From Ideas to Reality: Your Guide to Obyte Community Projects

The Obyte ecosystem is like a box of digital tools to be used by anyone to build almost anything in the decentralized software realm. As a user, you could apply the already existing features and tools to your business, payments, or day-to-day activities. This ledger was created to improve our lives, and imagination is the only limit. That’s what Obyte Community Projects are for.

They’re a group of diverse, decentralized applications and solutions created by Obyte users using Obyte technology and outside the Obyte core team. Individuals and businesses worldwide can harness the tools offered by this ecosystem to streamline existing processes, minimize friction, or pioneer entirely new solutions to previously unsolved problems. They could even use existing projects or ready-to-go wallet features to do this.

Let’s check the potential of these projects ahead.

Why create a project in Obyte?

As you may know, there are a lot of chains and coins out there, so why Obyte? Well, we can consider that Obyte could be much more efficient than other chains. This means faster transactions and lower fees, which can be particularly beneficial for projects involving frequent microtransactions or interactions.

The versatility of Obyte is another key factor. It serves as a robust platform for a wide range of applications, from traditional financial transactions to complex smart contracts and decentralized applications (Dapps). Its flexibility makes it suitable for both experienced developers and hobbyists looking to explore the world of decentralized technologies.

Obyte's focus on user-friendly features and simplicity also stands out. The platform is designed to reduce complexity, making it easier for developers to implement projects without unnecessary hurdles. Besides, advanced features like token creation and readable smart contracts are accessible to non-coder users.

All of this is imbued in a fully decentralized chain, which is likely the main advantage of this platform. Unlike other ledgers, Obyte doesn’t have powerful miners or rich Proof-of-Stake (PoS) validators capable of censoring transactions. No one needs “permission” to transact in the Obyte Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), and their transactions can’t be impeded, censored, or stolen. Once a transaction is made, it’ll stay forever on the DAG, without middlemen approval.

Lastly, we can say that Obyte's active community and support channels, such as Discord, provide a collaborative space for developers and users to share ideas, seek assistance, and connect with like-minded individuals.

Projects in Obyte for Developers

If you’re a developer interested in building some kind of application in Obyte, luckily for you, others have been here before. An Obyte JavaScript library is available with useful pieces to integrate into your own software. For instance, you can find APIs to get attestations, bots, data feeds, or Autonomous Agents (AA). This library is now used by almost every Dapp in Obyte, and it’s open to collaborations.

Another remarkable project is Byteduino, a lightweight C/C++ implementation of Obyte for the microcontrollers Arduino ESP8266 and ESP32. The library facilitates transaction broadcasting, allowing devices to possess Obyte addresses and make payments, post data into the public ledger, and serve as inputs for smart contracts. Additionally, it supports encrypted messaging, leveraging this protocol for secure communications.

Beyond these projects, Obyte also offers various tools for developers, including a headless wallet, an Oscript editor, an AA test kit, a lightweight Obyte wallet, proper documentation for beginners, and more. If you’re interested, Obyte is fully open-source on GitHub, and we’re always welcoming new collaborators.

Projects in Obyte for Users

Of course, not everything is a programming tool. Currently, Obyte counts several running projects made by community members for community members. We can mention the Obyte Asset Registry, the Decentralized Exchange Oswap.io, the Blackbytes.io exchange, a payment processing tool for merchants, an NFT marketplace, and a data explorer. All of them are ready to use and take very small transaction fees.

In the Asset Registry, it’s possible to create customized tokens with parameters like name, symbol, creator, and supply without coding a single line. They can be a representation of another digital or physical asset or be used as loyalty points, symbolic tokens, Initial Coin Offering (ICO) tokens, memecoins, or whatever the author wants. The price per customized token creation is barely 0.005 GBYTEs (less than $1).

Oswap.io is currently the main DEX available in the whole Obyte ecosystem. It counts 32 pools (shared liquidity reservoirs), including the pairs GBYTE-ETH, GBYTE-WBTC, GBYTE-USDC, GBYTE-BNB, GBYTE-MATIC, and more. Obyte users can be liquidity providers and invest their holdings in one of these pools to receive rewards or simply exchange different coins using the available liquidity and paying between 0.1% and 0.5% per transaction (depending on assets and pool).

Blackbytes.io Exchange is available to trade Blackbytes (GBB — a privacy coin) directly from the wallet via chatbot. Meanwhile, the Obyte for Merchants solution allows businesses to accept payments in GBYTEs for goods and services sold online, and its integration is quick and user-friendly with the Woocommerce plugin.

More projects include the Obyte.io data explorer, which goes beyond the mere transactions on the DAG, allowing one to check oracles, assets, attestors, bots, witnesses (order providers), and polls. This data could be used to build smart contracts in the wallet without coding. In the same way, the CryptoThings marketplace could let you create and share Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) without effort or programming skills.

How can you fund your Obyte project?

Besides private investment, we can mention two main ways to fund your Obyte-based project: through a token crowdsale (an ICO, for example) or by applying for a grant from the Obyte Foundation. In the first case, as we mentioned above, users can create their own customized tokens and put them for sale to fund their projects.

To do this, it’d be necessary to have a detailed whitepaper, an initial and functional product/platform, and a roadmap to show to potential investors. Remember that these tokens often represent a stake in a project, granting holders certain rights, benefits, or access to services within the associated ecosystem. So, you have to offer something minimally viable and hardly promote it to get interested people.

The other way is an Obyte grant. This is a determined amount in GBYTEs or GBB granted to certain projects by the Obyte Foundation. All you need to do is to share a very small paper about your project, including things like what problem it’s solving, timeline and milestones, total budget, and team members. The team in charge of the grants will evaluate this paper along with the community, ask for changes if needed, vote, and approve or reject the grant for it. Short, non-profit, and open-source projects are preferred.

So far, several interesting projects have been developed thanks to a grant. Oswap.io and the software libraries mentioned above are on the list. The Obyte Grants Program has approved over $174,000 in GBYTEs over the years, and every project received between $1,000 and $26,000, depending on the funds needed.

Overall, we can say that choosing Obyte for a project offers a combination of efficiency, versatility, user-friendliness, funding methods, and a vibrant community, making it an attractive platform for innovative Dapps and other software projects.

Featured Vector Image by pch.vector / Freepik