We have redesigned Souq for Open Beta and Production and it no longer requires the user to have their own preferred node.

Closed Beta is now over, this repo is deprecated

Souq Decentralized Project Tagging & Funding

Target group

Souq is meant to be used by anyone with a Project they think should be funded, and or anyone who wants to support said Projects. We hope to have a wide variety of use cases.

Problems to solve

Current online crowdfunding has some flaws:

• Crowdfunding apps like Kickstarter and Indigogo are centrally controlled and subject to censorship and favoritism.
• Crowdfunding apps do not faciliate funding of initiatives at local levels.
• Funding is typically insufficiently available to meet the stated objectives due to lack of discovery by relavent would be backer(s).
• Results aren't always available to public critique.

Goal

Solve the stated problems above by giving users the ability to easily create decentralized Projects that other users can easily find and fund. Projects are secured by Blockstack and the Bitcoin Blockchain.

Minimal Viable Product (MVP)

• Users are able to create Projects that have
  • Title
  • Description
  • Category (more coming)
  • Type (more coming)
  • Stage
  • Payment address
  • Goal amount
  • Coordinates (latitude, longitude)
  • Image url
  • Phone number
  • Email address
  • External url
• users are able to update data of a owned Project
• Users are able to send cryptocurrency to the specified payment address of a discovered Project
• Users are able to search for Projects by its Unique ID.
• Users are able to search for Projects by relative Properties, ie keywords etc.
• Users are able to search for Projects by relative Proximity to their current location.
• Users are able to transfer ownership of a owned Project to another user.
• Users are able to search for Projects by relative Owner.

Future features

• Users are able to Review a Project they have contributed funds to.
• Users are able to track the History of a Project (change log of Project zone file)
• Project owners are able to create delegatable Tasks to other Users that can be independently described & funded (sub domains)

Core components / Models

• Lock - intial local application lock (not to be confused with your Blockstack Password)
• Account tab
  • Configure Settings (Button top right)
    • Set the Preferred node Path, Port Number, and Secret
• Projects tab
  • Create new Project (Button top left)
    • Save the Project data details by defining the various fields.
  • View Project(s) (still being cleaned up)
    • Get List of Projects: By ID, By Properties, or By Proximity
      • Inspect Project details: View the various information
        • Inspect its Details:
          • Title
          • Description
          • Category (more coming)
          • Type (more coming)
          • Stage (almost done)
          • Image URL (currently simple, needs Gaia integration)
          • Payment Address QR Code
          • Payment Address Button
          • Goal Amount
          • Current % Funded Bar
          • Location on Map
          • Phone Button
          • Email Button
          • External URL Button
        • Inspect its Reviews (once feature is available)
        • Send Cryptocurrency to the specified payment address of the Project via blockstack wallet.
        • Send Cryptocurrency to the specified payment address of the Project via external Wallet
        • Send Cryptocurrency to the specified payment address of the Project via a ShapeShift

User flow

Setup Souq

• Alice and Bob both go through their initial Souq setup (Install/Setup Preferred Node, Install/Setup Mobile App, Funds Account)

Create a Project

• Alice clicks New Project and fills out the form for creating a new Project
• Upon "Save Project", redirected to her Account tab, showing a pending registration at the bottom of the list of Owned Projects.
• The JSON object containing the respective data gets written into the zone file of Alice's new Project upon registration complete.
• Alice retrieves unique ID and shares it with other users.

View a List of Projects

• Bob first gets a list of Projects by id, owner id, keyword(s), location, and or additional funding details.

Inspect a Individual Project

• Alice's Project catches Bob's eye in the list when searching for Projects by Proximity
  • Bob can click on her specific Project to inspect it
  • The Project details and their elements can be more carefully inspected.

Send Funds to Project

• If Alice's Project is a worthy cause, Bob is able to send funds to the specified payment address
  • Bob sees the goal amount
  • Bob sees the payment address qr code, upon click is presented with funding options (wallet select)
  • Bob can specify how much he would like to send
  • The transaction is executed upon confirmation

Stage Changes to Project

• As Alice's Project matures, and the outcome is clear, Alice updates the stage field as needed.
  • Bob sees the stage transition from In Progress to Completed if the Project is successfully completed.
  • Bob sees the stage transition from In Progress to Cancelled if the Project initiative fails to be completed.

Audit Project History

• If Alice's Project has ever been updated, then Bob sees the changes in a clean log of historical changes to its zone file.
  • Bob sees when the goal payment address has changed, or other key details such as objective description changes.