Decentralized Newsletter Service

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Create a decentralized newsletter service that decouples payment, publishing, and subscription from centralized services. That way journalists are able to do their job without fear of censorship.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

EMURGO Academy instructor, Proposer Reviewer, Veteran Proposer Reviewer, Challenge Team Leader.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The newsletter forms the basis of journalism. It's a low-cost medium used to spread information and discuss the news that can be accessible by almost any person. Now it has become one of the main tools for alternative media and has been very successful.

Blogs are clear examples of this model. As normally a group of writers or an individual writer can start writing over the internet and publish on a blog. Of course, monetizing a blog requires 3rd party payment processors such as PayPal, Stripe, Venmo, etc. To avoid the dispersion created by blogs other platforms have been created.

Several businesses have come out to support the independent newsletter such as Substack. In it, anyone can create a free or paid newsletter that can be distributed over the internet. Substack uses Stripe to process credit card payments, and it's subject to the willingness of that 3rd party to process transactions.

Not to mention that the owner of the content published is in question. As in some cases, Substack can be considered the owner and not the original writer. Substack is a platform, not a news aggregator, and it's not open-source, meaning there is no way to audit its internal systems. 

There is a clear need for alternative media and platforms such as Substack are providing the venue to publish and distribute information. Yet, they are centralized and become single points of failure.

Payment Processors Failure

Blogs are the first form of distribution of alternative media. Even today they are a popular option and there are many news blogs that attract a lot of attention. These blogs rely on payment processors (PayPay, Stripe, Venmo, Transferwise, etc.) for monetization and survival of the blog.

These payment processors are used to close or hinder blogs that are perceived as problematic. All the payment processors mentioned above have denied services to news blogs in the past. Some have even withheld withdrawals from the owners of the accounts.

Patreon, Substack, and similar platforms have the same problem. They themselves cannot process payments and rely on the same companies for these services. Patreon has already deplataformed writers from it, and many believe Substack will follow suit.

Here the proposed solution is to use the Cardano ledger to process payments. NFT-DAO has developed Ez Pay which can connect to legacy payment processors. This can be used to bring subscribers to a newsletter that do not want to use crypto tokens. Additionally, stablecoins will also be included as a payment method.

Decentralized Subscription

Blogs have email lists and centralized platforms have subscriptions, both are centralized. Because to create an email list, most blog writers also rely on 3rd parties that collect that information. Platforms that offer a subscription also collect this information.

In each case, the information can be leaked or used to ban people that access certain types of newsletters or follow particular writers.

To solve this problem the platform proposed would use NFTs as a form of subscription. In the previous systems, a paywall is enforced via the user-created account. Added to it, the user would need to provide a payment method, provide payment, and finally access the content. With an NFT the method can be different. The authorization to access the premium content can be delegated to ownership of a specific token. 

Here another team has already created a solution that we can implement: https://github.com/Loxe-Inc/F7-NFT-based-authentication

We're very thankful for their effort and any extension we make to this functionality (metadata usage) will also be open source.

Decentralized Storage

Finally, the last point of failure is a centralized storage of the information. To solve this, the project would deploy the platform using the Arweave network. The network is a data storage blockchain protocol enabling a permanent serverless web that enables permanent data storage.

The decentralized network of Arweave will prevent anyone from censoring the information or appropriating the content of the writers.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/journalists-start-demanding-substack?s=r

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

The combination of Ez Pay as a decentralized payment processor, NFTs for decentralized subscriptions, and Arweave for decentralized storage creates a new type of newsletter platform that is censorship-proof. The new Dapp will be able to create a truly free platform for distributing news that cannot be controlled by any single actor.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Adoption would be the first risk. Journalists that write newsletters are not very adept in the world of crypto and there would be an adoption curve. The same is true for readers, as they are used to using centralized services. To mitigate this the objective is to keep the crypto technology to a minimum and streamline all the steps.

The benefits afforded to both writers and users by this type of service are enough to help them overcome the adoption curve.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Stage 1 Release Architecture

First Month August

The tech stack of the proposal has several portions that need to be detailed. The idea is to create a document in the first month that outlines the technical specifications and serve as a general roadmap.

Stage 2 Release Subscription NFTs

2 months

NFTs to work as subscriptions require some modifications at the level of the metadata. We'll have to create a metadata model that's able to make sense for the use case. Next, we'll have to develop a portion of the technology that recognizes the NFT and uses it as a pass for entry to the content.

Stage 3: Integrate Arweave and NFTs

3 months

Once the NFT model is ready and the recognition technology is prepared we have to integrate with Arweave. The platform has the dual purpose of storing any external media users want to attach to the NFT (a logo for the newsletter or name). Second, store the actual written content of the newsletter for distribution.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Architecture of the system = $5,000

Release a document that outlines all the different portions of the technology stack and general design. It'll have a dual purpose, first as an informational document and second as a roadmap.

NFT design for subscription and system to use as subscription = $40,000

Here we'll release the NFT design to be used for subscriptions. The metadata contains in the NFT, the minting policy, API for minting on demand, and the way to price the NFTs. Next, we'll develop the wallet integration that recognizes the individual NFT and allows access to the content.

Front End Development = $20,000

We need to create a friendly and easy-to-understand platform for people that are not crypto natives. It would require at least 2 UX/Ui designers.

Arweave newsletter and NFT integration = $10,000

Arweave serves as the repository of the media associated with the NFT and as the storage for the newsletters themselves. Both need to be tied to the platform.

Marketing and communication = $10,000

Promote the usage of the platforms and create educational material on how this system is superior to the centralized ones.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Sebastian Pereira // Head of project

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastianpereira33/
• sebastian@nft-dao.org

Bio:

• Economist
• EMURGO Academy Instructor
• NFT-DAO content writer
• EMURGO Academy Technical Community Leader
• Plutus Pioneer Cohort 1

The team of NFT-DAO

Anyone else who wants to join:

https://discord.gg/AVJzsdaa5T

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

The decentralized newsletter service is a complete Dapp. Later once the product has been established the system can be extended to other types of media, video, sound, etc. once we have reached that point we'll assess the best sources for resources to expand the core platform.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Number of writers onboarded:

The people adding content will be the writers. They are the main component of the system and they'll be the clear metric that the system is being adopted.

After the release of the working product, we'll target 100 writers for the first month.

Number of NFTs sold

The platform is not meant to track subscribers in the way a centralized one would do. The clearest metric to show people subscribing to the different newsletters is the number of NFTs sold.

After the release, we want to target 1,000 NFTs for the first month.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Create a decentralized alternative to Substack that can fill the same role and not rely on centralized services.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

New one.