[Top Builder 2024]: BtcTestnetCoins

[hkarani]

🏗️ Top Builder 2024 Application Form to track progress through Round 1 - 3 ~ Currently in Round 1

📝 Instructions

1. Only complete this form if you have been chosen for Top Builder, by PlebLab.
2. Provide detailed information to assist the judges in evaluating your project.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Team

• Team Name: Satoshi

• Number of Founders: 1

• Team Background: Before the orange pill, Hezron was a junior developer for a period spanning three years, working in the HR industry. During this time, he adeptly navigated the intricate landscapes of software development, honing his skills across Java, Typescript, Python, and frameworks (Angular, Spring).

  Hezron transitioned into the realm of bitcoin writing for Wasabi Wallet two years ago. His time in bitcoin has led him to the technical depths of bitcoin, exploring the complexities, opportunities, and challenges it faces. Hezron sees himself still working in bitcoin in the next decade.

• Bitcoin & Lightning Involvement: As a technical writer for a Bitcoin wallet company, my role involves translating the intricate bitcoin jargon into comprehensive and accessible documentation. I see myself as a bridge between the complexities of bitcoin technology and the end-users, developers, and enthusiasts eager to understand and harness the power of Bitcoin.

• Origin Story: One of the biggest challenges new bitcoin users face is the technical jump when trying to get into bitcoin: bitcoin doesn't exactly have a technical support team to help onboard you as a new user.

  This is where Testnet shines. Testnet is all about convenience. It guarantees that you can do anything with bitcoin with the peace of mind that no errors you make will cost you money in your learning journey.

  Btctestnetcoins aims to make testnet coins available for everyone: new users getting into bitcoin, developers building bitcoin apps, and anyone who wants to experiment with bitcoin, risk-free.

  With the philosophy that "the best things in life are free," Btctestnetcoins started out with the idea that free bitcoin testnet coins are the easiest way to Bitcoinize the world.

💡 The Idea

• Project Overview: Btctestnetcoins is a service that lets you easily obtain bitcoin testnet coins when you need them. It has a stash of testnet coins available that will be sent to your bitcoin testnet wallet to use for testing and learning purposes.
• Website: (Optional)
• GitHub: https://github.com/hkarani/btc-testnet-coins
• Project Stage: Presently, btctesnetcoins satisfies the minimum viable functionality of a testnet faucet. The MVP can send you testnet coins on demand. To prevent abuse, it implements bot detection to prevent spam attacks. Users using the faucet are limited to 0.01 BTC per day.
• Supplementary Materials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3JCAfF4618

📚 Additional Information

• Additional Links/Info:

📌 Submission Type

• [ ] Initial Project Creation

🚀 Current Project Progress

• Progress Made: Btctestnetcoins has a working MVP that is a fully functioning faucet and ready for deployment. The work is output of roughly 3 months of research and development.

  It can send testnet coins and has an inbuilt protection to detect and stop bots. It is written is ASP.NET Core and with Sqlite as a the database.

• Challenges Faced: Hosting and domain name. Reconciling development and production environments.
• Future Roadmap of what's next: The next steps are user facing improvements, the faucet needs a UI bump. The aim is to make it simple and elegant while being very easy for anyone to use. This includes picking the right color schemes and UI and logo design. From here the next key functionality is adding signet support to the faucet and a way for users to view sent transactions.

⏳ Round 1 Milestone

• Keep in mind that completion will need to be by February 10th, 2024.
• First-round milestone the team has set for themselves: Registering a domain name and hosting Btctestnetcoins on a hosting service. Adding improvements to the UI of the application.

📝 Submission Complete

• All required information has been provided above.

📅 Top Builder Program Structure

Registration Opens: Monday, December 18, 2023

• Application: Interested teams apply for Top Builder.
• Selection: Teams will be chosen based on their application. See FAQ for details.

Round 1: January 13 - February 10, 2024

• Workshops: PlebLab weekly workshops start, available live and online.
• Chat Access: Selected teams join the PlebLab internal chat.
• Mentorship: Begins for teams.
• Project Milestones: First-round milestones assessment.

Round 2: February 10 - 25, 2024

• Team Reduction: Half of the teams continue.
• Project Milestones: Second-round milestones assessment.
• Workshops: Continued weekly workshops.
• Mentorship: Continues.

Round 3: Starting February 26, 2024

• Team Reduction: Narrowed down to 6 teams.
• Final Milestones: Set for the last round.
• Preparation: For pitch in Austin.

Final Round at Startup Day: March 14, 2024

• Preparation: Final pitch preparations at PlebLab.
• Presentations: Before judges on Startup Day.
• Deliberation: Judges decide during a happy hour.
• Announcement: Winner announced at Austin BitDevs.
• Celebration: After-party for Top Builder.

[thrillerxx]

✅ checked in for top builder

[hkarani]

26th Jan - Had suggestions from Erik about gamifying the faucet for users to get Testnetcoins

[hkarani]

30th Jan - Talked to Keyan about bots issue being the main threat of running the faucet

• Followed up with Car about project progress

[hkarani]

5th Jan - Created video demo.

https://youtu.be/9dlOk1XpG34