Getting Started with Kadena’s Technical Grant Process
Kadena is devoted to making a positive impact by introducing Technical Grants to foster the growth and adoption of the Kadena platform. Currently, the platform of choice to build on is Ethereum because of the plethora of open-source dApps that can be easily forked and deployed in little time. Kadena is not an “ETH killer” because ETH in its current form is not going away. If Proof of Stake were the real goal, ETH would have transitioned to Casper in 2018, but Proof of Work is the best platform for value, so Bitcoin, Ethereum, PoW, and certainly Kadena are here to stay.
Kadena is the next chapter of smart contract blockchain, and as such, developers are already deploying robust Pact applications. DeFi’s, NFT’s, DAO’s, every significant crypto use case will be open-sourced on Chainweb by the end of 2021. All built by people with backgrounds from J.P Morgan, Google, Microsoft, and the SEC. A great catch for developers is the technical grant an innovative project can receive, up to $50,000. This lump sum aims to lower barriers to entry on a platform that is easy to build on with Pact. Thus, it will be a no-brainer for developers to innovate Pact code in real-time with little overhead.
The grant is intended to enable innovation through prompted and unprompted grant categories and rewards participants that deliver far-reaching results.
PROCESS
The Technical grant process is designed to be simple for developers. To get started, there are just two phases; Grant application and grant delivery. The first, grant application, includes determining the focus area, submitting the application, the review and decision of the idea, and mutual agreement between Kadena and the developer. Grant delivery consists of milestone progress reporting, completion, and reward distribution. In addition, there are developer tools and resources to assist in building with Kadena, which includes Pact, Kadena docs, and Chainweaver.
Determining the Focus Area
First, determine which area you would like to focus on by selecting from the prompted grant categories below, OR you can initiate your own unprompted grant project. Priority is given to those who select from the prompted grant categories.
1. Defi
- Decentralized exchanges (e.g., order book, automated market makers )
- Stablecoins that fall into one of these four categories:
(FIAT-COLLATERALIZED, COMMODITY-COLLATERALIZED
CRYPTO-COLLATERALIZED, NON-COLLATERALIZED) - Lending / Borrowing
- Insurance
- Payments (e.g., credit cards, shopping online, etc.)
- Fund management
- Derivatives (Real Estate, futures, options, tokenized stocks, etc.)
- Lottery(e.g., EthFair).
2. Blockchain interoperability
- (De)centralized bridges to other networks such as Kadenaswap
3. Developer tools
- Smart contract language tools
- Visual Studio Code extension that adds support for Pact
- IDE package with Pact debugging
- API client in various languages
- Frameworks
- Smart contract development, testing, and deployment framework (equivalent to Truffle for Ethereum)
- Oracles / Off-chain data
4. Analytics services
- Dashboard monitoring of Kadena-related service performance and status
- Open source node explorer / mempool dashboard
- Node management/application hosting (equivalent to Infura for Ethereum)
- Alternative block explorer — relational index of blockchain data — visualizing transactions, addresses, tokens, prices, and other activities
5. Wallet development
- Hardware wallet integration
- Dedicated or multi-asset mobile wallet support
- A wallet that abstracts over multiple chains
6. dApps / smart contracts
Practical use cases that leverage Chainweb’s scalability and/or Pact’s security capabilities (i.e., formal verification)
Before presenting an idea to Grant Application with Kadena, be sure to make certain the span of your project falls within these specific guidelines: The requested funding must contribute to Kadena’s ecosystem by providing incomparable value. For a single project, the maximum funding is capped at $50,000, and smaller requests can receive faster approval.
Open source code should be the way that all projects should be. Kadena prefers BSD 3-Clause or Apache 2.0 licenses, but others may also be suitable. Ensure that all projects submitted include sufficient written information that fully explains the mechanism of the project with instructions that may be relevant to know for its implementation or use. The current project should be completed before deciding to apply to more projects and receive funds. Those projects that are funded must have frequent sequential progress reports. Preference for the grant will be given to projects with a delivery schedule of fewer than 3 months and a cumulative resource requirement of fewer than 6 person months. Priority will be given to projects that convey items from the list of prompted grant categories. The time frame for assessing the latest grant applications may take up to four weeks and is dependent on these classifications; technical strength, detail of specifications, team experience, and efficacy to the Kadena ecosystem.
“The more beneficial it is to Kadena, the higher the chance of being chosen to receive a grant.”
Submitting the application
When applying, it must be in the following format with all questions fully answered to have a higher possibility of being accepted for the technical grant:
1. SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT
- Title and succinct description of the project
- The incentive behind the project and what impact you would like to see
- Your reason why you chose to build on Kadena
2. TEAM BACKGROUNDS AND EXPERIENCE
Provide the following for each team member:
- Organization: Indicate team member roles, including who is the team leader and any advisors
- Background: A concise bio of relevant experience and completed projects
- GitHub profile link
- LinkedIn profile link
Entity Information:
- Legal structure: Legal name, entity type, and registered address (needed for grant contract, may be shared privately)
- The entity website link (if available)
- Entity GitHub link (if available)
3. DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP
Note that the information presented in this section is contained in the grant contract, and each deliverable must be reported in a clear and verifiable manner. Kadena will verify all requirements and ensure that all features performed below are described, and only then will achievements be marked as completed.
Roadmap Summary Table Per Example
Ensure that details of each expense category (e.g., effort, equipment, services) are included, as this will be essential in deciding if your application is accepted.
Milestones
For each milestone, please provide the following:
- Milestone title
- Milestone summary / objective
- Deliverables Summary Table per example
- Deliverables Summary Table Example
Ensure that each milestone includes documentation and a test suite (where applicable).
4. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
How does your project’s problem/need differ from existing solutions?
Include current progress, such as if work has been started/completed so far. Does this project build on / rely on any existing software? Please share any relevant links and mockups.
How do you plan to engage with the community to bring awareness to your completed project?
What are your plans with the project after it is settled? Any improvements you would like to make?
Other information that pertains to your project can be included.
Applications may be submitted in one of three different ways:
- Fully public: Public application and public funding amount requested
- Partially public: Public application and private funding amount requested
- Fully private: Private application and private funding amount requested
Public applications should be submitted via pull request to this repo:
- Fork this repository: https://github.com/kadena-io/technical-grants
- In the newly created fork, create a copy of the Technical Grants Application Template. Or copy the raw template from this google doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oZN5rTcHoEYf6LAIqx4fA5WUxlvrRKrYrfneF3zPbac/edit
- Move the application into the appropriate folder; Prompted or Unprompted
- Label the file as “project_name.md”
- Fill out the complete application template
- Once complete, click on “create a new pull request.”
- Email questions and private applications to build@kadena.io
Overview of the Kadena Technical Grants Process:
Private applications and private details of public applications should be submitted to build@kadena.io.
- Email subject: Format should be “Technical Grants Application — [project name].md”
- Email body: Paste a completed application following the format of the Technical Grants Application Template.
Remember, you must create a pull request with the application template.
Priority will be given to public applications.
Review and decision
- The Grants Review Committee will inquire about the applications if it is needed to make a decision.
- It will take approximately 4 weeks after receiving an application for Kadena to notify application team leads if their project has been accepted for grant funding.
Mutual agreement
A contract will be given that specifies project details (deliverables, payment schedules) after acceptance, and the team will enter into a mutual agreement with Kadena.
Milestone progress reporting
When advancement on the project has been initiated, it is necessary for those accepted for grants to deliver Milestone Progress Reports per the cadence defined in the Development Roadmap section of their original application.
These reports should be submitted by email to build@kadena.io following the format of the Milestone Progress Report Template below:
Completion and reward distribution
Kadena will deliver the final/lump sum reward as mutually agreed after the execution of deliverables in all aspects of the project milestones, including documentation and licensing. It is important to note that all grant funds will be disbursed in KDA to participants at a fair exchange rate that corresponds with the grant’s USD equivalent value. One can build a dApp using Kadena’s blockchain by downloading the current version of Node.js that are versions 12+ and have npm or yarn installed to run the app.
Getting started is simple:
To get started from scratch, run the following commands on the terminal on npm/yarn.
- $ npm install -g create-pact-app
- $ create-pact-app
- Follow cli options to configure your project
Project Options
There will be several cli options that will be presented to you. The project name is any string with what you want to name the project. The platform that can be chosen to your preference is a frontend framework and will initialize a React.js frontend. Vanilla will initialize a plain HTML + javascript frontend. The way you want to sign for the blockchain transactions has two choices; gas-station, no need to pay for gas and wallet, uses Chainweaver wallet to pay for gas. There are two contracts; deployed, interact with a previously deployed contract, and deploy-own, deploy own contract before interacting with it. Network: testnet, interacts with Kadena testnet, mainnet, interacts with Kadena mainnet. Chain ID. You can also select to interact with any chain from 0 to 19(a total of 20 chains).
Kadena’s hybrid blockchain delivers a progressive framework for anyone to prosper when working with it. By funding for tech development, we can ameliorate our ecosystem with unique use cases and user-friendly tooling, which has been our go-to from the start of this company. Technology is constantly getting advanced, and we want to improve at each step. Kadena is delighted to invest in its community by giving recognition and rewards to those who deliver exceptional results to the future of smart contracts. You can connect with the team and community on Discord and Telegram if you have any questions, suggestions, or want to collaborate with others.
You can also get started by forking an existing dApp repo! Just make sure to include that in the application details. We hope you enjoy building on Kadena.
Read the information at https://github.com/kadena-io/technical-grants for a complete description of application guidelines and process details.
Resources for additional information and support:
- Prompted Grant Categories
- Milestone Progress Report Template
- Website
- Kadena Docs (resource library)
- Discord
- Email questions and private applications to build@kadena.io
- https://www.kadena.io/builderstoolkit
BONUS
To get the maximum level of support from Kadena’s team when you build, there is a developer program that you can apply to that could be of aid. This consists of pre-paid transaction fees and technical coaching from Kadena. If you wish to sign up, you can do so by filling out the form on https://www.kadena.io/enroll. Kadena’s team will get back to you as soon as possible with further steps to get started.
