App store for Milkomeda

[IMPACT]

According to a recent survey, 46% of users said a "discovery section" was an important feature for them inside crypto wallets. This makes sense because one of the top sources of FUD for Cardano is that it has no dApps despite having 300 million in TVL (top 25 across all blockchains). Therefore having a proper dApp store for the Cardano deployment of Milkomeda, we will be able to easily show people spreading FUD dApps built on Cardano. This dApp store will not be vendor-locked to Flint, so any wallet that supports Milkomeda will be able to send users to the Milkomeda dApp store to find dApps to use. Increased visibility will also make it easier for projects to find users and market success in Cardano.

This project will make it easier for developers to build on top of Cardano because they will have a clear path to take a project they've built and list it on the dApp store to attract users regardless of which wallet they are using.

The risk is that projects do not list on the dApp store or the dApp store does not get enough users. We think this risk is minimal because dcSpark is one of the core contributors to Milkomeda so we can ensure that the top projects are listed on the dApp store and since we have our own wallet, we can ensure that at least one wallet integrates the dApp store. This should give a good starting path for the growth of the project

[FEASIBILITY]

We will begin implementation of the dApp store in Q2 2022 and launch an MVP before the end of Q2. Afterwards, we will continue maintaining and improving the dApp store beyond the timeline of this Catalyst proposal

The full amount ($20,000) will be spent on developer costs to build the dApp store. We expect this project to cost more than $20,000 as it requires constant maintenance (from a dev perspective), content moderation and marketing. We will any cost beyond the $20K funding request on our side.

dcSpark has over 40 employees and is one of the core contributors to the Cardano ecosystem. We are developing large-scale interoperability solutions like Milkomeda (EVM support for Cardano) and user-facing projects such as Flint Wallet. We also have a lot of experience building open standards as Sebastien (dcSpark CTO) has been a CIP editor for 2 years helping to create a lot of the standards inside the Cardano ecosystem such as the dApp connector standard. We believe the experience of our team will enable us to build a proper dApp store that fits the needs for developers and users.

[AUDITABILITY]

1. MVP release by the end of Q2 2022
2. Number of projects listed on the dApp store

This proposal will be done once we release the dApp store MVP, but KPIs for the initial release include the number of projects that we will list on the dApp store (a KPI we plan to continue increasing after the initial release)

New proposal