Please describe your proposed solution.

Currently, people are minting a 1-of-1 NFT and airdrop it to a wallet when they want to contact the owner. This is not a way to make messaging on the Cardano blockchain scalable, easy-to-use, and fun. Therefore, we’re proposing a way to encrypt messages through a CBOR hex datum as metadata of a transaction, protected by a key that’s only known (or available) to the send and recipient address’ owner.

Part 1: sending/receiving direct messages (DMs)

The solution will work like this for the sender of a message:

• Find an address you’d like to send a message to
• Write a message
• Encrypt message
• Sign the transaction

And it will work like this for the recipient of a message:

• Connect your wallet with our platform
• Check your inbox for messages
• Read, reply to, archive or flag a message (as spam)
• Connect your email address to receive an alert for a new message

Part 2: broadcasting messages

It will also be possible to broadcast a message to your address’ timeline, so people that are following you will be able to see this. These messages might not be encrypted, since these are public.

Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

This tool will make it easier to communicate with address and NFT owners, and therefore adding a major use case to the Cardano blockchain: people will have a way to communicate natively on the chain itself. This will increase the number of transactions since every message is a transaction (might be bundled, though; we have to look into that further). It will be adopted first by “super users” - doing as much as possible on the blockchain, and - once feedback is listened to and applied to the core product - thereafter it could be an alternative to existing messaging and social media apps.

What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Encryption needs to be as strong as possible, otherwise, it won’t serve its purpose. Also, there might be other entrants going for this space, so the app needs to be as user-friendly as possible in order to achieve maximum adoption.

Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Building the Messaging Tool requires these phases that could be delivered within 5-6 months, approximately:

• Phase 1: Research & Protocol Design - to be completed by August 2022
• Phase 2: DMs - to be completed by October 2022
• Phase 3: Broadcasting - to be completed by December 2022

Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

The budget for this project is made up of 1,200 hours of development, totaling a budget of $72,000 at an hourly rate of $60/hour.

• Phase 1: 200 hours ($12.000)
• Phase 2: 960 hours ($57,600)
• Phase 3: 440 hours ($26,400)

Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

The team behind internet companies Ratecard and WebFeedback will work on this, led by founder and developer Jeroen Sakkers (alias: @victormundi):

• <https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroensakkers/>
• <https://www.linkedin.com/company/webfeedback/people>
• <https://www.linkedin.com/company/ratecardio/people>

We’ll be looking to work with experts on contracts and transactions on Cardano, to make sure we’ll explore all options to really make this Messaging Tool a part of the blockchain.

If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

We might participate in future funds, but that’s not a given. There is a lot of room for expanding this project (i.e. bulk messaging, whitelists, blacklists, and much more), but first of all, we’ll be focussing on getting this project off the ground and making sure it’s used by many people. This project’s budget should be sufficient to build the platform and get initial traction.

Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

We’ll keep the community up-to-date through our Discord server (see: <https://discord.com/invite/rgArnAzGzd>), and will publish weekly updates on our progress. The community will also be able to vote on the implementation of features, the platform’s design, and more.

What does success for this project look like?

Once people are going to this platform to DM other addresses, it’s a success. We’re aiming for 100,000 messages to be sent to 10,000+ unique addresses in the first year. Obviously, once the network effect - of this platform, but also of Cardano - comes into play, these numbers could be a lot higher.

Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

No.