It’s important to me that the awarded funds get used in a way to help the community grow by giving its users the tools they need to succeed.

I believe that if you spend time and effort rehashing and exchange over and over again then that’s exactly what users will see counterparty as just trade value. There are so many other aspects of the usefulness of the system. A great improvement to the function of a XCP exchange would be to introduce the asset picture into the UI. Not just a thumbnail, but a preview of the asset being trading on the DEX, whether it’s a memory card or rust or Pepe. Yet, this is not within the parameters of the scope of the responsibility of the developers. However, updating standards to include the official JSON namespace for which all devs can process the linked full resolution files representing the assets would be the most cost effective and within the scope of responsibility.

I would like to see some real development in the community, by the community, and for the community. Who better understands the wants and needs of the XCP landscape? (((Not some firm)))

One thing which would vastly increase the usage and adaptation of XCP would to make a turnkey solution for online vendors. An opensource shopping cart template which anybody can install on their own web hosting and then swap out the template asset name so that they can instantly accept counterparty Bitcoin and their own store currency with minimal effort. But again, this is not the responsibility of the Foundation to make service products, I assume.

To the best of my knowledge, it is the responsibility of the Foundation to foster the development of the ecosystem through ways which can be beneficial to any user. Taking into consideration the situation developing above it is certain that a different type of DEX should be created. One in which users can buy and sell services. This system should be peer to peer and not based on a website perhaps implemented through the protocol itself. The most important part of this process would, of course, be the witness as any transaction would need at least one or two third-party witnesses to verify that the service was done and the conditions were met. Volunteers are verify they understand the scope of the project before it begins. To help foster the growth of this whole counterparty ecosystem it is imperative to connect people who are dedicated to offering services within the space to make the space greater.

This would be the best use of funds in that it would have an exponential effect on the ecosystem itself directly by unifying everyone’s effort with cohesive directions. In the bigger picture what will be achieved is the marketing for counterparty in general via the individual products and services offered through the network and the service/products resulting from the work shared there. In today’s day and age of e-commerce, the next generation doesn’t need to be specifically told if they’re on a blockchain they just need to have it work. So when counterparty helps connect people to get projects done, then the projects get out in the greater world of real life usage cases, then these other projects will inevitably lead back to CounterParty.

In essence, the Marketing will be achieved by the development and promotion of community users who are better connected because of community efforts. And the thing is, the MARKET will decide what to implement. Plus with this avenue, smaller objectives can be achieved for the Foundation through its own job orders. That all being said, opensource projects should be given preference or incentive within the system.