Profile NFTs - Incentivizing Social/Blockchain Engagement w/ Achievements & connecting Discord to Cardano

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Peyton Winget

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

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Requested funds in ada

200000

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

5

[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)

We're building a Discord bot that connects Discord to the blockchain, this bot will be able to read blockchain data, and specifically datums held in smart-contracts to increase user experience.

[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?

No

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

Any of the smart-contracts that we write will be open-sourced in the future. This proposal is for building the MVP version of this bot. As it becomes feature complete we'd like to work with other projects to help them integrate this bot to incentivize engagement with their own achievement systems, and incentive structures.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

We are building a Discord bot that’s connected to the Cardano blockchain, and an achievement page that's connected to the Discord bot that lives in Atrium. A lot of the Crypto community lives on Discord. If you look at other blockchains like Solana, or Ethereum there’s existing bots that connect their blockchains directly to Discord. Improving the user experience for their communities.

This bot will be able to read data from the Cardano blockchain, and users in the Discord server will be able to access this data. We’ve built a smart-contract called Stoa that will be open-sourced before this proposal is completed. This smart-contract allows users to mint profile NFTs that store user data on the blockchain in datums. These NFTs and their data is owned by the NFT holder. This Discord bot will read the datums in these profiles NFTs, and allow Cardano users to connect their existing social media accounts to their NFT. This connection will allow users that engage on the Discord by helping other users, to be rewarded with XP, or with blockchain tokens or NFTs. As users perform actions or achievements they’ll be tagged in Discord to notify them of their achievements. Custom achievements could be created for new DeFi platforms that launch. Users can be incentivized to swap on a new DEX, write education material in different languages for the community, and engage with projects post on different social media platforms.

All of these achievements will live in an achievements page that lives in our site. As users perform actions on the blockchain, or socials they will see these achievements populate in their achievement page. As they level up they'll unlock new customization options for their NFT.

Users will be able to interact with this bot, and the Cardano blockchain simply by using forward-slash commands in Discord.

If you want to see our existing prototype, log into https://alpha.atrium.io with a preview wallet.

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

Discord is one of the go to solutions for projects managing Cardano based communities. However there’s no way for users to interact with the Cardano blockchain, and be incentivized to perform actions that are good for the community. This Discord bot will connect Discord to the Cardano blockchain. This connection can be used to verify NFT/wallet ownership. This verification can be used to incentivize users to try new projects, educate themselves using existing education material, engage with new users, and engage with Cardano projects on other social media platforms.

[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?

Our core team consists of multiple decades of front-end, back-end, Cardano smart-contract and full-stack experience, security experts and award winning designers with experience working for some of the largest most recognized brands in the world. All team members are Cardano community natives, with a love for the community and a united vision in building products that serve the ecosystem.

We’ve built the underlying smart-contract that mints profile NFTs that store user data in Datums, and have begun testing the integration with these NFTs in Discord.

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

This Milestone will plan the features of the Discord bot, and provide a technical specification that goes into what features this bot will have and how it connects to Cardano and Stoa smart contract Profile NFTs.

This milestone will allow users to connect their Discord to their profile NFT, and verify real ownership of this NFT. This milestone will also output the design for the achievements page that user can earn for interacting with Cardano or other socials.

This milestone will allow users to earn XP by performing actions on Cardano’s preview network. It will also allow users to earn achievements. These achievements will be sent to the user by tagging them on the Discord. Achievements unlocked can also be viewed on our website.

This milestone will output the working MVP on Cardano’s preview network. Any user will be able to mint a profile NFT on testnet for free, verify ownership, and earn achievements by interacting with the Cardano blockchain.

After we shipped this bot on Cardano's preview network we will have hundreds of users provide feedback on the user experience. These users will be tasked with submitting bugs. In this milestone we'll fix any bugs that are found in the code, and also submit feedback from the hundreds of users that tested this product.

This milestone will ship everything completed so far on Cardano’s mainnet. Users will be able to mint one of the profile NFTs, verify ownership in our Discord, and start earning achievements for their mainnet NFTs by interacting with the Cardano blockchain, and engaging with other social media platforms.

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

Peyton: Âtrium Lab - Co-founder

Ben: Âtrium Lab - Co-founder and Creative Director

Brian: Âtrium Lab - Lead Developer

Angelo: Âtrium Lab - Full Stack Developer

Preston: Full stack developer

Waalge - Smart Contract developer

Riley - Smart Contract developer

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

Product Management: 25k

Design: 25k

Backend development, integration, & backend server creation/management: 75k

Front-end development & integration: 25k

Testnet public release: 25k

User testing/bug fixes: 25k

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

Discord is a popular application and has been adopted by a high proportion of projects building on Cardano. Being able to use data held in datums of Cardano NFTs in conjunction with Discord is a value that opens up the doors to engagement and reward mechanisms for projects building on Cardano. We've also developed an education platform that lives in Atrium. This Discord bot can also be used to incentivize new users to educate themselves on Cardano projects, and using the Cardano blockchain.