[Approved] Hack-a-Chain's participation at NearCon (Senior Near Tech Team)

Greetings from Hack-a-Chain Team!

This proposal has the goal to introduce Hack-a-Chain and show why we believe it would be good for the ecosystem for us to be at NearCon. For that to happen, we submitted a proposal to help us finance the trip.

Who we are

Hack-a-Chain is a Brazilian software company that’s currently 100% focused on Near Protocol. We started as a software company for EVM chains until we stepped into the amazing team of Trove Labs (Classy Kangaroo/Good Fortune Felines/Jump DeFi), when they offered us the opportunity to become their developers. Since that, in March of 2022, we decided to go full NEAR. The amazing technology and growing community convinced us that it was the right path for us to follow.

Projects we’ve worked

A lot has been done in the last 4 months. Our first project was the Kangaroo Coin Flip and it was quick followed by other projects like Tokonami NFT, The Supah Tipping Bot, Sociapol and now, our main project, the Jump DeFi, a DEX, Launchpad, Token Laboratory and NFT Staking platform, aiming at facilitating DeFi and entrepreneurship inside NEAR. We’re the team responsible for developing the technology for the protocol.

Products on the Roadmap

We have special interest in developing DeFi applications, and we are studying 2 main ideas to develop inside NEAR:

  1. ARCO: a StableSwap that aims at unlocking liquidity from Ref, Burrow and other potential DeFi applications on Near Protocol, by allowing liquidity providers to use their collateral tokens into a StableSwap synthetic pool, which is something that’s not possible today.
  2. Katrina: an anonymous transaction protocol based on zero-knowledge technology, like Tornado Cash.

We’re currently conducting market research and intend to start the MVP for these products ASAP. By the way, we’ve subscribed for NearCon’s Hackathon and would like to build Katrina’s MVP during the event to show its potential to the whole ecosystem.

Community Engagement

Besides all the tech development, we’re also engaged in some community activities. First of all, we have built The Supah Tipping Bot in partnership with a well known member of the community, Supah, which is a Discord Bot that enables $NEAR and NEP-141 tokens to be sent through Discord channels and works as a social tool for communities. We have recently finished the MVP and it is already working on some test servers, like the Secret Skellies Society and the Good Fortune Felines. This is an open source project that we’re giving away to the community and we’ll keep improving according to feedback received.

We are also hosting a Near Community Chat on twitter spaces with our partners from Trove Labs (founders of the Jump DeFi), where we discuss topics related to entrepreneurship, community, NFTs, DeFi, projects, etc. It’s been happening every 2 weeks and the most successful spaces posted to the NEAR forums had over 160 views total.

Near in Brasil

Hack-a-Chain has joined forces with Fluxus, the first yield optimizer on Near, to build Near Brasil. Both companies work at the same Web 3 Hub in Florianópolis, a very technological city known in Brazil as the Silicon Island. We have already created our Discord and are creating the first contents to attract developers to Near. We have partnered with Web3Dev, the biggest web3 community for devs in Brazil (over 2K members), and will take on the content production on Near for them. We’re currently building a 20 video Near Development course in Portuguese and will soon be launching it.

Why Hack-a-Chain should be at NearCon

We believe that being at NearCon will be a great step for us as a team to connect with the whole community and increase the work we have been doing to the ecosystem.

At the conference, we have the goals of:

  1. Connecting to builders inside Near and partner with them to become their technology developers. As a team with great experience developing on Near, we can take on highly complex projects that are necessary for the ecosystem.
  2. Conducting market research to find out what are the biggest necessities in the ecosystem, so that we can focus on creating the exact products that meet these needs. We have some hypotheses (as mentioned above on “Products on the Roadmap”), but it’s a very important step to validate it with the community.
  3. Connecting to Near Foundation and Proximity Labs to introduce ourselves IRL and build trust between our organizations, so that Hack-a-Chain can be a trusted partner.
  4. Building partnerships to participate in our Near Community Chat on Twitter Spaces.
  5. Introducing “The Supah Tipping Bot” to other projects, so that they can use this tool to improve their community engagement.

Expected Results

Our main goal is to leave NearCon with great connections and a lot of knowledge about Near and its ecosystem. That way, we can keep improving our work for the community.

Benefits for the Ecosystem

Hack-a-Chain is a senior development team with a entrepreneurship background in Brazil that found its way to Near Protocol and is 100% committed to participate in its growth. We understand that our success depends on Near’s success, therefore we need to keep learning about Near and working to make it a better network.

The main benefit that Hack-a-Chain can bring to the ecosystem is technical and business knowledge, which will culminate in the creation of products that will thrive in the long run and boost Near’s growth.

During this journey, we’ll learn and share with the community everything we can, so that we can attract even more excellent people to the ecosystem and help it grow with sustainability.

Grant Proposal

Since NearCon is just in time, the flight prices are very high and to help with that we’d like to apply for a grant.

Our team consists of 5 devs and 1 BizDev. We have already registered our devs (5 people) for the Hackathon and we’re aware that there’s a $900-1000 grant for the ones who are chosen to participate. With that in mind, we’ve prepared the following proposal:

Item Quantity Price Total Price
Flight Tickets 6 $1,600.00 $9,600.00
Accommodation 1 $1,500.00 $1,500,00
Ticket for BizDev 1 $300.00 $300.00
Subtraction (Hackathon grant, assuming we’ll be choosen) 5 $1000.00 -$5,000
TOTAL $6,400.00

Hack-a-Chain will provide the rest of the payments for the team (foods, drinks, transportation inside Lisboa).

We are very committed to Near and we’ll keep building on top of it. Being at NearCon will be another big step for us as a company to become part of this amazing ecosystem.

Hope to meet you all there!

The future is $NEAR!

Links to Hack-a-Chain Docs:
www.hackachain.io
www.twitter.com/hackachain
www.github.com/hack-a-chain-software

Hack-a-Chain Near Wallet:
hackachain.near
owner: Rafael Borges (CEO Hack-a-Chain)

6 Likes

Hey guys – we already have a proposal from the Trove team – can you clarify how this is related?

Thanks!

4 Likes

Hey there! Sure.

Trove Labs and Hack-a-Chain are two different companies, even though we work as partners.

Hack-a-Chain is a software house that’s been developing projects to the Near Ecosystem. We have been involved in different projects as software developers, as mentioned in the “Projects we’ve worked” section.

Trove Labs is the team of entrepreneurs behind Classy Kangaroos, Good Fortune Felines and the Jump DeFi, and they have hired Hack-a-Chain as an outsourced team to develop some of their projects.

We are hosting together the Near Community Chat on Twitter Spaces, so that we can have an entrepreneurship and technical perspective about the ecosystem.

Hope this clarifies!

We’re available to answer any further questions you might have :slight_smile:

2 Likes

The marketing DAO doesn’t have the ability to determine whether people are accepted into the hackathon. What happens if one or none of team is accepted?

1 Like

Hey! Fortunately the members of our team got accepted, so it won’t be a problem :slight_smile:

1 Like

Hey guys – congrats on your acceptance to the Hackathon. Can you share the metrics for success you’re aiming to reach with this funding?

We are getting a lot of requests for NEARCON, and there has been some controversy. Because of that, we are asking proposers to post clear metrics so we can gauge outcomes when you submit your report (should you receive approval from three members of the council).

Thanks!

1 Like

Hey @so608, of course!

We are committed to the following metrics of success, in accordance to the goals described above in “Why Hack-a-Chain should be at NearCon”:

  1. Metric: Number of partnerships with builders
    Explanation: partnering with projects that need a tech team to build inside Near
    Goal: 3 partnerships

  2. Metric: Number of answers to form
    Explanation: we’ll prepare a form with questions regarding DeFi at Near and run it during the event
    Goal: 50 answers

  3. Metric: Number of scheduled meetings
    Explanation: we want to schedule meetings with different people from the NF team to happen after the event is ended. That way, we’ll keep increasing our connection.
    Goal: 2 meetings after the event has ended

  4. Metric: Number of projects that will participate on the twitter spaces
    Explanation: we’ll invite projects to participate in our Near Community Chat on twitter spaces
    Goal: 5 confirmed projects

  5. Metric: Number of projects that subscribe to add the bot into their servers
    Explanation: we’ll introduce the supah tipping bot to projects and give them a form to fill so that we can add it to their server as soon as the event in finished
    Goal: 15 projects

Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to know.

Thanks!

Thanks for your proposal and congratulations on getting accepted to the Hackathon

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time attending crypto conferences and events this year, I can definitely see the value in having a technical team attend NEARCON and connect with the rest of the community.

My only question is - engineering and dev agencies are expensive, usually funding directly from NEAR Foundation grants and VC money given to the projects who then hire these firms. Considering that we can’t fund everyone attending NEARCON, why should we consider funding Hack-a-Chain over other applicants that may be experiencing more financial difficulties?

3 Likes

Having looked into the background, I’m hoping you guys are going be there. It’s a yes from me.

4 Likes

Thanks for updating and adding the metrics for success. Happy to support this.

4 Likes

Ok, happy to support.

You can now proceed with poll on AstroDAO. Please note that the Google Form for requesting payout to the NF has now been replaced by THIS 1 form Ironclad (Ironclad).

3 Likes

Hey @satojandro , it’s an excellent question.

Even though we’re a dev team, our company has started on March - we’ve only had 5 months of activities, and we didn’t have the time to get enough funds to feel comfortable in paying an international trip to our team.

However, we know that going to NearCon will be a huge opportunity to connect to Near’s community and keep expanding as a tech team inside Near. We’re very focused on working with Near and growing fast. I’d say that it is essential for our team to be at NearCon so we can deepen our relationship with Near Ecosystem and keep focused on it.

Right now we’re in a position to ask for Near help to go to the event, but we’re confident that we’ll give it back to the community along our journey.

Hope it answers your question! We are very grateful for the opportunity to be there with you!

Thank you! I’ve already made the pool proposal inside Astro DAO.

Thank you, @so608! Will be a pleasure to be there with you guys!

Thank you, @Klint ! We’ll be happy to meet you all!