Marzipan - Bitsigno

Loyalty points app for vendors using SLP tokens

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Vote PLS :: simpleledger:qqczwdlsvt02l9nu5q3zjw7uvl86xcn0gy6t7sjsu5

BCH PLS :: bitcoincash:qzwk6c3kc48nqwccp8hqk7zmat6vn5catvqvkcqtee

About Us

Our team consists of 4 developers, one of whom came here as a BCH enthusiast but with no experience with programming on the BCH network. Other members were brought here by curiosity and with a general understanding of blockchain but also no experience in working with BCH.

Inspiration

Our inspiration for Marzipan came from a desire to enable wider adoption of BCH and SLP through easy transactions and currency conversions. I was thinking about methods by which to increase the adoption of BCH by making it easier for merchants to engage in cryptocurrency transactions, primarily using BCH. Barriers to the adoption of cryptocurrency include a lack of access to a universally applicable transaction platform.

Tailoring our product to be simplistic in design, easy to use and integrate into already existing technologies reduces implementation costs for vendors and increases product uptake through the removal of initial barriers. Marzipan users need not adopt an app or card for each merchant they frequent, while being able to get a free coffee once in a while. This sounds like a good deal for end-users and an even better one for smaller merchants. Many merchants want to have a loyalty program but are limited in the amount of disposable income needed to fund development. Marzipan's free and easy-to-use loyalty program allows merchants to create BCH in-package making for easy adoption.

What it does

Marzipan loyalty rewards program allows merchants to create and manage loyalty points based on SLP tokens they issue for users to collect in a similar fashion as on: www.mint.bitcoin.com. Both end-users and merchants will be able to use it on their desktop and smartphones.

Some of the basic features that should be available to merchants include:

  • Set up a price list of products and their prices in native token
  • Randomly airdropping tokens to users that have registered with a particular shop (similar to distribute dividends feature)
  • Offering discounts for users as well as setting up rules to how and in what cases they can be applied
  • Receiving payments in BCH
  • Deciding what data merchant wants to collect from users and reward them for letting him have it
  • Comprehensive reporting services graphs etc.
  • Issue a grandma-friendly plastic card with QR code so she can enjoy SLP's too!

End-users should be able to:

  • Support registering at any and all places that are on board with the Marzipan app and make it easy to switch between them on UI
  • See a map of places where this app is can be used for payments and collecting loyalty tokens
  • Scan a QR code to redeem tokens as well as let vendors scan their address to send tokens or receive them directly
  • See the balance of tokens and shop to see what can they get for them
  • Be able to donate tokens that are then exchanged back to BCH and sent to the charity of their own choosing
  • We believe that we can provide a solution that would appeal to both merchants and users without them even needing to know it's based on SLP tokens but that would utilize all the good stuff that comes with them and pitch BCH as a new and convenient mean of payment.

How we built it

We used BCHD's gRPC as well as BitCash library since we built our web app with python. As for DB, we're using Mongo.

Challenges we ran into

A basic challenge for us was to integrate blockchain technology into our application. We found BCH libraries quite good and comprehensive but even so, it wasn't an easy task to set up a work environment where we can utilize those. Even with that done we still had some regular issues with setting up web page since we tried to find a middle ground programming language and technology-wise.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of getting together as a team and sharing so much knowledge and experience in such a short time span. Managing our own wallets on such a low level was really an amazing feeling.

What's next for Marzipan

We've started this project on an idea that was brewing for some time now. This hackathon was an opportunity for us to set up a working environment and get a better idea of what kind of issues we'll be facing technically and what tools we currently have at our disposal. I (project leader) hope that the amazing developers that worked in our team will keep working on the project and also aim to bring in more talented people. Besides creating and polishing basic features, we'll concentrate on creating good documentation. Once we have a functional product we'll go do what we're here for - spread adoption! We're looking forward to that even more than developing the app itself because this is the reason why we're developing it in the first place.

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