BlockCred shortens long wallet addys with authorised web 2.0 email addresses and social media handles for secure, decentralised trading on the Cardano blockchain.

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Bruce Hudson (BlockCred Founder)

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

bruce@digitalmagazineawards.com

Additional applicants

Frank McMillan (BlockCred Co-Founder)

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

6

[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.” .

BlockCred requires Cardano wallet providers to onboard our product for existing blockchain users and new brands, organisations and individuals to trade with their authorised web 2.0 handles and email addresses.

[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.”

N/A

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Identity Solutions

[METADATA] SDG rating

SDG Goals

8 - Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

SDG Subgoals

8.3 - Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Identifying who you are trading with is crucial for the long term success on a blockchain. Without proper identification protocols in place, blockchains are not surprisingly tarred with the brush of being full of scammers and con artists.

Wallet addresses are long, and not suitable for trading in the real world. They are also not aligned to our identity. This is great for people who want to remain anonymous, but not for organisations and businesses who want to trade openly and need to be fully accountable for their activities.

As companies, organisations and individuals transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 the demand for a secure, trusted trading system grows. If you're trading with adidas, Tesla or your best mate down the road, you want to trust the address you are sending to. BlockCred offers the solution. Currently blockchain wallet handles solve the problem of long and complex addresses which can be difficult to type or remember. But they don't deal with the authentication and identification issues. The bottomline is you can't trust the person who is trading with a handle, particularly ones that use company brand names and emails. They quite often will have no connection to the handle they have purchased. A quick search on JPG.store shows that there are often over 50 brand names and email addresses in a wallet e.g.:

stake1uxtklsl3978l9msfm77uavdv5etv4jh4thyymn5c4zxy7ugxzdk8q profile | JPG Store

which includes 12 different Yahoo email addresses. In most cases this will be in the hope they will be bought by the actual owners, but it also opens up opportunities for scamming and fraudulent behaviour.

BlockCred addresses these issues using the most secure Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 wallet and identification security and authorisation protocols available. Making it particularly helpful for people who are new to blockchain technology and not familiar with long blockchain addresses. By using email and social media handles, people can remember their addresses making it easier for them to share their addresses with others, increasing trading opportunities on the Cardano blockchain.

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

BlockCred will bring new users to the Cardano blockchain, through the ability to secure established Web 2.0 identities on the blockchain. We give companies, organisations and individuals a quick and easy solution to trade in web 3.0 rooting their own secure trading emails and handles. By simply offering them the same handles they are trading with in web 2.0, we make the transition easier while maintaining their brands profile and authenticity.

BlockCred will promote these brands through our social media channels. With established brands signing up using Cardano as a safe, credible place to trade. BlockCred will create a domino effect with rival brands moving into the same space to make sure their rivals aren't gaining first mover advantage. This will bring brands and organisations to Cardano, establishing the blockchain as a secure and trusted trading environment.

As more brands, organisations join the Cardano block chain and start to gain traction they will drive trading activity and volume, benefitting the ecosystem and they will attract new users to the blockchain as people migrate to Cardano to interact with the products and services these brands and organisations offer, driving trading traffic and numbers of users up.

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

Block Cred key measurements will be:

• Number of wallet suppliers onboarded
• Number of daily sign ups
• Number of weekly ups
• Number of monthly sign up
• Number of wallet intergrations (day, week, month)
• Press and media coverage received through mainstream media and Web 3.0 organisations

Currently marketplaces and Dexes dominate on the Cardano blockchain which means we are defaulting to similar trading routines we practices in web 2.0. BlockCred sees a future where individuals and businesses will trade without the need for central entities. Where entities trade P2P without the reliance on marketplaces, when this happens, Block Cred aims to become the authenticated standard for trading.

BlockCred’s aim is to become the authorised trading mechanism for the Cardano blockchain. After the initial development of the decentralised database to connect email addresses starting with Gmail addresses. BlockCred will onboard further platforms including Apple ID, Discord, Threads, Mastodon and potentially Twitter (currently API costs are currently prohibitive).

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

Milestones will be constantly communicated through our website and social media platforms as we build a community, onboard brands and partner with wallet providers. We see this as a symbiotic relationship where we grow with and co-promote the partners we develop with. We then see the opportunity that Cardano wallets can broaden their trading wings to be integrated within social media platforms so in the future entities can trade seamlessly on the blockchain, back and forth between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 and as blockchains develop, further beyond where we have reached now.

BlockCred will be regularly releasing media releases to web 2.0 media sources and platforms, promoting our own milestones and the benefits of onboarded brands are achieving since adopting the Cardano blockchain

The project will also be open source with development activities available on GitHub for the Cardano community to reference.

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

BlockCred is a concept that has been discussed over the past six months by a creative team in Brighton. Initially frustrated by the lack of 'real world' uses for Cardano, the realisation came to the team that if blockchains are to develop mainstream adoption they need to integrate web 2.0 into their infrastructures rather than waiting for, or expecting them, to adapt.

Bruce Hudson, the lead on the project, is a seasoned professional with over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur starting businesses in the magazine, digital agencies and awards sectors. Bruce was the Chairman of the Digital Magazine Awards, has been a British Media Awards judge and was H Club Creative Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014.

Bruce is well versed in disrupting markets where the established way needs to be challenged having launched a football magazine in the UK (when advertisers were telling him that most supporters were hooligans), a global awards and conference (when the official body said there was no need) and created an interactive content agency for the magazine industry (clients included WIRED, Vogue, Esquire and Top Gear) after being told by various creative agencies that the coding-led design work he envisaged wasn't possible.

Bruce and his partner Frank McMillan have been together for six months, during which time they have been working through the various technical aspects of delivery of BlockCred, to be comfortable in their ability to hit the requisite milestones and to make sure they do not exceed budget on the project.

BlockCred has teamed up with RamJam, a digital agency trading for 12 years in Brighton whose clients include Britvic, Cisco and MTV. RamJam will offer technical and creative expertise on the project.

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

BlockCred's main goal is to develop a wallet handle identification system for Web 2.0 brands, organisations and individuals to retain established profile and user names to ensure authorised trading on the Cardano blockchain.

BlockCred has identified three stages over a six month period as the key milestones we need to hit:

Key achievements over the six month period:

Develop and deploy a fully operable and secure database which verifies account holders from Web 2.0 connecting email and social media profiles to Cardano wallets for decentralised trading on the Cardano blockchain. 

Develop a UX-friendly front-end which enables customers to connect social handles and email addresses to their wallet addresses. 

Develop relationships within the Cardano eco-system onboarding wallet suppliers to enable verified trading on the platform.

[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.

BlockCred has mapped out the development process from sign-up to wallet integration to achieve the milestones detailed below:

Key milestones to be hit by month:

Month 2:

Develop and deploy a fully operable and secure database which verifies account holders from web 2.0 connecting email and social media profiles to Cardano wallets for decentralised trading on the Cardano blockchain.

Month 4:

Develop a UX-friendly front-end which enables customers to connect social handles and email addresses to their wallet addresses

Month 6:

Complete a frictionless API service for wallet providers, which connects wallet addresses with the Web 2.0 identity provided. Develop relationships within the Cardano eco-system onboarding wallet suppliers to enable verified trading on the platform. Onboard existing Cardano wallet holders to build a community which then extends out to brands, organisations and individuals wanting to transition into Web 3.0.

Onwards:

Integrating further wallet providers

Onboarding further web 2.0 social media and email platforms

Creating secure client only, internal payment rails for bespoke clients (gaming, banking, real estate etc)

Building community connectivity by broadening the offerings within BlockCred/Wallet partnerships

Affiliate reward schemes for BlockCred users and wallet partners 

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

Main deliverables, outputs and outcomes to be achieved by each milestone:

Month 2 milestone:

Database

This is the engine room of the project. BlockCred will deliver a database for sign-ups who have been authorised through OAuth 2.0 as the account holder of the signing-up handle or email. The database connects the registered user with the wallet, confirming the handle or email address being used on the Cardano blockchain is the same as the registered user. BlockCred is building the database with OrbitDB, a serverless, distributed, peer-to-peer database. OrbitDB uses IPFS as its data storage and IPFS Pubsub and uses CRDTs to automatically sync databases with peers, achieving consistency - when all updates are received, all nodes have the same state. This allows Orbit to provide a fully distributed, peer-to-peer chat without need for servers.

Month 4 milestone:

Front End

This is Block Cred’s front room, where we need to make a great first impression. Potential users who land here will be taken on a UX journey using the front-end to sign-up. Block Cred needs to deliver a well designed, credible, easy to use website where the user transitions through to, what will be in a significant percentage of signups, their first experience on a blockchain. Simple instructions, key messages, engaging graphics are key. The onboarding needs to be simple and reassuring.  

Month 6 milestone:

Wallet Integration and user onboarding

This is where the fun begins. By developing a frictionless API service, wallet providers can check connected wallet addresses with the Web 2.0 identity provided. We partner with existing wallets in the Cardano eco-system onboarding existing Cardano users first then target Web 2.0 brands, organisations and individuals promoting signing up Cardano wallets to their established identities and handles. This process promotes Cardano to the wider community, encouraging new users to engage with the Cardano blockchain. 

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

Costings

Work completed to fulfill Month 2 milestone:

Database infrastructure development:

Develop database using OrbitDB (to include: email/handle collection, systematic and table relationships, double pillar storage system, error checking etc.)

Integrate database with OAuth sign ups and wallet registrations, implement and test security

240h x 130 ADA/h (approx £30/h at time of entry) = 31.2K ADA

Tranche 1 payment: 31.2K ADA

Work Completed to fulfill Month 4 milestone 

Front End Development:

Develop platform interface (includes wallet registration, OAuth signups, payment system accepting ADA from Cardano wallets). Connect front-end to OrbitDB and OAuth 2.0 sign up. 

120h x 130 ADA/h = 15.6K

 

Graphic Design and website design:

Design the overall look of the project (includes creating logos, brand values etc). Full website design (includes coordinating with dev to connect front end to OrbitDB, integrating wallet registration and OAuth signups). Design promotional material for marketing and social media campaigns.

120h x 130 ADA/h = 15.6K ADA

Platform security and functionality testing:

Back end and front end connectivity and security checks, platform design functionality and flow checks, sign-up process checks, database functionality checks, case-study trials using a sample of sign-ups to test run through the full process with the aim of making as many ‘mistakes’, attempts to break the system as possible.

100h x 130 ADA/h = 13K ADA

Tranche 2 payment = 44.2K ADA

Work completed to fulfill 6 month milestone: 

Partnerships & Marketing (ongoing over the six month period):

Wallet partnerships and integrations

Partnership relationships (includes driving partnerships with Web 2.0 brands, organisations and individual sign-ups)

Community development (includes creating affiliate programs for wallets and users within the Cardano community) 

Social media marketing (including Twitter, Threads, LinkedIn etc)

400h x 130 ADA/h = 52K

Tranche 3 Payment = 52K. 

Total Catalyst funding requested: 127.4K ADA

BlockCred have costed the three milestones of the project using a base rate of £30 GBP per hour for development, graphic & web designing and marketing. These rates are on the lower side of the standard for these sectors within the UK, we have done this to assure money for value for the Cardano community, bringing in levels of expertise beyond these pay-rates, to deliver the project.

Wallets are the lifeblood of a blockchain, without one, you are unable to trade. Currently the wallet addys are either too long to be convenient to be used for trading or if shortened not authorised by the person who is associated with the address. For trustworthy, authorised trading to come to the Cardano blockchain from Web 2.0, a verified solution is necessary.

BlockCred offers the solution, aiming to become the go-to platform for web 2.0 brands, organisations and individuals transitioning their handles and addresses into web 3.0. As brands, organisations and brands convert their wallet identities through our platform the more likely Cardano is to become the leading trading platform for Web 3.0. This will lead to increased revenues generated through marketplaces, dexes and individual transactions and beyond.

We envisage BlockCred becoming the trusted trading system for wallets on Cardano, where we are integrated into multiple wallet suppliers and then ultimately connected to various social media platforms, gaming infrastructures etc. 

We believe in the near future individuals will have autonomy over the way they trade and interact with brands, companies and other individuals on their own terms with the option of trading via the blockchain rather than through a centralised entity.

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

As mentioned previously, BlockCred have costed the three milestones of the project using a base rate of £30 GBP per hour for development, graphic & web designing and marketing. These rates are on the lower side of the standard for these sectors within the UK, we have done this to assure money for value for the Cardano community, bringing in levels of expertise beyond these pay-rates, to deliver the project.

We have already put in considerable planning, scoping and testing to bring us to a stage where we can hit the project running, without having to waste costs on meetings etc to discuss what we need to do.

We believe we can hit the milestones, for the payments projected, delivering a project which when up and running will add significant value to the Cardano ecosystem.

LFG!!!!

[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