Our first quarter of grant funding was an overwhelming succes due to over 90% participation by PSF community members. Community developers worked hard to claim bounties and improve the infrastructure and services. The core management team learned many lessons in this last quarter. Most things worked, some things didn't. Most importantly, we've focused efforts on giving PSF token holders more tools for finding their voice within the community.
The next funding token air drop will take place at 7PM UTC on October 15th, 2020. Community members that have held their tokens without moving them since August 15th (block 648,518) will be eligible for the air drop. They can then use those tokens to fund the below grants, by sending the funding tokens to the address assigned to each grant. On November 1st, each grant will receive a 1-to-1 match of newly minted PSF tokens for each funding token received.
Here are a few of the successes the Permissionless Software Foundation community has achieved over the last quarter:
Huge improvements were made to the bch-js JavaScript library and bch-api REST API, which is the core infrastructure supporting all other PSF projects.
We proudly supported the Third Bitcoin 'Dev Con' hackathon. This on-boarded several new developers into the Bitcoin Cash space as well as FullStack.cash tools. As a result, the number of paid subscriptions and daily API requests are both up 50% from the start of the quarter.
wallet.fullstack.cash has a functional SLP Post Office and is the only web wallet in existence that is capable of sweeping SLP tokens from a paper wallet. Sweeping tokens will be a valuable tool for on-boarding new users into the Bitcoin Cash space, and it will help existing users preserve and split their coins after the looming chain split.
Daniel Humberto has been working hard on message.fullstack.cash to enable uncensorable, e2e encrypted messaging. He's also adding a Community Feed to give PSF community members a greater voice.
Since the start of the quarter, the PSF token price increased from $0.04 to a peak of $0.50. Community members with BCH have provided the incentive for developers to achieve the accomplishments above. With a successful first quarter behind us, the community will focus its resources to continue riding the wave of success by reducing the scope of grants this next quarter.
The world has never had a greater need for private, end-to-end encrypted, uncensorable messaging. The PSF has the same needs internal to its community. The grant process and Telegram channel are excellent initial communication tools, but the Community Feed will enable improved, decentralized, uncensorable communication between significant economic actors within the PSF community. torlist.cash will unleash the deep web as pragmatic e-commerce alternative to the highly-censored clear web. Consolidating CoinJoin will provide another tool for achieving financial privacy using Bitcoin Cash. Increased usage of any of these tools will increase demand for the PSF token.
Now is the time for PSF community members to show their support for these freedom enhancing tools. Now is the time for community developers to roll up their sleeves and continue building with fervor. Now is the time for you to participate in commmunity discussion, and to use your funding tokens to signal your support for the projects and people below.
Last quarter the PSF launched wallet.fullstack.cash, a BCH and SLP enabled web wallet. It has been a huge success! Unlike a native phone app, the wallet can not be banned from an app store. Any device capable of opening a web page can access it. The app is even accessible over Tor and IPFS, allowing users from countries with restrictive internet policies to circumvent government rules and easily engage in economic activity using Bitcoin Cash. The app is also an awesome demonstration of what can be built with tools available at FullStack.cash.
However, the app is still in early 'Alpha' release. Funds from this grant will go towards getting this app over the 'finish line'. They will fund the completion of paper wallet sweeping of SLP tokens, and increase test coverage and reliability testing of the app.
Funds for this grant will be used to pay for ongoing hosting costs for running archival full nodes, SLPDB, and a copy of bch-api, the REST API run by FullStack.cash. Combined with the public ElectrumX network for indexer functionality, it will give the BCH developer community a free tier of access to use bch-js, and will put it on equal footing with services provided by Bitcoin.com.
This quarter, we will operate two independent stacks of infrastructure. One on the ABC chain and one on the BCHN chain. Switching between chains will require only a single line of code change. Examples will be captured in the bch-js-examples code example repository.
Existing CoinJoin protocols such as Cash Shuffle and Cash Fusion have made great strides in bringing financial privacy to Bitcoin Cash. However, these protocols are extremely complex and as a result, have not been implemented in any software other than Electron Cash.
Last quarter, this project made excellent progress by creating two collaborative transaction examples and a formal specification for the Collaborative CoinJoin protocol. Grant funds will go towards creating a fork of slp-cli-wallet to build a command-line HD wallet that can execute the Collaborative CoinJoin protocol.
The primary advantage of this protocol over other CoinJoin protocols is that there is no need for a coordination server. Wallets will be able to securely find and collaborate with each other, peer-to-peer. The end result will be large, anonymous coins, with no 'dust' issues.
Eventually, this command-line wallet will be packaged as an add-on for wallet.fullstack.cash
The Deep Web is notoriously difficult to navigate. Websites published with Tor '.onion' addresses or IPFS hashes are ephemeral and change too quickly for users to track them. The Tor List project seeks to fix this problem by creating a peer-to-peer database for tracking websites.
This will take the form of a curated list of clear net, Tor, and IPFS web sites. PSF will host one copy of this list, but the database and UI behind the list will use Uncensorable Publishing techniques to ensure access to the the list can not be effectively censored.
Websites can advertise themselves on this list by staking PSF tokens. The rankings within the different categories will be determined by the quantity of staked PSF tokens multiplied by the age of those tokens (how long since they moved). This creates a number that allows entries to be ranked, and increases demand for PSF tokens.
Last quarter, the PSF core management has had deep discussions about what metrics we could look at, to tell us if we are successful in managing the PSF software and community. We've come up with a handful of metrics that we'd like to regularly share with the PSF community.
The Bitcoin Cash blockchain provides a perfect opportunity for the management to transparently share that information. Funds from this grant will fund development of a simple application that will write a very small JSON object of metrics data to the blockchain, once per day, using the Bitcoin Files Protocol. These are the initial metrics that will be recorded:
These bounties will be tracked via GitHub Issues, the Bounties Repository, and their execution is overseen by PSF management. They will allow independent developers around the world to claim and fulfill them, and thereby earn PSF tokens and BCH. This work will help on-board new developers into the PSF community and improve the software under the PSF umbrella.
The bch-js JavaScript library and bch-api REST API are the core infrastructure that empowers developers to build Bitcoin-Cash-based applications. This grant will pay for a series of bounties for continued improvement of this critical resource.
Last quarter, most of the bounties were fulfilled, but there are still a few that need to be completed. The budget from this grant will pay for additional improvements fix any bugs that are discovered.
slp-cli-wallet is a command-line application and HD wallet. It's an important tool to help developers rapidly prototype new ideas, based on bch-js and the Cash Stack at FullStack.cash.
The token handling of bch-js was recently overhauled. slp-cli-wallet needs to be updated to use the latest version of bch-js, and the way it handles tokens needs to be refactored. This work will also add support for NFT tokens, and this effort will include increasing the test code coverage of this library.
This grant was funded last quarter, but developers with the prerequisite skills could not be found to work on it. However, developers who worked on other projects last quarter have been identified to work on these bounties this quarter.
Funds sent to this address will be used by PSF management for building community. This includes sponsoring hackathons, tipping contributors, and incentivizing new developers to join the PSF. These are discretionary funds that can be used for expenses that do not fall into one of the above grants.
Daniel is a full stack developer with an emphasis on front end apps using React and Gatsby, as well as IPFS. He's built many of the PSF apps like the FullStack.cash Wallet, the Uncensorable Publishing template, and many of our IPFS-enabled apps. As a Venezuelan, he has witnessed first-hand the importance of secure communication and the need to increase the efficiency of the grey market.
His grant will be used to fund continued development of this Media Sharing Protocol and its integration into message.fullstack.cash. He is also developing the Community Feed to help PSF token holders to communicate effectively with the wider PSF community.
The app will enable wallet users to send end-to-end (e2e) encrypted messages, containing files of any size, to any other Bitcoin Cash address. The experience will be very similar to email. Combining uncensorable payments, communication, and file sharing into one app will help facilitate economic activity around the world and grow demand for Bitcoin Cash.
As explained in the managment section of the Business Plan, the first managment role for the Foundation is that of 'Head Janitor'. This person's chief responsibilities are to choose the other first contributors, and to slowly and a carefully distribute responsibilities and cryptographic keys. Their primary role is to grow the organization, keep it focused on the Foundation's mission, and reduce any single points of failure that could lead to a catastrophic failure of the organization.
As founder of the PSF and creator of its core software, Chris Troutner, aka 'trout', has taken on this initial role. His focus is on managing the different PSF projects and bounties, keeping the developers on-task, and communicating with PSF community members that hold significant quantities of tokens.
David was introduced to the Bitcoin space in 2012. Over the years he has worked with many prominent individuals and organizations and his many contacts have helped new projects to find funding within and outside of the cryptocurrency community.
David has agreed to assist and support the Permissionless Software Foundation and to be a primary contact as the community grows out of its infancy. His experience and contributions are a welcome addition to the foundation.
The role of the grant administrator is to distribute grants on a weekly basis. The duty of the Grant Administrator is to manage the spreadsheet and distribute the funds in a timely manner.
The person fulfilling this role will report to the Head Janitor. They will be allowed to use a pseudonym or divulge their identity publicly, at their discretion.
