XRPL donations and gamification of development process

[Jake262262]

Why discuss this idea?
In order for the XRP ledger foundation to achieve its stated values and beliefs in the future, this is dependent on the XRPL to be self-sustaining and competitive: https://xrplf.org/. This includes ability to receive funds and direct these towards the development process in areas that provide the greatest benefits to the XRPL.

The model that exists today is not optimized for achieving the stated values and beliefs. Numerous ideas will ultimately need to be discussed, proposed, and implemented in order for the XRPL development process to be truly optimized for future success.

What does this idea involve?

1. Donations- Methods to both receive and disperse funds in order to provide the greatest impact on increasing value.
2. Gamification of development process- Methods to increase participation, skill development, incentives, competitiveness, and value added with the XRPL development process. This includes both internally of the XRPL community, as well as externally against other public and private blockchains.
3. Additional ideas, proposals, and amendments- This idea is intended to be a larger scope discussion, more specific ideas would ultimately need to be vetted out through the XRPL development process in order to achieve a initiative like this.

Examples of initiatives that currently exist that would synergize well:

1. Twitch channel- www.twitch.tv/ripplexdev.
2. XRP Chat forums
3. XRP Chat- Dev Null productions feature bounty
4. XRP Tip Bot
5. XRPL Idea > https://github.com/XRPLF/XRPL-Standards/discussions/17 - In order for standards to be vetted out, adopted, and leveraged; this requires incentivizing more resources to be proactively involved with XRPL development process.
6. XRPL GitHub discussion workflow:

• Discussion: Proposal » Discussion » Settled on proposal
• Close, and convert discussion to Issue to PR (PR mentions issue)
• Merge PR, close issue

What is not working well with the current XRPL development process-

1. Barriers of entry to be involved with XRPL development- It is extremely difficult and challenging for majority of development resources to get involved and feel incentivized with the current XRPL development process. There is little opportunity for most people to be proactively involved. Key stakeholders currently involved have typically worked at Ripple or one of the other few businesses actively developing on the XRPL. There is a massive opportunity to proactively involve other development resources that do not have access to these jobs or connections.
2. XRPL incentivizing involvement throughout the development process- Including resources vetting out value adding ideas, proposals, developer code updates/fixes, and QA testing. The developer code updates/fixes area has heavily been focused on, but areas like incentivizing ideas and proposals have been lackluster.
3. XRPL self-sustaining- XRPL ledger funds and success in the future is currently aligned too closely to Ripple. There are both legal and long term missions conflicts with this dependency. This is also handicapping development process for XRPL to add value, in areas that are not dependent on Ripple.

What are potential ideas and proposals for addressing this opportunity?

1. Start planning out methods for XRPL to be self-reliant on generating funds, outside of one time donations:

• Example idea to be vetted out- XRPL proposes an amendment for code to be implemented that allows end users of XRPL to donate by optionally opting-in and donate to future XRPL development. One method to do this is through a code proposal amendment that allows XRPL end users to donate a percentage of their transaction fees for sending XRP across the ledger, to be sent back to the XRPL for future development (rather than 100% of the transaction fee being burned). This could be integrated in systems like XUMM wallet, so the end user can opt-in via the user interface to flag part of their transaction fee to be donated. As XRPL foundation continues to add value and increase trust in the community, this will directly correlate with more donations.

2. Incentivize and involve users to be involved throughout all key micro steps of the development process, including: generating ideas, proposals, code development, and QA testing:

• Dispersing funds- Development resources vetting out valid ideas and proposals are equally as important as software developers efficiently implementing the proposals. If value added ideas are not being handed off to software developers, then the outcome will be low value functionality being developed. If large amount of ideas that truly add value are being vetted out and efficiently coded, this will provide largest value benefits for the XRPL over the long term. Providing money/XRP rewards for development resources that provide value adding ideas and proposals that are ultimately implemented, would increase the the number and quality of proposals being handed off to the software development team.
• Dispersing funds to gamification the development process- The shortest term option for dispersing funds like in above bullet point, would most likely need to be managed manually by the XRPL foundation. Long term it could be more beneficial to implement a fair and engaging structure to reward involved resources throughout the development lifecycle. Long term opportunities exists with future development opportunities, for example creating a streamlined XRPL donation tipping application to integrate with forums like GitHub and XRPChat. Users on the development forums could receive a small percentage of the XRP donated funds into their personal XRPL donated funds wallet every week. This wallet could be configured so the XRPL donated funds wallet would only allow the XRP donated funds to be sent to other users on the development forum (which the recipient can then cash out XRP for fiat). This structure would basically be set up so, when members of the development community feel like someone either pitched or helped someone vet out a value adding development task, they can reward the community member with XRPL donated funds. These XRPL donated funds could work similar to how Reddit upvotes and awards are used to incentives users on the subreddits. Then the XRPL donated funds can ultimately be cashed out for fiat, once they are received as rewards from the community for proactively providing value to the XRPL development process.