for the Cardano hackathon. Our work-planning front-loads key technical development to the first milestone, so that we can get prompt feedback and decide how to respond to any discovered challenges.

We will validate our approach's feasibility through incremental testing of the cPoker application, and by getting feedback from the community sessions

[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.

Our project timeline is divided into two main milestones, and one final one, each with its own set of tasks:

M1 (1 mo): 75 k ADA

• prove integration of Elgamal threshold encryption

M2 (1 mo): 125 k ADA

• connect poker game context with UI
• partial implementation of smart contract features

M3 (2 mo): 175 k ADA

• development on cPoker application
• outlining our risks for building and continuing to build a decentralized open source poker plattform after publishing it
• Know our legal responsibilities

M4 (2 mo): 175 ADA

• complete cPoker
• integrate in-game bets
• integrate smart contract

M5 (1 mo): ~ 100 k ADA

• onboard users and respond to feedback
• bug fixes (if applicable)
• present design requirements for supporting other card games.

The team is composed of 3 established members, and 4 additional roles, two of which will have to work full time in M1 and M2, and two of which are consultants. The team will drive the development, management, and communication efforts. We will work in an agile fashion, and we are well aware that we should not underestimate potential expenditures.

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

M1 (1 mo): 

• Deliverable: test of Elgamal threshold encryption
• Outcome: group-cryptography is enabled

M2 (1 mo): 

• Outcome: connect poker game context with UI
• Outcome: partial implementation of smart contract features
• Deliverable: video demonstration of the results

M3 (2 mo): 

• Outcome: progressive development on cPoker application
• Outcome: Know our legal responsibilities to offer products and services on top of a poker platform for two countries
• Output: Legal Document outlining risks for building and keeping up a decentralized open source poker plattform after publishing it.
• Deliverable: Source code, Demo video.

M4 (2 mo): 

• Outcome: completed cPoker development with integrated in-game bets 
• Outcome: Open an alpha version on testnet
• Deliverable: Source code, demo video

M5 (1 mo): 

• Outcome: onboard users and respond to feedback
• Deliverable: bug fixes (if applicable)
• Deliverable: initial design presentation for other card games

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

Overall, the total expenditure will be 650k thousands ADA [k₳], so split:

Project Management: ₳ 65,000

Documentation: ₳ 31,000

Legal: ₳ 66,000

Security Verification: ₳ 33,000

Development: ₳ 328,000

Testing and Onboarding: ₳ 33,000

Bug Fixing: ₳ 41,000

Promotion and Community Engagement: ₳ 53,000

The rationale for these figures is team composition, and past experience with previous proposals.

Our established team is composed of an experienced Architect / Developer, a Developer / Technical Writer, and a Project Manager / Social Media Manager. Such a team already worked together on the successful completion of another project, and will be driving the development, management, and communication efforts.

We’re also contracting more figures, such as: an additional Developer to work on the DApp and its UI/UX (M1-M3); a Smart Contract expert / Developer to work on the smart contract and wallet integration (M4-M5); an independent blockchain expert to validate the security of the solution (M2-M4), and a lawyer to ensure we’re not trespassing any legal barriers (M2-M4).

To pay for an Architect, three development contributors, and a project manager, we anticipate a cost equivalent to ~79k ADA per month. With the current exchange rate of 0.305, this translates to ~ 24k USD per month.

In addition, we add the costs for contract specialists: a cryptography and cybersecurity expert, and a lawyer, which we estimate to be in the range of $30k total (~98k ADA).

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

The funding requested is reasonable considering the complexity and the impact of the project. 

Our seasoned team, with past successful projects, comprises an Architect, Developers, a Technical Writer, a Project Manager, and a Social Media Manager. The team's cost, at $24k per month, is well below market rates and represents a blend of necessary skills. We're also bringing in specialized contractors, such as a Smart Contract Expert, a blockchain security expert, and a lawyer, with an anticipated cost of $30k in total. These roles are crucial for technical accuracy, security validation, and legal compliance. Given our expertise and carefully considered expenses, we believe this project offers value for money to the Cardano ecosystem.

On the other hand, this project represents an excellent value opportunity for the Cardano ecosystem by providing a real application that people would engage with on Cardano and a unique experience to the user.

[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