Blockstack and Shapeshift Offer a $50K Bounty for a Universal Wallet

Last fall, the company Blockstack launched a Signature Bounties campaign in order to offer rewards for individuals and teams to build decentralized platforms. So far the campaign has helped produce popular apps like the messaging app ‘Stealthy,’ and ‘Graphite’ documents platform. Now Blockstack has announced it is partnering with the peer-to-peer exchange Shapeshift to offer a $50K bounty to a developer who can build a universal wallet application.

Also read: Swap BTC and BCH with the Bitcoin.com Wallet’s New Shapeshift API

$50K for a Developer That Can Create a Decentralized Universal Wallet Application

The company Blockstack (formally Onename) is a network designed to create decentralized applications and hopes to disintermediate the application layer throughout the internet. Back in September of 2017 the company launched its Signature Bounties campaign with $25Mn behind the project. The bounties are meant to reward software developers who build decentralized applications that are compatible with the Blockstack network. The new $50,000 bounty with Shapeshift is aimed at evolving innovation for the entire cryptocurrency community.

“Increased interoperability and collaboration between projects will only hasten the pace of innovation — and making each project’s atomic unit of value accessible across communities is critical. That’s why we are partnering with Shapeshift to enable an open source wallet where users can hold and exchange most, if not all current and future forms of tokens, all in a decentralized manner,” explains Blockstack’s Xan Ditkoff.

The Blockstack Signature Fund and Shapeshift teams will award $50,000 to the individual or team with the best open source wallet app using Blockstack for authentication, storage, and encryption, and Shapeshift’s API for token exchange.

Wallets Should Come With Support for Any Native Token Out of the Box

Since the launch of Blockstack’s Signature bounties, two collaborative decentralized apps use the protocol for operations. According to the website, Graphite is a “decentralized and encrypted replacement for Google’s G-Suite — built on Blockstack and powered by the bitcoin blockchain.” Users sign into the app by creating signing in with Blockstack’s identity system. Stealthy is a decentralized messaging platform that also uses Blockstack’s technology and the messenger can be used as a plugin for Graphite.

The decentralized universal wallet app bounty initiated by Shapeshift and Blockstack started two days ago and the deadline is June 25, 2018. The wallet app must be open source, it is required to use Shapeshift’s API and Blockstack’s encryption. Furthermore, the wallet has to support custom tokens as well. The app will be judged on the submission requirements, the applications creativity, and if it’s simple enough for users to adopt and navigate.

“Shapeshift, the leading instant digital asset exchange, is an ideal partner for a bounty aimed at drastically lowering the barrier for users to hold, exchange, and add new tokens — Shapeshift has already done much to reduce this barrier, but it can go much further,” Blockstack’s announcement reads.

A wallet should come with support for any user’s native token out of the box, including those that have yet to be created — And it should be simple and easy to use, so a user can have all tokens supported without having to go back and forth between different wallets or services.

What do you think about Blockstack and Shapeshift offering a bounty to create a decentralized wallet app? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, and Blockstack.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.