`Lenstok`

Name of Project: Lenstok

Proposer: driespindola

Do you agree to Encode Club's Terms and Conditions?: Yes

Do you agree to the grant process outlined by WBW3?: Yes

Project Description

The Problem

Data harvesting is a problem across social media, but Tiktok data collection techniques are known to be particularly aggressive. Some of their methods include persistently accessing your calendar, scanning hard drives, including external ones! and geolocating your device on an hourly basis. source 1, source 2 The platform owns the user content and makes far more money than the creator, plus can choose if they want to remove or censor the content.

The Solution

LensTok will be a short-form video sharing social media platform built on top of Lens Protocol as a decentralised alternative to popular apps such as Tiktok. We saw a need for a fun and popular short-form video app that doesn’t aggressively harvest its users data. Using Lens protocol will give content control back to the user, using Lit protocol we want to further add to this and give users content control by allowing content to be encypted, with decryption only allowed under certain conditions that the user sets.

Pitch deck

Tech Stack

Lens Protocol: Composable and decentralized social graph. Used to let the user bring personal data from other lens apps. Will be able to publish videos, create comments, and browse posts.
Lit Protocol: Lit is Decentralized Cryptography for Access Control, Compute, and Encryption. Used to let the user send a private and encrypted comment to a video post.
Arweave: Decentralized storage solution. Used to store permanently videos.
Livepeer: Decentralized video streaming network. Used to stream video stored on Arweave.
Polygon: Blockchain Lens protocol is deployed on.
Nextjs: React framework the dApp will be built with.
Wagmi: React hooks for wallet interactions on Ethereum.
Tailwind css: CSS framework.

Development Roadmap

Milestone 1

Summary: Implement core Lens functionality. Design and start build out of front end UI
Team: Natalie, Paolo, Dri
Budget: $5250 USDC
Duration: 3 weeks

Number	Deliverable	Specification
1.	Core Lens Functionality	Utilizing Lens Protocol API, enable users to log in with Lens, view and explore suggested profiles, view other users’ videos, and comment and like the videos.
2.	Front End UI	Design and begin to build out front-end UI that allows for the core lens functionality

Milestone 2

Summary: Video upload: back-end connection to decentralized video storage solution and front-end functionality to upload and edit a short video.
Team: Natalie, Paolo, Dri
Budget: $4275 USDC
Duration: 2.5 weeks

Number	Deliverable	Specification
1.	Decentralized video storage	arweave/livepeer implementation
2.	Video upload	Add a functioning upload page to let the user upload a video with a form to set collect settings.
3.	Video streaming + front-end	Display timeline with latest published videos on home page. Create user/videos profile page for each user.

Milestone 3

Summary: Lit Protocol : giving the user more control using encryption/decryption
Team: Natalie, Paolo, Dri
Budget: $3750 USDC
Duration: 2 weeks

Number	Deliverable	Specification
1.	User comment encryption	Functionality to let the user create an encrypted comment. Generate symmetric key pairs on Lit and define access conditions based on profile address.
2.	User comment decryption	Functionality to allow post author to decrypt and encrypt comments. Retrieve key on valid access condition and decrypt comment.
3.	Front-end	Add a comment form with a private button for encrypted comment.

Milestone 4

Summary: Lens and front-end optimisations : monetization of content + mobile-first optimisations
Team: Natalie, Paolo, Dri
Budget: $3750 USDC
Duration: 2 weeks

Number	Deliverable	Specification
1.	Lens Collect Module	Let the user monetize their content with the Lens Collect Module through a form were he can set the prize and the scope.
2.	Pay to view	One video can have restricted access with Lit and be visible when the user collects it.
3.	Front-end	Continue front-end optimisation work with focus on mobile-first approach making sure all functionality works on mobile as well as web

Milestone 5

Summary: Marketing
Team: Natalie, Paolo, Dri
Budget: $4000 USDC
Duration: All of December/ongoing

Number	Deliverable	Specification
1.	Social Media following	Create twitter following and buzz by consistently posting
2.	Influencer marketing	50 creators/influencers onboarded. Marketing and outreach efforts focused on onboarding a diverse set of experienced creators (journalists, twitter accounts, artists, …). These creators will be able to bring content to the platform quickly.

Milestone 6

Summary: Future plans
Team: Natalie, Paolo, Dri
Budget: TBD
Duration: Ongoing

Number	Deliverable	Specification
1.	Mainnet deployment	Launch on mainnet polygon instead of mumbai
2.	Advanced functionality	Notifications, more advance video editing, filters and effects, hashtags