[Top Builder 2025]: Shopstr

[calvadev]

🏗️ Top Builder 2025 Application Form to track progress through Round 1 - 3 ~ Currently in Round 2

📝 Instructions

Welcome to the Top Builder competition! Before you begin, here’s what you need to know:

1. Eligibility: Only teams that have been officially selected for Top Builder by PlebLab are eligible to use this form.
2. Detailed Submissions: Provide comprehensive information to assist the judges in evaluating your project effectively.
3. Submission Deadlines: Adhere to submission deadlines for each round to remain in good standing.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Team

• Team Name: Shopstr
• Number of Founders: 1
• Team Background: Cristian is a graduate from UT Dallas who is working as the primary developer and active executive of Shopstr. He worked as a FAANG Software Engineer and interned at a seed-stage startup called Commenda during his last year of college, as well as Tableau Software and JPMorgan Chase & Co. He has also contributed to a few Bitcoin related open-source projects. The domain expertise he has acquired is all self-taught, having spent countless hours going down the rabbit hole to understand the technical aspects of Bitcoin and Nostr and the philosophical beliefs underpinning the cypherpunk ethos. He has also worked in high-pace, demanding environments and with experience of needing to be a self-starter and taking ownership of his work.
  Wellington is an enthusiastic Bitcoiner with hands-on experience in Bitcoin led solutions. At Shopstr, he lead cross-functional teams to implement non-custodial Bitcoin payments and onboard merchants, assisting with platform issues. As a contributor to Bitcoin forums, He creates guides and knowledge bases to address user challenges. He was a finalist in the Summer of Bitcoin 2024 internship, selected from over 5,000 applicants across 50+ countries. During this internship, He sharpened his Linux skills and earned certification as an Elements Protocol Specialist at Blockstream’s Elements Academy, deepening his understanding of Bitcoin's Liquid Network. He is committed to continuous learning, focus on driving innovation and improving team success through collaboration.
• Bitcoin & Lightning Involvement: Shopstr facilitates payments via the use of the Lightning network, more specifically Cashu for payment settlement with the option to directly pay in Lightning or Cashu.
• Origin Story: Having attended the alma mater of Ross Ulbricht (founder of Silk Road), Cristian drew inspiration to create a market for p2p trade, but on the right foundation with Nostr. As time worked on the project has progressed, the potential and conviction with regards to the project has only grown. The mission is to allow anyone to be able to trade globally and permissionlessly directly with Bitcoin and to make Bitcoin earn-ramps more accessible.

💡 The Idea

• Project Overview: Shopstr is a global, decentralized Nostr marketplace for Bitcoin commerce.
• Website: https://shopstr.store
• GitHub: https://github.com/shopstr-eng/shopstr
• Project Stage: Shopstr is live and actively used. To date, nearly over 7M sats worth of transactions have been facilitated by the site, with over 800 unique sign-ups and 1700 listings made. Current development is focused on streamlining the experience for merchants and buyers alike to make it as easy as possible to access and sell goods and services directly with Bitcoin.
• Supplementary Materials:
  OpenSats Progress Report - Shopstr May 2024.pdf
  OpenSats Progress Report - Shopstr August 2024.md
  OpenSats Progress Report - Shopstr November 2024.md

📚 Additional Information

• Additional Links/Info: Additional links are also cited within the OpenSats progress reports.
  Shopstr OpenSats Grant Recipient Announcement

📌 Submission Type

• Initial Project Creation

🚀 Current Project Progress

• Progress Made: Progress made since the last Top Builder competition is outlined in in the OpenSats progress reports.
• Challenges Faced: The biggest technical challenges have mainly come from WebSocket resource management and performance, particularly since the application is web-based. Solo-development and needing to balance fiat work with contributing to Shopstr has also been one of the main hindrances for more rapid development.
• Future Roadmap of what's next: Product-wise, there will be a large focus on developing features to more sustainably fund Shopstr in the long term without needing to raise outside capital, including but not limited to paid promotions, escrow, and a freemium fee structure. Equity-based and/or larger grant fundraising is currently being worked out for the short term in order to support full-time development for both founders and potentially another engineer, designer, and/or project manager. A feature roadmap for the next quarter is also outlined in the November OpenSats report.

⏳ Round 1 Milestone

• Keep in mind that completion will need to be by February 8th, 2025.
• First-round milestone the team has set for themselves:
• NIP-46: Nostr Remote Signing support
• Landing page
• Tor hidden service
• Umbrel and Start9 package support
• Improved DM handling

⏳ Round 2 Milestone

• Keep in mind that completion will need to be by February 22nd, 2025.
• Second-round milestone the team has set for themselves:
• Adjustable V4V take rate
• NIP-60: Cashu Wallet updates
• PR submission and org creation for new marketplace NIP
• Revised marketplace NIP compatibility

📝 Submission Complete

• All required information has been provided above.

📅 Top Builder Program Structure

Registration Opens: Monday, October 28th, 2024

• Application: Interested teams apply for Top Builder.
• Selection: Teams will be chosen based on their application. See FAQ for details.

Round 1: January 6th - February 8th, 2025

• Workshops: PlebLab weekly workshops start, available live and online.
• Chat Access: Selected teams join the PlebLab internal chat.
• Mentorship: Begins for teams.
• Project Milestones: Teams are set and judged on their first-round milestones.

Round 2: February 9 - 22nd, 2025

• Team Reduction: PlebLab cuts half of the Top Builder teams. (Only half continued in Round 2.)
• Project Milestones: Teams are set and judged on their second-round milestones.
• Workshops: PlebLab weekly workshops continue.
• Mentorship: Continues.

Round 3: Starting February 23rd, 2025

• Team Reduction: PlebLab narrows down to 5 Top Builder teams. (All will be pitching in Austin.)
• Final Milestones: Teams set final project milestones for the last round.
• Preparation: Teams prepare their pitch in front of judges. Final teams are contacted to come to Austin for Startup Day.

Final Round at Startup Day: March 13, 2025

• Preparation: Teams work on their final pitches at PlebLab.
• Presentations: Final teams present before judges on Startup Day.
• Deliberation: Judges decide during a happy hour.
• Announcement: The winner of Top Builder is announced at Austin BitDevs.
• Celebration: After-party for Top Builder.

[calvadev]

NIP-46 Bunker support from Jan 12th:

shopstr-eng/shopstr@6a5c209

Nostr note on the release:

https://njump.me/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpgm3rzjg3rsz628gwe7q3j40ww6f40dv8ydd0lcc5vzgj8jpdhpnqyd8wumn8ghj7um9dejxjapwdehhxenvv9ex2tnrdakj7qg4waehxw309amk7mnn9e3kzmrkvyhxgetk9uqzqqlxzyl6umarvlzexk28rz3wx232sye3y7mvq5u3r9tamc2jphzcjsn62y

[calvadev]

Landing page addition from Jan 19th:

shopstr-eng/shopstr@881eb86

Nostr note on the release:

https://njump.me/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzp5mwszpl57ekmthxgm9ck0uel64rmz095wt9pp6p7qp7yxkqk6lvqyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpzemhxue69uhksctkv4hzucmpd3mxztnyv4mz7qpqg76n6a52lfeglnyk2jrlwheh9qwg8uhxe5pd9c8fvqrypz2v8ukqp50elh

[calvadev]

Open working branch for new proposed marketplace NIP:

https://github.com/gzuuus/nips/blob/7d59ffe1e81bb0bedd64752f34298118c6e57ce6/XX.md

[calvadev]

Got Shopstr running behind a Tor Hidden Service with the removal of the metrics server dependency:

https://github.com/shopstr-eng/shopstr/tree/serverless

ikduzlpwcc4khvj27rlywgic6eaxj5w3brj4uo54z2sfyj7b2hfrepyd.onion

Nostr note on the release:

https://njump.me/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzp5mwszpl57ekmthxgm9ck0uel64rmz095wt9pp6p7qp7yxkqk6lvqyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7qpq3jgac672xnae55kp466u2mydvg6s2lungd6g7j0glvjyu2rg24jqp30a2d

[calvadev]

Got Shopstr running behind a Tor Hidden Service with the removal of the metrics server dependency:

https://github.com/shopstr-eng/shopstr/tree/serverless

ikduzlpwcc4khvj27rlywgic6eaxj5w3brj4uo54z2sfyj7b2hfrepyd.onion

Repo for the code itself:

https://github.com/shopstr-eng/shopstr-hidden-service

Nostr note on the release:

https://njump.me/nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzp5mwszpl57ekmthxgm9ck0uel64rmz095wt9pp6p7qp7yxkqk6lvqyd8wumn8ghj7urewfsk66ty9enxjct5dfskvtnrdakj7qg3waehxw309ahx7um5wgh8w6twv5hsqg8chl4xd8tl46h79z3jp2ch2gthj0gpdhc04rwhh49t0qkln9x5uga4yrwg

[calvadev]

Improved DM handling commit from June 28th (also includes FAQ page):

shopstr-eng/shopstr@9f4135e

Caching would have been included here, but upon review the current caching system has everything it needs to function as intended. No changes were needed on that front!

[calvadev]

Docker Hub for package images:

https://hub.docker.com/r/calvadev/shopstr-eng

[calvadev]

Open PR for Shopstr Umbrel app submission:

getumbrel/umbrel-apps#2131

[calvadev]

Start9 service wrapper repo for Shopstr is up:

https://github.com/shopstr-eng/shopstr-start9-service-wrapper