Cardano & Polkadot Digital Marketplace Factory

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Watson Lewis-Rodriguez

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Not Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Co-proposers and additional applicants

UniFires

[GENERAL] Requested funds in ada

88000

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

4

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

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

An Open-Sourced Digital Factory line that produces pristine marketplaces for anyone to create, own and promote.

Integrated into Cardano, and bridged to Polkadot for cross chain accessibility.

[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] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

The concept which aims to be developed through this proposal will be fully open sourced.

We will license the concept under a CCO1 license. Later development of the MVP/Product will be fully open sourced under a Apache 2.0 license.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

This Proposal focuses on the concept phase of a Cardano & Polkadot marketplace, including multiple features which will be deployed in future follow up proposals. We are mainly following the approach of

1. Fund 12 - Concept.
2. Fund 13 - MVP.
3. Fund 14 - Product.

But, lets go about the concept thingy… Main issue is that there is no tooling and solutions. Especially for between on chain assets across the Cardano & Polkadot ecosystems. That sucks a bit, and we want to change that.

So, we propose to design a fine concept of a Cardano & Polkadot NFT Swap. Why, because NFTs are easier, bunch of folks use them and its a great thing to start with.

The concept, ideally will build the blueprint necessary to further develop the MVP. The MVP will become the product, with additional features further down the line :)

Regarding to the Cardano & Polkadot Digital Marketplace Factory Line, we explore the following questions.

Question to solve:

1. What tools/solutions are exists and usable.
2. Which tools/solutions are exist and not useable.
3. Which tools/solutions are needed and do not exist yet.

including;

• On / Off chain data
• Oracles
• TX Metadata

The Answers to these Question are getting directly pipelined in our next stage.

How to set an cross chain marketplace easily up. What tools need to be include to make a swap happening. 

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

The positive impacts for the Cardano Ecosystem are the following:

1. Fully open sourced.
2. Can easily be replicated by any junior or senior developer, minimal experience is required to incubate an idea into Cardanos ecosystem.
3. Ideally, it will save around 94% time for developers, from 6 months development time to 1 week.
4. Build a formal alliance between Cardano and Polkadot to onboard masses.
5. Accessible global infrastructure, that any Cardano entrepreneur can utilize to build a marketplace.
6. Free.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

Feasibility:

I'm Watson, I've been building for around 4 years now and received the opportunity to apply in this ecosystem from my friends Felix and Frank. I met fantastic people with excellent history of contributions to various blockchains through them.

The surrounding support for this concept, and my experience designing impactful applications ensures that this concept can become viable. Other people participating in this concept are well positioned developers, entrepreneurs and advisors.

Additional support from uniFires members ensures that the project has all needed connections to knowledge and skills at the Cardano & Polkadot ecosystems, required to successfully implement the proposal.

We also employ a peer review process, so our contributions validity are checked by other members and ambassadors in the community.

Founder Experience:

1. Arthur Labs - Initiated concept for open sourced Digital Factory Line at the end of 2023. Received support financially and resourcefully.
2. Incubator program - Developed and deployed an MVP through the Texas Blockchain program, in the University of Texas at Austin.
3. Tezos Exploration Hackathon - Create of a Tezos NFT for listing in a Marketplace.
4. Polkadot Global Hackathon - XCM Exploration for Price Feed Mechanism via XCM (Cross Chain Messaging).
5. Pigeon DAO - Built a Decentralized Courier Protocol - a marketplace for all sized package deliveries.
6. Medium - Creating free to view articles related to building open sourced marketplaces.

Founder experience accompanying links:

• Arthur Labs - https://arthurlabs.net/
• Incubator Program - https://www.texasblockchain.org/incubator
• Tezos Exploration Hackathon - https://github.com/5eh/Degen-Hack
• Polkadot Global Hackathon - https://github.com/5eh/LOCALE
• Pigeon DAO - https://voyagedenver.com/interview/hidden-gems-meet-watson-lewis-rodriguez-of-pigeon-dao-llc/
• Medium - https://medium.com/@wlewisrodriguez

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1: Research

Milestone Budget: 22,000 Ada

Milestone delivery month: August 2024

Milestone Progress in %: 25%

Milestone Outputs

• Research on NFT standards between Cardano & Polkadot
• Establish basic requirements for NFT standards
• Research document available under CCO1 License & publicly accessible
• Links are accessible and provided in the Milestones PoA (Proof of Achievement)

Milestone Acceptance Criteria

• Published Cardano & Polkadot NFT standards document via uniFires & Arthur Labs public documents
• Document issued under a CCO1 license

Milestone Evidence

• Published Cardano & Polkadot NFT standards, licensed under a CCO1 license & publicly accessible
• Links are accessible and provided in the Milestones PoA

Milestone 2: Analyze

Milestone Budget: 22,000 Ada

Milestone delivery month: September 2024

Milestone Progress in %: 50%

Milestone Outputs

• Formalize architecture analysis document on use cases, architecture, template, standard principles, licensed under a CCO1 license
• Publish the architecture analysis document through public documents via Arthur Labs and uniFires public documents

Milestone Acceptance Criteria

• Curated analysis on use cases as a public document
• Issued under a CCO1 license
• Published through public documents via Arthur Labs and uniFires public documents

Milestone Evidence

• Published analysis of the supported use cases as a public document
• Links to be provided in the Milestone PoA

Milestone 3: Summarize

Milestone Budget: 22,000 Ada

Milestone delivery month: October 2024

Milestone Progress in %: 75%

Milestone Outputs

• Summarize findings from Milestone Research and Milestone Analysis into a comprehensive public document gathering most relevant and required research & analysis outcomes for a Cardano Polkadot NFT Swap solution
• Create a series of articles, focusing on specific topics and potential options
• Publish summary document and articles via Arthur Labs and uniFires public documents.
• License summary document and articles under CCO1 licenses

Milestone Acceptance Criteria

• Completed, published and licensed summary report
• Completed, published and licensed series of articles
• All licenses under CCO1 license
• Links to be provided in the Milestone PoA

Milestone Evidence

• Published documentation via uniFires & Arthur Labs public documents
• Links are provided in the Milestone PoA

Milestone 4: Finalize

Milestone Budget: 22,000 Ada

Milestone delivery month: November 2024

Milestone Progress in %: 100%

Milestone Outputs

• Complete and publish a finalized Cardano & Polkadot NFT Swap concept under a CCO1 license
• Publish the documentation via uniFires & Arthur Labs public documents.
• Finalized and published Proposal Close Out Report
• Create a draft document for a MVP to continue the project in a future Catalyst Funding round

Milestone Acceptance Criteria

• Finalized and submitted concept
• Finalized and submitted Proposal Close Out Report
• Finalized and submitted Proposal MVP draft document

Milestone Evidence

• Public link to finalized concept
• Licensed concept under a CCO1 license
• Links to be provided in the Milestone PoA

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Proposal & Project Lead: Watson Lewis-Rodriguez

uniFires Support:

• Frank - Polkadot Software Engineer, Polkadot Ambassador. JavaScript, Rust, German, English. Stuttgart, Germany. I will sell you a shirt with Holograms.
• Felix - Cardano Ambassador, Governance, Open Source & grass roots, often being punk, doing great things with people smarter then me and usually having great fun :)
• Mark - Software Engineer, has years of professional experience in Cardano smart contract development, functional programming and applied formal methods engineering

Branding & Marketing:

• Thomas - Full stack developer, entrepreneur, photographer. Excellency in marketing and business growth :)

Blockchain Developer:

• Opeyemi - Genius backend developer travelling and building on Cardano and Polkadot

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

22,000 total per month

Research: 8,000 Ada

Operational Budget: 5,000 Ada

Prototyping: 3,000 Ada

Advisory: 2,000 Ada

Publishing & Outreach: 2,000 Ada

Content Creation: 2,000 Ada

TOTAL - 22,000 Ada per milestone / per Month

4 milestones x 4 months = 88,000 Ada

Though, We will ask for the same budget from the Polkadot Treasury at OpenGov. More on that at the next part of this proposal :)

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

Value creation of digital marketplace factory:

1. Ideation - Anyone can create their own business on Cardano within a week
2. Go to market - Developers don't need to waste time building infra when it's already available through this open sourced digital marketplace factory
3. Real World Asset - Anyone holding Ada can use a marketplace to purchase and sell real world services or good

Note regarding to cross funding:

Funny thing, this proposal will have a brother at Polkadots OpenGov. So we plan to finance this concept through both respective ecosystems. Ideally, Cardano provides 50% of the funding while Polkadot provides the other 50%. As we work this concept from both ecosystem, and as we aim to serve both ecosystems, we want to give it a try and be the first project which submits a proposal to two ecosystem at the same time.