BitShares Forum

Main => Stakeholder Proposals => Topic started by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 03:01:53 pm

Title: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 03:01:53 pm
I'm interested in having the blockchain fund a community member to implement Bitshares into our open source merchant ecosystem project.  I think it would be a win win because we'd bring a lot of web based accessibility and showcase Bitshares alongside Counterparty tokens for use as redeemables and as access tokens.

I think it would be a win-win if we could get Bitshares integrated into our product offerings, but I'll need a developer who already knows what they're doing which I hope you can recommend and I'd like to fund it via a worker proposal in whatever amount the developer requires, I figure we'll only need them part time.

I have no idea how to do this in the worker system, and even if I do manage to get it done I'll need the support of the community to both find the right developer and to have the blockchain hire them.  I'd appreciate any help or feedback.

About Tokenly

You can visit our "startupey" page at www.tokenly.com - We're building tools for a future where individual companies create and use personalized tokens to represent pre-paid units of their goods and services.  Tokenly makes it very easy to automate the things that you need as a merchant or individual in order to have a functioning, automated commercial ecosystem.  Swapbot vending machines (selling tokens), Tend stores (selling items, accepting tokens and other forms of money) and the Tokenly Pockets (holding and using tokens) wallet.  We also have the LTB Auctioneer, mass distributor and a handful of other prototype tools and protocols.

We've been in a quiet alpha since July and are getting ready to launch our first open alpha, I'd like to look at the feasibility of integrating Bitshares into our vending machine system, browser extension wallet and store system.  I suspect the store will be easiest, wallet next and the vending machine will require some creative thinking since we try to do everything on the blockchain and obviously this will involve bots that bridge at least two blockchains.

I think the tools we've built at Tokenly would add a lot of valuable use-cases to the Bitshares ecosystem by a community funded developer. The question is, is the community interested?  I look forward to your thoughts.

Links and Products
tokenrank.tokenly.com
pockets.tokenly.com
Swapbot.tokenly.com
swapbotstats.tokenly.com
slots.tokenly.com
redeem.tokenly.com
auction.letstalkbitcoin.com

You can find our whole project at https://github.com/tokenly
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: svk on November 01, 2015, 03:19:37 pm
Really cool that you're interested in using Bitshares and I sure hope someone's interested in helping you do this. A worker proposal would get my vote at least.

I'd be happy to help with technical stuff.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: cass on November 01, 2015, 03:40:00 pm
Really cool that you're interested in using Bitshares and I sure hope someone's interested in helping you do this. A worker proposal would get my vote at least.

I'd be happy to help with technical stuff.

 yep me either - and good to see you back Sir  :P
( happy to be of assistance  with graphic stuff )
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 03:48:56 pm
Really cool that you're interested in using Bitshares and I sure hope someone's interested in helping you do this. A worker proposal would get my vote at least.

I'd be happy to help with technical stuff.

 yep me either - and good to see you back Sir  :P
( happy to be of assistance  with graphic stuff )

What is the process for getting something like this started? I emailed Daniel to set up a call about this and a few other things but I'm not seeing an obvious 'this is how you should do this".

What are next steps?
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: cass on November 01, 2015, 04:10:22 pm
Really cool that you're interested in using Bitshares and I sure hope someone's interested in helping you do this. A worker proposal would get my vote at least.

I'd be happy to help with technical stuff.

 yep me either - and good to see you back Sir  :P
( happy to be of assistance  with graphic stuff )

What is the process for getting something like this started? I emailed Daniel to set up a call about this and a few other things but I'm not seeing an obvious 'this is how you should do this".

What are next steps?

the next step would IMO to calculate integration costs etc .. for this a call with dan (or maybe xeroc could help as well - @xeroc ) about possiblites and requirements etc. would be a good start...

At next step i would to create a worker proposal with cost/timeframe etc ..

Maybe this could be helping as well ..
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19559.msg250967.html#msg250967


Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 04:17:43 pm
Really cool that you're interested in using Bitshares and I sure hope someone's interested in helping you do this. A worker proposal would get my vote at least.

I'd be happy to help with technical stuff.

 yep me either - and good to see you back Sir  :P
( happy to be of assistance  with graphic stuff )

What is the process for getting something like this started? I emailed Daniel to set up a call about this and a few other things but I'm not seeing an obvious 'this is how you should do this".

What are next steps?

the next step would IMO to calculate integration costs etc .. for this a call with dan (or maybe xeroc could help as well - @xeroc ) about possiblites and requirements etc. would be a good start...

At next step i would to create a worker proposal with cost/timeframe etc ..

Maybe this could be helping as well ..
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19559.msg250967.html#msg250967

For a part time developer with knowledge in this niche I would allocate 2-4k per month depending on where they live and thus what their cost of living is.  I will definitely need help doing the worker proposal or perhaps we can just have the developer do it themselves, my preference would be to have the bitshares blockchain hire the developer and then when the developer contributes work included in the open source project we'll award the blockchain decision making apparatus with a token useful for paying the Tokenly licensing fees for operating our software-as-a-service platforms.

I'm happy to get on a call with whomever can provide some expertise on the Bitshares integration side and discuss how this can be done.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: cass on November 01, 2015, 04:23:46 pm
Really cool that you're interested in using Bitshares and I sure hope someone's interested in helping you do this. A worker proposal would get my vote at least.

I'd be happy to help with technical stuff.

 yep me either - and good to see you back Sir  :P
( happy to be of assistance  with graphic stuff )

What is the process for getting something like this started? I emailed Daniel to set up a call about this and a few other things but I'm not seeing an obvious 'this is how you should do this".

What are next steps?

the next step would IMO to calculate integration costs etc .. for this a call with dan (or maybe xeroc could help as well - @xeroc ) about possiblites and requirements etc. would be a good start...

At next step i would to create a worker proposal with cost/timeframe etc ..

Maybe this could be helping as well ..
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19559.msg250967.html#msg250967

For a part time developer with knowledge in this niche I would allocate 2-4k per month depending on where they live and thus what their cost of living is.  I will definitely need help doing the worker proposal or perhaps we can just have the developer do it themselves, my preference would be to have the bitshares blockchain hire the developer and then when the developer contributes work included in the open source project we'll award the blockchain decision making apparatus with a token useful for paying the Tokenly licensing fees for operating our software-as-a-service platforms.

I'm happy to get on a call with whomever can provide some expertise on the Bitshares integration side and discuss how this can be done.

ok - i will redirect this post to xeroc (Fabian) as well ... but guess to business travel to Dublin next week (WebSummit15) he won't have much time..
Anyway .. if u can on call with dan before even better  :)
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: santaclause102 on November 01, 2015, 05:30:33 pm
@ Adam, is it correct that this would bring new users to Bitshares? Then you can make a pofit doing so (bringing new users onto the Bitshares blockchain) with the referral system, see https://bitshares.org/technology/referral-rewards-program/

The referral system has been created in order to make more intellegent marketing decisions. Entrepreneurs that are confident that their service is valuable to customers and brings new users to Bitshares profit big time. It's capitalism: The entrepreneur has to risk his/her own money (invest it).

Voting on worker proposals comes with the difficulty that BTS holders have to asses the profitability of the proposals for BTS so only things that can not be funded via the referral system should be funded with worker proposals. Worker proposal funding is like state or corporatism funding - people risk other people's money - this should be reserved for basic infrastructure that can not be funded via the referrral system.

This one, as I see it would be ideal to be funded via the referral system.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 05:44:51 pm
@ Adam, is it correct that this would bring new users to Bitshares? Then you can make a pofit doing so (bringing new users onto the Bitshares blockchain) with the referral system, see https://bitshares.org/technology/referral-rewards-program/

The referral system has been created in order to make more intellegent marketing decisions. Entrepreneurs that are confident that their service is valuable to customers and brings new users to Bitshares profit big time. It's capitalism: The entrepreneur has to risk his/her own money (invest it).

Voting on worker proposals comes with the difficulty that BTS holders have to asses the profitability of the proposals for BTS so only things that can not be funded via the referral system should be funded with worker proposals. Worker proposal funding is like state or corporatism funding - people risk other people's money - this should be reserved for basic infrastructure that can not be funded via the referrral system.
This one, as I see it would be ideal to be funded via the referral system.

We're not interested in picking sides of what token will or will not be successful, the goal of this integration would be to add Bitshares derived tokens as a compatible option within our commerce systems that already include counterparty.  Our purpose is to pioneer new redeemable and access token based business models and opportunities, which does not require capabilities beyond what we already have.

I personally would like to be able to offer our users a choice of creating and using an expensive/fast token or a cheap/slow token within our wallet and ecosystem. That's what I see with bitshares and counterparty. Right now we just have the slow/cheap model which means we can't go after some use-cases but that's fine because we just picked ones that don't require less than 30 minutes between token ordering and delivery.

I understand what you're saying about that being the purpose of the referral system, but the reality is that if the bitshares blockchain can't provide for this through a worker or a volunteer doesn't decide to implement this themselves it's not going to happen in the near future.   If it's not a fit no worries.



Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: santaclause102 on November 01, 2015, 05:55:30 pm
@ Adam, is it correct that this would bring new users to Bitshares? Then you can make a pofit doing so (bringing new users onto the Bitshares blockchain) with the referral system, see https://bitshares.org/technology/referral-rewards-program/

The referral system has been created in order to make more intellegent marketing decisions. Entrepreneurs that are confident that their service is valuable to customers and brings new users to Bitshares profit big time. It's capitalism: The entrepreneur has to risk his/her own money (invest it).

Voting on worker proposals comes with the difficulty that BTS holders have to asses the profitability of the proposals for BTS so only things that can not be funded via the referral system should be funded with worker proposals. Worker proposal funding is like state or corporatism funding - people risk other people's money - this should be reserved for basic infrastructure that can not be funded via the referrral system.
This one, as I see it would be ideal to be funded via the referral system.

We're not interested in picking sides of what token will or will not be successful, the goal of this integration would be to add Bitshares derived tokens as a compatible option within our commerce systems that already include counterparty.  Our purpose is to pioneer new redeemable and access token based business models and opportunities, which does not require capabilities beyond what we already have.

I personally would like to be able to offer our users a choice of creating and using an expensive/fast token or a cheap/slow token within our wallet and ecosystem. That's what I see with bitshares and counterparty. Right now we just have the slow/cheap model which means we can't go after some use-cases but that's fine because we just picked ones that don't require less than 30 minutes between token ordering and delivery.

I understand what you're saying about that being the purpose of the referral system, but the reality is that if the bitshares blockchain can't provide for this through a worker or a volunteer doesn't decide to implement this themselves it's not going to happen in the near future.   If it's not a fit no worries.
Makes sense what you say. And I am happy to see you being understanding.

The above is just my opinion. I am sure there are others too.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: luckybit on November 01, 2015, 05:57:43 pm
Support!  +5%
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 06:09:22 pm
Are there any developers you can recommend, or who want to try for this job? 

One of the things we quickly discovered working with Counterparty based tokens was that having the token is trivial, creating it and managing it is fast because it's all handled by the protocol, but the platform level integrations are an impassable cliff until somebody actually builds systems or integrations that allow the tokens to be used in systems and for activities more complex than simple sends and games of chance.  Our services are designed to fill in the gaps and most importantly to act as a neutral platform based on whatever the merchant or user thinks is best.  Exchanges and mining pools and betting are great but the stuff we're building with Tokenly is an important missing part of the "why should we bother" - The answer is because it gives you new, empowering possibilities and it's simple to do.  The one without the other isn't very valuable at all.

You can take a look at our githubs here

Swapbot Multi-Token Vending
github.com/tokenly/swapbot/i

Tend Store System
https://github.com/tokenly/tokenslot-tend

Tokenly Pockets Wallet
https://github.com/loon3/Tokenly-Pockets
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: jakub on November 01, 2015, 06:21:38 pm
First to get our definitions right as this might be a bit unclear for newcomers:
- Witnesses are paid for generating blocks and providing price feeds.
- Workers are people (or companies) paid by the blockchain for whatever they propose and do. This mainly includes coding (new features or integration with other systems) but they can also do code-related jobs (e.g. writing documentation)
- Committee members are unpaid volunteers that propose changes to the network parameters.
- Proxies are people who have time to monitor the three groups listed above and manage voting on behalf of those who don't have time to do it.

As far as I understand, you would like to integrate your merchant ecosystem project with the BitShares 2.0 platform.
To do that you have two options:
(1) you can fund the coding work yourself by paying some hired developers to do the integration.
(2) you can propose your concept to the BitShares community (as you just did) and ask for the blockchain to sponsor the work needed to achieve the integration.

Choosing (1) makes sense if you expect that your main income will come through the referral program, i.e your merchant ecosystem will bring a lot of new users to BitShares and you want to capture 80% of their transaction fees. In that case all you really need is to agree with Cryptonomex on technical details how to achieve the integration and then hire a developer (ideally recommended by Cryptonomex) who will do the job. So this path has nothing to do with the DPOS actors described above.

If you choose (2) you'll need to make use of the DPOS actors:
(a) You'll need to create a worker proposal similar to this one (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19485.0.html). The worker proposal includes the description of your concept but also time horizon and proposed daily payout for the person(s) doing the actual job. Also, you will have to hire a developer (again ideally recommended by Cryptonomex) who will do the job. So the only difference here is that the developer's salary will be paid by the blockchain, not you.
(b) You'll need to convenience BitShares shareholders to support your worker proposal by voting for it. And here is where having proxies on your side is important as they have relatively strong voting power.

So if you are successful in option (2) the end result will be:
- your merchant ecosystem integration will be up and running.
- you won't have to pay for its development personally as the BTS blockchain will pay for it.

But the crucial part in (2) will be presenting your case in such a way that BitShares shareholders perceive it as beneficial for the entire blockchain.
My initial opinion is that it is actually a win-win situation so you'll have my voting support.

My advice is to choose option (2).
To have to the worker proposal created and placed on the blockchain, I think @mindphlux has the most experience with this.
To have the actual coding job done, I think you're lucky that @svk offered his help - he's one of the coders behind the GUI so he has a lot of valuable experience.

But first I think BM (Daniel Larimer) would need to asses how much work is involved to achieve the integration and whether it is just a GUI level task or something more.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: CLains on November 01, 2015, 06:29:15 pm
I'd vote for ya.  +5%
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: Tuck Fheman on November 01, 2015, 07:18:28 pm
Quote
AdamBLevine

I'm in.  +5%
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: xeroc on November 01, 2015, 07:28:31 pm
@adam if you send me a mail to fabian@cryptonomex.com and tell me exactly how you imagine this project, the I may be able to give some advice .. atm i am just busy with websummit
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: fav on November 01, 2015, 07:46:10 pm
by the way, we could need a tokenly like chrome app too. I like it
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: jakub on November 01, 2015, 07:59:40 pm
@Adam, just to give you an example, this is what a worker proposal looks like in the GUI.
Voters are supposed to read the details supplied by the attached URLs and then vote whether those proposals make sense for them or not.

(http://i.imgur.com/tzuWWhb.png)

EDIT: But winning the vote will only give you the daily pay for the developer so you still need to arrange and manage the developer yourself.
And the worker pay requires vesting - this is to prevent having the salary paid without the job being actually delivered.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 08:06:17 pm
by the way, we could need a tokenly like chrome app too. I like it

The idea actually is to integrate Bitshares into Tokenly Pockets as well as Counterparty.  It's already API driven.

@Adam, just to give you an example, this is what a worker proposal looks like in the GUI.
Voters are supposed to read the details supplied by the attached URLs and then vote whether those proposals make sense for them or not.

(http://i.imgur.com/tzuWWhb.png)

Great!  let's find the developer who can take it on and do it.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 08:27:51 pm
EDIT: But winning the vote will only give you the daily pay for the developer so you still need to arrange and manage the developer yourself.
And the worker pay requires vesting - this is to prevent having the salary paid without the job being actually delivered.

I have no problem managing developers, i'm very results oriented and like to put on my "chief user" hat instead of my CEO one.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 01, 2015, 09:09:43 pm
I put together a basic budgeting spreadsheet for the part time developer, feel free to comment.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tCwRLdrQv2eVG0WVyPxPe1Zn-9oE5HcV4AeVECQchvE/edit?usp=sharing

Estimating we'll need the part time developer for three months to get everything in and robust as a first class token, my spreadsheet says we'll need 23657.44026 bitshares ($100) per day.   
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: puppies on November 01, 2015, 11:42:40 pm
If you are unable to get a proposal voted in, and you are not interested in referral income, an enterprising dev might be willing to do the work for the future referral income. 
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: tbone on November 02, 2015, 02:39:50 am
If you are unable to get a proposal voted in, and you are not interested in referral income, an enterprising dev might be willing to do the work for the future referral income.

By the same token, one or more enterprising members of the community might be willing to fund the development costs in exchange for the referral income. 
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: kuro112 on November 11, 2015, 06:15:03 pm
this has freebie's full support, we love the concept and would love to work on this project with adam.

 +5%
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: fav on November 11, 2015, 06:24:30 pm
do you plan to make money via referral system?
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 11, 2015, 10:48:12 pm
do you plan to make money via referral system?

I don't think we're going to turn down revenue streams where we find them but the referral system is not core to the model.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 11, 2015, 10:49:58 pm
this has freebie's full support, we love the concept and would love to work on this project with adam.

 +5%

The first thing we need to do is understand the scope of the project so we can figure out how much in funding we'll need to seek from the blockchain.  I've PM'd you contact information, let me know if you want to get on a call or collaborate on a google doc to start defining the scope.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: mindphlux on November 12, 2015, 06:17:34 am
I see that you're estimating a hourly wage of $30, I doubt you'll find a coder willing to work at that rate.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: AdamBLevine on November 13, 2015, 01:02:15 am
It's a placeholder number, I'm attempting to define the real cost with Kuro which can then be used to create the proposal.
Title: Re: Tokenly Merchant Ecosystem Worker Proposal
Post by: abit on December 19, 2015, 09:48:29 pm
Any news please?