Cardano Social Hub

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Hi! I'm Denis, a lead developer of the Medusa Wallet.

While the Medusa 2.0 is almost done(some polishing before release is needed), I want to announce the next stage: the Medusa Social Hub.

Let's see the problem:

If you ever have to verify your wallet in some service or community, you know how inconvenient it is.

You have to publish your address, and then send some funds to yourself, and then somebody should check if it was done to verify that you are you. Or you have to buy some token and present the address with it to somebody with all other utxo on it. What if you don't want to share that data? What if you don't want to share your addresses at all?

Some services are relying on your stake key. What if you don't use it and rely on "enterprise" addresses?

Ok, you are verified. Then someone asks you to send some money to buy some token. How can you trust the other side? Are they "verified by default"? How can you be sure that it's not a hacker/imposter chatting with you right now?

It's still better than nothing but what if there will be something else?

Let's see the solution:

Medusa Social Hub - is a communication layer of the Medusa Wallet that allows you to use your wallet as a part of your account.

It will be possible to configure your own "showcase" of your assets and funds for everyone or only chosen contacts, chatting with other users through an end2end encrypted tunnel (even the server can't read your messages).

You don't have to publish all the details. For example, you can just mark your funds as "more than 1000" for other people who want to know if you have this money for a deal. And as a wallet, Medusa will approve it if you have enough money. Or you can publish some of your NFTs for everybody to find a buyer who will be able to find them with in-built search. You can even make your own "market" but still host your NFTs with your own wallet. And it still will be decentralized.

Or keep your account private, but share some data within a private conversation.

If you need to verificate that some person in 3rd party service/messenger is the owner of the wallet, you can use a fast and simple out-of-hub symmetrical-verification procedure. The important thing is that the other side will also verificate that you are you automatically.

It also can be used for automated verification by services and bots(discord, telegram, etc).

Other benefits:

• You can add other users to your contacts book;
• You can perform fast payments to your contacts;
• You can publish orders to direct swaps and Medusa will act as a garant;
• You still will be as private as you want - there won't be "@username" links or something like this, nobody can share your contact to others if you don't want to;
• You can even delete your account from other contact lists if you wish;
• Also you will be able to log in to a 3rd party services with your Medusa Account(if the service supports it);

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

What products or integrations already exist in the ecosystem? What are the core differences between the proposal being presented and those existing ones and why will that provide impact to the ecosystem?

There are only manual or half-manual checks of your transactions. And you have to expose your wallet to a 3rd party operator/bot/whatever. With no alternatives. With no way to check if the other side is not harmful. With no guarantees for privacy. We want to change it.

Does the Cardano ecosystem have the right tools, libraries and SDKs for the idea to be feasible?

Sure.

Why is this product or integration suitable for execution right now?

Because there are no alternatives to solve the described problem. But there is a high demand for it.

Are there enough pieces of infrastructure, applications or other integrations available that would be needed for this suggested proposal to have a strong chance of gaining adoption?

Yes. The biggest part of it - is the Medusa Wallet 2.0 platform which is almost done already. Some cosmetics, polishing and, probably, changings for the Vasil Hardfork are needed, but the system is alive and will be released soon. We already spent 2 years on it. Many thouthands of code lines are written. Many libraries are created. Some of them will be published as independent open-source solutions and can be used for projects not even affiliated with Cardano or crypto at all.

The server infrastructure is ready, cryptography things for end2end encryption are already written as a part of the Medusa Security Layer, an OTP-based accounting system was written even for Medusa 1.0 and works perfectly.

It would be extremely hard to build Medusa Social Hub from scratch, but we have the basement already. And Medusa Social Hub will be like an add-on on top of the Medusa Wallet 2.0.

For instance, if you were making a professional social network DApp, do the right identity tools and wallets exist to make a professional network feasible?

That is the thing we are going to do.

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

Force Majeure. Earthquake. Heart attack or something like this? Actually there are no big risks with this proposal. It should be a part of an already working platform. 

Yes we can lose a codebase that we already have, but there are backups.

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

It's actually hard to build a roadmap or detailed plan with dates when we are talking about software engineering. There is a good example - TheCardano Platform and the "Soon" trademark, you know. So, we can write a plan but can't guarantee if it is correct.

Well there are 2 projects in a row as a part of the Medusa Platform

Medusa Wallet 

The core component which we won't stop to develop. There are a bunch of post-release features that should be delivered. We are not bound by some hard promises about it, but we want to do it. Because users of the Medusa Hub are Medusa Wallet's users too. Also it can be released only after the Vasil Hardwork in the mainnet. There is no point in releasing a pre-hardfork version for the mainnet if the testnet version was already changed for it.

Also it needs a public API for 3rd party services interaction. It's a thing that has not been written yet. It's not just about transaction submitting or key exporting. It's about more complex features of the platform.

So we will share time between the Wallet and Social Hub.

Medusa Social Hub

Let's describe the development process by stages.

#0 Cross-module interaction (1-2 months)

We have to modify the client side software to allow its modules to securely talk with each other and provide some extra features to each other. We can use Medusa's cross-thread communication layer for it, but it may be difficult to implement some UI integrations so we have to write a kind of protocol for it.

#1 Adding contact list function with simple management(2-3 months)

Every Medusa's user will be able to set a "public name" for an account.

Users will be able to add each other to contact list by 3 ways:

• Find each other by built-in searching tool, but only if the account is not "private" and want to be founded;
• Create and add a limited or a "passive" contact of another person by themself. Like "save this address as "Fell-x27". The contact can be used for payments in a future, but not for social things;
• Add another user to their list by one-time invitation code issued by this user.

We have to write a searching tool, contacts manager, CrUD, UI for every action, manager for one-time invitations, some settings manager for privacy options and for future expansions;

2# Adding verification mechanism(1 month)

A kind of verification tool to be sure that the guy who gave you the invitation has access to the wallet you added to your contacts. So, you don't have to send yourself something and ask others to validate the transaction anymore. Forget it. It will be based on the "partially shared knowledge" conception. And will take seconds. Also will protect you from spam. Only users who are already in your list can request the verification. If someone found you with a searching tool he wouldn't be able to reach you until you add him.

3# Adding chat(1 month)

The way to communicate! It will be a simple messaging with end2end session encryption.

• The good news - the Medusa Platform is already able to build e2e tunnels. It's a part of the core security layer.
• The best news - it's session-based encryption! Even the server can't read messages encrypted by 2 clients with their session-based "shared keys".
• The bad news - it's session-based encryption... So you can't read messages from the previous session. Nobody can't. Probably there could be a compromise, but researching is needed.

So no, it's not a new messenger for millions, not an alternative for a Discord or Telegram. No. It's not something you will use every day. But if you want to talk with another wallet holder and be assured that it's not another person - that's the solution.

4# Adding "showcase" function(2-3 month)

Brings you the ability to set some of your assets fully or partially published for other users. There will be options:

• Show public data to everybody
• Show public data for verified contacts only
• Show public data to selected contacts only

You can specify whether the data is accurate (%username% has 1,321,654 TKN) or not (%username% has more than 100 TKN e.g). Looks like it's the most simple milestone, but not. There will be a lot of UX\UI headache, buttons, options, actions, netcode, "offline" data actualization and so on.

5# Adding direct swapping(2-3 month)

Brings you the ability to swap assets right from your wallet!

When you want to buy something directly, there is a question - who should send assets first? Seller? Buyer? Who is more trustful? Actually no one. Let's see.

For example - Alice wants to buy some Bob's tokens called BOB. They add each other to contact lists, verify and then Alice asks 10 BOB for 100 ADA via Medusa Social Hub chat. Medusa will create and sign transactions, but they won't be sent until both sides approve it.

Bob is ready to send 10 BOBs, but Alice wants to send less than 100 ADA. Bob won't agree, the deal won't be confirmed.

Or everything is fine, both are agreed, Medusa got the confirmation for every side from the other one and submitted transactions.

Trust the code, not the people :)

It's a very complex part actually. A lot of UI\UX, actions, interactions and so on. Also it should be more tested than others.

6# Adding "offline" deals(2-3 month)

Also there are plans to bring an ability to post smart contracts from your wallet to "offline" trading. For example Bob wants to sell 10 BOBs, but doesn't want to find a buyer by himself. He can just post a smart contract which will await someone's payment. It's another way of direct swapping. But can be integrated with stage #5 if possible. Some research is needed. And some Haskell skills, of course.

Summary

So, it's 11-16 months for a project.

Remember, it includes the support of the Medusa Wallet.

And no, Social Hub it's not the secret project we announced early.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

• Servers: $2k (4 units, ~$500 for each for a year, VAT included);
• $32k for the developer salary ($2k per month for a 16 months);
• $10k for testers (on-demand based work for a year);
• $1k for 3rd party services like translations and art(on-demand based work);
• $15k for a professional security audit (last stage);

Total: $60k

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

Lead developer - me, Denis Kalinin aka @Fell-x27:

•  Graduated Specialist of Computer Science and Digital Security;
•  Medusa 1.0 developer;
•  Cardano Ambassador;
•  Developer experience: 15 years;

Tester#1 - Ruslan Soluyanov aka @soluyanov

• Pentest project manager (information systems security audit)
• Experience: 2 years
• IT experience: 9 years

Tester#2 - Greg B @homersapiens

• Graduated Bachelor of Computer Science;
• Developer experience: 19 years,
•  including 2 years specifically in Automated Testing;
• One of co-founders of Koios Elastic API project (guild operators initiative).

Artist - Margarita Krokozyabra (https://www.artstation.com/krokozyabra)

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

Yes. Social Hub it's just a second stage. Not the last :)

[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?

Well, there is a kind of roadmap above. So we can track the progress by checking an agreement between the real project state and the plan.

We will inform the community via Twitter and Telegram about every update. Also every milestone is a self-depended sub-release, so it can be checked and used by Medusa Users right after publishing!

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

Our goal is helping people to use Cardano in the most comfortable way.

If another bot in telegram will ask you to send him your Medusa invitation and verification code instead of "send to yourself 2.13321 ada and wait 20 minutes, don't make mistakes, then show me your address" - that's how success looks like.

If someone who sold you a ticket token will ask to add him to your Medusa Contacts to check if you really have this ticket - that's how success looks like.

If you'll be able to log in to some site by hitting the "Sign in with Medusa'' button - that's how success looks like.

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

It's a new proposal.