Bluzelle Launches Developer Grant Program for Censorship-Resistant Applications
Nickie Louise
Posted On February 2, 2021
Decentralized database Bluzelle is launching its first developer grant program, focused largely on the creation of censorship-resistant applications. As part of the grant program, $500,000 of funding will initially be available for blockchain and software developers to build creative products on top of Bluzelle’s dPoS decentralized database.
Recipients will also receive technical advice, business expertise, and mentorship from the Bluzelle team and industry experts. Bluzelle will not be taking ownership stakes in any projects which are successfully admitted into the grant program. It is hoped that successful applicants will eventually execute a working product for which they can raise further funds.
With BluzelleDB, developers can be confident that their product cannot be shut down by any party – including Bluzelle itself.
“The flow of new ideas has been fundamental to the progress of society, and Bluzelle’s decentralized database ensures that data will never be censored again,” said Bluzelle CTO Neeraj Murarka. “Our program gives the best developers the means to leverage Bluzelle’s technology to deliver a new generation of censorship-resistant apps, making free speech and expression a reality.”
To kickstart and inspire ideas among developers, Bluzelle has compiled a list of sample concepts for which applicants can suggest a solution. These include:
- Censorship-resistant web hosting services (An API on top of Bluzelle Libraries that allows push/pull updates to a website)
- Proof of Existence (notary service or decentralized Wikipedia that stores information immutably)
- Virtual voting (P2P voting dApp)
- Chat (decentralized chat app that protects users’ privacy)
- Blockchain inbox (communication tool between blockchain addresses, i.e. sending a text/email to a blockchain address)
The announcement comes at a time when tech companies are increasingly censoring communities and punishing wrongthink. The latest episode involved hedge fund-backed Discord, which banned a Reddit group (Wall Street Bets) that was behind the spike in GameStop’s share price. The closure of a self-moderated board, with its own policies and guidelines, sets a troubling precedent. The possibility that hedge funds planted people within the Wallstreetbets Discord in order to cause its shutdown – allegedly for “hate speech” – cannot be dismissed.
The ambition of blockchain technologies, and decentralized infrastructure products such as Bluzelle, is to increase transparency, enhance security and prevent censorship. To create products that live in perpetuity and cannot be shut down. Members of society are entirely capable of determining what they like and dislike, and do not need third parties to make decisions for them. Building censorship-resistant products empowers individuals to wrest back control from increasingly authoritarian technocrats.
The Bluzelle ecosystem currently comprises 1,889 developers on Discord, and the platform has partnered with 34 blockchain entities including Matic, Polkadot, and Elrond. Bluzelle also has over 10 community projects under its umbrella. The Bluzelle mainnet is scheduled to go live on February 3. Those interested in applying for a grant can do so here.
About Bluzelle
Powered by a Byzantine fault-tolerant cluster of blockchains customized specifically for database operations, Bluzelle is a decentralized database for Web3. Its advanced data delivery network promises to protect businesses from data breaches, network failures and performance troubles. Bluzelle effectively serves as an “Airbnb of databases,” with developers paying for storage space and read/write to the decentralized database.
