NOTE (11/04/2021): The following RFP has now been closed. If you wish to apply for a grant to fund your work, please apply instead via the Filecoin Dev Grants Program.
This is a Request for Proposals for projects interested in exploring new opportunities at the intersection of NEAR and Filecoin.
NEAR is a decentralized application platform built to bridge the users of today’s Internet to the blockchain-based web of the future. NEAR is a PoS Layer 1 blockchain platform, built with UX and DevX in mind. NEAR’s novel sharding mechanism, Nightshade, parallelizes computation on chain and automatically increases capacity when needed, resulting in theoretically infinite scalability.
Filecoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer storage network, allowing anyone to store and validate large-scale data as part of a global, 8-exabyte (and growing) network. Under the hood, all Filecoin nodes use the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a content-addressed protocol for storing and sharing data.
In July 2021, the Filecoin-NEAR bridge developed by Textile was launched. The storage bridge creates a seamless way for NEAR applications, smart contracts, or NFTs to integrate Filecoin-based storage of any form of data. In addition, to encourage utilisation of the bridge, storage costs on Filecoin via the bridge will be provided free.
This RFP is looking to deepen the integrations between NEAR and Filecoin, building on the successful launch of the bridge.
NEAR and Filecoin are jointly offering up to USD $300,000 in grant funding for eligible projects.
Below are a few examples of possible new applications, but all proposals combining NEAR and Filecoin are encouraged to apply:
An SDK for NEAR users to seamlessly employ Filecoin’s decentralized storage network, along with excellent documentation and a demonstration app. The accompanying demonstration application should showcase the functionality of the SDK, as well as serve as a reference architecture for other NEAR developers.
Database overlays to make interacting with raw storage on Filecoin easier and more efficient
Novel Web3 interactions such as Data Bounties, DataDAOs, Verifiable Computation, Perpetual Storage, Layer 2 Protocols, etc., leveraging verifiable storage on Filecoin, smart contract abilities on NEAR, and data bridge built by Textile. DeFi Applications that interact with textile.io or other reputation indexes for Filecoin Storage Providers could be another angle.
Applications written in assembly script using web3.storage. For example, applications that allow users to stored encrypted data on Filecoin that can only be decrypted by users with NEAR private keys, in that way keeping ownership of their data.
- Proposals may build on NEAR and Filecoin directly, or use libraries or services that provide abstractions to simplify. For Filecoin, you may use tools and services such Estuary, Fleek Space Daemon, NFT.storage, web3.storage, Textile Powergate., et cetera.
- On how to use the NEAR-Filecoin Bridge developed by Textile, please refer to the documentation here.
We generally fund projects that can be built in a 6-week to 3-month timeframe. Proposals are evaluated based on:
- The quality of the proposal and near-term value to the Filecoin and NEAR’s ecosystems
- Your team’s technical experience, prior open source contributions and interest in diving into how Filecoin works
- Likelihood that your team will continue to commit to maintaining your project for one year or longer
All work funded via these grants must be open sourced via the MIT license.
Proposals should include a value proposition about how it will benefit the Filecoin ecosystem, technical detail about what your team intends to build and evidence your team is capable of creating good, re-usable open source code, compelling product demos and great documentation, and a reasonable technical development plan broken down into milestones. Here's a good sample proposal.
Proposals should include:
- Project Description
- Brief description
- Value to the Filecoin and NEAR ecosystems
- Deliverables
- An explanation of your technical solution and architecture
- Imagine that an experienced software developer will evaluate your proposal
- Milestones & Funding requested (most projects have 2-4 milestones)
- Budget and estimated timeframe for each milestone
- Team
- Roles and Experience
Teams with a history of high-quality open source software, with live applications and products, are preferred.
To submit a proposal for this RFP, follow the steps to submit a proposal for an RFP by October 31, 2021 for consideration. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so early submissions are encouraged.