The effect blockchain produced on the world cannot be underestimated. Since its historical appearance in 2008, it ceaselessly continues to disrupt industries worldwide, holding the potential to add $1.76 trillion to the global economy by 2030. And for good reason: blockchain is said to be the most powerful tool for Big Data available to-date, which is going to have a crucial impact on running the Internet of Things, AI, Machine Learning and a lot of other cutting-edge applications. It is thus unsurprising that blockchain adoption is predicted to achieve a striking growth rate of 75% throughout 2022; this prospect becomes even more plausible, as blockchain is also reckoned to become the future of the internet.
Nowadays, keeping up with dynamics of technology turns into the utmost priority for all businesses. Staying on its mission to support blockchain adoption across various verticals, Lisk kick-started its own Lisk Grant Program, giving out the total of 1.3 million USD for the development of the most outstanding projects in the space using JavaScript. Recently, the Lisk Grant Program was extended to the 5th wave, which will continue to pave a safe gateway for newcomers in the decentralized space. The supported categories include NFTs, DAOs, stablecoins, oracles and many more, while documentation for developers has been improved and made more comprehensive. Just as before, developers may benefit from extensive funding support for applications built on the Lisk SDK – Lisk’s own JavaScript-based software development kit, as well as gain access to the Lisk Community to find team members to work with. The community of developers gathered during the preceding waves of the Grant Program will serve as reassurance of greater support along the way: among them, Kalipo, Enevti, Colecti and many more have already reaped the fruit of their success. The Wave 5 is rolling from May 23, lasting all the way up to August 21.
To learn more about the upcoming Wave 5 of the Lisk Grant Program, I reached out to Miguel de Sousa, Community Lead of Lisk for an interview.
-
Thank you for joining me in this conversation. Could you please tell me a bit more about why the Lisk Grant Program was extended to the 5th wave?
Thanks a lot for this opportunity. Totally, I would be more than happy to answer that.
Compared to May 2021, when we initially launched the Lisk Grant Program, we have noticed a considerable increase in the amount of applications and the number of people interested in this initiative.
As the team at Lisk continues to grow and the project’s marketing efforts expand, we made the decision to extend the current iteration of the program to accommodate all pending applications and interested individuals.
In essence, although the structure of wave 5 does not deviate from its antecessors we incorporated a few improvements and modifications to make the whole process of applying and receiving funding more efficient and simple for everyone involved.
Finally it is just as important to mention that we were also super impressed with the quality of apps wanting to integrate Lisk. Furthermore, we could not (NOT) extend the application period to a new wave.
-
Let’s speak about Wave 5 of the Lisk Grant Program in more detail. What are the unique advantages developers can get from this edition?
As I previously mentioned, in practical terms the structure of Wave 5 is not much different than the previous one. However, I personally feel as though the stakes have become higher. With that being said, we have never been so confident in our expertise and mentorship when it comes to taking developer’s ideas into the next level, supporting them not only with funding but also with relevant counselling and advising. To increase the chances of apps’ adoption and overall success, even post-funding is our main goal.
-
Please, give us some examples of participants of the Lisk Grant Program who already attained success. What made them stand out from the crowd?
I am personally confident there couldn’t be a better time for developers and entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to the Lisk Ecosystem.
As we get closer and closer to the long-due launch of Lisk’s blockchain application platform, meaning apps will become interoperable, the ways in which projects can benefit from our tech will become immeasurable.
We have been quite fortunate to have such a positive and dedicated community thus far, supporting the project as we continued to build, and develop, perfecting our products, and we have seen the likes of Colecti, Kalipo and TopasCity arise, community built projects (to name a few), work on their propositions and attaining internal success & popularity even before launch.
What excites us the most about this program is to see that pretty much anything can be done on Lisk. So in practicality, the only thing stopping you from receiving our funding is yourself (laughs). To stand out is to have the willingness to adapt and build something useful and/or meaningful, ideally both.
-
The categories of supported blockchain apps within the Wave 5 of the Lisk Grant Program include NFTs, DAOs and oracles. What does it say about the Program’s orientation?
Allow me to complete that list for you.
Stablecoins, Smart contracts, Blockchain bridges, Oracles, Privacy-preserving chains, Lending, DAOs, DeFi & NFTs.
Please note that these are not mandatory categories in which apps should fit, rather, they represent fields within the industry that have shown the biggest growth potential (from our perspective). However make no mistake, as I mentioned previously, pretty much anything can be built on Lisk, and we would not reject relevant applications that are not represented in the list above.
To put it simply, we are looking to build the future … today. Furthermore, and ultimately, all like-minded teams will have a chance to receive funding.
-
I’m eager to learn more about the perks of being in the Lisk Community: how can any participant in the Grant Program benefit from it?
Firstly, individuals who are yet to find a team can also see their lives made easier as we have a dedicated channel for that same purpose.
Secondly, as an industry veteran, Lisk has been quite fortunate to retain most of its core community back from 2016, and most importantly to build upon that foundation since then, encouraging values such as: – positivity, dedication, transparency and support, on a daily basis.
As a result, today, being part of the community at Lisk.chat, our discord server, is to receive support, help and mentorship from other developers and enthusiasts, while also having fun!
In addition to that, and finally, our community is also an avenue for the exchange of ideas, and the current participants of the Grant Program have their own private channel in which they can discuss important topics concerning their apps and its development (e.g tokenomics, integration, implementation, etc).
-
As a Community Lead, how do you nurture the Lisk community?
Great question.
Let me start by saying that, as covid hit, we have seen a significant digital transformation in regards to our social identities, as many take on usernames, NFTs as pfps, and suddenly everyone has a chance to be someone/something else. Some could argue that it made it harder to truly connect. But you know what? As long as we remain kind to one another, that’s ok.
My job is to encourage core values such as kindness, understanding and positivity regardless of people’s cultures, names, backgrounds, and to promote inclusion in everything we do. From creating different channels to allow for certain conversations, to taking on all kinds of feedback from its ideation to implementation, rewarding ideators.
In essence, nurturing a community is not exclusive to Blockchain nor Web3. It’s rather all about people. Empathy. So, ultimately, we are growing our community on three core principles: understanding, engagement, and reward.
-
Finally, could you share the future outlook of Lisk?
Marketing wise we will continue to focus on increasing the output of pretty much everything you are seeing at the moment (e.g influencer marketing, media partnerships, press releases, new initiatives, etc).
Additionally, the Lisk team is also planning on attending many upcoming events and conferences focused on developers and blockchain. These include the likes of the “International JavaScript Conference” in New York”, the Dubai “Future Blockchain Summit” as well as “Token 2049” both in Singapore & London.
In regards to R&D, as the team continues to expand, our continued endeavours into interoperability remains our main focus. Soon we will implement interoperability into the Lisk network through sidechain technology. This will allow all blockchain applications on the Lisk network to communicate with each other directly.
The finalization of the Sapphire phase (current roadmap phase) will lead us to the Diamond phase of our development. This will come with bridges from our ecosystem directly to chains like Ethereum, Cosmos, and Polkadot.
Our ambitions are great and our enthusiasm is strong. We are confident that we are looking at another incredible year of development, fun, and expansion.
