Skip to main content

Bit.Country by MVP.STUDIO

Project Overview πŸ“„β€‹

Background

MVP.STUDIO (New Zealand) is a talent & tech startup incubator, it manages a tech community with 1,500 members and has launched software products with a customer base across 8 countries. In recent years, the core team had started exploring blockchain technologies and created blockchain related education programmes and projects.

Bit.Country Is

Bit.Country provides a new way to socialize with a game feel, while also being driven by real economics.

  • A decentralized world - putting community first.
  • An open NFT/game protocol for managing & incentivizing small-medium communities using gamification.

Mission Statement

Bit.country provides a platform that attracts classic internet users to experience the power of the decentralized web in the communities that they have involvement.

The Goal

After the 3-months plan, our final goal is to have a complete MVP solution (Both the app and chain) and onboard the rest of our network members (~1400 users remaining). Then, we will run our marketing campaign to onboard more users outside of our network, we are planning to onboard 50k users by Aug 2021.

A Real World Case Study & Experiment

We are currently piloting this concept with 109 active users from a tech education business called Industry Connect. Students joined the "MVP tech community", a bit country we created, and conducted incentivized activities such as creating useful posts & making meaningful comments, abreast they earn country-specific tokens (e.g., MVPC). With the MVPC tokens they possess, they start to take ownership of the community and will be able to perform voting, decision making, and other governance rights/permissions.

We've observed it is a great way to let students/users get more involved in our community by giving them ownership through their contributions. (Since a bit country can be created off-chain first, this will provide a path way for classic internet users to onboard to decentralized web.)

To further accelerate the engagement, we will build the 3D voxel world so that students/users can do more things and interact more with each other in that dimension. For instances, walk & chat, attend events in the 3D world or video meeting.

With the Substrate technology/decentralization, Bit.Country will become a popular place to nurture, manage and grow a community.

Medium article about Bit.Country

Overview​

  • A brief description of the project.

    In Bit.Country, you can create your own space, communities, economies, and digital assets (NFTs). The dapp allow users to socialize in both a classical web view and a 3D in-browser view of the country or block. The decentralized marketplace allows users to trade their digital assets (NFTs) with each other.

    Bit.Country network is a blockchain and ecosystem focusing on community, social and marketplace with a game feel.

    Its runtime modules also create the open Protocol for Managing & Incentivizing Small-Medium Communities.

    Countries

    Create your own country and community. Attract more people to join using the rules and policies you can set by your will.

    Grow your country and monetize your community in multiple ways without any intermediaries.

    Blocks

    Content will belong to one of the blocks that make up the whole country. Each block has a topic the content within should adhere to. Each block can also be visualized in a 3D voxel view, in the 3D world, you can create assets on the sections you own.

    Economy

    Create currency for your country, or import your existing tokens and incentivize the people who contribute to your community.

    As your community grows, your currency will gain value on the exchange. Everyone in the community will benefit from this. Countries can be auctioned, rewarding all who had a stake in it. (Imagine a bit country with 100,000 active users)

    Residents

    Explore countries created by other people. Become a resident and join the community. Countries can set their residential policies.

    Some welcome everyone and even reward you for joining, while others may need you to apply for residency.

    Asset with Smart Contract

    While residents can build their assets on the sections that they own, there will be Smart Contract enabled Assets that can transact with residents or visitors.

    There will be boundless possibilities of Smart Assets that residents can build for their communities.

    Ownership & Governance

    Residents can earn the country tokens to take ownership and perform their governing rights by voting.

    Marketplace

    Trade your NFTs with residents within the same block, bit country, or entire network.

    We are building the decentralized marketplace into the Substrate module. The auctions and deliveries of items will be completely decentralized and governed by the blockchain network. Not only we are supporting our assets, also we will support more assets from the network.

  • An indication of how you will integrate this project into Substrate / Polkadot / Kusama.

    We will build Bit.Country Chain with Substrate technologies. Our system will build pallets for Bit.Country Chain specific requirements.

    After completing the milestones set below, we plan to become a parachain on Kusama first to nurture and grow our community and benefit from shared security and communications(XCMP). We will create and support more assets (NFTsοΌ‰and make them available in Bit.Country as well as trading in the marketplace.

    When the community starts to gain momentum, we would like to become a parachain on the Polkadot network in the near future.

  • An indication of why your team is interested in creating this project.

    Our founder, Ray Lu, had a vision of building a decentralized world in 2018. The premium domain name Bit.Country has been registered since then.

    After learning Polkadot and Substrate technologies (Inspired by one of Polkadot teams based in NZ), we are very excited to finally find the right infrastructure and technology to develop this ambitious vision.

Project Details​

  • Mockups/designs of any UI components

    Watch Bit.Country Video

    • Some Posters & Screenshots

    Bit Country Post

    Bit Country Dimensions

    Bit Country Economy

    More Images & Videos

  • An overview of the technology stack to be used

    Blockchain - Substrate, Rust
    Frontend - ReactJs
    Backend - .NET Core, C# & Mongol DB.

Ecosystem Fit​

Bit.Country concept is uniquely invented and inspired by the decentralisation paradigm. It will fit in well for growing and scaling the Polkadot/Substrate community.

With our incubated EduTech business Industry Connect, and the prospected outcome of the project, naturally, it will bring more blockchain enthusiasts to Polkadot/Substrate community worldwide.

Combined with our community being introduced to Polkadot/Substrate through their education and internship experience, we will be enabling new developers interested in blockchain to get a head start on Polkadot and Substrate.

Team πŸ‘₯​

Team members​

Full-timers

  • Ray Lu (Founder, Substrate, Rust, Polkadot Ambassador, full-time)
  • Justin Pham (CTO, Rust, Substrate, full-time)
  • Shannon Christie (Technology Manager & Project Lead, Rust, Substrate & Game, full-time)
  • Daniel Choi (Full-stack developer / test analyst, Rust, Substrate & Game, full-time)
  • Logan Liu (UX developer, full-time)

Part-timers

  • Juanita Strydom (Community Manager)
  • Kai Zhang (Technical Advisory)
  • Alan Liang (Technical Advisory)

Team Website​

The legal structure of Bit.Country team will be setup in blockchain friendly jurisdiction.

Team's experience​

Ray Lu

  • Has hand-on coding experience over a decade. He wrote the first line of code in Basic when he was 15 on IBM-8086.
  • Founded a Saas Startup from inception to growth. So far it has transacted USD$173,899,846 of bookings and serving 107,800 active users.
  • Founded a Tech Edu Startup from inception to growth that has 300 new enrollments every year with a customer base across 8 countries.
  • Bsc in Computer Science at Univerity of Auckland. (Top 1 in writing compiler subject)
  • Involved in Polkadot Ambassador Programme with one reputable Substrate development team in NZ to run local meetups (Temporarily Paused due to Covid-19)

Justin Pham

  • Created blockchain job-ready programme for Industry Connect in 2018
  • A Substrate & Rust programmer, full-stack developer
  • Delivered https://industryconnect.io from inception and get involved in writing whitepaper of Thunder.Unversity
  • 8 years hands-on coding experience.
  • Bsc Software Development(Machine Learning / AI) at Auckland University of Technology

Shannon Christie

  • Led the development of Bit.Country to current stage with 100 active pilot users
  • An unreal engine game developer
  • Solid knowledge and experience with various programming language i.e. C, C++, C#, Rust, Java
  • Blockchain & Substrate enthusiast

Daniel Choi

  • Led the development of a recruit tech. Turn ideas to actual product launch.
  • Full-stack developer
  • ReactJs Ninja
  • Bachelor of ICT at Western Sydney University

Logan Liu

  • The key designer & UX for a Saas product which transacts $20m per annum
  • Sound experience with EDM, Poster, Fin-Tech.
  • Bachelor of Arts - Digital Communication and Media/Multimedia at Heilongjiang University

Juanita Strydom

  • Solid experience in community management.
  • Managed the international tech edu for 7 years

Kai Zhang (Technical Advisory)

  • CTO of a successful startup Saas company
  • Led the team and created a billing solution processing $20m per year

Alan Liang (Technical Advisory)

  • Senior developer
  • Front-end master
  • Led the team and delivered a robust fin-tech billing solution

Grants Received In The Past

  • Callaghan Innovation R&D Growth Grant (Approved in 2019)
  • Callaghan Innovation R&D Loan Scheme Grant (Approved in 2019)
  • Callaghan Innovation R&D Experience Grant (Approved in 2019)
  • Education NZ Project Skills Sponsorship (Approved in 2017)
  • IMDA (Singapore) Tech Immersion and Placement Programme (Pending for approval in 2020)

*Callaghan Innovation, a Crown entity of New Zealand, has the task of making New Zealand business more innovative.

Team Code Repos​

Team LinkedIn Profiles​

Key Profiles from the tech team

Development Roadmap πŸ”©β€‹

Short Summary​

We plan to build a full-fledged solution that is ready to bring 1400 internal users and 50K external users by Aug 2021. Our web app (dapp) requires a truckload of development and testing to ensure it is attractive to classic internet users. We will explore more and work with the Substrate Builders Programme team to build the solution.

We believe Bit.Country will bring many people to the ecosystem.

Overview​

  • Total Estimated Duration: 1 month
  • Full-time equivalent (FTE): 5 FTE.

Milestone 1 β€” Create Country Fundamentals & Infrastructure to Onboard Classic Internet Users​

  • Estimated Duration: 4 weeks
  • FTE: 5
  • Costs: 2 BTC
NumberDeliverableSpecification
0a.LicenseApache 2.0
0b.DocumentationWe will provide inline documentation, video, medium articles & start creating the lightpaper of the project.
0c.Testing GuideThe code will have proper unit-test coverage for Country pallets and automated testing coverage for the dapp using Cypress.
1.Substrate module: CountriesIt manages country profiles, map and ownership. e.g. NewCountry, TransferOwnership
2.Substrate module: EconomiesIt manages the country's fund, rewards, minting country-specific tokens or importing external tokens.
3.Bit.Country testnet nodeUsers can run bit.country nodes, sudo can perform hot upgrade.
4.Bit.Country Dapp - CountryUsers would be able to create an off-chain country with description, theme and going through a name reservation & validation process.
5.Dapp - User RegistrationOff-chain User can register on the web app and manage the profile and password etc. We've basic code developed, and will add more features so it will work with country security.
6.Dapp - Country ExplorerUsers can explore countries by searching keywords and tags or simply browsing by population or activeness. Develop features to support list view and grid views.
7.Dapp - Country MembershipUsers can join a country and apply for residency. Country owner approval functions. User wallets display tokens, assets.
8.Dapp - Country BlockOwners can create blocks and set the topic and description for the block in a country. Block creation page needs features such as preview 3d world.
9.Dapp - Country Block PlannerOwners can plan the buildable sections of a block. Utilizing more intuitive UI with 3d preview feature.
10.Dapp - Country MapResidents can explore blocks like a grid map. Users can navigate to the neighboring block in 9-grid block navigator.
11.Dapp - Country EconomyOwners can setup off-chain economic rules for incentivizing activities. Create incentive processor to calculate incentive amount and allocate to users. This incentive data will also be used for the data provider in Substrate Oracle for settling incentives on-chain.
12.Dapp - Country OwnershipList owners of the country ranked by their ownership. Use more intuitive graphics to present the insights.
13.Dapp - Country Block PostUser can create posts onto the timeline for different level of privacy i.e. public, country level, block level and private. Post can be liked and commented. Post can be shared on external social media to onboard more public users. This will need to work with our caching layer for scalability. Implement infinite scroll.
14.Dapp - Country Block 3D ViewUsers can enter the 3D view of the block and conduct basic activities such as walk and jump in a customized scene in the browser.
15.Docker / UATWe will demonstrate the full functionality of our chain and our dapp on UAT / a dockerfile.

Community engagement​

  • Medium Article 1: Create a decentralized country of your own
  • Polkadot virtual meetups and bit.country presentation by Ray Lu (Polkadot Ambassador). (50 attended, 80% from NZ/AU, the rest from UK,IE,SG,HK & CA) Polkadot meetup and bit.country showcase

Future Plans​

We plan to become a parachain on the Polkadot network eventually, especially when our Bit.Country community gains momentum on Kusama.

Our team is also planning of building mobile apps in the future so users can access their communities and marketplace on their mobile devices.

At the moment, we are evaluating Dapp-IPFS-Pallets (Completely decentralized) architecture to host bit.country. We may create a R&D sub-product in the near future.

Additional Information βž•β€‹

  • What work has been done so far?

    • We had released and internal piloted the concept with 100+ active users.

  • Are there are any teams who have already contributed (financially) to the project?

    • MVP STUDIO invested 50% of 5 FTE hours since Feb 2020.

  • Have you applied for other grants so far?

    • No.