GetBlock Explorer for FLOW | Grant Application

[LizaGetBlock]

Grant category

Please select one or more of:

• [ ] Open source maintenance
• [x] Developer tools / services
• [ ] Educational material

Description

GetBlock - is a blockchain nodes provider that has connection to 40+ blockchains on mainnet and testnet including Flow. Now we’re expanding our development to blockchain explorers. We aim at building a user-friendly blockchain explorer in an app-like modern interface. We want to build a tool for the entire community that will facilitate on-chain data and high-end analytics in an easy-to-read and to-understand format fit for both newbies and crypto-savvy individuals.

Problem statement

• Target audience The target audience is basically anyone in Flow community who may need to check on transactions, stats, blocks, etc.
• Evidence for the need Currently there are 2 explorers for Flow: FlowScan and the one by BigDipper. Both of them have fair time-proven functionality and we see fit building on it. Moreover, we believe the UI and UX can be improved and this is one of the key aspects of our project. We are currently conducting custdev interviews with the blockchain community to evaluate particular issues and needs regarding explorer use. This would better draw a baseline for the product-market fit of GetBlock Explorer for Flow. We want to tackle these issues when building our product and we are also very open to any insights you might have about Flow community suggestions and demands that may be applied to an explorer. Our very final goal is an explorer with cross-chain functionality.

Proposed solution

A user-friendly and easy-to-read interface is a majorly overlooked aspect for many explorers. Our goal is to build an explorer in an intuitive and attractive interface that the users will find modern and smooth. Moreover, since the explorer will have multiple blockchains, the users will be able to switch between them and see diverse on-chain data for a handful of blockchains in one place.

Here you can look through our pitch deck to see a more detailed functionality and design layouts.

Impact

• In what ways does this benefit the broader Flow developer ecosystem? The explorer is one of the most important tools for a blockchain, and we believe that transparency and reliability are two key values that such a tool transmits. The blockchain explorer is vital to any blockchain because it achieves reliability and security of the information presented along with providing usability and clarity to display the data. After all, one of the core values of Flow is usability improvement, and this is what we want to emphasise when building our Flow explorer. We're planning to foster ties with Flow ecosystem projects (wallets, exchanges, educational projects) thus collaborating and integrating explorer to the existing products. Moreover, we have a marketing plan to execute in order to promote the explorer to both Flow and GetBlock community (it now accounts for around 15k people on Twitter).

Milestones and funding

Detailed roadmap with deliverables: Flow Roadmap: detailed breakdown Competitive analysis - Flowscan vs GetBlock Explorer for Flow: comparison and funding

Team

Name	Role	Bio	Contact
Alex	Product Manager	7+ years of experience in marketing along with 3+ years of experience in IT projects management	alexhutton@getblock.io
Frank	Backend	3+ years of experience (Go, Cassandra, Clickhouse, NATS, Redis)	---
Mike	Frontend	2+ years of experience (Nuxt, Vuex, Tailwind, Jest, Sentry)	---
Arthur	DevOps	3+ years of experience (Docker, Nomad, Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, Consul, Envoy)	---
Tyrell	Designer	2+ years of experince in UX/UI design along with 3+ years of experience in graphic design	---
Liza	Marketing/BizDev	2+ years of experience in SMM, PR, digital and growth marketing of crypto and blockchain projects, lead generation and partnerships	liza@getblock.io

[alxflw]

thanks @LizaGetBlock, we'll review this proposal and get back to you soon

[LizaGetBlock]

Hi @alxflw! We updated the application: we added the detailed roadmap with deliverables + the competitive analysis on how our explorer would differ from Flowscan. Let me know what you think and if any further info needed - ping me again!

[alxflw]

thanks @LizaGetBlock! we'll review and get back soon

[alxflw]

@LizaGetBlock - could you add back the milestone table with timeline, deliverables, and costs? I think that was available earlier

[LizaGetBlock]

@alxflw the table that was here before wasn't detailed. It only included 3 milestones which were kind of general and unified. We added a new document with a detailed overview of milestones and deliverables taking into account Flow specifics. Now I also included costs per milestone there.

[alxflw]

perfect, thanks for sharing! We'd love to accept this project with an additional condition: We're working on an NFT API that will provide data useful for Milestone #5. It would be great if you could use that API for the views you'll be working on.

[LizaGetBlock]

@alxflw we're totally open to use your NFT API! Could you please send the documentation for our devs to review it? In this case, how should we proceed with the grant? What are our next steps?

[alxflw]

perfect, I'll follow up via email with next steps!