Residency Proposal
What's your name/your team's name?
Mike Cohen
Discord: mijoco.btc
GitBook: https://brighton-blockchain.gitbook.io/sbtc-bridge/
GitHub: https://github.com/radicleart
Twitter: https://twitter.com/radicleart
Best email on which to contact you?
Email: mjoecohen@gmail.com
Personal Statement
The world is converging on Bitcoin as the most secure, decentralised and censorship resistant store of value available. However, the inescapable truth is that layer 2 solutions are necessary if Bitcoin DeFi is going to fulfil its potential and scale up to millions of users.
The hard problem is how to bridge bitcoin, to a smart contract enabled layer 2, without the risk of loss of funds, hacks and exploits which come as standard with custodial solutions?
The answer is the decentralised sBTC bridge protocol. sBTC addresses the problem of non-custodial writes to the Bitcoin blockchain and is in a unique position, within the blockchain industry, to solve this important bridging problem.
Given the strategic importance of sBTC to the Stacks ecosystem, the development of free at the point of use, open source, web based tools which provide access to the main sBTC features is crucial. These web based tools will ultimately give users the ability to use sBTC but will provide the important function of supporting development of the core protocol and overall sBTC product development and go to market strategy.
My plan is to use this residency to continue my work on sBTC Bridge and Signer Dashboard to extend the products applicability, from the early sBTC Alpha release, through sBTC Mini and on to the full Nakamoto release early next year.
End Product: What does success look like?
By the end of the residency, the sBTC Bridge and sBTC Signer Dashboard web based tools and APIs will be operational on bitcoin testnet and mainnet.
The core feature set of each application will be;
sBTC Bridge
Deposit bitcoin (mint sBTC)
Withdraw bitcoin (burn sBTC)
Track deposit and withdrawal transactions
sBTC Signer Dashboard
Signer details
Signer transaction analytics
Transaction analytics
High level stats including;
Total value locked
Number of unique addresses
Signer reputation
Each web application will be supported by an indexer API that caches contract data to support fast access and complex queries.
I will continue to work with @Macxim who has done such a great job delivering the UI/UX design system under the guidance of Andre in his role as product manager.
Detailed sprint planning will be delivered at the beginning of each month. Plans will be tailored to the core project planning and tracked via GitBook, GitHub Issues and Pull Requests.
An outline of the delivery schedule is;
Delivery
Milestone 1: August 2023
Sprint planning
Release the sBTC Bridge multi currency support
Build a public devnet that tracks sBTC Clarity development
Formalise user dashboard stories
sBTC Signer Dashboard API development
Milestone 2: September 2023
Sprint planning
sBTC Bridge API support for Mini Contract development
sBTC Signer Dashboard API support for Mini Contract development
sBTC Bridge support for commit reveal
sBTC Signer Dashboard front end stories and mockups
Milestone 3: October 2023
Sprint planning
Delivery of sBTC Bridge for sBTC Mini Phase 1
Delivery of sBTC Signer Dashboard for sBTC Mini Phase 1
Milestone 4: November 2023
Sprint planning
Delivery of sBTC Bridge for sBTC Mini Phase 2
Delivery of sBTC Signer Dashboard for sBTC Mini Phase 2
Milestone 5: December 2023
Sprint planning
Delivery of sBTC Bridge for sBTC Mini Phase 2
Delivery of sBTC Signer Dashboard for sBTC Mini Phase 2
Milestone 6: January 2023
Sprint planning
Prepare for sBTC Bridge Nakamoto Release
Delivery of sBTC Signer Dashboard Nakamoto Release
Appendix: About Me
Stacks advocate and contributor since 2018
Contributor to sBTC since Jan 23
Successfully delivered several projects on Stacks
Spoken at several blockchain events and ran bitcoin and stacks meetups in Brighton, UK
Contributor to stacks governance via the DAO and Technical CAB
Thanks for taking the time to review my application.
Feel free to leave any feedback or comments.
I look forward hopefully to being a part of this exciting project !
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