This article aims at being an outline of an app, or rather apps I'd like to see developed on top of BCH and using SLP protocol. It's purpose is to pitch the idea to developers that have some knowledge of working with BCH libraries and get them to join a team that would work on it.
In a single sentence - it should be a mobile app for users and web app for merchants that would allow latter to create and manage loyalty points based on SLP token they issue themself and users to collect it.
About me
My name is Slavomir and I'm a 30 years old programmer from Croatia (Europe).
I've been working in IT for about 4 years now, at a core Banking software company, spent most of my time in payments department working on both national and international payments systems. Have quite good knowledge of how SEPA, SWIFT and other systems work into details.
When it comes to programming at my workplace I mostly develop and maintain code in C language. I'm highly skilled at SQL too and have good understanding of concepts and paradigms of programming in general.
I've never worked with anything related to cryptocurrencies when it comes to programming. I have some experience in leading a projects (smaller ones) and have written specifications for both new features and also as analysis of obsolete ones with plans and ideas how to recreate them in modern environment.
My social media is poorly managed and not at all a good representation of me but I'll leave it here as a proof of being a real person, if nothing else:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/slavomir-travica-164410bb
Github: https://github.com/slavomirtravica
noise.cash: https://noise.cash/u/Slavomir
Basic features of apps
Platform should work both as a web application for merchants as well as mobile app for users. Not saying we can't make web for users and mobile app for vendors later on.
In its core it's a loyalty points app. Most of big or medium sized retailers have something of a sort while I've seen it in some form with smaller vendors too.
Web app should be able to:
Let vendor create his own SLP token in similar fashion as on: https://mint.bitcoin.com/
Setup a price list of products and their prices in native token
Randomly airdrop tokens to users that have registered with particular shop
Offer discounts for users of this app as well as set rules to how and in what cases they can be applied
Let vendor decide what data he wants to collect from users. The less the merrier!
Be able to receive payments in BCH
Have a comprehensive reporting services graphs etc. about buyer's habits.
Mobile app should be able to:
Support registering at any and all places that are on board with our app and make it easy to switch between them on UI
Make a map of places where this app is active
Be able to scan a QR code to redeem tokens
Show balance of tokens and shop to see what can they get for them
Have push notifications when receiving coins
Being a BCH payments processor is a job for itself and also discussed and quite developed already. It'd be great if we could integrate it with some other service.
Would like to see seamless transition of BCH to fiat for vendors that don't like dealing with or holding cryptocurrencies.
After seeing detoken it did cross my mind that it'd be cool to have an option for merchants to hedger funds the moment they get them. But maybe I'm talking nonsense here - I didn't even do a proper trade for years.
I'll try to make some "screenshots" of how app could look like this weekend.
My ambitions for Coinparty
Due to time limitations what we'll be able to do depends mostly on how experienced developers that are going to work on this will be.
We'll develop some basic data model. Might be good to try and make it as good as possible because designing it poor would cost as a lot later on.
What I think that could be done in form of some prototype in first week is web app with instructions on how to mint your own token - not an integration of something of a sort yet. The only other thing it should have is user database and access to some of the data in it as well as ability to add goods that can be redeemed for points.
When it comes to mobile app it should be able to handle registration of users and adding various merchants. Scanning QR code to redeem tokens and using them to pay at shops. I imagine adding a map wouldn't be a very hard task either.
Technical details
Most of it, if not everything is yet to be decided!
How and where will we store data and programming language that it'll be programmed is open for discussion.
As for mobile app, I'd prefer to get started with android app, but mostly depends on developers that apply for this "job". If someone that feels more comfortable with Swift or something - he can do that during Coinparty.
Buyers should not have to pay for transaction - ever, especially not be required to have and use BCH balance for it. We can start with by letting users send tokens as they please. Something like sweet does it. Alternative is not to have custodial wallets but let them send BCH and try to disable sending tokens trough app. Users would naturally be able to do so by exporting their private keys.
Vendors should own their own private keys/recovery phrase and have to be educated about importance of it.
I'm quite in favor of outsourcing naming, branding, creation of visual identity to good people of lazyfox and venezula! If it happens so that we get someone interested in that he's free to get his hands on it.
What will this app bring to BCH
Having a dedicated app for collecting loyalty points in form of SLP tokens still doesn't exist on BCH and I can't say I've seen it on any other crypto asset. Maybe because idea itself is not as good as it seems to me or simply because it was hardly possible until recently. Let's try and make an app and we'll let market decide :)
If idea itself is good it might also be an answer to question of how do I get merchants to adopt cryptocurrency payments but only in BCH? The answer may lie in this moment of history and app that will be good for some other purpose while introducing BCH on backdoor.
By offering most of the payment processors to various merchants you're actually setting them up with BTC and other currencies. It is true that people probably won't use anything other than BCH, but why should we do their bidding?
This may be a good time to talk to people (merchants) about crypto - due to a bull market, but really majority of them don't know much past BTC. So, having them set up with something that is crypto-related will give them a taste of it while piggybacking on loyalty points they're actually familiar with and maybe have an easy access to for the first time.
If we get merchants on board it will be a door for average Joe to try and see BCH. We own UI on mobile app so we'll always be able to subtly promote it.
Conclusion
Hope this wasn't too boring of a read and I'm looking forward to working with BCH enthusiasts like myself on this or any other project. If you found this interesting, don't hesitate to contact me, even if you think you don't have the competences at the moment. I don't have most of them either.
