Scogé – Starr Oge

Starr Oge believes that anything that exists in the physical world can also exist in the digital world—a belief that he’s applied to his creative venture, Scogé. Scogé is not only fashion brand but a virtual world with a story as well. Real world products, like Scogé’s clothing, have digital counterparts that can be worn by digital personas.

On Scogé, digital products capture value in a unique way. Fashion pieces can be sold and worn by digital personas (similar to trading fashion in the physical world) but they can also double as access control keys to new digital experiences. Think NFT collectibles that unlock new worlds or realms in a game. To date, the platform offers 450 fashion pieces and Starr is working on adding even more digital experiences (which can also be sold/traded).

Read more about Scogé: https://grants.stacks.org/proposals/1660834655-scog-xr-blockchain-experiences-digital-storytelling

Automoderation Bot – Jonathan Hammond

The Automoderation Bot is an open source bot custom-built for the Stacks community. It is designed to decentralize ownership of the Stacks Discord server and put moderation into the hands of community members. The bot enables all community members to flag and vote on moderation tasks, such as deleting spam messages or banning inappropriate members, by opting in to various moderator roles. For the sake of transparency, all moderation tasks are also recorded in a public audit log.

With the Automoderation Bot, all Stacks community members can play a role in managing and maintaining a safe, high quality community experience on Discord. It encourages collective decision-making driven by the community, instead of unilateral decision-making by a few individuals. Soon after deploying the bot to the Stacks server, lead developer, Jonathon will begin building a reputation/points system for tracking and recognizing the moderation efforts of community members.

Check out the bot: https://github.com/stacksgov/Stacks-Grants/issues/35

Stacks Code of Conduct & Voting Mechanism – Juliet Oberding and Harold Davis

As two core members of the Stacks Governance Working Group, Juliet Oberding and Harold Davis are developing important tools for governing the Stacks ecosystem. Juliet is forming a Code of Conduct (CoC) centered on the Stacks ecosystem’s ‘Can’t be evil’ ethos and values of user ownership and privacy. Inspired by CoCs for communities like Mozilla and LGBTQ in Tech, the Stacks CoC also emphasizes diversity and open source building. Share feedback on the Stacks Code of Conduct here.

Harold is working on giving Stacks community members a fair way to make collective decisions. Using a combination of PolicyKit and other automated governance tools, Harold hopes to develop an MVP voting mechanism ready to use by the end of this quarter. The voting mechanism is designed to address issues that are common with governance models like the “Benevolent Dictator for Life” model, in which one person or entity holds most of the decision-making power, discouraging others to share their ideas; with the Stacks voting mechanism, on the other hand, every community member will have a voice and say.

Learn more and share feedback: https://github.com/stacksgov/Stacks-Grants/issues/27

Fungible Token Standard, Decentralized Exchange for Stacks (STX) Tokens & Collateralized Bitcoin Asset on Stacks (Wish List grants) – Jeff Domke

Jeff Domke, Head of Product at Hiro PBC, gave an overview of three major DeFi opportunities on Stacks. The first involves developing a fungible token standard to drive token innovation (similar to the standard for Ethereum) on Stacks and kickstart STX token usage in apps and wallets. To fulfill this grant (set at $3,000), Jeff recommends gathering a team of people with expertise in smart contracts, Clarity, and the needs of the Stacks app founders.

The next Wish List grant requests a decentralized exchange or DEX for STX tokens, which could supply new projects built on Stacks with liquidity and enable token holders to swap STX with other cryptocurrencies. For this $50,000 grant, a team should have expertise in token economics, smart contracts, and building out high quality user experiences.

The final proposal asks for a collateralized Bitcoin (BTC) asset on Stacks, providing a reliable and safe way to move BTC onto Stacks and vice versa. The idea here is to make it easier to work with BTC on Stacks, fulfilling the Stacks promise of bringing DeFi to Bitcoin. Those interested in working on this proposal (also worth $50,000) should be knowledgable about both the Bitcoin and Stacks networks, as well as token economics, smart contracts, and UX & marketing.

Start working on Wish List Grants now: https://forum.stacks.org/t/unlocking-bitcoin-innovation-on-stacks/11558

Overall, the February Stacks Grants Demo Day was an exciting showcase of current grant projects, giving us a glimpse into all the new tools and experiences that grantees have in store for the Stacks community. If you are interested in working on any of these projects, check out their links above. Additionally, we encourage you to apply for your own grant here.

(The first Stacks Demo Day took place in October. If you want to find out about the different projects that were presented during that event, read the recap here: https://stacks.org/demodayoct2020.)