The Next Phase of V4V.app: Maintenance, Expansion and Teaching

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This is a value for value post: see the explanation in the footer.

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A New DHF Proposal

In a few days my existing $40 per day proposal will come to an end. That proposal started out with a much higher ask to complete some complicated work to decentralise V4V.app. That remains a long term goal of mine, but I wasn't funded for that work so I switched to asking for a more modest amount to keep running it. I did a lot more than just keep it running.

• Right now I've been charging 200 Sats + 1.5% for exchanges.
• If I'm funded again I want to drop that to 100 Sats + 1.0%. In addition I'll drop the minimum transaction from 1,000 to 500 Sats.

The last 6 months of v4v.app

Before numbers, I'd like to say I don't have a single customer complaint (at least nobody has told me!). There have been a tiny number of occasions where I had to make manual refunds or fix something, I believe I did these faster than any of the users expected. If anyone has any complaints please post them here! If you were one of more than a hundred who used the service, let me know that too!

Both @privex and @ausbitbank have been using the V4V API to accept Lightning payments as Hive. Privex has received a good number of payments this way since turning on the system.

This is a guide to how much the service is being used and how much of the value my system retains. I'm not being completely obsessive about tracking my own off-system trades to try to keep the balance between Hive and BTC.

The net flows are still from Hive into BTC so I have to keep topping up the BTC on my Lightning node. This involves buying Bitcoin and transferring it into the Node via opening channels and other means.

Costs

I'm still running a number of systems to keep this going. In my last proposal #244 I compared keeping this all going to keeping spinning plates in the air. The effort needed to keep this all running has remained similar.

The costs of running the Lightning Node have gone up. I had to move to a more powerful server account which tripled the base cost and the recent "Mempool Apocalypse" with Bitcoin Ordinals driving the chain fees from 1 sat/vB up to over 40 sats/vB. This has a direct impact on the costs of moving Bitcoin on and off my Lightning node because every time I need to put Sats back onto my node after I send them out, costs me an on chain fee.

All in all I'm running at around $180 HBD per month for servers just for V4V.app and some software subscriptions I need for other services. As you can see, without the DHF funds, running this kind of bridge isn't really sustainable.

Fortunately the witness I run does run at a net profit so that helps subsidise my work and I write and curate on Hive too.

Development

Learning Vue and teaching too

As you may have seen I'm publicly learning Javascript and Vue with the Quasar framework and sharing every step with the community. I had thought to put in a proposal for this as I think I could genuinely ask for some compensation for this but I think it fits better within this maintenance proposal.

Repeat subscriptions to Podcasts or Hive accounts

The goal I'm working toward with the rebuild of v4v.app is a subscription service on Hive which will allow you to subscribe for an amount you decide to any value enabled Podcast or Hive account.

The repeat payment system which we got a couple of hard forks ago is being upgraded in a way I ask for and when that goes live, I hope to be able to run a service soon afterwards.

You'll select a Podcast or a Hive account, set an amount in Sats, Hive or HBD a donation message, and a frequency and the number of donations. My site will show you everything you've got set up and you can stop and start or change donations at any time.

The point here (which nobody in Lightning knows how to do) is that the funds are in YOUR wallet with YOUR keys and only via you signing a transaction with your Active key, are you setting up what is a smart contract. It's not a very complicated smart contract as we see in Eth but on the other side, it's simple to understand and very reliable.

This is what I'm building.

Other projects

Podping

I'm still monitoring and keeping an eye on Podping. As recently as last week Adam Curry again stated how important Podping is to the future of Podcasting. There is a new use for the underlying Podping system which is in the works, but if it looks like we're going to move forward with that, I will craft a dedicated proposal.

I know Podping seems relatively unknown, but all I can do is tell you that behind the scenes it is achieving a level of dependence which puts Hive right at the centre of one of the most important parts of the "free speech stack". Podcasting is still independent and Podping on Hive is helping it stay that way.

Extras

I hope that, in addition to the tangible work, you recognise the effort and work I put in promoting Hive outside of Hive.

• I use my newly reclaimed brianoflondon Twitter account to good effect to promote Hive. I'm paying for Blue Checks on that account and the v4vapp I use for more dedicated crypto and Hive stuff.
• You may not know this but the brianoflondon account is followed by some pretty huge accounts and whenever there is a reasonable chance of success I do ask for retweets and often get them.
• Web 2.0 accounts are just a funnel to build Hive up in my view.
• I try to help out wherever I can answering questions about Hive and especially helping out developers.
• Hive is involved in Podcasting 2.0 pretty much entirely through my efforts.
• I'm active and watching core dev topics even if I'm not able to write core code.
• I run a witness in the top 50.
• I'm working on the #cryptoclassaction which one day could make a lot of money for everyone on Hive (or at least make Hive famous).

What's the cost?

My last proposal was #244 and asked for 40 HBD for 6 months. That proposal was unfunded for a few weeks at the beginning.

I'd like to ask for 75 HBD for one year ($27,000 after the DHF fee) which is to cover ongoing costs, my time and development work moving it all forward ($17,000). This is also as compensation for the ongoing release of my "how to build an entire Hive dapp" in Vue". I'd value that part alone at around $10,000.

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Value for Value

For the last few months while building @v4vapp I was generously supported by the DHF. Going forward I have a much more modest support which covers direct server costs and a little of my time.

If you appreciate the work I do on and around Hive, you can express this directly: upvoting posts on Hive is great. Also consider a direct donation (there's a Tip button on Hive or a Lightning Address) on all my posts.

Support Proposal 265 on PeakD
Support Proposal 265 with Hivesigner
Support Proposal 265 on Ecency
Vote for Brianoflondon's Witness KeyChain or HiveSigner

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