[Top Builder 2024]: uncleJim21 (CASCDR_R2)

[uncleJim21]

🏗️ 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: CASCDR
• Number of Founders: 1
• Team Background: Jim Carucci
• Software Developer at Sphinx
• Former Embedded & Electrical Engineer at Lutron Electronics & Stanley Black & Decker
• Entrepreneur with numerous applications under my belt including the North Star Stadium Soundboard & wREFINE apps
• February 2023 Austin Lightning Devs Hackathon 1st Place for Easy Subcontractor (described below)
• SatsXSW Best Privacy Project for Satoshi Jump Radio System (described below)
• TabConf 2023 Best LNURL Project for NIP105 (which later evolved into CASCDR)
• World Renowned Thespian as Code Monster Billy Rampage
• Bitcoin & Lightning Involvement: I've worked on Sphinx for about 14 months which is one of the first Lightning enabled chat applications and one of the first Podcasting 2.0/Value for Value apps out there. I feel the best comparison for it is like China's WeChat except ethical and aligned with Bitcoin's core values and respect for individual human rights. I learned a lot creating and refining numerous aspects of the application from podcasting 2.0, video, group chats, lightning payments, streamed payments, and Liquid assets as badges for group chat participants. Working with my mentor Paul Itoi has really expanded my skillset understanding of and enthusiasm for bitcoin, lightning and the possibilities presented by AI.

Furthermore I worked on numerous Lightning side/hackathon projects:

• EasySubcontractor - mobile application for laborers to clock in and clock out using NFC and receive lightning payments commensurate with their time skills and effort.

• Satoshi Jump - worked alongside Topher Scott & SuperTestnet. Provided the Digital Signal Processing expertise and architecture knowhow for a radio system that uses touch tone to broadcast bitcoin & lightning transactions with just a walkie talkie. (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nyYsOKTvRw)

• NIP105/Data Buffets - worked alongside Topher Scott, Christian Krueger & Austin Kelsay (aka Plebdev) to engineer and implement an API marketplace spec on NOSTR. For the demo we demonstrated the ability to broadcast, discover and consume a ChatGPT and Image Generation API. This standard and the core building blocks later lead to me creating CASCDR which is a tool that expands on this work.

• North Star an application designed for truckers that replaces Citizen Band Radio warning systems. Instead of sending fleeting messages that require a coincidence of time and location, users speak hands free to the voice assistant which captures and classifies the warning, drops a location marker and alerts the next nearby user of that warning when nearby. High quality reports are rewarded using sats paid over lightning.

• Origin Story: What inspired your idea? The Cambrian explosion of AI applications has presented numerous opportunities and challenges. On the one hand there are undeniable productivity benefits. On the other hand there are causes for concern. Having studied the history of what has happened with the centralization of internet tech companies, it is obvious that there are problems on the horizon. If the same pattern plays out in AI we could see similar problems play out:

  1. Rent Seeking Monopolism - as with the previous iteration of "Web 2.0" if one group materially controls the AI service marketplace, that could have serious ramifications on the marketplace by limiting possibilities,limiting the quality of service and more fundamentally limiting human potential.
  2. Surveillance - getting undue insight into users' inner dialogue through AI Chat and other applications can have serious consequences. By tying to the user's identity, centralized parties can store information about a person indefinitely without their consent and act against that person's interest whether intentionally or not. These repositories of data also present a massive security risk as hackers could access sensitive information about users and use them for nefarious purposes.
  3. Censorship - controlling the content of and types of services people can consume can shape public opinion and limit our ability to freely express ideas & pursue of the truth.

When I participated in the Tabconf Hackathon where we first proposed an open API marketplace on NOSTR with NIP105, my mind began to churn about the possibilities enabled by that project. I thought about how with those tools we have the ability to make a serious dent in the problems above with some ingenuity and a lot of elbow grease...

💡 The Idea

• Project Overview: CASCDR in its current form resembles Zapier but on open protocols. We feel that flexible and agile lightning micropayments present advantages that will lead to more modular, efficient and innovative markets as well as enhance privacy. Meanwhile NOSTR presents a unique opportunity for discoverability, and flexibility on a totally open network. Our application allows users to discover, combine and consume applications in innovative ways through workflow builders. With our application and the open protocols that enable them, the advantages mentioned will enable us to create value in ways that few have imagined...let alone explored.

• Website: https://cascdr.vercel.app

• GitHub:

• CASCDR itself is not yet open source

• Here are service API endpoint code that is available: 🧠 General Purpose LLM 🗣️ AI Voice-to-Text Transcriptions 🎥 Youtube Video Extraction

• Project Stage: Demo/MVP is live (and flowing some sats :) ). However we still have plenty of work to do to achieve our vision and there are numerous initiatives underway.

• Supplementary Materials: Provide any proof of work, workshops, or demo videos.

📚 Additional Information

• Additional Links/Info:
• See above list of hackathon projects.
• bolt.fun final presentation
• bolt.fun submission video
• Speech on AI & Privacy at San Antonio Bitcoin Club
• Discussion on Thriller Bitcoin about AI & Privacy

📌 Submission Type

• [ ] Initial Project Creation

🚀 Current Project Progress

• Progress Made:
• MVP Site with individually consumable services & workflow examples is live
• 6 Available Services: 🧠 General Purpose LLM (GPT) 👁️ AI Image Analysis Capabilities 🖼️ Text to Image Generation 🗣️ AI Voice-to-Text Transcriptions 🎥 Youtube Video Extraction 💾Storage as a Service
• Bitcoin Connect integration for superior UX on both mobile and desktop
• Finalist in bolt.fun's Legends of Lightning 2023 Hackathon
• In progress: StartOS package for spinning up a ChatGPT proxy service
• Challenges Faced:
• Onboarding & educating new suppliers of services
• Onboarding new users (especially those that are not familiar yet with lightning)
• Making a robust logic framework for workflows
• Protecting supplier privacy when deploying endpoints (impetus for StartOS initiative)
• Future Roadmap of what's next:
• Custom User Defined Workflows & Builder UI
• Complete first release of StartOS project
• Consume and publish services on TOR
• Voltage/Umbrel/Other Third Party ways to quickly spin up services on a node
• More services services services
• Freemium credit to lower friction for brand new users
• Facilitate the deployment and monetization of custom LLMs and AI services

⏳ 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: -Complete prototype of CASCDR StartOS package for spinning up a microservice
• Alpha (internal test) ready prototype of custom workflow logic (not necessarily UI)
• More services?

  📝 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: Teams are set and judged on their first-round milestones.

Round 2: February 10 - 24, 2024

• Team Reduction: PlebLab cuts half of the Top Builder teams. (Only half continued in Round 2.)
• Project Milestones: Teams are set and judged on their second-round milestones.
• Workshops: PlebLab weekly workshops continue.
• Mentorship: Continues.

Round 3: Starting February 24, 2024

• Team Reduction: PlebLab narrows down to 6 Top Builder teams. (All will be pitching in Austin.)
• Final Milestones: Teams set final project milestones for the last round.
• Preparation: Teams prepare their pitch in front of judges. Final teams are contacted to come to Austin for Startup Day.

Final Round at Startup Day: March 14, 2024

• Preparation: Teams work on their final pitches at PlebLab.
• Presentations: Final teams present before judges on Startup Day.
• Deliberation: Judges decide during a happy hour.
• Announcement: The winner of Top Builder is announced at Austin BitDevs.
• Celebration: After-party for Top Builder.

[uncleJim21]

CASCDR Update Week 1 🌊⚡🍊💊🤠👍

There are three main initiatives underway: 1.StartOS Package for CASCDR Vendors - we are about 95% complete on our prototype for CASCDR Vendor which will allow anyone running a StartOS device to simply input their OpenAI API key, service pricing and nostr credential to stack sats for providing access to ChatGPT and other OpenAI services like Whisper, DALL-e, etc. The package communicates directly with the user's LND node for total self sovereignty when it comes to custody & privacy. The services provided in this way will immediately be available to a network of clients including the CASCDR site over TOR. We plan to submit the build for review by the StartOS team by the end of the month and will hopefully have it live for the stackers out there by the end of February. Huge shout out to Chris Guida who's patience, expertise and diligence helped make this possible.

CASCDR StartOS Dashboard allows vendors to stack sats by making their ChatGPT access available to buyers that value privacy or cannot access a US Credit card.

2. L402 Merchant Onboarding - new team member Luke Lowery using his AWS expertise & working with GrihmLord aka Marcus to demonstrate how L402s can help artists and prompt engineers monetize their skills without fear of ceding copyright sovereignty to the likes of OpenAI and other tech giants. We have a plan to build a robust, elegantly simple way to achieve profitability for Marcus to take his artistic and prompt engineering talents and make them available to a market & showcase on CASCDR.

Sample of Marcus's work using painstaking expertise & prompt engineering

3.Engineering a Robust Workflow's Application working closely with TopBuilder mentor Topher Scott to engineer a TypeScript framework to make custom L402 workflows robust & composable. This initiative builds upon the proposal we announced (here)[https://bolt.fun/story/cascdr-update-6-engineering-flexible-l402-workflows-on-an-open-nostr-marketplace--1386]. We now have a plan in place and plan to focus on this initiative for the next few weeks.

[uncleJim21]

CASCDR Update Week 2 🌊⚡🍊💊🤠👍

This week was about experimentation and figuring out the next direction to go. Quick recap of what we've done so far:

1. CASCDR StartOS Build -> we are putting together a submission for the Start9 team.
2. Custom Workflows -> we have the initial logic nailed down and pipelines running in memory for about 3 services.
3. Vector Databases -> we have built sample services and examples that we will use to take the utility of vector search and make applications & services with excellent user experience.

With these under our belt & with some feedback from our users we decided to shift gears and temporarily shelf the above. We plan to focus in two key areas:

1. Building a Killer App on L402s - while we're proud of what we have, we feel there's more opportunities to create value. We are shifting focus on creating a high quality productivity application for podcasters inspired by @thrillerxx . We will provide details as we progress.
2. Creating On Ramps for Non-Bitcoiners - as much as we love bitcoin, we want to make sure there are avenues for non-bitcoiners to utilize the service and ultimately pay the service providers in bitcoin. We are drafting plans for how to accomplish this and plan to add the optionality to pay in fiat with CASCDR.

With these two efforts in focus, we feel that once complete we have the opportunity to build traction, seize more opportunities to add value and of course get that sweet sweet satsflow.

[uncleJim21]

CASCDR Update Week 3 🌊⚡🍊💊🤠👍

I made a detailed post here & will provide TLDR for the purposes of the competition: https://stacker.news/items/418051

Brass Tacks on Milestones:

• Complete prototype of CASCDR StartOS package for spinning up a microservice -> ✅ We have a prototype and are preparing a submission to the Start9 Marketplace
• Alpha (internal test) ready prototype of custom workflow logic (not necessarily UI) -> ✅ I have this about 90% done but swapped this for a new milestone
• Create a service with end user appeal that is likely to achieve product market fit & flow sats -> ✅ YouTube AI Agent is LIVE

[uncleJim21]

Milestone 2 Goals 🌊⚡🍊💊🤠👍

• CHADBot: A bot that allows users to subscribe and receive updates based on YouTube content to their nostr inbox. CHADBot will be capable of sending alerts, summaries and blog content to user's nostr DMs in exchange for sats
• UI overhauls
• Introducing fiat rails to pay for services (highly contingent on compliance and red tape but we will ship this as fast as bureaucracy allows)

[uncleJim21]

CASCDR Update Round 2 Week 1 🌊⚡🍊💊🤠👍

Focus: Building the CASCDR Hub for Acquisition of Data Bot (henceforth CHADBot) - augmenting our existing services by allowing users to subscribe for updates to a youtube channel along with associated services Accomplishments: CHADBot back end is LIVE and running for internal testing. CHADBot is monitoring a multitude of YouTube channels and sending DMs with alerts to the new video (with links), summaries, and suggested Blog content Next up:

• Polished UI for managing subscriptions
• Ability to subscribe for the service
• Account creation
• Fiat payment options
• Site wide UI overhaul

[uncleJim21]

CASCDR Round 2 Milestone Updates 🌊⚡🍊💊🤠👍

• CHADBot: A bot that allows users to subscribe and receive updates based on YouTube content to their nostr inbox. CHADBot will be capable of sending alerts, summaries and blog content to user's nostr DMs -> ✅ CHADBot is LIVE. Users can subscribe for real time alerts, summaries and even blog post content as YouTube videos come in
• UI overhauls -> ✅ significant improvements to the UI and user experience
• Introducing fiat rails to pay for services (highly contingent on compliance and red tape but we will ship this as fast as bureaucracy allows) -> ✅ Square Environment is set up alongside Nostr Authentication + account creation for fiat & lightning payments