Hydra Texas Hold'em Poker Platform

[Proposal setup] Proposal title

Please provide your proposal title

Hydra Texas Hold'em Poker Platform

[Proposal Summary] Budget Information

Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA

100000

[Proposal Summary] Time

Please specify how many months you expect your project to last

12

[Proposal Summary] Translation Information

Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated

No

Original Language

en

[Proposal Summary] Problem Statement

What is the problem you want to solve?

Cardano currently lacks a functional poker platform. To address this gap, we propose developing an efficient, configurable, and trust-minimized Texas Hold’em solution, powered by the Hydra protocol.

[Proposal Summary] Project Dependencies

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

No

Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'

No dependencies

[Proposal Summary] Project Open Source

Will your project's outputs be fully open source?

No

License and Additional Information

All smart contracts (validators and minting policies) will be developed as fully open-source software, maintained in a dedicated public repository for on-chain components. This implementation of Kerckhoffs's principle ensures cryptographic transparency, enabling continuous security analysis and early vulnerability identification. However, other platform components will remain proprietary due to the commercial nature of this project.

[Theme Selection] Theme

Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal.

Entertainment

[Campaign Category] Category Questions

Describe what makes your idea innovative compared to what has been previously funded (whether by you or others).

This project represents a serious attempt to implement a competitive Texas Hold’em poker platform on Cardano, leveraging Hydra for real-time gameplay processing, with a unique architecture offering a comparable user-experience to traditional non-blockchain solutions without sacrificing decentralization and maintaining robust on-chain security.

Describe what your prototype or MVP will demonstrate, and where it can be accessed.

In the final milestone, after establishing all required infrastructure, we will deploy a Hydra cluster and provide a demonstration video showcasing the complete poker workflow on Cardano testnet, from game initialization to funds distribution and cleanup.

Describe realistic measures of success, ideally with on-chain metrics.

We will consider this project successful upon delivering a fully-functional Cardano poker protocol featuring robust security guarantees, competitive performance, and scalable architecture capable of evolving into a full-fledged poker platform.

[Your Project and Solution] Solution

Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem

We aim to build a user-friendly poker platform on Cardano that will offer an experience comparable to traditional online poker solutions, while leveraging Cardano's advanced smart contract capabilities to provide superior security. In this proof-of-concept project, we will develop the core infrastructure for hosting Texas Hold'em poker games within Hydra channels, featuring secure funds escrow mechanism, nearly instant bid execution with minimal latency, immediate pot settlement post-showdown, and on-chain verifiable gameplay logic for provable fairness.

Hydra and incremental commits / decommits

In real-time applications like auctions or poker games where blockchain transactions must facilitate rapid betting actions, the default transaction confirmation times prove impractical due to transaction propagation delays in decentralized networks. While Cardano typically confirms transactions within minutes, which is perfectly adequate for standard value transfers, this latency proves completely unacceptable for poker gameplay where sub-second response times are required. This is where Hydra comes into play, a Layer-2 scalability protocol for Cardano that provides instant transaction finalization and allows to eliminate fees entirely. This project will rely exclusively on Hydra, in a sense that our platform will not host any Layer-1 poker games due to the above limitations. In our current architecture, each poker table will maintain a one-to-one mapping with its dedicated Hydra channel (identified by a unique Hydra Head ID), ensuring all table gameplay occurs exclusively within the same channel. Moreover, poker game results will be processed and finalized immediately after each game concludes and before the next game begins, applying fund distribution changes on the mainchain. This design will depend on the relatively new incremental commit / decommit feature of Hydra. In simpler words, this Hydra addition will allow us to transfer funds between Layer-1 (the mainchain) and Layer-2 (the Hydra channel) without having to reinitialize the channel on each such transfer as it would be necessary before.

Future work: Matchmaking and Web Platform

This project will pave the way for further development of a production-ready and feature-rich Cardano poker platform with an intuitive web interface, allowing players to join available poker tables with just a few mouse clicks. As part of future development, we will implement a matchmaking service to monitor all active Hydra channels and match them with players seeking games in real-time, effectively hiding all unnecessary complexity. This service will intelligently assign players with matching table filters and comparable individual parameters (e.g., rating or reputation scores) to an available Hydra channel where all subsequent gameplay processing will occur.

[Your Project and Solution] Impact

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

This project will deliver tangible value to the Cardano ecosystem by moving beyond theoretical concepts to practical implementation. While Cardano has become a vibrant sandbox for blockchain experimentation, many promising projects remain abandoned or incomplete due to the complexity of bringing full-stack solutions to production. We strive to find a viable compromise between mathematical rigor and usability, delivering a competitive alternative to traditional online poker solutions while still offering smart contract security and a higher degree of decentralization. A fully functional poker platform on Cardano will attract a massive player base, conclusively demonstrating the network’s capability to power high-performance decentralized applications that rival centralized counterparts. Furthermore, by extensively leveraging Hydra for our core poker logic, we can provide valuable feedback and contribute directly to Hydra's development, helping refine its implementation and advance its progress towards full mainnet readiness.

[Your Project and Solution] Capabilities & 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 team consists of experienced developers with a proven track record of contributing to the Cardano ecosystem, with a deep understanding of various constraints and peculiarities of the domain. Members of our team have previously participated in delivering the Hydra Auction and PureScript Hydra SDK solutions and are therefore well-familiar with the Hydra protocol, possessing the required knowledge to correctly implement and deploy Hydra-based solutions. Furthermore, we have actively advanced the evolution of cardano-transaction-lib (CTL) and Hydra through direct development contributions. Given our hands-on experience in shipping functional solutions on Cardano and comprehensive expertise with every component of our technical stack, we are well-positioned to deliver a complete working concept solution, engineered for further refinement into a full-fledged product.

[Milestones] Project Milestones

Milestone Title

Requirement Analysis & Security Assessment

Milestone Outputs

1. Define functional and non-functional requirements and analyze security properties of the poker platform.

2. Develop technical specifications for on-chain smart contracts and off-chain transactions.

Acceptance Criteria

1. The project requirements are clearly written and complete, comprehensively addressing all gameplay workflows. A thorough security assessment of the protocol is conducted, documenting all critical assumptions and operational constraints.

2. The specification documents clearly describe the required smart contracts and transactions.

Evidence of Completion

1. A link to the platform requirements document (covering both functional and non-functional specifications), accompanied by a security report analyzing the identified security properties of the protocol.

2. A link to the specification documents describing off-chain transactions, the on-chain architecture, and specific requirements with security considerations for individual smart contracts.

Delivery Month

2

Cost

5243

Progress

10 %

Milestone Title

Smart Contract Development

Milestone Outputs

1. Implement on-chain validators and minting policies in Plutarch.

2. Export compiled scripts for integration with the off-chain components.

3. Write randomized property tests to verify the correctness of smart contracts under various on-chain conditions, ensuring robust security guarantees for platform users.

Acceptance Criteria

1. Smart contracts are implemented according to the technical specifications, fully functional and well-documented.

2. All relevant on-chain validators and minting policies have been compiled and are available in serialized format within the corresponding on-chain repository, ready for off-chain integration.

3. Property tests are implemented for all smart contracts, covering all critical execution paths, integrated into our continuous integration (CI) pipeline.

Evidence of Completion

1. A link to the Git revision containing the implemented on-chain validators and minting policies.

2. A link to the Git revision containing the compiled on-chain scripts, ready for integration with the off-chain components.

3. A link to the Git revision containing the randomized property tests for on-chain validators and minting policies.

Delivery Month

5

Cost

25512

Progress

30 %

Milestone Title

Transaction Development

Milestone Outputs

1. Develop off-chain contracts (transactions) using cardano-transaction-lib (CTL), covering the full game lifecycle, including initialization, funds escrow, core gameplay, funds distribution, and cleanup.

2. Write integration and end-to-end (E2E) tests using CTL’s cardano-testnet framework to verify off-chain contracts in an environment that closely emulates real Cardano networks.

3. Write unit and property tests for all critical system components.

4. Identify and resolve all testing-related issues.

Acceptance Criteria

1. Transactions are implemented according to the technical specifications, fully functional and well-documented.

2. Integration tests are implemented for all off-chain contracts, ensuring correct functionality in standard and edge-case scenarios. E2E tests provide sufficient coverage for various game workflows. All integration and E2E tests are integrated into our continuous integration (CI) pipeline.

3. Additional test coverage is introduced for critical protocol components that were not sufficiently addressed by integration and E2E tests.

4. All issues discovered during testing are resolved.

Evidence of Completion

1. A link to the Git revision containing the implemented transactions.

2. A link to the Git revision containing the integration tests for individual off-chain transactions and E2E tests for game workflows.

3. A link to the Git revision or pull request(s) where any additional tests necessary for adequate coverage are implemented.

4. A list of issues identified during testing, if any, along with their corresponding fixes, supported by merged pull requests or resolved tickets.

Delivery Month

8

Cost

25895

Progress

60 %

Milestone Title

Hydra Integration

Milestone Outputs

1. Update PureScript Hydra SDK to support incremental commit / decommit feature of Hydra.

2. Develop a reusable, domain-specific Hydra toolkit using PureScript Hydra SDK.

3. Develop specialized Hydra-based applications for Hydra Head participants representing poker players and dealers.

Acceptance Criteria

1. The PureScript Hydra SDK has been updated to support the new Hydra’s incremental commit / decommit functionality, featuring user-friendly interfaces, comprehensive documentation, and usage examples.

2. A reusable toolkit for further development of actor-specific Hydra-based applications is introduced, with reasonable test coverage and sufficient documentation, based on the updated version of the PureScript Hydra SDK.

3. The specialized Hydra applications for poker players and dealers are developed using the updated version of the PureScript Hydra SDK and reusing components from our Hydra toolkit.

Evidence of Completion

1. A link to the Git revision in the PureScript Hydra SDK repository with merged support for the Hydra’s incremental commit / decommit functionality.

2. A link to the dedicated Git repository for the Hydra toolkit.

3. A link to the Git revision with the implementation of the specialized Hydra-based applications for both actor types (poker players and poker dealers).

Delivery Month

11

Cost

25575

Progress

90 %

Milestone Title

Demo Testnet Deployment & Future Work

Milestone Outputs

1. Prepare a simple functional demo project with minimal UI and hardcoded game flow.

2. Record a video demonstrating the end-to-end game lifecycle from initialization to payout and cleanup.

3. Write a comprehensive report outlining further evolution of the project and Minimum Viable Product (MVP) requirements for mainnet deployment.

Acceptance Criteria

1. A basic demo project is implemented, featuring a minimalistic user interface with hardcoded gameplay actions, sufficient to demonstrate the system's core functionality.

2. A video is recorded, clearly demonstrating the successful execution of the complete game lifecycle using the previously introduced demo project.

3. A report outlining future work and MVP criteria is provided, with clearly defined objectives for product finalization.

Evidence of Completion

1. A link to the Git revision containing the implemented demo project.

2. A link to the recorded demonstration video.

3. A written report outlining planned future work and identified MVP requirements.

Delivery Month

12

Cost

17775

Progress

100 %

[Final Pitch] Budget & Costs

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Safe ADA rate (6-month lowest): $0.51

Current ADA rate (as of 16.08.25): $0.9

Billing rate: $50 / hour

Proposal budget: 100k ADA ~ $51k @.51 ~ $90k @.9

Ask: 100k ADA

Budget range: $51000 - $90000

Total adjusted time: 82h (M1) + 399h (M2) + 405h (M3) + 400h (M4) + 278h (M5) = 1564h

Final cost: $78200 (within budget, closer to the upper bound)

⇒ medium-high risk profile

[Final Pitch] Value for Money

How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?

The successful execution of this project will deliver exceptional value to the Cardano ecosystem by paving the way for the first fully-functional, Hydra-powered poker platform, competitive with established centralized online poker services. The final project cost of $78200 is the result of careful evaluation of each individual task by all team members. For effort estimation, we relied on our extensive past experience in implementing similar solutions and our understanding of various technical constraints of the selected tooling. We took the 6-month lowest ADA rate of $0.51 to calculate the lower bound for our cost estimation, and the current ADA rate of $0.90 (as of 16.08.25) for the upper bound respectively. With our competitive billing rate of $50/hour and with final costs near the estimated upper limit, the project delivers strong value relative to the requested funding.

[Required Acknowledgements] Consent & Confirmation

Terms and Conditions:

Yes