[bLott] Transparency OnChain Self-Govern Lottery System

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

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

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

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

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

Build a dApp that allows anyone to easily create a new lottery game with customizable parameters. Ensure the game is completely transparent, safe for players, and automatically rewards winners.

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

[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?

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

Fully open-source:

• Includes smart contracts and random number generation algorithms.
• Open to everyone worldwide to ensure absolute transparency in lottery ticket placement, drawing, and prize distribution.
• Utilizes an appropriate open-source license, such as MIT or Apache 2.0, to encourage community participation and contribution.

Restricted open-source:

• Encompasses algorithms related to the application's unique business strategies.
• Accessible only to authorized individuals with critical roles in maintaining the application's competitive edge.
• This access restriction aims to protect trade secrets and preserve the uniqueness of the project's business strategies.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

Introduce a groundbreaking decentralized application (dApp) that empowers anyone to effortlessly design, launch, and manage their own lottery games, all while ensuring complete transparency, player safety, and automated prize distribution.

The system will: "Unleash the Lottery Game Creator Within" in the following aspects

• Effortless Game Creation: Our user-friendly interface and comprehensive tools provide a seamless experience for creating unique lottery games with customizable rules, prizes, and ticket prices.
• Transparency at its Core: Leverage the power of blockchain technology to guarantee the utmost transparency in every aspect of the lottery process, from ticket sales to random number generation and winner selection.
• Player Safety First: Employ robust security measures, including smart contracts and advanced encryption protocols, to safeguard user funds, protect sensitive data, and prevent fraudulent activities.
• Automated Prize Distribution: Eliminate manual intervention and ensure timely, accurate prize distribution to winners through an automated system.

Why we have do this?

• Random number: Current lottery systems do not provide convincing proof of transparency in their results, raising concerns about potential manipulation and whether players receive their full rewards.
• Solution: The bLott lottery system offers random number generation solutions with open-source code, allowing anyone to verify the randomness of any lottery game results.
• Make lottery game: Creating a lottery game requires strict adherence to conditions related to transparency, security, technology, auditing, and ticket sales, which can encounter regulatory obstacles in some countries and lack trust from players.
• Solution: The "Make Lottery" feature with customizable parameters, using smart contracts and open-source code to ensure game transparency and comply with each country's regulations.
• Profit sharing: Lack of profit sharing mechanism from revenue of each lottery ticket.
• Solution The bLott platform is designed with algorithms based on smart contracts to share revenue from each lottery game with users.

Who can use bLott?

• Players like to try their luck with the lottery
• People who want to make completely transparent lottery games

How is potential market?

• The global market size: Lottery Market was valued at USD 283.72 Billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 424.78 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 8.2% during the forecast period 2024-2030. (By Verified Market Report)

• The US market size: Lottery statistics show that Americans spent $105.26 billion on lottery tickets last year, making it the most popular form of gambling in the U.S. Experts estimated that the value of the lottery market will increase to a massive $194.14 billion annually by 2025. (By Search Logistic)
• While the Online Lottery Market was at US$ 11.07 Bn in 2022 and is expected to reach US$ 16.76 Bn in 2029, with growth at a CAGR of 6.1% through the forecast period of 2023-2029. (By MAXIMIZE MARKET RESEARCH PVT. LTD )

What are the features?

1. Making games: Any user can create their own lottery game and adjust the game's parameters. A smart contract will be activated to run based on the provided parameters.
2. Buying tickets: Any user can select the tickets with special numbers they love, pay for them, and then the numbers will belong to their wallet. The revenue from ticket sales will be locked in a smart contract and will not be controlled by anyone.
3. Drawing numbers: When the lottery draw date arrives, or all tickets are sold, the smart contract will initiate the Random Number Generation process to randomly select winning tickets from the sold tickets.
4. Distributing prizes: The smart contract will automatically and immediately distribute the prize money to the winning tickets without any human intervention, eliminating the need for a waiting period.
5. Sharing profits: A unique mechanism is designed to encourage more people to participate in lottery games. Players can benefit from the tickets they have sold.

How does it work?

The bLott system will process completely automatically sequentially according to the following steps:

1. Make Game: Lott makers will set up a lottery game with customizable parameters. A small amount of tokens may be required to ensure the Lott maker is genuinely interested in creating the game.
2. Activate Game: A smart contract will be activated with the input parameters, allowing players to participate.
3. Deal Tickets: Lott dealers will promote the game to potential lottery players, assisting them in purchasing tickets through their referral link.
4. Buy Tickets: Lott buyers will select available lottery tickets, pay a token fee, and then the system will confirm and send the tickets to the buyer's wallet. All ticket sales revenue will be locked in a smart contract to ensure complete transparency and prevent any tampering.
5. Draw Results: The system will conduct the lottery draw to select random numbers based on the prize structure. The numbers will be chosen transparently using the random number generation method set by the Lott maker when creating the game.
6. Distribute Prizes: The smart contract will distribute the prize money to the winning tickets, then post the hash transactions on the dashboard and notify all players.
7. Profit Sharing: A portion of the remaining revenue after distributing prizes to the winners will be credited to the accounts of game participants, such as Lott makers, Lott dealers, and Lott players, who can then withdraw their earnings.

The above process is handled entirely by smart contracts with algorithms with public source code to ensure lottery results are completely transparent, no one can influence them.

Please fee free to see the prototype that we have developed.

For more details: visit the site How bLott works

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

Our project, a decentralized lottery application built on Cardano, has the potential to significantly benefit the Cardano community in several ways:

1. Attract Fresh Users. The project has a unique marketing strategy to target the existing market of more than 100 million online lottery players globally, and this number continues to increase. This will bring users who have never known blockchain, do not know Cardano, and are even anti-Cardano fans.
2. Promoting Transparency and Trust: By leveraging blockchain technology, our dApp will guarantee complete transparency in lottery operations. All transactions and results will be verifiable on the public ledger, building trust and confidence among users within the Cardano community.
3. Fostering Innovation within the Ecosystem: Our project will contribute to the ongoing development of the Cardano ecosystem by pushing the boundaries of dApp functionalities. The tools and protocols implemented in our lottery dApp can serve as a valuable resource and inspiration for future Cardano developers.
4. 
   

Measuring Impact:

• Quantitative Metrics: We will track key metrics such as the number of active users, lottery games created, and transaction volume on our dApp. These metrics will provide a quantitative measure of user adoption and engagement.
• Qualitative Metrics: We will conduct user surveys and gather feedback from the Cardano community to gauge the impact of our project on user experience, trust, and overall perception of the Cardano blockchain.

Sharing Outputs and Opportunities:

• Open-Source Development: We plan to adopt an open-source approach for the core components of our dApp, allowing the Cardano developer community to contribute, audit, and build upon our codebase. This fosters collaboration and innovation within the ecosystem.
• Community Engagement: We will actively engage with the Cardano community through forums, social media channels, and developer workshops. We will share project updates, technical insights, and actively seek feedback from the community.
• Knowledge Sharing: We plan to publish open-source documentation and tutorials to share the technical knowledge and best practices gained during the development process. This can empower other developers within the Cardano community to build innovative dApps.

By implementing these strategies, we aim to ensure that the success of our project translates into tangible benefits for the wider Cardano community, contributing to its growth, transparency, and innovation.

[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?

You should believe about us, because these:

1. Experienced: Our team boasts over 20 years of combined experience in application programming, coupled with 2 years dedicated to mastering the intricacies of smart contract development. Notably, bLott's development lead also spearheads the bWork application, a pioneering platform connecting job seekers and employers on the Cardano blockchain. We have a prototype for the app on mainnet.
2. Low cost: We've already established the core technical infrastructure, including a functioning mainnet on the Cardano network and a deployed smart contract. This solid foundation enables us to leverage existing resources from bWork, drastically reducing the time and cost involved in building a new DeFi web3 project.

By optimizing development through existing infrastructure and expertise, bLott ensures efficient progress and a timely launch, bringing our innovative lottery platform to life.

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

Place tickets

Develop frontend, backend and web3 to form end users functions:

• Select tickets to buy
• Suggest most potential tickets for user to choice.
• Recorded the bought tickets
• User notification.

Outputs

• Functions, components are developed and deployed.
• Users are able to select available ticket to place.
• Run smoothly, no error and fast.

Pioneer Community:

• Develop Initial User Group: Build the first user community once the product is operational. Engage potential users to create a robust and active bLott community.

Market Analysis and Strategy:

• Country and Territory Analysis: Research legal regions for online lotteries, ensuring compliance and operational feasibility.
• Marketing Strategy Development: Craft and implement targeted marketing strategies to attract and grow user groups in these identified regions.

Smart contract

• Develop Cardano smart contract to:
• Receive the payment from user when they buy the tickets
• Distribute the prize to won users.
• Backend API to record the transaction.

Outputs

• Smart contract is developed and ready to use secured compatible offchain code.
• User is able to send asset to smart contract to buy the tickets
• System is able to spend locked UTXOs to won user.

Web3 Payment function

• OffChain web3 code to submit the transaction that send asset (buy tickets) to bLott smart contract.
• Record the transaction meta data to let user track the payment status.
• Notify user when they complete the orders.
• OnChain and offChain tracking the payment transactions.

Outputs

• User is able to use bLott UI to perform the payment for selected tickets.
• User is able to track the status of its payment.

Pilot test

• Conduct a pilot test of the bLott application to evaluate the system's functionality and gather user feedback.

Outputs

• Test the end-to-end process of creating, buying, and drawing a lottery game.
• Ensure the Random Number Generation (RNG) and smart contract operations are functioning as expected.
• Collect feedback from a select group of test users to identify and resolve any issues.

Launch product

• Deploy product to AWS infrastructure.
• Grow users for trial functions.
• Operate the staging services for trial users, test and feedback.

Outputs

• Prototype is deployed and ready for trial.
• Core function are verified, run stable, safe and fast.
• Grow community user to joint the trial services.

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

👍 Kim Ngan - Project manager

Has nearly 10 years of experience managing online business teams, ensuring the management of teams and user communities for the bLott project.

Social channel: 

• Telegram: Kim Ngan
• Facebook: Kim Ngan

Responsibility:

• Reporting implement progress to Catalyst: Regularly update Catalyst on the progress and milestones achieved concerning grants. Ensure all reporting is detailed and aligns with Catalyst's requirements and timelines.
• Developing users community: Establish a pilot group of test users for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) version of bLott. Focus on recruiting users for both the Game Maker and Player roles.
• Collecting user's feedback: Gather detailed feedback from pilot users regarding their experience with the MVP. Use this feedback to guide the development team in making necessary technical improvements.

👍 Thang Tran - Developers manager

Software expert along with others to create some of the very successful high volume and high availability critical mission software. With 12 years of experience in software product development and bigData analysis.

Responsibility:

• Software design at all levels
• Backend/frontend and mobile development
• Blockchain and hash algorithms
• Skill React Native, Node, Haskell, and Plutus
• Engineering management.
• Smart contract, web3 developer.

Social channel: 

• Telegram: Thang Tran
• Github:Thang Tran

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

The detail cost for defined milestones to have deployed, mainnet worked prototype of MVP with core logics verified by the community:

₳24.000: Place tickets ~ $8.400 (=19,67% of total)

• Develop Cardano smart contract: ₳12.000
• Backend API to record the transaction: ₳8.000
• Fee of 3 AWS servers (3 months): ₳3.000
• Propject management: ₳1.000

₳48.000: First community aproach ~ $5.950 (=13,93% of total)

• Pioneer community: ₳8.000
• Market analysis and strategy: ₳8.000
• Propject management: ₳1.000

₳21.000: Smart contract ~ $7.350 (=17,21% of total)

• Smart contract is developed and ready to use secured compatible offchain code: ₳10.000
• User is able to send asset to smart contract to buy the tickets: ₳5.000
• System is able to spend locked UTXOs to won user: ₳5.000
• Propject management: ₳1.000

₳24.000: Web3 Payment function ~ $8.400 (=19,67% of total)

• OffChain web3 code to submit the transaction that send asset (buy tickets) to bLot smart contract.: ₳5.000
• Record the transaction meta data to let user track the payment status: ₳5.000
• Notify user when they complete the orders: ₳5.000
• OnChain and offChain tracking the payment transactions: ₳5.000
• Fee of 3 AWS servers (3 months): ₳3.000
• Propject management: ₳1.000

₳10.000: Pilot test ~ $3.500 (=8,20% of total)

• Pilot test with the pioneer group: ₳9.000
• Propject management: ₳1.000

₳26.000: Launch product ~ $9.100 (=21,31% of total)

• Deploy product to AWS infrastructure: ₳12.000
• Grow users for trial functions: ₳8.000
• Community feed back: ₳5.000
• Propject management: ₳1.000

Total request: ₳153.000 (~$47.200)

Important note: This proposal only focuses on the basic infrastructure tasks required to create a (MVP) minimum viable product on mainnet . It does not include mass user design, or media management activities.

When the product is released to mainnet, we will need to consider the following:

• Mainnet infrastructure: This includes things like scaling, security, and performance.
• Mass user design: This includes things like user experience, usability, and accessibility.
• Media management: This includes things like marketing, communications, and community engagement.

We will work closely with stakeholders to ensure that these areas are adequately addressed as we move towards production.

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

The budget above is estimated from actual costs in USD then exchanged to ADA at rate $0.35 per ADA. This exchange rate is equivalent to the average price of ADA in the most recent 12 months.

We have also made an adjustment in case the price of ADA drops even lower.

There are many potential reasons that could cause the price of ADA to drop lower than it is currently, such as:

• The continued global economic recession leading to an even more serious crisis;
• War spread to many regions of the world;
• Devaluation of currency due to high inflation rate...