Why not crowd fund a reward for the Killer Bitcoin App of the year?

[Kakmakr]

So I was thinking, why do we not crowd fund a reward that would be awarded to the most innovative Bitcoin Killer Application or Game of the Year?

The developers are doing mostly volunteer work for us to bring out those excellent Bitcoin projects and nobody is rewarding them for their efforts.

I think, it is time for the Bitcoin community to step up and to support these people and the best way to do this would be to reward them for their creativity.

A huge reward will surely contribute the following to Bitcoin :

~ Draw more non-bitcoin developers to Bitcoin
~ Spark the Killer Bitcoin App everyone is waiting for.
~ Help us to get developers not to create their own coins or using some counter party tokens for their projects.
~ Rewards innovation
~ Increase adoption when more use cases stimulate Bitcoin demand.
~ Increase media expose. <positive>

As to who would make the decision on the winner and who escrows and mange these funds, well I will leave that open for discussion. I am just putting the idea out there, someone else can run with that.  

We need some spark to start the fire!

Ps, If a Bitcoin Whale wants to fund this, then so be it. It just needs to be done to get things on track again.

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[7jaka7]

I think this is a great idea. After all, it's a project from community for community so it would be normal that it gets funded by community.
Monero has a great system for this (https://forum.getmonero.org/8/funding-required). I am not aware of such funding for Bitcoin-related projects. But some kind of platform would definitely be needed in order have all developers/active people in one place and to be able to track the progress of development.

[HODL2090]

Any developer who could create a 'killer Bitcoin app' is sure to get revenues from the usage of his/her product. I believe rewards would stimulate actions from the community of developers and attract more innovation.
It would be difficult to attract donations and organize marketing.

[BrewMaster]

it is a good idea but i don't think it can succeed though!

people only give their money to something they think can make them money. that is why all these ICOs could raise such ridiculously high amounts of money in 2017 and called it "crowdfuncting" and were supposed to deliver killer apps too.

what is a "killer app" anyways? maybe if we start the idea and put it out there someone could develop it. i wouldn't mind contributing to some open source project working on such "killer apps" for free as long as i like the idea.

[r1s2g3]

A killer idea, A trusted developer , fund will automatically follow. But idea should be something that should bridge the gap between non-crypto user and crypto users not something that will provide added functionality to the crypto users only.

[d5000]

I think an award for Bitcoin-related apps, funded by donations of community members, is a really interesting idea. I have googled to see if there's already such an initiative, but to my surprise, I didn't find one (I found the Crypto Awards, but they seem to give awards to altcoin projects).

Such a prize/award could even be given out in several categories, e.g. innovation, design or usability. Just like the Webby Awards. An interesting category could be the provision of a solution of a crucial and well-known problem to mass adoption, e.g. price risk or scalability. This would basically be the category of "killer apps" you (OP) proposed.

it is a good idea but i don't think it can succeed though! [...] people only give their money to something they think can make them money.

I think if the award concept is sound - with a really independent jury, and reasonable criteria for the "killer app" status -, it could attract Bitcoin whales and companies, because they would be those most benefitted by higher Bitcoin adoption.

[Potato Chips]

Yes, most ppl won't give out their money unless there is an individual benefit. But it doesn't have to be monies, I think an exclusive perk(s) will do? Like putting up some tiers and the higher the tier the greater the perk(s). The problem is what perks? 🤔.

Or do it the other way:

>get ppl to present their idea
>vote
>pick the winner(s)
>kickstart it

Ofc It would still need some kind of promotion.

[Kakmakr]

it is a good idea but i don't think it can succeed though!

people only give their money to something they think can make them money. that is why all these ICOs could raise such ridiculously high amounts of money in 2017 and called it "crowdfuncting" and were supposed to deliver killer apps too.

what is a "killer app" anyways? maybe if we start the idea and put it out there someone could develop it. i wouldn't mind contributing to some open source project working on such "killer apps" for free as long as i like the idea.

People give money to projects like Wikipedia, which benefits the whole community and I think a Killer <Viral> Application will bring mainstream adoption and that would push up the demand for bitcoins and this will push up the price.

So, the individual benefit for the community is the higher price for the coins that they own now. Just image if someone monetized a  massively multiplayer online game with Bitcoin as a in-game payment system and this thing goes viral. We will have a constant demand for coins and a resulting higher price. <So you might make up your donation for this reward with the profits from the higher price of the remaining coins you sold> 

[figmentofmyass]

bitcoin already has a killer app: it's the best form of money yet! i'm 100% serious. we don't need a new killer app. there's already so much innovation and adoption happening. adoption will snowball and go exponential again given enough time. the network effect builds on itself; we don't need to give users any more reason to use bitcoin.

So I was thinking, why do we not crowd fund a reward that would be awarded to the most innovative Bitcoin Killer Application or Game of the Year?

who is the authority giving out this award? who gets to make the decisions?

maybe that's why we don't see this with bitcoin. altcoiners are heavily incentivized to pool (invest) resources centrally for marketing endeavors. they want to get rich quick by selling a product to future investors. the interests of bitcoin stakeholders are much, much more diverse---bitcoiners aren't just looking to get rich quick. so i think you'll find much less interest among them to donate their coins to an effort like this.

[Kakmakr]

bitcoin already has a killer app: it's the best form of money yet! i'm 100% serious. we don't need a new killer app. there's already so much innovation and adoption happening. adoption will snowball and go exponential again given enough time. the network effect builds on itself; we don't need to give users any more reason to use bitcoin.

So I was thinking, why do we not crowd fund a reward that would be awarded to the most innovative Bitcoin Killer Application or Game of the Year?

who is the authority giving out this award? who gets to make the decisions?

maybe that's why we don't see this with bitcoin. altcoiners are heavily incentivized to pool (invest) resources centrally for marketing endeavors. they want to get rich quick by selling a product to future investors. the interests of bitcoin stakeholders are much, much more diverse---bitcoiners aren't just looking to get rich quick. so i think you'll find much less interest among them to donate their coins to an effort like this.

I strongly disagree with you. Bitcoin need a strong network of use cases to survive. Most governments does not even accept Bitcoin as a currency, so jumping on that bandwagon and thinking that normal "payment" use will sustain Bitcoin in the long run, will be the start of it's demise.

The backbone of Bitcoin's success so far, was the actual network of applications and services that use Bitcoin. Take any Alt coin out there and look at the limited options for people to use those coins and you will see why they are failing. We do not want that to happen with Bitcoin and the community can help to fund a reward to stop that from happening.

Loads of merchants has stopped accepting Bitcoin, because they are simply not seeing sales and payments being done with bitcoins to justify the continued support for it. We need killer Apps & games like this to fill in that gap and to push up the price. Once the price is higher the people will start spending coins again.  

[figmentofmyass]

bitcoin already has a killer app: it's the best form of money yet! i'm 100% serious. we don't need a new killer app. there's already so much innovation and adoption happening. adoption will snowball and go exponential again given enough time. the network effect builds on itself; we don't need to give users any more reason to use bitcoin.

So I was thinking, why do we not crowd fund a reward that would be awarded to the most innovative Bitcoin Killer Application or Game of the Year?

who is the authority giving out this award? who gets to make the decisions?

maybe that's why we don't see this with bitcoin. altcoiners are heavily incentivized to pool (invest) resources centrally for marketing endeavors. they want to get rich quick by selling a product to future investors. the interests of bitcoin stakeholders are much, much more diverse---bitcoiners aren't just looking to get rich quick. so i think you'll find much less interest among them to donate their coins to an effort like this.

I strongly disagree with you. Bitcoin need a strong network of use cases to survive. Most governments does not even accept Bitcoin as a currency, so jumping on that bandwagon and thinking that normal "payment" use will sustain Bitcoin in the long run, will be the start of it's demise.

i guess we disagree about the purpose of bitcoin. i believe satoshi intended for it to be money. this idea doesn't require additional "use cases". it merely requires a network of users transacting with a scarce asset (bitcoins). based on metcalfe's law, the network becomes increasingly valuable as it onboards more and more users: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

there's a reason why the whitepaper doesn't mention things like "games" or "smart contracts" or other "killer apps". those things can be built on top of bitcoin, but they are not essential at all.

bitcoin's killer app = p2p electronic cash.

[Kakmakr]

bitcoin already has a killer app: it's the best form of money yet! i'm 100% serious. we don't need a new killer app. there's already so much innovation and adoption happening. adoption will snowball and go exponential again given enough time. the network effect builds on itself; we don't need to give users any more reason to use bitcoin.

So I was thinking, why do we not crowd fund a reward that would be awarded to the most innovative Bitcoin Killer Application or Game of the Year?

who is the authority giving out this award? who gets to make the decisions?

maybe that's why we don't see this with bitcoin. altcoiners are heavily incentivized to pool (invest) resources centrally for marketing endeavors. they want to get rich quick by selling a product to future investors. the interests of bitcoin stakeholders are much, much more diverse---bitcoiners aren't just looking to get rich quick. so i think you'll find much less interest among them to donate their coins to an effort like this.

I strongly disagree with you. Bitcoin need a strong network of use cases to survive. Most governments does not even accept Bitcoin as a currency, so jumping on that bandwagon and thinking that normal "payment" use will sustain Bitcoin in the long run, will be the start of it's demise.

i guess we disagree about the purpose of bitcoin. i believe satoshi intended for it to be money. this idea doesn't require additional "use cases". it merely requires a network of users transacting with a scarce asset (bitcoins). based on metcalfe's law, the network becomes increasingly valuable as it onboards more and more users: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

there's a reason why the whitepaper doesn't mention things like "games" or "smart contracts" or other "killer apps". those things can be built on top of bitcoin, but they are not essential at all.

bitcoin's killer app = p2p electronic cash.

I think we want the same thing. Yes, Bitcoin was originally designed to be a P2P payment option and adding services and games will just strengthen that purpose. You cannot have a currency without places to use those currencies or it will fail. I can have a bag full of dollar bills and no place to spend it and it will be just a bag full of worthless paper.

A payment network needs two things to survive : People who use the coins to pay for something and having merchants and services like games and applications to spend it at. 

[kelz1]

An excellent idea, will this be a general community effort or a bitcointalk community award. Plenty of whales on this forum and also the mods could act as judges along with other well known members

[d5000]

@figmentofmyass: Bitcoin is a form of money with many, many advantages, there you're right.

The main problem I see currently is usability. Bitcoin still is way too complicated to use for many people, even if there were and are improvement. An easy example: The BIP70 Payment Protocol (the one Bitpay uses). It's really cool and easy to use, but many clients do not provide a step-to-step GUI feature to use it which is easy for "non-techies".

An app which eliminates all (or most) current usability problems, and in a decentralized way (!), would be a game changer. It could become a "killer app", and it would deserve an award. A "killer app award" could bring in the necessary incentives to develop this kind of app.

[hatshepsut93]

I think people should be already motivated enough to develop Bitcoin apps without any additional incentives. At this point there is still a lot of room for first-mover advantage, after 10 years we still don't have any big marketplace, freelance platform, gamestore, etc.

Also, developers are rarely entrepreneurs, most of them prefer to get hired and then get paid for their work, regardless of the success of their work. Dev salaries are already huge, so why take risks?

[pawanjain]

This is really a good idea and I don't think escrowing will be a problem since there are so many trusted and reputable members in the bitcointalk forum.
I think anybody will be more than happy for escrowing the funds for this generous task. Let the developers pitch their ideas and we can use the voting system to see the top ideas.
There are so many members in the crypto forum and if even a few of us contribute a small amount then it would lead to a bigger contribution.
If the idea is great then this can surely lead to a  great benefit for the whole crypto community.

[pooya87]

bitcoin's killer app = p2p electronic cash.

that is the definition not the "killer app".

a "killer application" is something that can prove the core value of bitcoin and help with the adoption of it. for example things like Open Bazaar can be considered a killer app in my opinion since it is proving the power of decentralization, having your own shop and being in full control of your finances without needing a bank and with no fraud such as charge backs that the traditional payment processors have. but since it is hard to use for regular users it has not yet done it.

[Kakmakr]

bitcoin's killer app = p2p electronic cash.

that is the definition not the "killer app".

a "killer application" is something that can prove the core value of bitcoin and help with the adoption of it. for example things like Open Bazaar can be considered a killer app in my opinion since it is proving the power of decentralization, having your own shop and being in full control of your finances without needing a bank and with no fraud such as charge backs that the traditional payment processors have. but since it is hard to use for regular users it has not yet done it.

Yes, I think you are spot on with this nominee, just a pity Open Bazaar has not gone viral yet, then it would have been the ideal candidate for this award. Open Bazaar has gone up against giants like eBay and Amazon and it offered Bitcoiners a decentralized alternative that cannot be taken down.

We need disruptive killer apps like this, that will take on the "David vs Goliath" fight and won and it must go viral. There can be more than one reward too, for example : The Killer Bitcoin App or Game of the Year / Most Innovative /  The Most disruptive etc.