2442.51 Dash for BlockCypher integration costs ($53,000 USD @ $21.699 per Dash based on February 22nd average rate at https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/price-dash.html)

5.00 Dash proposal reimbursement

This is a cross-post from https://www.dashcentral.org/p/bsdev-blockcypher-201703 This proposal funds the integration cost and support costs for Dash integration with BlockCypher, a third-party API hot-wallet service. BlockCypher is not a consumer-facing service, so I suspect many masternode owners may be unfamiliar with the prominence of BlockCypher in the cryptocurrency industry. A prerequisite for properly evaluating this proposal is an understanding of BlockCypher's business and the role it plays in the overall ecosystem of end-user services.Daniel Diaz created a post on February 16th explaining more about the industry structure and the role BlockCypher plays. If you have not already reviewed that post, please follow this link to learn the necessary background information to properly evaluate this proposal.We have been looking for a solution for a hot-wallet API provider for the past few weeks. It has been part of many of our conversations in our weekly team calls. We have evaluated many options to address this need, including the existing service providers, or even running our own service.Running an internal service carries many risks. It would expose Dash’s network to reputational risk should any downtime to service level issues be encountered by our API service. It would distract the team from focusing on development of our payment network itself.We contacted both Bitgo and Blockcypher (the two largest providers) and have reached a mutually beneficial arrangement with BlockCypher. We believe that an integration with BlockCypher offers many benefits beyond the availability of the service itself in the form of (i) reputational gains of joining Bitcoin and Ethereum as the only networks integrated, (ii) potential to integrate Dash into existing customers (e.g., cross-selling) without changing technical architecture, (iii) faster time to market with an API solution, (iv) service provider preference to work with a single established API vendor, and (v) offering market-leading expertise compared with building our own solution from scratch.Just to give you an idea of how extensively used these 3rd party API Web services providers are, here are some of BlockCypher’s clients: Purse.io, Xapo, Coinbase, Verse, Bitrefill, Sfox, Shocard, KeepKey, Meco, Shapeshift, Fold, Blinktrade, Joystream, Coinify, Coinhako, Netki, Coinprism, Vaultoro, Bitkassa, Abra, Bitquick, Deloitte, Bitpagos, Quid, Volabit, Mexbt, BTCfacil, Bitwage, Coineza, Coinjar, Paxful, OKCoin, Paystand and many more.Those are only some of the ones publicly displayed on their website, there are actually many more that are not featured.BlockCypher will integrate with the Dash Payment Network and provide the following web services:● Asset API - issue & handle assets on the blockchain● Data Endpoint - place data or a hash on a blockchain● Multiple Address Wallet API - multiple addresses under single wallet name● Multisignature API - multiple signature key management● Payment Forwarding API - forward, consolidate, add commissions to payments● Transaction API - build transactions easily● WebHooks and WebSockets - monitoring & notifications on blockchain eventsBlockCypher will support the current fork of Bitcoin 12.0 for Dash v.0.12.1. Additional support for Masternodes (and InstantSend) are not part of this proposal and will be considered at a later time and will be driven based on BlockCypher’s business customer demand.Part of the requirements for this to happen go beyond just covering the integrations costs. We would be going into a more in-depth partnership where our bizdev team would be selling together with the BlockCypher team in all the opportunities that we have accumulated that were missing an API Blockchain Web service provider. So a lot of our focus going forward from a sales perspective would be bringing the BlockCypher team to help implement once a new potential user service says yes to Dash. This should also help offload some of our internal resources, so the business team needs less direct support from Evolution developers.The second part of the strategy is for us to approach BlockCypher’s existing clients so they can start accepting Dash. Accepting Dash would become a much easier process for the clients since it would just be extending the setup they already have for Bitcoin. We believe this is a superior strategy than expecting the brand name start-ups to go out of their way to start running Dash-specific infrastructure they are simply not running for Bitcoin directly.Finally, BlockCypher is also requesting a commitment from Dash to participate in conferences and events together. For now a tentative calendar could be attendance (with session) and booth at the following conferences, providing BlockCypher with a pass:○ Blockchain 360, Santa Clara, May 16-18○ Consensus, New York, May 22-24○ Money 2020, Las Vegas, October 22-25There are three components to the integration costs - Development, Documentation, and Ongoing Maintenance. The development expenses are very consistent with what we've experienced with other services and came in at the low range of the initial estimates thanks to the high compatibility with the Bitcoin code base. Those are expected to be $50,000 USD and BlockCypher has agreed to accept any risks of variance and fix that cost. Technical documentation will also be required and is expected to cost $3,000. Finally, BlockCypher requested funding for maintenance and hosting expenses for the first year to allow time for Dash-related revenue to grow, and this expense is $12,000. Total costs are $65,000 for the integration and the first year maintenance.We will request the initial $53,000 as part of this proposal and will submit a second proposal for the remaining $12,000 either this cycle if the budget permits, or next cycle at the latest.An NDA is already in place with BlockCypher and the business development teams are already jointly approaching business leads from both BlockCypher's existing customers and Dash's backlog of consumer services that had previously said "yes" to integrating Dash, but could not obtain API services. These efforts are already yielding results for future services being added to the Dash ecosystem. It is early days, but the evidence so far is that the partnership will be fruitful.This project is being led by Daniel Diaz, so if you have additional questions not covered in the original budget request, please direct them to him by tagging them with @Minotaur to ensure he sees your question.Total:Note: Should any funding remain, we will apply it toward future business development expenses.dash-cli gobject vote-many 7880201c7833acc4496a372b543fb62b3b666094bf85a3167195f0514da43bd5 funding yesOR from the qt console:gobject vote-many 7880201c7833acc4496a372b543fb62b3b666094bf85a3167195f0514da43bd5 funding yesdash-cli gobject vote-many 7880201c7833acc4496a372b543fb62b3b666094bf85a3167195f0514da43bd5 funding noOR from the qt console:gobject vote-many 7880201c7833acc4496a372b543fb62b3b666094bf85a3167195f0514da43bd5 funding no