Reduce NFT scam risks at Cardano

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

How you perceive the problem you are solving:

Creators and projects can't keep up with unscrupulous players who invent new ways to exploit ideas and art to scam money from NFT communities and rip off the original NFT creators and enthusiasts. Marketplaces have little to no incentive to protect artists and creators. As a result, money is flowing away from creators, communities, and the ecosystem as a whole.

As a community, we cannot rely on regulations that are hardly yet in place, so we’re building tools to address the challenge.

Your reasons for approaching it in the way that you have:

As huge believers in blockchain and tokenization (NFTs), we want the ecosystem to mature and become more secure and reliable. While top marketplaces enable massive volumes of wash trading and IP theft and fraud is thriving, we see protecting artists, creators, and their communities as the first important move.

With that in mind, we’re building a tool that will help artists and creators protect their work in a few simple steps and prevent possible reputational and financial damage.

Who your project will engage, or who its stakeholders are:

Our users are artists, creators, and brands who would like to protect their NFT projects or works in real life (IRL) from IP exploitation.

As a result experience of Cardano NFT community will improve significantly.

How your project will be implemented:

WatchDog (by CheckNFT.iO) is an AI-service (website) for creators (Web 3 and IRL) that will monitor the blockchain, detect copycats, copymints, art, ideas, and even names exploitation, and take actions to protect the IP, inform the community, and prevent financial and reputational damage.

WatchDog will be a part of the existing solution — https://checknft.io/, Data visualization and Business Intelligence service for NFT search and analysis.

What you will produce (i.e. your outputs):

If granted the funding, we will integrate Cardano blockchain into WatchDog (by CheckNFT.iO) to ensure IP rights protection for the Cardano NFT community.

The service will provide the following features:

• IP tracking by art, trademark, project, brand name or artist/creator name
• AI engine monitoring blockchain and social networks in real time to detect suspicious activities
• Alerts about the potential exploits via Discord, Telegram, Twitter, email, or texts
• Detailed report on unauthorized IP usage and next steps to mitigate risks 

What will happen as a result of your work (i.e. your outcomes):

NFT creators and brands will have the tool to detect unauthorized use of their IP and mitigate risks, which will help reduce financial and reputational losses due to fraudulent activity. As a result, the Cardano ecosystem will become a safer and more attractive place for NFT creators and investors.

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

• This project will help protect the Cardano NFT community from bad actors and prevent financial losses due to scam activity.

• Artists and brands (fashion, FMCG, luxury, etc.) will consider Cardano as an attractive blockchain to start their NFT projects because of the tool available to protect Intellectual Property rights.

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

At the moment, the product is up and running and technically ready for further development and integrations. ML models are built and available for the solution, the proof-of-concept is completed, and Cardano has all the necessary tools for integration.

The only risk is related to economic feasibility. Image database storage and Machine Learning comparison queries can be costly which could make the product too expensive for artists/creators.

How we will mitigate this risk:

• We will optimize/compress images for the ML model with acceptable accuracy.
• We will use a hybrid search with secondary attributes like names, descriptions, traits, etc., to keep results on the acceptable level for business goals.

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

Phase 1: MVP on Ethereum to test the performance of ML models for project and text search on real blockchain data

Status: In progress

Timeline: End of July '22

Results: MVP is available for public usage (website).

Phase 2: Image search functionality development for the Ethereum blockchain to test the actual data.

Status: In progress

Timeline: End of August '22

Results: Search by image is available on the website.

Phase 3: Integration with Cardano to enable search of Cardano NFT projects, text data, and images.

Status: To be developed based on voting results

Timeline: Mid of October '22 (R&D in progress)

Results: Creators and brands can use the service to analyze Cardano NFT projects for potential unauthorized IP usage.

Phase 4: Additional functionality to enable automatic notifications to the project team/community and IP protection actions.

Status: Kick-off after Phase 2

Timeline: End of November '22

Results: Real-time monitoring, automatic notifications, automatic marketplace alert about fraudulent activity.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

• Integration of Cardano GraphQL with data layer (back end to analyze Cardano NFTs). Budgetary estimates ~14,500 USD.

• UX/UI update to reflect Cardano NFT analysis in design. Budgetary estimates ~4,500 USD.

• Development of image data storage for the ML models analysis ~14,800 USD.

• Community engagement for the Early Access program ~6,500 USD.

The Co-Founders of the Project will cover all costs above the budgetary estimates. The project has no external investors at the moment of proposal submission.

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

2 Co-Founders

1 Product Manager

1 ML Engineer

1 Back end

1 Front end

1 Data Analytic

1 Community Manager

Part-time:

Designer

QA

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

Funds requested from Catalyst will only be used to integrate Cardano with WatchDog (by CheckNFT.iO).

Co-founders bootstrap project and will apply for VC funding after the MVP release.

[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?

1st metric: timely product version launches according to the timeline in the Detailed Plan section. All NFTs images are stored by service and ready for analysis.

2nd metric: the number of artists/creators/projects using MVP on Ethereum (we expect 100 users in month 1; 1000 recurring users in month 2; 3000 recurring users in month 3).

3rd metric: the number of Cardano projects using WatchDog (by CheckNFT.iO) to promptly respond to fraudulent activity and prevent unauthorized use of IP (we expect 1000+ active projects and artists by the end of November ‘22).

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

We’re working to make WatchDog (by CheckNFT.iO) the service #1 to protect the IP rights of NFT creators and brands. Ultimately, we aim to see fewer scams in the Cardano NFT ecosystem and preserve more money for ecosystem development.

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

This is a new proposal.