Keep in mind that the $45,000 quote was for GUI work only
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The first step is getting the basic cryptographic operations / primitives working in the FC library. Once that is done then I can estimate what a blockchain implementation would cost.
good lord. this is why (for the past 15+ years) i refuse to hire american devs. sorry Dan, I just think that number is ridiculous.
I bet xeroc and Anonymint could do the front and back themselves for just 20% of that amount.
First point: Good developers are expensive. If Bitshares wants to be something more than a amateur project, we have to be able to attract high quality devs.
Second point: First worker proposals and job contracts can be very valuable. This is a good way to signal every other cryptoexpert that here is money to make. So this is also a marketing tool.
Third point: Not much competition right now. Cryptonomex is basically only party that can do this reliably.
If you can find more developers that can do new features on the blockchain considerably cheaper than Cryptonomex, please bring them in! We are lacking manpower here. Lots of stuff to do but very few devs.